as the
place and Hampton was the name of the man, he could not make out, but he
clung to the names.

Here was a school for colored people--he would go there! That night he
told his mother about it. She laughed, patted his kinky head, and
indulged him in his dream.

She was only a poor black woman; she could not spell ab, nor count to
ten, but she had a plan for her boy--he would some day be a preacher.

This was the very height of her imagination--a preacher! Beyond this
there was nothing in human achievement. The night-school came after a
day of fourteen hours' work. Little Booker sat on a bench, his feet
dangling about a foot from the floor. As he sat there one night trying
hard to drink in knowledge, he went to sleep. He nodded, braced up,
nodded again, and then pitched over in a heap on the floor, to the great
amusement of the class, and his own eternal shame.

The next day, however, as he was feeling very sorrowful over his sad
experience, he heard that Mrs. Ruffner wanted a boy for general work at
the big house.

Here was a chance. Mrs. Ruffner was a Vermont Yankee, which meant that
she had a great nose for dirt, and would not stand for a "sassy nigger."
Her reputation had gone abroad, and of how she pinched the ears of her
"help," and got them up at exactly a certain hour, and made them use
soap and water at least once a day, and even compelled them to use a
toothbrush; all this was history, well defined.

Booker said he could please her, even if she was a Yankee. He applied
for the job and got it, with wages fixed at a dollar a week, with a
promise of twenty-five cents extra every week, if he did his work
without talking back and breaking a tray of dishes.

* * * * *

"Genius! No hovel is safe from it!" says Whistler.

Genius consists in doing the right thing without being told more than
three times.

Booker silently studied the awful Yankee woman to see what she really
wanted. He finally decided that she desired her servants to have clean
skins, fairly neat clothing, do things promptly, finish the job and keep
still when they had nothing to say.

He set himself to please her--and he did.

She loaned him books, gave him a lead-pencil, and showed him how to
write with a pen without smearing his hands and face with ink.

He told her of his dream and asked about Armstrong and Hampton. She told
him that Armstrong was the man and Hampton the place.

At last he got her