In Baltimore, I could, occasionally, get into a Sabbath school, among the free children, and receive lessons, with the rest; but, having already learned both to read and to write, I was more of a teacher than a pupil, even there.

When, however, I went back to the Eastern Shore, and was at the house of Master Thomas, I was neither allowed to teach, nor to be taught.

The whole community--with but a single exception, among the whites--frowned upon everything like imparting instruction either to slaves or to free colored persons.

That single exception, a pious young man, named Wilson, asked me, one day, if I would like to assist him in teaching a little Sabbath school, at the house of a free colored man in St.Michael's, named James Mitchell.

The idea was to me a delightful one, and I told him I would gladly devote as much of my Sabbath as I could command, to that most laudable work.
Mr.Wilson soon mustered up a dozen old spelling books, and a few testaments; and we commenced operations, with some twenty scholars, in our Sunday school.