rhood and took up a school. And they called me "Lazy Bill." I
couldn't understand why, for I am sure that I attended to my duties,
that I played town ball with the boys, that I even cut wood all day one
Saturday; but confound them, they called me lazy. I spoke to one of the
trustees; I called his attention to the fact that I worked hard, and he
replied that the hardest working man he had ever seen was a lazy fellow
who worked merely as a "blind." To sleep after the sun rises is a great
crime in the country, and sometimes I sat up so late with my books that
I had to be called twice for breakfast. And no amount of work could have
offset this ignominy. I taught school during three years, and found at
the end of that time that I was no nearer a lawyer's office. Once I
called on an old judge, the leading lawyer in a neighboring village, and
told him that if he would take me I would work for my clothes, and the
humorous old rascal, surveying me, replied: "I have not contemplated the
starting of a woolen mill. Why don't you go to work?" he asked. I told
him that I was at work, that I taught school, but that I wanted to be a
lawyer. He laughed and said that teaching school was not work--declared
it to be the refuge of the lazy and the shiftless. I then ventured to
remark that the South would continue to be backward as long as the
educator was put down as a piece of worthless rubbish. I went away, and
a few days later one of the trustees called on me and said that I had
declared their children to be ignorant rubbish, and that therefore they
wanted my services no longer. I returned home. My brothers were gone,
and my parents were in feeble health. My father died within a year, and
soon my mother followed him. The farm was poor and was mortgaged, and
empty-handed I turned away. I heard that a school teacher was wanted up
in North Carolina, near the Tennessee line, and I decided to apply for
the place. I walked to the railway station, twenty miles distant. I have
said that I went away empty-handed. I did not; I carried a trunk, light
with clothes and heavy with books. I had put my trunk on the railway
platform and was striding up and down when I saw two men, well-dressed,
rich-looking, standing near. This amounted to nothing, and I would not
mention it but for the fact that it was at this moment that I received
my first encouragement. One of the men, speaking to his companion,
remarked: "Devilish fine-looking fellow. I'd give a great