For the next several hours of that day I labored over a Greek legal dispute regarding the ownership of twenty-five oxen ravaged by the mange. Following that, Mr. Sharpe set me to chopping firewood.

I did not complain, rather inclined to split timber than to labor at case and tense beneath his sallow eye; and having fled the lesson, I took some pleasure in the coolness of the air in the yard, the monotony of lifting, settling, appraising, and striking, throwing aside, and hauling up another limb for riving.

This chore being completed, I was sent upstairs with Bono to set out new candles in the bedroom sconces; and thereafter, set to shucking sweetcorn in the kitchen. This I did not find remarkable, it often being the case due to the illness or absence of one of the younger servants that some small duties had to be performed.

Over the next days, however, the roster of tasks grew longer; and I perceived that this was to be my lot. The permanency of the arrangement was confirmed two days later when Mr. Sharpe announced that he had sold the indentures of several of our servants to other households; that those same servants must gather their few possessions and remove themselves to their new homes.

It was Mr. Sharpe’s intention that those of us who remained would do the work of those who had been sold; I was to be trained by Bono as a valet, and serve my master Mr. Sharpe at his pleasure. That gentleman believing that my education had been, up until that time, entirely lacking in any common-sensical preparation for the vocations established for men of my race, he averred that it would be a disservice to me to allow me to continue in scholarly pursuits save that of (a) Latin and (b) Greek (for these last were the substance of the experiment practiced upon me). He said it would be laughable for me to continue to study luxurious and abstract knowledge when a world of practical utility awaited my laboring hands.

Thus my studies altered forever in their essential nature as in their outward form. No longer did my teachers lay open for me the book of Nature and speak of botany and zoology; no longer was I given the works of Shakespeare and Pope to con. Instead, I spent some two hours a day in the translation of fragments from Greek and Latin; the texts being chosen for their convolution, recondite meaning, dryness, and insipidity.

I was disallowed the use of the house’s library, for fear that liberty amongst the volumes there would allow me to study and so unfairly prejudice the results of the experiment. I was forbidden to read any of the Latin volumes of history and song to which I had turned; forbidden to read narratives in English; forbidden often even the practice of my violin.

It must be thought that such a deprivation would have deeply grieved me; but curiously, it did not, for many months; and this was due to the deep regard I had for Bono, who now was commanded to teach me the ways of service.

I looked to Bono with all the adulation of a younger brother, astonished always at his wisdom and his easy knowledge of solutions to the nice problems of household management; and I was not a little awestruck by his friendly disdain for me. I would willingly have followed him through any passageway to any laboring engine, up any staircase to any senseless task, any polishing or brushing or burnishing, just to spend time in his presence, who seemed so fearless and sure in the world.

Over the next months, he taught me how to remove stains, how to ensure that leather was supple. As we had but one footman left, he taught me the niceties of waiting on guests and receding motionless when nothing more was needed. He taught me how to bait the horses. He taught me how to offer my hand to a lady without offending with forwardness. He taught me that there are taxonomies in candlesticks as subtle and arcane as those of the Lepidoptera and arachnids: He taught me that some candlesticks are to be submerged in boiling water and rubbed dry with flannel to remove tallow; some are to be shined with rotten-stone; he taught me that the silver must be lifted from the water first, before the others, and rubbed with whiting; that steel candlesticks should not be submerged in water at all, but must be massaged with oil and emery. He taught me to serve; he taught me to hide.

I remember best one of the first lessons he gave me. I walked abroad with him through the city, learning the routes by which I would have to walk when I delivered messages.

“Down there’s Mr. Byles. Up here’s Mr. Sandson. He don’t tip, even if you compliment his son’s aim with blocks. If ever you has to take something to Mr. Pettit, he’s down Foster Street. Don’t you let him start talking about the Indian Wars and the fall of Louisberg. It’ll last you ’til after the curfew, and the watchmen will snatch you for tardy and Negro.”

I nodded.

He reached inside his frock-coat, and drew forth a letter. “You know to always carry this,” he said. He handed the letter to me. It said,

Sirs —

My slave Pro Bono Gitney hath business abroad at the houses of Mr. Ogilvy and Mr. Trevor. I will thank you not to molest him in the course of his duties. This letter serving as a pass from

Your respectful servant,
Mr. Josiah Gitney

“Each time you walk alone in the city, best to have one of these. Otherwise, close to dark the watch’ll assume you’re off to explode the rum distillery or steal chickens from widows. Always — you always keep your papers on your poxy little person. Mr. Gitney, he’ll let you write them yourself.”

I nodded.

“You’re a great one for nodding,” he said. He jarred me with his elbow so I swerved and almost ran full into four slaves carrying a woman of distinction on a sedan-chair. “You got to stop nodding,” he said. “That’s what I’m telling you. Don’t nod when there ain’t a need to nod, see? You got to be blank.”

He held out the written pass. “This is what they want us to be,” he said. “They want us to be nothing but a bill of sale and a letter explaining where we is and instructions for where we go and what we do. They want us empty. They want us flat as paper. They want to be able to carry our souls in their hands, and read them out loud in court. All the time, they’re on the exploration of themselves, going on the inner journey into their own breast. But us, they want there to be nothing inside of. They want us to be writ on. They want us to be a surface. Look at me; I’m mahogany.”

I protested, “A man is known by his deeds.”

“Oh, that’s sure,” said Bono. “Just like a house is known by its deeds. The deeds say who owns it, who sold it, and who’ll be buying a new one when it gets knocked down.”