She took him aside and severely reprimanded him.

When I asked him, not long after, to tell me more of what he had learned at school, he said that his mother had forbidden him to do so any more, as her father had a slave, who was instructed in reading and writing, and on that account proved very troublesome.

He could, they said, imitate the hand-writing of the neighboring planters, and used to write passes and certificates of freedom for the slaves, and finally wrote one for himself, and went off to Philadelphia, from whence her father received from him a saucy letter, thanking him for his education.
The early years of my life went by pleasantly.

The bitterness of my lot I had not yet realized.

Comfortably clothed and fed, kindly treated by my old master and mistress and the young ladies, and the playmate and confidant of my young master, I did not dream of the dark reality of evil before me.
When he was fourteen years of age, master George went to his uncle Brockenbrough's at Charlottesville, as a student of the University.
After his return from College, he went to Paris and other parts of Europe, and spent three or four years in study and travelling.