Besides, when I was late in
getting home I knew I would always get a severe scolding or a
flogging.
I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave though I remember
on several occasions I went as far as the schoolhouse door with one of
my young mistresses to carry her books. The picture of several dozen
boys and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression
upon me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and
study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.
So far as I can now recall, the first knowledge that I got of the
fact that we were slaves, and that freedom of the slaves was being
discussed, was early one morning before day, when I was awakened by my
mother kneeling over her children and fervently praying that Lincoln
and his armies might be successful, and that one day she and her
children might be free. In this connection I have never been able to
understand how the slaves throughout the South, completely ignorant as
were the masses so far as books or newspapers were concerned, were
able to keep themselves so accurately and completely informed about
the great National questions that were agitating the country. From
the time that Garrison, Lovejoy, and others began to agitate for
freedom, the slaves throughout the South kept in close touch with the
progress of the movement.
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