He tells us-"I
came here, sold-so they said-by God's will. Well. I thought to
myself, isn't this strange, that a curious God-they tell me he loves
everybody-should sell me? It all seemed like a misty waste to me. I
remembered home-I learned to read, myself-I remembered mother, I
loved her, but she left me, and I have never seen her since. I loved
her, dear mother! I did love her; but they said she was gone far
away, and I musn't mind if I never see'd her again. It seemed hard
and strange, but I had to put up with it, for they said I never had
a father, and my mother had no right to me" (his piercing black eyes
glare, as fervently he says, mother!). "I thought, at last, it was
true, for everybody had a right to call me nigger,--a blasted white
nigger, a nigger as wouldn't be worth nothing. And then they used to
kick me, and cuff me, and lash me; and if nigger was nigger I was
worse than a nigger, because every black nigger was laughing at me,
and telling me what a fool of a white nigger I was;--that white
niggers was nobody, could be nobody, and was never intended for
nobody, as nobody knew where white niggers come from. But I didn't
believe all this; it warn't sensible. Something said-Nicholas!
you're just as good as anybody: learn to read, write, and cypher,
and you'll be something yet. And this something-I couldn't tell what
it was, nor could I describe it-seemed irresistible in its power to
carry me to be that somebody it prompted in my feelings.
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