, and took refuge
in a shed used for the storing of railroad iron. The next morning I
overheard two colored men, who were on their way to get meat ready for
the town-market two miles away, talking. I joined these men, and sought
employment along with them, but they soon learned that I knew nothing of
"butchering." However, the owner of the pen, who had a large garden,
gave me a trial, and I remained with him for three years.

After I was there a little more than a year my work was to plant and
care for the small seeds. This man, Mr. Nady Sims, was a good man, and I
had no cause for leaving him except that of wishing to get a place to
earn more money, that I might help care for my mother and her smaller
children.

I went next to a brick-yard, where I received fifty cents per day. There
were three boys at each "table," and we had to "off-bear" 5,500 bricks,
the task for each day. This was indeed hard work.

Drifting into hotel work, I soon acquired the habit of most of those who
are engaged in such work: I spent all I earned for fine clothes.

During my stay on the vegetable farm I boarded at the home of one of the
young men previously referred to, whose sister, Mary Clinton, who has
since become my wife and devoted assistant, one day heard a woman say
she knew of a school in Alabama where boys and girls could work for
their education, and that she was going to send her boy to that school.
This thought remained in her mind for some months, and she decided to go
to Tuskegee, though her brothers and sisters discouraged the idea,
feeling, as they said, that if she went to this unknown place her whole
life would be a failure.

She reached Tuskegee in September, 1885, at a time when there was but
one building. She worked in many places while there, including the
laundry, the teachers' dining-room, the sewing division, with Principal
Washington's family, as well as with the families of other teachers. On
account of poor health, especially because of throat trouble, she was
compelled to return home at the end of five years without graduating.

No sooner had she reached home again than she began a crusade for
Tuskegee. I was then twenty-one years of age, had never had a day's
schooling, and could read but very little. I proposed marriage to Miss
Clinton as soon as she returned, but she replied: "You do not know
anything except about hotel work. I have been to Tuskegee and see the
need of your knowing something. I also need