on of a very few dollars, and so I
had very little with which to buy clothes and pay my travelling expenses.
My brother John helped me all that he could, but of course that was not a
great deal, for his work was in the coal-mine, where he did not earn much,
and most of what he did earn went in the direction of paying the household
expenses.

Perhaps the thing that touched and pleased me most in connection with my
starting for Hampton was the interest that many of the older coloured
people took in the matter. They had spent the best days of their lives in
slavery, and hardly expected to live to see the time when they would see a
member of their race leave home to attend a boarding-school. Some of these
older people would give me a nickel, others a quarter, or a handkerchief.

Finally the great day came, and I started for Hampton. I had only a small,
cheap satchel that contained what few articles of clothing I could get. My
mother at the time was rather weak and broken in health. I hardly expected
to see her again, and thus our parting was all the more sad. She, however,
was very brave through it all. At that time there were no through trains
connecting that part of West Virginia with eastern Virginia. Trains ran
only a portion of the way, and the remainder of the distance was travelled
by stagecoaches.

The distance from Malden to Hampton is about five hundred miles. I had not
been away from home many hours before it began to grow painfully evident
that I did not have enough money to pay my fare to Hampton. One experience
I shall long remember. I had been travelling over the mountains most of the
afternoon in an old-fashioned stage-coach, when, late in the evening, the
coach stopped for the night at a common, unpainted house called a hotel.
All the other passengers except myself were whites. In my ignorance I
supposed that the little hotel existed for the purpose of accommodating the
passengers who travelled on the stage-coach. The difference that the colour
of one's skin would make I had not thought anything about. After all the
other passengers had been shown rooms and were getting ready for supper, I
shyly presented myself before the man at the desk. It is true I had
practically no money in my pocket with which to pay for bed or food, but I
had hoped in some way to beg my way into the good graces of the landlord,
for at that season in the mountains of Virginia the weather was cold, and I
wanted to get indoors for the