Ace lay there, breathing occasionally with a
long quivering sigh--the most pitiful thing a child ever does--and we
were both children, remember, put in a most unchildlike position. I
dropped asleep, but soon awakened. It had grown cold, and I reached for
the quilt; but something prompted me to reach up and see whether Ace was
still there. He lay there asleep, and, as I could feel, cold. I picked
up the quilt, threw it over him, tucked him in as my mother used to tuck
me in,--thinking of her as I did it--and went back to my bunk. I was
sorry I had cut Ace's head, and had already begun to forget how cruelly
he had used me. I seemed to feel his blood on my hands, and got up and
washed them. The thought of Ace's bandages, and the vision of wounds
under them filled me with remorse--but I was boss! Finally I dropped
asleep, and awoke to find that Ace had got up ahead of me. I was
embarrassed by my new authority; and sorry for what I had been obliged
to do to get it; but I was a new boy from that day.
It never pays to be a slave. It never benefits a man or a people to
submit to tyranny. A slave is a man forgotten of God. That fight against
slavery was a beautiful, a joyful thing to me, with all its penalties of
compassion and guilty feeling afterward. I think the best thing a man or
boy can do is to find out how far and to whom he is a slave, and fight
that servitude tooth and nail as I fought Ace. It would make this a
different world.
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