y,
one rainy morning I secured work at a freight-house.

It was my lot to go first up the wet, steep, and slippery gang-plank.
Not being used to such a task, I fell, the truck with 350 pounds
narrowly escaping me. I got up and made a second attempt to carry my
load, and with success. I had been there two months when the agent
wanted some new shelves built in the storehouse. He told one of his
employees to go for a carpenter. He replied, "This man Calhoun can do
any such work you want done." The agent had me get my tools and do the
work. A few days afterward he wanted a first-class cook to prepare and
serve a special Christmas dinner. The same employee told him, "Calhoun
can do it."

The motto of my class was, "We Conquer by Labor."

On April 29, 1897, both Miss Clinton and myself were called to a school
in South Carolina, and in a simple way, with $50 saved, we married and
boarded the train for our new field of labor. After giving up our work
and reaching Sanford, 125 miles away, we received a letter asking us to
defer our coming until the following October.

This was a very, very sad disappointment and trial to us. It was two
weeks before the State examinations would be held. We prepared as best
we could, and as a result of the examination we were sent to Eatonville,
Fla., to take charge of the public school there. Eatonville is a Negro
town with colored officers, a colored postmaster, and colored merchants.
There is not a single white person living within the incorporated city;
it promises to be a unique community. It is situated near the center of
Orange county, six miles from Orlando, the county seat, and is two miles
from the Seaboard Air-Line Railroad, and one and one-half miles from the
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.

It was said by the late Bishop H. B. Whipple, of Wisconsin--whose winter
home for a number of years was a half mile from this place--who had
helped the people of this community, and who was a constant helper and
adviser to my wife and me in our work until his death, that you might
travel the whole State over and not find a more healthy place. We were
here but a few days when we decided that this was the place for us to
begin putting into practise the lessons taught us at Tuskegee. We felt
that we wanted to do something toward helping our people. We decided to
cast our lot permanently at Eatonville.

Our first "industrial" service was done with the aid of the school
children: we cleaned the str