our nearest neighbor and myself. Our mothers pronounced the words for
us alternately, at their house and ours. In this way we spelled our
book through a number of times. This privilege, with four months in
school previous to leaving Canada, proved a great blessing. As I
possessed an insatiable thirst for knowledge, I borrowed all the easy
readers I could find in the neighborhood. I was especially interested
in memoirs of children and youth, which increased my frequent desire
to become a Christian. I wished to read every book that came within my
reach. I read a few of father's books, designed for more mature minds.
I became deeply interested in John Woolman's history of the slave-
trade, of the capture and cruel middle passage of negroes, and of the
thousands who died on their voyage and were thrown into the sea to be
devoured by sharks, that followed the slave-ship day after day. The
pictures of these crowded slave-ships, with the cruelties of the slave
system after they were brought to our country, often affected me to
tears; and I often read until the midnight hour, and could not rest
until I had read it twice through. My sympathies became too deeply
enlisted for the poor negroes who were thus enslaved for time to
efface.

The third or fourth I had ever seen of that race was an old man
called Uncle Jeff. He seemed to serve any one who called upon him for
chores, in our little village of Lockport, that grew up as by magic
upon the Erie Canal. Uncle Jeff was frequently employed by merchants
to cry off their stale articles on the street. At one time the old
man, whose head was almost as white as wool, was crying, "Gentlemen
and ladies' black silk stockin's of all colors for sale," holding
them up to view as he passed along the street, followed by a group of
boys crying out, "Nigger, nigger," and throwing grass and clay at
him. At length he turned to these half-grown boys, looking very sad,