“Good-by, sir,” says I; “I won’t let no runaway niggers get by me if I can help it.”

They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t no use for me to try to learn to do right; a body that don’t get started right when he’s little ain’t got no show — when the pinch comes there ain’t nothing to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat.

Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s’pose you’d ’a’ done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad — I’d feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right when it’s