I cannot find the right words to say what I felt, except that it was like taking my soul out of an old body and putting it into a new one. I suppose that most of you have heard the story of Beauty and the Beast, and how the Beast was transformed into a handsome prince in the end? I felt as the prince must have felt when he was restored to his true self. Freedom made that difference to me. And now, dressed up with a bright new life, all my existence with Uncle Abner was a nightmare - one forgets a nightmare under the brightness of the sun.
I started on again, running steadily down the river. There was no weariness in me; there was no fatigue. Freedom made my toes as light as feathers. I simply swung along on wings, following the road nearest to the river for miles and miles, while the river widened, and then the salt freshness of the sea was in the air.
After a vast length of hours, when even my newly found strength was playing out, I saw a rim of gray across the horizon, and, far off in front of me, the stars seemed to be spread out on the ground, so that I knew I was near the harbor. At that, I crawled away in the brush and curled up in a sheltered spot and went to sleep. Sleep, you will say, naked to the waist, soaked with perspiration, with my back raw from the last whipping? Oh, yes, that was nothing to me. My skin was a rough leather in those days. Nothing troubled me. I expected to sleep until noon, but in a couple of hours I sat up wide awake, shuddering with the chill of the morning which had eaten its way down to my very bones. Up the road nearby I heard the cheerful clattering of a horse’s hoofs. The first picture that shot across my mind was of my uncle, riding in pursuit, with his long rifle balanced across the pommel of his saddle. So I went up a tree like any squirrel and looked out. It was not Uncle Abner. I might have known that no horse he owned was capable of covering ground at such a round pace. It was a young fellow of seventeen or eighteen, riding a fine young horse that fairly danced along over the ground. But more to me than the beauty of the horse were the clothes the rider wore. He had on a thick woolen coat and mittens on his hands. He was wearing strong boots and trousers of as stout a material as the coat. At the neck I could see that his shirt was of thick flannel. And here was I, trembling in a treetop with the wind piercing my naked body.
No pirate ever felt a greater touch of joy when he saw the huge sails of some rich merchant ship, sagging down the horizon. I dropped into the lower part of the tree and ran out on a great limb that hung over the road. There I lay, stretched out flat on my belly. I kicked off my shoes, so that I could grip with toes as well as fingers. Like a mountain lion I watched him come. He was whistling. His face was red with the raw morning air. He was so full of good spirits and good food that he could not keep in his self-content. When he was just beneath, I shouted. I could not help it. It was the pure excess of savagery as I dropped, and he looked up in time to see me spread-eagled in the air with my hands stretched out at him like the talons of a bird.
That ended the fight before it even began. He was turned into a weak pulp that rolled off the horse and onto the ground as I struck him. The horse danced away, and the young chap lay with his eyes tightly closed like a child afraid to see a nightmare. He was groaning and begging me not to kill him. I was trembling too much with the cold to laugh. I simply tied his own handkerchief over his head, and there he lay like a great lump of blubber, moaning, begging, while I turned him out of his clothes. I left him naked as a newborn child, and I ran off into the forest in my new clothes.
They were warm, but after the first moment or two I did not care a great deal for my prize. They were too heavy. The boots were like steel jackets on my feet which were used to no shoes, or ragged ones. The coat was a useless weight. I tossed away the hat. I chucked the coat into a bramble bush. I kicked off shoes and socks and knifed away those good trousers at the knee. It was a shameful waste of honest materials, but I was glad to be free once more.
I went straight down to the sheds along the quays. There I sat on a pile with my bare feet hooked around it and looked out to sea. The big wind of the night before had kicked up some mighty waves, and, as far as my eye stretched off to the horizon, I saw the big, gray, white-bearded rollers, traveling. It brought my heart into my throat. If my father had been across the water, I should have spent the rest of my life at sea, I don’t doubt. But he was not across the water. He was headed West and Far West. And that was my destination. I had enough of an idea of geography to know that the ocean way toward the West led to New Orleans, so I began to make inquiries. I was in luck. Before the night closed on that day, I was duly shipped on board a boat that was taking candle coal down to New Orleans. I was shipped as odd boy, to be handy generally.
It was a pleasant voyage. The captain had two jugs of whiskey, one at the wheel, and one in the cabin. He and the other three men were always mellow, and so the old boat staggered down the coast. We were as light on provisions, though, as we were heavy on liquor. Every night we dropped anchor off some little cove, and two or three went ashore to forage. After the first expedition they saw my talents and left the majority of the work to me. One man would lie back on the oars in the skiff, ready to take us fast away from shore when we came back with supplies; another hand went up with me to help carry what I plundered, but the skillful tasks were all left to me.
The bidding of any older man is usually authority enough for any small boy or young fellow to do mischief. I had not a qualm of conscience. I used to slide into a chicken house and pick off the fattest birds from the roost. There is only one way to manage it. That is to snake the bird off by the neck and, with the same motion, clap him under your elbow. I learned to do it so that I could pick off a prize from a crowded line of roosters and never have the vacancy noticed. Then there were kitchens to invade. I cleaned out many a pantry on that piratical cruise down the coast, and often I secured as much as two of us could stagger under, going back to the boat. Not that it was always safe. Once the dogs took after us and followed so close that the leader came up as we took to the boat, and we had to brain the beast with an oar as it leaped after us. And once three men came after us with guns and gave us a race through the woods. However, there was only enough danger to give spice to life, and night and morning we feasted on my thefts.
With modesty put aside, I may say that I was a valued member of that crew, and all went merry as a wedding bell until we reached New Orleans, and I asked for my pay. Then the captain let out a shout and said that he would turn me over to the police for a young thief. He caught at a belaying pin as he spoke, and I had to act quickly. I dived between his knees, and, while he was flat on his back, I snatched his wallet and dived overboard. When I came up, he was pitting at my head with a rifle, but he was too poor a shot to fetch me. They tumbled into the skiff, but, before they had rowed around the stem of the ship, I was shinnying up a mossy pile and then streaking away across the docks. Some Negroes heard the captain shouting after me and offering rewards. They started after me, but they might as well have tried to tag the strong north wind. I had them gasping in half a mile, and then I dodged away to a quiet place where I could examine my prize.