"No—the printing press—for printing newspapers."
"Oh!—Is you a-gwine to print a paper? I tought you was a sojer!"
"And so I am, my friend; but I'm a printer also."
"Dus you make books like dis-a-one?" displaying a primer.
"Yes; I could print a book like that, or—a testament."
"Look here, sojer," he said, the remembrance of the loss he had sustained making him suspicious—"I tink you'm foolin' me. Now, sar, I dusent like to be fooled—I dusent!"
But I assured him I didn't want to fool him, and so pacified him that he became confidential, and told me his history. He was 'raised' in Plymouth, and had been taught to read by a nephew of his master's, who gave him lessons on Sundays, on the sly. None of his scholars had advanced beyond lessons in spelling, and most of them were in the alphabet. The girls seemed to make the most rapid progress; and two of these—named respectively Rosette and Melvina—could spell words of two syllables, after a tuition of only four weeks.
"Ise glad Ise free now—dat's so!" I one day heard a little curly-headed ebony urchin say to another. They had just been let out of school in Newbern. Struck by the oddity of the saying, I stopped and questioned the lad—
"Why are you glad you're free, my little fellow?"
"'Cause, sar, I can go to school, and learn to read; and den—"