Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/21

 no longer, yet as I had a desire to learn, as well as a quick apprehension, I found no difficulty in extracting every day from master James, the substance of his lessons. Indeed, if there was any difficulty in them, he was in the constant habit of appealing to me for assistance. In this way, I acquired some elementary knowledge of arithmetic and geography, and even a smattering of latin.

These' acquisitions however, I took great pains to conceal, since even the fact that I could read, though it increased my consequence among the servants, exposed me to a good deal of ridicule to which I was very sensitive. I was not looked upon, as I suppose they now look upon a slave, who knows how to read and who exhibits some marks of sense and ability, as a dreadful monster breathing war and rebellion, and plotting to cut the throats of all the good people in America; I was regarded rather as a sort of prodigy — like a three legged hen, or a sheep with four eyes; a thing to be produced and exhibited for the entertainment of strangers. Frequently at a dinner party, after the Madeira had circulated pretty freely, I was set to read paragraphs in the newspapers, to amuse my master's tipsy guests, and was puzzled, perplexed and tormented, by all sorts of absurd, ridiculous, and impertinent questions, which 1 was obliged to answer under penalty of having a wine glass, a bottle, or a plate flung at my head. Master William especially, as he was prevented from using his whip upon me, as freely as he wished, strove to indemnify himself by making me the butt of his wit. He took great pride in the nick-name of the "learned nigger," which he had invented and always applied to me; — though God knows, that my cheek was little less fair than his, and I cannot help hoping that at least, my soul was whiter.

These, it may be thought, were trifling vexations. In truth they were so; but it cost me many a struggle before I could learn to endure them with any tolerable patience. I was compensated in some measure, by the pleasure I took in listening, as I stood behind my master's chair, to the conversation of the company, — I mean their conversation before they set regularly in to drinking; for every dinner party was sure to wind up with a general frolic.