Dennis Comstock, who,
as I have said, was president of the Manumission Society. To him I freely
described my situation, and found him a friend indeed. He expressed his
readiness to assist me, and wrote a line for me to take to his brother,
Otis Comstock, who took me into his family at once. I hired to Mr.
Comstock for the season, and from that time onward lived with him nearly
four years.
When I arrived there I was about twenty-two years of age, and felt for the
first time in my life, that I was my own master. I cannot describe to a
free man, what a proud manly feeling came over me when I hired to Mr. C.
and made my first bargain, nor when I assumed the dignity of collecting my
own earnings. Notwithstanding I was very happy in my freedom from Slavery,
and had a good home, where for the first time in my life I was allowed to
sit at table with others, yet I found myself very deficient in almost
every thing which I should have learned when a boy.
These and other recollections of the past often saddened my spirit; but
_hope _,--cheering and bright, was now mine, and it lighted up the future
and gave me patience to persevere.
In the autumn when the farm work was done, I called on Mr. Comstock for
some money, and the first thing I did after receiving it I went to
Canandaigua where I found a book-store kept by a man named J.
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