rned from
somebody that the way to begin to read was to learn the alphabet, so I
tried in all the ways I could think of to learn it--all of course
without a teacher, for I could find no one to teach me. At that time
there was not a single member of my race anywhere near us who could
read, and I was too timid to approach any of the white people. In some
way, within a few weeks, I mastered the greater portion of the
alphabet. In all my efforts to learn to read my mother shared fully my
ambition and sympathized with me and aided me in every way that she
could. Though she was totally ignorant, so far as mere book knowledge
was concerned, she had high ambitions for her children, and a large
fund of good, hard common sense which seemed to enable her to meet and
master every situation. If I have done anything in life worth
attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my
mother. . . .

The opening of the school in the Kanawha Valley brought to me one of
the keenest disappointments that I ever experienced. I had been
working in a salt furnace for several months, and my stepfather had
discovered that I had a financial value, and so, when the school
opened, he decided that he could not spare me from my work. This
decision seemed to cloud my every ambition. The disappointment was
made all the more severe by reason of the fact that my place of work
was where I could see the happy children passing to and from school,
morning and afternoons. Despite this disappointment, however, I
determined that I would learn something, anyway. I applied myself with
greater earnestness than ever to the mastering of what was in the
"blue-back" speller.

My mother sympathized with me in my disappointment, and sought to
comfort me in all the ways she could, and to help me find a way to
learn. After a while I succeeded in making arrangements with the
teacher to give me some lessons at night, after the day's work was
done. These night lessons were so welcome that I think I learned more
at night than the other children did during the day. My own
experiences in the night school gave me faith in the night-school idea,
with which, in after years, had to do both at Hampton and Tuskegee.
But my boyish heart was still set upon going to the day school, and I
let no opportunity slip to push my case. Finally I won, and was
permitted to go to the school in the day for a few months, with the
understanding that I was to rise early in t