eneral
Ruffner, was a "Yankee" woman from Vermont. Mrs. Ruffner had a
reputation all through the vicinity for being very strict with her
servants, and especially with the boys who tried to serve her. Few of
them remained with her more than two or three weeks. They all left with
the same excuse: she was too strict. I decided, however, that I would
rather try Mrs. Ruffner's house than remain in the coal-mine, and so my
mother applied to her for the vacant position. I was hired at a salary
of $5 per month.

I had heard so much about Mrs. Ruffner's severity that I was almost
afraid to see her, and trembled when I went into her presence. I had not
lived with her many weeks, however, before I began to understand her. I
soon began to learn that, first of all, she wanted everything kept clean
about her, that she wanted things done promptly and systematically,
and that at the bottom of everything she wanted absolute honesty and
frankness. Nothing must be sloven or slipshod; every door, every fence,
must be kept in repair.

I cannot now recall how long I lived with Mrs. Ruffner before going to
Hampton, but I think it must have been a year and a half. At any rate,
I here repeat what I have said more than once before, that the lessons
that I learned in the home of Mrs. Ruffner were as valuable to me as any
education I have ever gotten anywhere else. Even to this day I never see
bits of paper scattered around a house or in the street that I do not
want to pick them up at once. I never see a filthy yard that I do not
want to clean it, a paling off of a fence that I do not want to put it
on, an unpainted or unwhitewashed house that I do not want to paint or
whitewash it, or a button off one's clothes, or a grease-spot on them or
on a floor, that I do not want to call attention to it.

From fearing Mrs. Ruffner I soon learned to look upon her as one of
my best friends. When she found that she could trust me she did so
implicitly. During the one or two winters that I was with her she
gave me an opportunity to go to school for an hour in the day during a
portion of the winter months, but most of my studying was done at night,
sometimes alone, sometimes under some one whom I could hire to teach me.
Mrs. Ruffner always encouraged and sympathized with me in all my efforts
to get an education. It was while living with her that I began to get
together my first library. I secured a dry-goods box, knocked out one
side of it, put some shelves