threw it into a boat that was tied to it, and motioned me to get in. We soon got across the river, then taking a little bundle, he directed me to go forward, and we were soon on a road. He then put two loaves of bread in my hand, and said to me, ‘This is a free State, and there is the north star’ pointing to it; ‘God bless you’ and I soon heard the splash of his pole in the river, and started northward.”
Charley found himself alone in the road, the river on his right hand, broad fields on his left, and no house in sight; as to the north star, he looked towards it when his friend pointed towards it, but did not know which it was; his education had been neglected. Smart negroes knew that star by sight. When a slave could find the north star, and show his mother how he knew it, and by what signs he found it, he was ready to graduate—he had finished his education—but Charley, poor fellow, had been having an easy time, riding about with his master, caring for the horses, blacking his boots, and brushing his clothes, and had not thought of going north until his mother told him that he had been sold. Besides, Charley was terribly disappointed. He supposed he was to be delivered to his master; that a white man would feed him and help him on his way to freedom, when he could have $500 for less trouble and no risk, he had not supposed was possible. He began to feel dizzy and faint, went a few rods and sat down, and soon fell asleep. He dreamed that two men were putting him into jail; he struggled, and awoke up finding himself alone, and darkness all around. He soon aroused sufficiently to understand the situation, and started along the road, not knowing whether he was going north or south, but kept going until it began to be light, when he saw a paper nailed to a board fence with a picture of a
