UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN. 19
board fence,brick -wall and pavement; my pen
and ink was a lump of chalk. With these I
specimen.
learned mainlyhow to write. I then commenced
The writer has
and continued copyingthe Italics in Webster's
conversed, in her time,with
Spelling-book, until I could make them all without
a
very considerable number of liberated
looking on the book. By this time my
little
slaves, many of whom statedthat their own
Master Thomas had gone to school and learned individual lothad been comparatively a mild
how to write,and had written over a number of
one
copy-books.These had been broughthome, and ; but she never talked with one who
shown to some of our near neighbors, and then did not let fall, first or lastșome incident
laid aside. My mistress used to go to class-meeting
which he had observed, some scene which
at the Wilk-street meeting-house every Monday
he had witnessed, which went to show some
afternoon, and leave me to take care of the
most horrible abuse of
house. When left thus I used to spendthe time
the system; and,
in writing in the spaces
left in Master Thomas' what was most affecting about it țhe narrator
copy-book,copyingwhat he had written. I continued
consideredit so much a
often evidently
to do this until I could write a hand very matter of course as to mention it incidentally,
similar to that of Master Thomas. Thus,after a
long țedious effortfor without
years. I finally succeeded
any particular emotion.
in learning
how
to write.
These few quotedincidents will show
that the case of GeorgeHarris is by no
means so uncommon as mightbe supposed.
Let the reader peruse the account which
George Harris givesof the sale of his
mother and her children, and then read the
following account givenby the venerable
Josiah Henson,now pastor of the missionary
settlement at Dawn,in Canada.
After the death of his master, he says,
the slaves of the plantation were all put up
at auction and sold to the highest bidder.
Now, allthese incidentsthat have been
given are real incidentsof slavery,
"
related
bv those who know slaveryby the best of
alltests experience ; and theyare given
by men who have earned a characterin freedom
which makes their word as good as the
word of any man living.
The case of Lewis Clark mightbe called
a harder one than common. The case of
Douglassis probably a very fair average
It is supposedby many that the great
outcryamong those who are opposedto
slaverycomes from a morbid reading of
unauthenticated accounts gotten up in
abolition papers, "c. This idea is a very
mistaken one. The accounts which tell
againsthe slave-system are derived from
the
of the poor
continual livingtestimony
slavehimself;often from that of the fugitives
from slavery who are continually passing
through our Northern cities.
As a specimenof some of the incidents
thus developed, is giventhe following fact
of recent occurrence, related to the author
by
My a lady in Boston. This lady,who was
brothers and sisterswere bid off one by one, much in the habit of
while
visiting
my mother,holdingmy hand,looked the on in
poor, was
an
agony of sent
grief, the cause of which I but ill for, a month or two since țo see a
understood at first, but which dawned on
my mind mulatto woman who had justarrived at a
with dreadful clearnessas the sale proceeded.My colored boarding-house near by, and who
mother was then separatedfrom me, and put up
in her turn. She was
appeared
bought by to be in much dejection of mind.
a man named
Isaac R.,residing in A littleconversation showed her to be a fugitive.
MontgomeryCounty[Maryland],
and then I was offered to the assembled Her
purchasers.
history was as follows : She,
My mother, half distracted with the with her brother, were, as is oftenthe case,
partingforever from all her children,pushed both the children and slaves of their
through the master.
crowd, while the biddingfor me was
goingon, to the At his death
spotwhere R. they
was standingṢhe
were leftto his legitimate
fellat his feet,and clung to his daughteras knees,entreating
her servants, and treated with
him,in tones that a mother only could command, as much consideration as very
common kind
to buy her baby as well as herself,and spare to her of peoplemight be expected to show to those
one of her littleones at least. Will it,can it be
who were
believedțhat this man, thus
entirely and in
appealedto, was
every respect at
capablenot merely of turninga deaf ear to her
theirdisposal.
supplication, but of disengaging himself from her The wife of her brother ran away to
with such violent blows and kicks as to reduce Canada ; and as there was some talk of selling
her to the necessity of creeping out of his reach, her and her
and
child,in
minglingthe groan of bodilysuffering with
consequence of
the sob of a breaking heart ?
some embarrassment in the familyaffairs,
her brother, a
fine-spirited
young man, determined
to effecther escape, alsoțo a land
of liberty Ḥe concealed her for some time
in the back partof an obscure dwellingin
the city țillhe could find an opportunity
to send her off. While she was in this retreat,
he was
in his attentions
indefatigable
to her,frequently bringingher fruit and
flowers, and doingeverything he could to
beguilethe wearinessof her imprisonment.