About this time I began to
find out how it was that the other white folks owned themselves and
master owned me; but then, if I said anything about it, master might
tie me up and lash me as he used to do; and so I remained quiet, but
kept up a thinking. By and by I got perfect at the carpenter's
trade, and I learned engineering; and when I had got engineering
perfect, I took a fancy for making stucco work and images. And
people said I learned wondrously fast, and was the best workman far
or near. Seeing these things, people used to be coming to me, and
talking to me about my value, and then end by wanting me to make
them specimens of stucco. I seemed liked by everybody who came to
see me, and good people had a kind word for me; but Mr. Grabguy was
very strict, and wouldn't allow me to do anything without his
permission. People said my work was perfect, and master said I was a
perfect piece of property; and it used to pain deep into my heart
when master spoke so. Well! I got to be a man, and when the foreman
got drunk master used to put me in his place. And after a while I
got to be foreman altogether: but I was a slave, they said, and men
wouldn't follow my directions when master was away; they all
acknowledged that I was a good workman, but said a nigger never
should be allowed to direct and order white people. That made my
very blood boil, as I grew older, because I was whiter than many of
them. However, submit was the word; and I bore up and trusted to
heaven for deliverance, hoping the day would come soon when its will
would be carried out.
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