ne, I happened to overhear two miners
talking about a great school for colored people somewhere in Virginia.
This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of
school or college that was more pretentious than the little colored school
in our town.

In the darkness of the mine I noiselessly crept as close as I could to the
two men talking. I heard one tell the other that not only was the school
established for the members of my race, but that opportunities were
provided by which poor but worthy students could work out all or a part of
the cost of board, and at the same time be taught some trade or industry.

As they went on describing the school, it seemed to me that it must be
the greatest place on earth, and not even Heaven presented more
attractions for me at that time than did the Hampton Normal and
Agricultural Institute of Virginia, about which these men were talking. I
resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where it
was, or how many miles away, or how I was going to reach it; I remembered
only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and that was to go
to Hampton. This thought was with me day and night.

In the fall of 1872, I determined to make an effort to get there,
although, as I have stated, I had no definite idea of the direction in
which Hampton was, or of what it would cost to go there. I do not think
that anyone thoroughly sympathized with me in my ambition to go to
Hampton, unless it was my mother, and she was troubled with a grave fear
that I was starting out on a wild-goose chase. At any rate, I got only a
half-hearted consent from her that I might start. The small amount of
money that I had earned had been consumed by my step-father and the
remainder of the family, with the exception of a very few dollars, and so
I had very little with which to buy clothes and pay my traveling expenses.

Finally, the great day came and I started for Hampton. I had only a small,
cheap satchel that contained what few articles of clothing I could get. My
mother, at the time, was rather weak and broken in health. I hardly
expected to see her again, and thus our parting was all the more sad. She,
however, was very brave through it all. At that time there were no through
trains connecting that part of West Virginia with eastern Virginia. Trains
ran only a portion of the way, and the remainder of the distance was
traveled by stage-coaches.

The distance from Malden to