The freed boy in Alabama

by Anne M. Mitchell

Tom soon found it so, to his utter dismay. First, Jimmy came in with one or two others, talking loud and making a confusion.

“Are you going to study with me to-night?” asked Tom as he came up to the table and glanced at the books.

“No, I’m not that,” replied the boy; “it’s larks I’m after, and if you wasn’t a stupid, you wouldn’t either.”

Tom was disappointed, and bent his head over his books silently, and tried to work. But there was no study to be had there. The room gradually filled with women and men, and attention to books was impossible. He gave it up at last, but not before he had two or three laughing remarks addressed to him. He closed his book and rested his head wearily on his hand. He concluded he would go up-stairs. “I am not used to such company as this,” he thought with a new feeling creeping into his heart. “I will go away, and just show them all that I am made of a different sort from them.”

Then he suddenly bethought him how wrongly he was acting in thus putting himself above his fellows; so he immediately raised his head and joined in the conversation.

It was no pleasure to him, but he stayed half an hour, and then, seeing he could go without giving offence to any one, he gladly gathered up his books and went off up-stairs. A candle was a luxury not to be indulged in, but as Tom ascended the stairs he saw that the moonlight was pouring in through the one window, so that the room was quite light. He put his books away, and seating himself on the floor under the window, which was very low, he leaned his head on his arm upon the sill and began to think.

It was a long, sober thought. With quick understanding he saw very soon what a battle the summer would be to him, and how hard it would be for him to accomplish his aims. He was resolved upon one thing: study he must and would, if every leisure minute of the noontide hour was given up to it. Then, again, he must do some work for Jesus. The summer must not yet pass without some deed accomplished whereby his Master should be glorified. He realized that to this end he must make himself familiar with the hands about the place—not only with those who came from Huntsville, but also with the old family servants. The dangers, the temptations accompanying such a course, if they occurred to him at all, did not present themselves in their dangerous form—the temptation that while leading others he might himself be led away—that his faith might fail or his courage droop. The whole armor of God was the only thing which could keep him from all the ills and troubles thus presented. He did not know how much trial was before him, but he did know that he needed a stronger arm than his own to lead him, and he looked above for strength and shelter.

The trial came first in a most unexpected direction. Jimmy, in all good humor, reported that Tom “had got religion,” and to those to whom he told it it was a very bad recommendation, and they held themselves aloof; and not only that, but they would amuse themselves with sundry jokes at his expense. Tom was astonished and wounded. He could not imagine where they could have heard it, and it prevented, for a time, the advancement he wished to make in their regard. He tried his best. By every effort in his power he endeavored to gain friends among this new company, and in a few instances he succeeded immediately; in others not so well; and often it was impossible to have a talk with those whose friendship he wished most to gain, on account of their leisure-time being so much occupied with dances in the great barn.

The studying was scarcely better at first. It was very hard between his bites of corn-bread in the noon-spell to give his attention to looking out words in the dictionary, or mastering what seemed to him such profound problems in arithmetic. There was an hour before supper which was his own, and that was devoted, half to study and half to Bible-reading. It was very hard work to stand firmly by his resolution, and go after his books at the close of a warm, tiresome day, and study so persistently just when the twilight was growing beautiful and the people were all resting before their cabin doors. Sometimes he was quite discouraged, and almost determined to give up.

One afternoon, when he had been perhaps two weeks on the plantation, he was coming home from work just at sunset, with his jacket thrown over his arm, warm and tired with his day’s labor, and rather dreading than otherwise the hour of study which was before him, when suddenly, as he passed near the mansion, the master stepped from the doorway and accosted him. Tom stopped and waited for what he might have to say.