t beauteous dyes are spread!
But the west glories in the deepest red;
So may our breasts with every virtue glow
The living temples of our God below!
Filled with the praise of him who gave the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers soothe each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heaven'ly, more refin'd.
So shall the labors of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.
Nights' leaden sceptor seal my drowsy eyes,
When cease my song, till fair Aurora rise.

GOING TO SCHOOL UNDER DIFFICULTIES

WILLIAM H. HOLTZCLAW

When I was four years old I was put to work on the farm,--that is, at
such work as I could do, such as riding a deaf and blind mule while my
brother held the plow. When I was six years old my four-year-old brother
and I had to go two miles through a lonely forest every morning in order
to carry my father's breakfast and dinner to a sawmill, where he was
hauling logs for sixty cents a day. The white man, Frank Weathers, who
employed a large number of hands, both Negroes and whites, was
considered one of the best and most upright men in that section of the
country.

In those days there were no public schools in that part of the country
for the Negroes. Indeed, public schools for whites were just beginning
to be established. This man set aside a little house in the neighborhood
of the sawmill, employed a teacher, and urged all the Negroes to send
their children to this school. Not a great many of them, however, took
advantage of his generosity, for this was at the time when everybody
seemed to think that the Negro's only hope was in politics.

But my father and mother had great faith in education, and they were
determined that their children should have that blessing of which they
themselves had been deprived.

Soon, however, Mr. Weathers had cut all the timber that he could get in
that section, and he therefore moved his mills to another district. This
left us without a school. But my father was not to be outdone. He called
a meeting of the men in that community, and they agreed to build a
schoolhouse themselves. They went to the forest and cut pine poles about
eight inches in diameter, split them in halves, and carried them on
their shoulders to a nice shady spot, and there erected a little
schoolhouse. The benches were made of the same material, and there was
no floor nor chimney. Some of the other boys' tr