he
floor eating their breakfasts from pans and skillets, when a big black
snake, without any regard for the children, went into a hole by the
fireplace. When one of my older brothers undertook to find him and
opened this hole, he found, instead of one, four black snakes that had
been wintering in the side of the house.

There was no church or school for us in that whole section. A white man,
a Doctor Cotton, to whom I was afterward given until I should become
twenty-one years of age, sent his boys to a school which required that
they walk eight miles to it and return each day.

When I was perhaps eight years of age I remember that my mother and all
of the children went to Spring Hill to a camp-meeting; that was the
first service at which I had heard a minister. They had a Sunday-school,
and I was put into a class. The teacher gave us leaflets and asked us to
read where we found the big letter "A." This was the first and only
letter that I knew for many years. This camp-meeting was held once a
year, though at times there would be prayer-meetings among the different
families on the plantation.

My mother, being a hard-working woman and knowing the value of keeping
children busy, compelled every one of us to work in some way around the
house or on the farm. I know of no lesson which she taught me and which
has been of more value to me than that of "doing with your might what
your hands find to do." It was a rule of her household that we should
not go to bed without having water in the house. The water had to be
brought from a spring a mile and a half away. I remember clearly how one
night one of my brothers and myself tried to deceive her; how we secured
some not overclear water from a hole near-by our home, and how she
pitched it out and sent us the whole distance to the spring. Although
this was many years ago, I now see, more and more, what it means to go
all the way to the real spring, and I thank her memory for the lesson.

When I was about ten years of age the same Doctor Cotton of whom I have
spoken came to my grandmother's to hire one of the boys to mind the
bars, as the teams were hauling corn to the barn and the drivers did not
want to put them up each time. I was delighted to be the chosen one of
the two. My first chance to earn money was thus offered.

I stayed there every day from sunrise to sunset for a little more than
three weeks, and it was a happy day when Doctor Cotton requested all
hands to come up