“I found out afterward that even then he could read and write. Mr. Covey had him help with the accounts.” “It’s just too incredible. That man from the Eastern Shore!” Mrs. Royall spoke precisely. “Young man, when you’re my age you’ll know that it’s the incredible things which make life wonderful.” And Amelia added, “There couldn’t be two Fredericks--turned from the same mold!” CHAPTER EIGHT _On two sides of the Atlantic_ Many people would have shared Jack’s reluctance to believe Amelia’s story. As time passed the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society found itself caught in a dilemma. The committee knew all the facts of Frederick’s case; but for his protection the members took every precaution, withholding the name of the state and county from which he had come, his master’s name and any other detail which might lead to his capture. Even so they realized that they must be constantly on guard. But the audiences began to murmur that this Frederick Douglass could not be a “fugitive from slavery.” During the first three or four months Frederick’s speeches had been almost exclusively made up of narrations of his own personal experiences as a slave. “Give us the facts,” said Secretary Collins. “We’ll take care of the philosophy.” “Tell your story, Frederick,” Garrison would whisper as his protégé stepped upon the platform. And Frederick, smiling his devotion to the older man, always followed the injunction. But Frederick was growing in stature. Scholars’ libraries were thrown open to him. Theodore Parker had sixteen thousand volumes; his library covered the entire third floor of his house. “Come up any time, Frederick. Books, my boy, were written to be read.” And Frederick reveled in Thomas Jefferson, Carlyle, Edmund Burke, Tom Paine, John Quincy Adams, Jonathan Swift, William Godwin. He became drunk on books; staggering home late at night, his eyes red, he would fall heavily across his bed. He pored over the newspapers from all parts of the country which Garrison gathered in the _Liberator_ office; he sat at the feet of the greatest orators of the day--Wendell Phillips, Charles Redmond, Theodore Parker among them. He munched sandwiches and listened, while John Whittier read his verses; and always the young fugitive from slavery followed in the wake of William Lloyd Garrison, devouring his words, tapping his sources of wisdom, attuning his ears to every pitch of the loved voice. Frederick’s speeches began to expand in content, logic and delivery. “People won’t believe you ever were a slave, Frederick, if you keep on this way,” cautioned Collins. But Garrison shook his head. “Let him alone!” he said.