day, when I was
carefully adjusted on the Squire's head. I call him Squire, for I
soon found that Squire was the title every one gave him, as he was
the most important personage in the town in which he lived. I was as
well pleased as a wig could be with the appearance of things in and
around the house I was to inhabit. It was in a village about thirty
miles from Boston, and was like an English country gentleman's
house. A wide hall passed through the middle of it, with a grand
staircase. From the doors at either end of the hall ran rows of elm
trees. One led to the high road, the other up a gentle hill, on the
top of which was a pretty burying ground with a path through it
leading to a small church.

The Squire had a black man whom he called his boy, and who was, in
fact, his slave, but whom he treated like a friend and brother.

Some years after, when slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, the
Squire called Cato to him, and said, "Cato, you are no longer my
slave; you are free."

"But, massa, you will not sell me."

"No, Cato, you are a freeman; I have no right to sell you. I don't
think I ever had any right to sell you; but now the law of the land
makes you free, and I am glad of it."

"Then I can stay with you of my own free will, massa."

"Yes, Cato, you can stay or go, just as you please."

"Then, massa, I stay with you for love, and not cause I am your
slave. Now I your friend." And Cato never left the Squire till the
day of his death. But to return to my story.

The Squire, as I said, put me on very carefully, and then as carefully
put over me his three-cornered hat, and took his gold-headed cane, and,
with Cato behind him, walked reverently up the hill to church.

I was accustomed to the Episcopal church, where dear Alice went
every Sunday; but this was a Presbyterian church, and I had never
been in one before.

As I said, had not my hairs lost their power of motion by what I had
endured from the scissors, and the vile process of making me into my
present shape, every one of them would have risen up against the
so-called music in this church; but my misfortunes and pomatum kept me
quiet.

The sermon was at least two hours long, and many a hitch did the
Squire give me before it was over; that was the beginning of the
little trick, which you see I have now, of jerking up a little on
one side occasionally.

The Squire had brought with him from England a complete set of
furniture for his house; and