No one arraigned it in my hearing; the local papers said nothing against it; the local pulpit taught us that God approved it, that it was a holy thing, and that the doubter need only look in the Bible if he wished to settle his mind--and then the texts were read aloud to us to make the matter sure; if the slaves themselves had an aversion to slavery they were wise and said nothing.
In Hannibal we seldom saw a slave misused; on the farm, never.
There was, however, one small incident of my boyhood days which touched this matter, and it must have meant a good deal to me or it would not have stayed in my memory, clear and sharp, vivid and shadowless, all these slow-drifting years.

We had a little slave boy whom we had hired from some one, there in Hannibal.

He was from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and had been brought away from his family and his friends, half-way across the American continent, and sold.

He was a cheery spirit, innocent and gentle, and the noisiest creature that ever was, perhaps.

All day long he was singing, whistling, yelling, whooping, laughing--it was maddening, devastating, unendurable.