adzes-I was learned to saw, and to plain boards, and then to mortice and frame, and make mouldings, and window-sashes, and door-frames.  When I could do all these, master used to say I was bound to make a great workman, and, laughingly, would say I was the most valuable property he ever owned.  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.  With my knowledge of mechanics increased a love of learning, which almost amounted to a passion.  They said it was against the law for a nigger to read; but I was raised so far above black niggers that I didn’t mind what the law said:  so I got ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ and the Bible, and ‘Young’s Night Thoughts,’ and from them I learned great truths:  they gave me new hopes, refreshed my weary soul, and made me like a new-clothed being ready to soar above the injustice of this life.  Oh, how I read them at night, and re-read them in the morning, and every time found something new in them, something that suited my case!  Through the sentiments imbibed from them I saw freedom hanging out its light of love, fascinating me, and inciting me to make a death struggle to gain it.

“One day, as I was thinking of my hard fate, and how I did all the work and master got all the money for it-and how I had to live and how he lived, master came in-looking good-natured.  He approached me, shook hands with me, said I was worth my weight in gold; and then asked me how I would like to be free.  I told him I would jump for joy, would sing praises, and be glad all the day long.