and wanted the like done. She once told her cousin how I could write and
figure up. And what do you think her cousin said?"

"'Pleased,' I suppose, 'to hear it.'"

"Not a bit of it. She said, if I belonged to her, she would cut off my
thumbs; her husband said, 'Oh, then he couldn't pick cotton.' As to my
poor thumbs, it did not seem to be taken into account what it would cost
me to lose them. My ole Miss used to have a lot of books. She would let
me read any one of them except a novel. She wanted to take care of my
soul, but she wasn't taking care of her own."

"Wasn't she religious?"

"She went for it. I suppose she was as good as most of them. She said
her prayers and went to church, but I don't know that that made her any
better. I never did take much stock in white folks' religion."

"Why, Robert, I'm afraid you are something of an infidel."

"No, Captain, I believe in the real, genuine religion. I ain't got much
myself, but I respect them that have. We had on our place a dear, old
saint, named Aunt Kizzy. She was a happy soul. She had seen hard times,
but was what I call a living epistle. I've heard her tell how her only
child had been sold from her, when the man who bought herself did not
want to buy her child. Poor little fellow! he was only two years old. I
asked her one day how she felt when her child was taken away. 'I felt,'
she said, 'as if I was going to my grave. But I knew if I couldn't get
justice here, I could get it in another world.'"