over very lightly. He said, ‘That’s very nice; just draw it over again.’ ‘I could stand here and let you draw it across my tongue all day.’ The night came on; the two boys came out of their room up into the attic where I was lodging, and there they commenced teaching me the letters of the alphabet. We all laid down upon the floor, covered with the same blanket; and first one would teach me a letter, and then the other, and I would pass the barley sugar from one side to the other. I kept those two boys on my sixpenny worth of barley sugar for about three weeks. Of course I did not let them know how much I had. I first dealt it out to them a quarter of a stick at a time. I worked along in that way, and before I left that place where I was working for my bread, I got so that I could spell. I had a book that had the word ‘baker’ in it, and the boys used to think that when they got so far as that, they were getting on pretty well. I had often passed by the schoolhouse, and stood and listened at the window to hear them spell, and I knew that when they could spell ‘baker’ they thought something of themselves; and I was glad when I got that far. Before I left that place I could read. Finally, from that I went on until I could write. How do you suppose I first commenced writing? for you will understand that up to the present time I never spent a day in school in my life, for I had no money to pay for schooling, so that I had to get my learning first from one and then from another. I carried a piece of chalk in my pocket, and whenever I met a boy I would stop him and take out my chalk and get at a board fence and then commence. First I made some flourishes with no meaning, and called a boy up, and said, ‘Do you see that? Can you beat that writing?’ Said he, ‘That’s not writing.’ Well, I wanted to get so as to write my own name. I had got out of slavery with only one name. While escaping, I received the hospitality of a very good man, who had spared part of his name to me, and finally my name got pretty long, and I wanted to be able to write it. ‘Now, what do you call that?’ said the boy, looking at my flourishes. I said, ‘Is not that “William Wells Brown?” ’ ‘Give me the chalk,’ says he, and he wrote out in large letters ‘William Wells Brown,’ and I marked up the fence for nearly a quarter of a mile, trying to copy, till I got so that I could write my name. Then I went on with my chalking, and, in fact, all board fences within half a mile of where I lived were marked over with some kind of figures I had made, in trying to learn how to write. I next obtained an arithmetic, and then a grammar, and I stand here tonight, without having had a day’s schooling in my life.” Such were some of the efforts made by a fugitive slave to obtain for himself an education. Soon after his escape, Brown was married to a free coloured woman, by whom he has had three daughters, one of whom died in infancy. Having tasted the sweets of freedom himself, his great desire was to extend its blessing to his race, and in the language of the poet he would ask himself,
Is true freedom but to break Fetters for our own dear sake And with leathern hearts forget That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And with heart and hand to be Earnest to make others free.
While acting as a servant to one of the steamers on Lake Erie, Brown often took fugitives from Cleveland and other ports to Buffalo or Detroit, from either of which places they could cross to Canada in an hour. During the season of 1842, this fugitive slave conveyed no less than sixty-nine runaway slaves across Lake Erie, and placed them safe on the soil of Canada. The following interesting account of Brown’s first going into business for himself, which we transcribe from his Three Years in Europe, will show the energy of the man. He says, “In the autumn of 1835, having been cheated out of the previous summer’s earnings by the captain of the steamer in which I had been employed running away with the money, I was, like the rest of the men, left without any means of support during the winter, and therefore had to seek employment in the neighbouring towns. I went to the town of Monroe in the state of Michigan, and while going through the principal streets looking for work, I passed the door of the only barber in the town, whose shop appeared to be filled with persons waiting to be shaved. As there was but one man at work, and as I had, while employed in the steamer, occasionally shaved a gentleman who could not perform that office himself, it occurred to me that I might get employment here as a journeyman barber. I therefore made immediate application for work, but the barber told me he did not need a hand. But I was not to be put off so easily, and after making several offers to work cheap. I frankly told him, that if he would not employ me, I would get a room near him, and set up an opposition establishment. This threat, however, made no impression on the barber; and as I was leaving, one of the men, who were waiting to be shaved, said, ‘If you want a room in which to commence business, I
Comments (0)