 dreamscape presents box Henry Brown mails himself to freedom by Carol Boston Weatherford narrated by Dion Graham geometry how many sides to a box I was born about 45 miles from the city of Richmond in Louisa County in the year 1815 I entered the world a slave in the midst of a country whose most honored writings declare that all men have a right to liberty I was a slave because my countrymen had made it lawful in utter contempt of the declared will of heaven for the strong to lay hold of the weak and to buy and to sell them as marketable goods from narrative of the life of Henry box Brown written by himself 1851 wind and autumn breeze blows maple leaves while I sit on my mother's lap slavery is a cruel wind she says sweeping children away from parents scattering families far and wide she shivers and holds me close work like my seven sisters and brothers I am put to work as a child first serving my master and mistress then learning plantation chores in the hot sun every few months I trudge 20 miles with my brother carrying grain to the mill brutality treks to market take my brother and me past plantations where we encounter other blacks some shoeless coatless nearly skin and bone in burlap shirts and threadbare pants we share our bread and meet with them in the slave quarter they recount the savage beating that many of them got for having been baptized just the night before split I am 15 when my master dies and wills my family to his four sons my parents brothers sisters and I flung apart as if dandelion puffs I land in the young masters Richmond tobacco factory he warns the overseer to never whip me sample complete ready to continue