Learning to Read

Very soon the Yankee teachers

Came down and set up school;

But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,—

It was agin’ their rule.

Our masters always tried to hide

Book learning from our eyes;

Knowledge did’nt agree with slavery—

’Twould make us all too wise.

But some of us would try to steal

A little from the book.

And put the words together,

And learn by hook or crook.

I remember Uncle Caldwell,

Who took pot liquor fat

And greased the pages of his book,

And hid it in his hat.

And had his master ever seen

The leaves upon his head,

He’d have thought them greasy papers,

But nothing to be read.

And there was Mr. Turner’s Ben,

Who heard the children spell,

And picked the words right up by heart,

And learned to read ’em well.