Say, I reckon your father's poor, and I'm bound to say he's in pretty
hard luck. Here, I'll put a twenty-dollar gold piece on this board, and
you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave you; but my
kingdom! it won't do to fool with small-pox, don't you see?"
"Hold on, Parker," says the other man, "here's a twenty to put on the
board for me. Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you'll
be all right."
"That's so, my boy--good-bye, good-bye. If you see any runaway niggers
you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it."
"Good-bye, sir," says I; "I won't let no runaway niggers get by me if I
can help it."
They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I
knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me to
try to learn to do right; a body that don't get STARTED right when he's
little ain't got no show--when the pinch comes there ain't nothing to
back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I
thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s'pose you'd a done right
and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I,
I'd feel bad--I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I,
what's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do right
and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was
stuck.
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