geography and knew
something about South America and Africa; and my teacher did not tell
me. My teacher at this time was a good man, but that was all. Many of my
teachers knew very little, but I thought they knew everything, and that
was sufficient, for their teaching was wholesome. I remember one or two,
however, whose work, under the circumstances, would be hard to match
even now.

As soon as I was old enough I was hired out for wages, to help support
the family. My school opportunities were now almost gone, and for this
reason, together with a desire for more excitement, I began to grow
restless on the farm. I grew morose. I pulled myself loose from all
public functions, ceased to attend any public meetings, save regular
monthly church meetings, and betook me to the woods, where I read
everything I could get. It was during this time that accidentally, I
may say providentially, I got hold of a book containing the life of
Ignacius Sancho; and I have never read anything that has given me more
inspiration. I wish every Negro boy in the land might read it. I read
and worked, and helped to support the family. I had vowed that as soon
as I was twenty-one I would leave for some school and there stay until I
was educated. I was already a little in advance of the young people in
my community, so I spent my long winter evenings teaching a little
night-school to which the young people of the neighborhood came.

All my life up to this time my father had been working as a tenant. He
now determined to strike out for himself--buy stock and rent land. The
mule he bought soon became hopelessly lame in the back. It was a
peculiar sort of illness. Once upon his feet, he could work all day
without difficulty, but when he lay down at night he had to be helped up
the following morning. During that entire season the first thing I heard
each morning was the voice of my father, "Children, children, get up!
let's go and help up the old mule." A neighbor also was called in each
morning to help. Toward the end of the season the school opened. We were
so anxious to enter, that we determined to help the old mule. My
brother and I hitched ourselves to the plow, and sister did the plowing.
Early each morning we plowed in this way, and soon finished the crop and
entered the little school.

My father and some others had built a little school out of pine poles
which they had cut, and hauled to the spot on their shoulders. The
teacher, a married man