," she said. I was not long in accomplishing the
job, when the dear lady put into my hand TWO SILVER HALF-DOLLARS. To
understand the emotion which swelled my heart as I clasped this money,
realizing that I had no master who could take it from me,--THAT IT WAS
MINE--THAT MY HANDS WERE MY OWN, and could earn more of the precious
coin,--one must have been in some sense himself a slave. My next job was
stowing a sloop at Uncle Gid. Howland's wharf with a cargo of oil for
New York. I was not only a freeman, but a free working-man, and no
"master" stood ready at the end of the week to seize my hard earnings.

The season was growing late and work was plenty. Ships were being fitted
out for whaling, and much wood was used in storing them. The sawing
this wood was considered a good job. With the help of old Friend Johnson
(blessings on his memory) I got a saw and "buck," and went at it. When
I went into a store to buy a cord with which to brace up my saw in the
frame, I asked for a "fip's" worth of cord. The man behind the counter
looked rather sharply at me, and said with equal sharpness, "You don't
belong about here." I was alarmed, and thought I had betrayed myself.
A fip in Maryland was six and a quarter cents, called fourpence in
Massachusetts. But no harm came from the "fi'penny-bit" blunder, and I
confidently and cheerfully went to work with my saw and buck. It was new
business to me, but I never did better work, or more of it, in the same
space of time on the plantation for Covey, the negro-breaker, than I did
for myself in these earliest years of my freedom.

Notwithstanding the just and humane sentiment of New Bedford three and
forty years ago, the place was not entirely free from race and color
prejudice. The good influence of the Roaches, Rodmans, Arnolds,
Grinnells, and Robesons did not pervade all classes of its people. The
test of the real civilization of the community came when I applied for
work at my trade, and then my repulse was emphatic and decisive. It so
happened that Mr. Rodney French, a wealthy and enterprising citizen,
distinguished as an anti-slavery man, was fitting out a vessel for
a whaling voyage, upon which there was a heavy job of calking and
coppering to be done. I had some skill in both branches, and applied
to Mr. French for work. He, generous man that he was, told me he would
employ me, and I might go at once to the vessel. I obeyed him, but upon
reaching the float-stage, where others [sic] c