sums, and the hope that then entered my mind of purchasing at some future
time my freedom, made me long for money; and plans for money-making took
the principal possession of my thoughts. At night I would steal away with
my axe, get a load of wood to cut for twenty-five cents, and the next
morning hardly escape a whipping for the offence. But I persevered until I
had obtained twenty dollars. Now I began to think seriously of becoming
able to buy myself; and cheered by this hope, I went on from one thing to
another, laboring "at dead of night," after the long weary day's toil for
my master was over, till I found I had collected one hundred dollars. This
sum I kept hid, first in one place and then in another, as I dare not put
it out, for fear I should lose it.

After this I lit upon a plan which proved of great advantage to me. My
father suggested a mode of preparing smoking tobacco, different from any
then or since employed. It had the double advantage of giving the tobacco
a peculiarly pleasant flavor, and of enabling me to manufacture a good
article out of a very indifferent material. I improved somewhat upon his
suggestion, and commenced the manufacture, doing as I have before said,
all my work in the night. The tobacco I put up in papers of about a
quarter of a pound each, and sold them at fifteen cents. But the tobacco
could not be smoked without a pipe, and as I had given the former a flavor
peculiarly grateful, it occurred to me that I might so construct a pipe as
to cool the smoke in passing through it, and thus meet the wishes of those
who are more fond of smoke than heat. This I effected by means of a reed,
which grows plentifully in that region; I made a passage through the reed
with a hot wire, polished it, and attached a clay pipe to the end, so that
the smoke should be cooled in flowing through the stem like whiskey or rum
in passing from the boiler through the worm of the still. These pipes I
sold at ten cents apiece. In the early part of the night I would sell my
tobacco and pipes, and manufacture them in the latter part. As the