Douglass lived with Hugh Auld for seven years. During some of those years, Hugh and Sophia treated Douglass less humanely, though not without some difficulty. Tommy, after all, loved Frederick, and so did Sophia. Hugh finally got his wife to see things from his side (not encouraging Douglass), but not without the consequence of losing a degree of domestic peace. Worse, his wife lost some of the qualities of goodness that had distinguished her. She soon became convinced that enslavement and education were incompatible. Though she relentlessly pursued Douglass to ensure that he did not have much alone time, and snatched books and newspapers out of his hand, she had already taught him too much to extinguish his curiosity.

Douglass began carrying a Webster’s dictionary. During playtime, he would give his white friends bread in exchange for a spelling lesson. Sometimes, he would confess to them his wish to be free and assert that he had as much of a right to freedom as they did. They all agreed with him. By the time he was 13, Douglass knew how to read. He had saved up enough money to buy the Columbian Orator. In it, he read a dialogue between an enslaver and an enslaved person in which the former charged the latter with ingratitude before allowing the enslaved person to speak on his own behalf.