e real work of the teacher was with the Negroes of the
South. In her prayers and public addresses they were always with her,
and in 1873 friends in Chicago made it possible for her to return to the
work of her choice. In 1877 the Woman's Baptist Home Mission Society
honored itself by giving to her its first commission.

Nine years she spent in the vicinity of New Orleans. Near Leland
University she found a small, one-room house. After buying a bed, a
table, two chairs, and a few cooking utensils, she began housekeeping.
Often she started out at six in the morning, not to return until
dark. Most frequently she read the Bible to those who could not read.
Sometimes she gave cheer to mothers busy over the washtub. Sometimes
she would teach the children to read or to sew. Often she would write
letters for those who had been separated from friends or kindred in the
dark days. She wrote hundreds and hundreds of such letters; and once in
a while, a very long while, came a response.

Most pitiful of all the objects she found in New Orleans were the old
women worn out with years of slavery. They were usually rag-pickers who
ate at night the scraps for which they had begged during the day. There
was in the city an Old Ladies' Home; but this was not for Negroes.
A house was secured and the women taken in, Joanna Moore and her
associates moving into the second story. Sometimes, very often, there
was real need; but sometimes, too, provisions came when it was not known
who sent them; money or boxes came from Northern friends who had never
seen the workers; and the little Negro children in the Sunday schools in
the city gave their pennies.

In 1878 the laborer in the Southwest started on a journey of
exploration. In Atlanta Dr. Robert at Atlanta Baptist Seminary (now
Morehouse College) gave her cheer; so did President Ware at Atlanta
University. At Benedict in Columbia she saw Dr. Goodspeed, President
Tupper at Shaw in Raleigh, and Dr. Corey in Richmond. In May she
appeared at the Baptist anniversaries, with fifteen years of missionary
achievement already behind her.

But each year brought its own sorrows and disappointments. She wanted
the Society to establish a training school for women; but to this
objection was raised. In Louisiana also it was not without danger that a
white woman attended a Negro association in 1877; and there were always
sneers and jeers. At length, however, a training school for mothers was
opened in Baton R