in
Malden, West Virginia, to spend my vacation. When I reached home I found
that the salt-furnaces were not running, and that the coal-mine was not
being operated on account of the miners being out on "strike." This was
something which, it seemed, usually occurred whenever the men got two or
three months ahead in their savings. During the strike, of course, they
spent all that they had saved, and would often return to work in debt at
the same wages, or would move to another mine at considerable expense.
In either case, my observations convinced me that the miners were worse
off at the end of the strike. Before the days of strikes in that section
of the country, I knew miners who had considerable money in the bank,
but as soon as the professional labour agitators got control, the
savings of even the more thrifty ones began disappearing.

My mother and the other members of my family were, of course, much
rejoiced to see me and to note the improvement that I had made during
my two years' absence. The rejoicing on the part of all classes of the
coloured people, and especially the older ones, over my return, was
almost pathetic. I had to pay a visit to each family and take a meal
with each, and at each place tell the story of my experiences at
Hampton. In addition to this I had to speak before the church and
Sunday-school, and at various other places. The thing that I was most in
search of, though, work, I could not find. There was no work on account
of the strike. I spent nearly the whole of the first month of my
vacation in an effort to find something to do by which I could earn
money to pay my way back to Hampton and save a little money to use after
reaching there.

Toward the end of the first month, I went to a place a considerable
distance from my home, to try to find employment. I did not succeed, and
it was night before I got started on my return. When I had gotten within
a mile or so of my home I was so completely tired out that I could not
walk any farther, and I went into an old, abandoned house to spend the
remainder of the night. About three o'clock in the morning my brother
John found me asleep in this house, and broke to me, as gently as he
could, the sad news that our dear mother had died during the night.

This seemed to me the saddest and blankest moment in my life. For
several years my mother had not been in good health, but I had no idea,
when I parted from her the previous day, that I should never see h