A Childs Anti-Slavery Book | Page 3

bread than live by the unpaid toil of a slave."
To assist you in carrying out that purpose, and to excite your sympathy
for poor slave children, the following stories were written. The
characters in them are all real, though their true names are not always
given. The stories are therefore pictures of actual life, and are worthy of
your belief.
D.W.

[Illustration: LITTLE LEWIS SOLD.]
LITTLE LEWIS:
The Story of a Slave Boy.
BY JULIA COLMAN.
"A, B, C," said little Lewis to himself, as he bent eagerly over a ragged
primer. "Here's anoder A, an' there's anoder, an' there's anoder C, but I

can't find anoder B. Missy Katy said I must find just so many as I can.
Dear little Missy Katy! an' wont I be just so good as ever I can, an'
learn to read, an' when I get to be a man I'll call myself white folks; for
I'm a most as white as Massa Harry is now, when he runs out widout
his hat; A, B, C." And so the little fellow ran on, thinking what a fine
man he would be when he had learned to read.
Just then he heard a shrill laugh in the distance, and the cry, "Lew! Lew!
where's Lew?"
It was Katy's voice, and tucking his book in his bosom, he ran around
the house toward her with light feet; for though she was often cross and
willful, as only daughters sometimes are, she was the only one of the
family that showed him even an occasional kindness. She was, withal, a
frolicsome, romping witch, and as he turned the corner, she came
scampering along right toward him with three or four white children at
her heels, and all the little woolly heads of the establishment,
numbering something less than a score.
"Here, Lew!" she said, as she came in sight, "you take the tag and run."
With a quick movement he touched her outstretched hand, and he
would have made the others some trouble to catch him, for he was the
smartest runner among the children; but as he turned he tripped on a
stone, and lay sprawling. "Tag," cried Hal, Katy's cousin, as he placed
his feet on the little fellow's back and jumped over him. It was cruel,
but what did Hal care for the "little nigger." If he had been at home he
would have had some little fear of breaking the child's back, for his
father was more careful of his property than Uncle Stamford was.
Before Lewis could rise, two or three of the negro boys, who were
always too ready to imitate the vices of their masters, had made the boy
a stepping stone, and then Dick, his master's eldest son, came down
upon him with both knees, and began to cuff him roundly.
"So, you black scamp, you thought you'd run away with the tag, did
you!" Just then he perceived the primer that was peeping out of Lewis's
shirt bosom. "Ha! what's here?" said he; "a primer, as I live! And what

are you doing with this, I'd like to know?"
"Missy Katy give it to me, and she is teaching me my letters out of it.
Please, massa, let me have it again," said he, beseechingly, as Dick
made a motion as if to throw it away. "I would like to learn how to
read."
"You would, would you!" said Dick. "You'd like to read to Tom and
Sam, down on a Louisiana plantation, in sugar time, when you'd
nothing else to do, I suppose. Ha, ha, ha!" and the young tyrant, giving
the boy a vigorous kick or two as he rose, stuffed the book into his own
pocket, and walked off.
Poor Lewis! He very well knew the meaning of that taunt, and he did
not open his mouth. No threat of a dark closet ever frightened a free
child so much as the threat of being sold to a Southern plantation
terrifies the slave-child of Kentucky.
Lewis walked slowly toward the kitchen, to see Aunt Sally. It was to
her he used to go with all his troubles, and sometimes she scolded, and
sometimes she listened. She was very busy dressing the vegetables for
dinner, and she looked cross; so the little fellow crept into the chimney
corner and said nothing; but he thought all the more, and as he thought,
the sad tears rolled down his tawny cheeks.
"What is the matter now, little baby?" was Aunt Sally's tender inquiry.
Lewis commenced his pitiful tale; but as soon as Aunt Sally heard that
it was about learning to read, she shut him up with "Good enough for
you! What do you want of a book? Readin' isn't for the likes of you;
and the