This was done, and they both became my father's property. Neither
forgot to be grateful. The woman was my mother's faithful nurse
until after the war, when she died, and I have never been able to
fill her place completely, since. I think Eliab learned his letters,
and perhaps to read a little, from me. He was almost always in my
mother's room, being brought in and set down upon a sheepskin on
one side the fireplace in the morning by his mammy. My mother had
great sympathy with his misfortune, the more, I suppose, because
of her own very similar affliction. She used to teach him to sew
and knit, and finally, despite the law, began to encourage him to
read. The neighbors, coming in and finding him with a book in his
hands, began to complain of it, and my father, in order to silence
all such murmurs, manumitted him square out and gave bonds for his
support, as the law required.

"As he grew older he remained more and more in his mother's cabin,
in one corner of which she had a little elevated platform made for
him. He could crawl around the room by means of his hands, and had
great skill in clambering about by their aid. When he was about
fifteen a shoemaker came to the house to do our plantation work.
Eliab watched him closely all the first day; on the second desired
to help, and before the month had passed was as good a shoemaker
as his teacher. From that time he worked steadily at the trade,
and managed very greatly to reduce the cost of his support.

"He was a strange boy, and he and this fellow Nimbus were always
together except when prevented by the latter's tasks. A thousand
times I have known Nimbus to come over long after dark and leave
before daylight, in order to stay with his friend over night. Not
unfrequently he would carry him home upon his back and keep him for