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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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timber yonder."--"Fred., bring that roller here."-- "Fred., go get a fresh can of water."--"Fred., come help saw off the end of this timber."--"Fred., go quick, and get the crowbar."--"Fred., hold on the end of this fall."--"Fred., go to the blacksmith's shop, and get a new punch."--"Hurra, Fred.! run and bring me a cold chisel."--"I say, Fred., bear a hand, and get up a fire as quick as lightning under that steam-box."--"Halloo, nigger! come, turn this grindstone."--"Come, come! move, move! and BOWSE this timber forward."--"I say, darky, blast your eyes, why don't you heat up some pitch?"--"Halloo! halloo! halloo!" (Three voices at the same time.) "Come here!--Go there!--Hold on where you are! Damn you, if you move, I'll knock your brains out!" This was my school for eight months; and I might have remained there longer, but for a most horrid fight I had with four of the white apprentices, in which my left eye was nearly knocked out, and I was horribly mangled in other respects. The facts in the case were these: Until a very little while after I went there, white and black ship-carpenters worked side by side, and no one seemed to see any impropriety in it. All hands seemed to be very well satisfied. Many of the black carpenters were freemen. Things seemed to be going on very well. All at once, the white carpenters knocked off, and said they would not work with free colored workmen. Their reason for this, as alleged, was, that if free colored carpenters were encouraged, they would soon take the trade into their own hands, and poor white men would be thrown out of employment. They therefore felt called upon at once to put a stop to it. And, taking advantage of Mr. Gardner's necessities, they broke off, swearing they would work no longer, unless he would discharge his black carpenters. Now, though this did not extend to me in form, it did reach me in fact. My fellow-apprentices very soon began to feel it degrading to them to work with me. They began to put on airs, and talk about the "niggers" taking the country, saying we all ought to be killed; and, being encouraged by the journey- men, they commenced making my condition as hard as they could, by hectoring me around, and |
