William Wells Brown
My fair complexion was a
great obstacle to my happiness, both with whites and blacks, in and about the
great house. Often mistaken by strangers for a white boy, it annoyed my
mistress very much. On one occasion, a visitor came to the place in the absence
of the doctor. While Mrs. Young was entertaining the major (for he was a
military man), I passed through the room, and going near the stranger, he put
out his hand and said to me, "How do you do, bub?" and turning to the
lady, he exclaimed, "Madam, I would have known that he was the doctor's
son, if I had met him in California, for he is so much like his papa."
Mistress ordered me out of the room, and remarked that I was one of the
servants, when the major begged pardon for the mistake. After the stranger was
gone, I was flogged for his blunder.
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