getting out at night. I had to sleep in the house where the folks were,
and could not go out without being observed, while Tom had quarters in
another part of the establishment, and could slip out unobserved. Tom,
however, consoled me by saying that he would teach me as soon as he knew
how. So Tom one night put a copy of some figures on the side of the barn
for me to practice from. I took the chalk and imitated him as near as I
could, but my work was poor beside his, as he had been learning for
some months, and could make the figures quite well and write a little.
Still I kept trying. Tom encouraging me and telling me that I would
learn in time. "Just keep trying," said he. When this first lesson was
over, I forgot to rub out the marks on the barn, and the next morning
when Old Master Jack, who happened to be at our home just at that time,
went out there and saw the copy and my imitation of it, he at once
raised great excitement by calling attention to the rude characters and
wanting to know who had done that. I was afraid to own that I had done
it; but old Master Jack somehow surmised that it was Tom or I, for he
said to Boss: "Edmund, you must watch those fellows, Louis and Thomas,
if you don't they will get spoilt--spoilt. They are pretty close to town
here--here." Tom and I laughed over this a good deal and how easily we
slipped out of it, but concluded not to stop trying to learn all we
could. Tom always said: "Lou, I am going to be a free man yet, then we
will need some education; no, let us never stop trying to learn." Tom
was a Virginian, as I was, and was sold from his parents when a mere
lad. Boss used to write to his parents (owners) occasionally, that his
people might hear from him. The letters were to his mother, but sent in
care of the white folks. Tom had progressed very fast in his secret
studies, and could write enough to frame a letter. It seems it had been
over a year since Boss had written for him, but nothing was said until
one morning I heard Boss telling Tom to come to the barn to be whipped.
He showed Tom three letters which he had written to his mother, and this