ployments during my short
life; but I look back to _none_ with more satisfaction, than to that
afforded by my Sunday school. An attachment, deep and lasting, sprung
up between me and my persecuted pupils, which made parting from them
intensely grievous; and,{207} when I think that most of these dear souls
are yet shut up in this abject thralldom, I am overwhelmed with grief.

Besides my Sunday school, I devoted three evenings a week to my fellow
slaves, during the winter. Let the reader reflect upon the fact, that,
in this christian country, men and women are hiding from professors of
religion, in barns, in the woods and fields, in order to learn to read
the _holy bible_. Those dear souls, who came to my Sabbath school, came
_not_ because it was popular or reputable to attend such a place, for
they came under the liability of having forty stripes laid on their
naked backs. Every moment they spend in my school, they were under this
terrible liability; and, in this respect, I was sharer with them. Their
minds had been cramped and starved by their cruel masters; the light of
education had been completely excluded; and their hard earnings had
been taken to educate their master's children. I felt a delight in
circumventing the tyrants, and in blessing the victims of their curses.

The year at Mr. Freeland's passed off very smoothly, to outward seeming.
Not a blow was given me during the whole year. To the credit of Mr.
Freeland--irreligious though he was--it must be stated, that he was the
best master I ever had, until I became my own master, and assumed for
myself, as I had a right to do, the responsibility of my own existence
and the exercise of my own powers. For much of the happiness--or
absence of misery--with which I passed this year with Mr. Freeland, I
am indebted to the genial temper and ardent friendship of my brother
slaves. They were, every one of them, manly, generous and brave, yes; I
say they were brave, and I will add, fine looking. It is seldom the lot
of mortals to have truer and better friends than were the slaves on this
farm. It is not uncommon to charge slaves with great treachery toward
each other, and to believe them incapable of confiding in each other;
but I must say, that I never loved, esteemed, or confided in men, more
than I did in these. They were as true as steel, and no band of brothers
could have been more{208} loving. There were no mean advantages taken
of each other, as is sometimes the ca