sought to get my share
of the money of my countrymen. It does appear to me that I have had no
end of bad luck.

As no one will ever see these pages, I find it pleasant to recall for my
own satisfaction the fact that I am really a very remarkable man. I
am, or rather I was, very good-looking, five feet eleven, with a lot
of curly red hair, and blue eyes. I am left-handed, which is another
unusual thing. My hands have often been noticed. I get them from my
mother, who was a Fishbourne, and a lady. As for my father, he was
rather common. He was a little man, red and round like an apple, but
very strong, for a reason I shall come to presently. The family must
have had a pious liking for Bible names, because he was called Zebulon,
my sister Peninnah, and I Ezra, which is not a name for a gentleman. At
one time I thought of changing it, but I got over it by signing myself
"E. Sanderaft."

Where my father was born I do not know, except that it was somewhere in
New Jersey, for I remember that he was once angry because a man called
him a Jersey Spaniard. I am not much concerned to write about my people,
because I soon got above their level; and as to my mother, she died when
I was an infant. I get my manners, which are rather remarkable, from
her.

My aunt, Rachel Sanderaft, who kept house for us, was a queer character.
She had a snug little property, about seven thousand dollars. An old
aunt left her the money because she was stone-deaf. As this defect came
upon her after she grew up, she still kept her voice. This woman was the
cause of some of my ill luck in life, and I hope she is uncomfortable,
wherever she is. I think with satisfaction that I helped to make her
life uneasy when I was young, and worse later on. She gave away to the
idle poor some of her small income, and hid the rest, like a magpie,
in her Bible or rolled in her stockings, or in even queerer places.
The worst of her was that she could tell what people said by looking at
their lips; this I hated. But as I grew and became intelligent, her ways
of hiding her money proved useful, to me at least. As to Peninnah, she
was nothing special until she suddenly bloomed out into a rather
stout, pretty girl, took to ribbons, and liked what she called "keeping
company." She ran errands for every one, waited on my aunt, and thought
I was a wonderful person--as indeed I was. I never could understand her
fondness for helping everybody. A fellow has got himself to think a