“Give these young colored people new doctrines or new laws; teach them less Christianity by book and a little more practical religion and justice by object lesson; give these law-abiding, native-born citizens of this Republic a tithe of the rights and privileges enjoyed by the lowest criminal foreigner newly landed on our shores, or else let this addition be made to their creeds: “‘Merit has nothing to do in determining a man’s future life.’ “‘Injustice shall conquer in the end.’ “‘Fraud shall be victor over honest and Christian endeavor.’ “‘The colored man, by reason of his dark complexion, shall be forever deprived of all the blessings and privileges of the Government he risked his life to save.’” Put this into the creeds you teach the young colored men and women, and they will at least respect you for bein’ sincere and truthful. Felix felt all this, and more too—more than I could set down if my pen wuz as long as from here to the moon, and longer. And feelin’ as he did, is it any wonder that all his mind and heart wuz sot on this skeme of Victor’s, and all his hopes and aims pinted towards a new home, where he could take his wife and child and be free? where he felt that he could own them and own a right to make a home for ’em—a home where the American eagle, proud bird of Liberty, could nevermore tear him with her talons, or claw his trustin’ eyes out with her sharp bill? He felt this, but the eagle wuzn’t to blame—it wuz her keepers, if he had only known it. The eagle wuz in a hard place. I felt real sorry for the fowl, and have for a number of times. She has been in many a tight place before now—places where it wuz all she could do to squeeze out her wings and shake ’em a mite. Wall, Felix worked hard, and so did Hester, with this end in view—to go fur away and be at rest. Felix, after many efforts, got a place as workman on a big buildin’ that wuz bein’ put up; and Hester got a place as fine washerwoman and laundress with good wages. They lived cheap as they could, and at the time when I first hearn about ’em (from Genieve) they had got about the amount saved that Victor thought they would require. Felix wanted at least four or five hundred dollars to start with. You see, he and Victor could look ahead, which is more than some of their mother’s race can do. Felix knew he had got to have something to live on for the first year after he got to the Promised Land. He didn’t mean to pin his faith onto anybody or anything. He felt that his family’s safety and well-bein’ depended on him, and he wuz bound to labor with that end in view. And Victor wuz workin’ as hard as Felix; workin’ quietly and secretly as possible, deemin’ that the best way to avert danger from them and make success possible.