hoolmate.

Early, after throwing off my wildness, I realized the need and the
advantage of possessing an education, and, having such excellent
facilities at hand, determined to become educated, and diligently
pursued that object. Just as I was about to enter the eighth grade,
however, I had to give up going to school, and go to work.

I secured employment with a wood-engraving firm as general office- and
errand-boy. My wages were $2.50 a week. About fifty cents of this sum I
spent each week for car-fare and incidentals. As I lived three miles
from my work it would have been necessary for me to spend my whole
allowance for car-fare had I not stolen rides on railroad trains. I
often wonder now how I could have jumped on and off swift-moving trains,
day after day, without receiving some serious injury. Surely Providence
must have protected me in my endeavor to save my scanty earnings. My
clothing did not cost much, as I was the "happy" recipient of the
cast-off clothes of the older members of the family.

My work was agreeable and my employer was generously sympathetic.
Realizing that wood-engraving and illustrating would offer remunerative
employment, I sought to learn the trade, but was told that I would have
to serve an apprenticeship of six months without pay; that precluded all
hope of learning that trade.

Manhood approached before I was prepared to do anything. I did not earn
much in my youth, and could not expect to earn much in manhood without
preparation. I then resolved to enter school again, but the expense of a
thorough course was an apparently insurmountable obstacle. I had been
unable to save much from my meager allowance. I had heard of the
Tuskegee Institute and of the opportunities there offered to poor young
men and women. I decided to enter that school. A friend helped me to
purchase an excursion ticket to Atlanta, Ga., where was being held the
Cotton-States and International Exposition. I left Chicago in November,
and after two days spent in Atlanta with relatives and in seeing the
sights, I exchanged my return coupon for a ticket to Tuskegee.

I arrived at Chehaw, the station where passengers transfer for Tuskegee,
and taking passage in a wagonette, a crude substitute for our modern
means of interurban transit--the little train was not running on that
day--we drove through a picturesque country abounding in woods, vales,
and cultivated fields, occasionally coming across landmarks of
antebellum da