student in the great school at Nashville, hovered like a star above this
child woman amid her work and worry, and she studied doggedly. There
were the Dowells from their farm over toward Alexandria: Fanny, with her
smooth black face and wondering eyes; Martha, brown and dull; the pretty
girl wife of a brother, and the younger brood. There were the Burkes,
two brown and yellow lads, and a tiny haughty-eyed girl. Fat Reuben's
little chubby girl came, with golden face and old gold hair, faithful
and solemn. 'Thenie was on hand early,--a jolly, ugly, good-hearted
girl, who slyly dipped snuff and looked after her little bow-legged
brother. When her mother could spare her, 'Tildy came,--a midnight
beauty, with starry eyes and tapering limbs; and her brother,
correspondingly homely. And then the big boys: the hulking Lawrences;
the lazy Neills, unfathered sons of mother and daughter; Hickman, with a
stoop in his shoulders; and the rest.

There they sat, nearly thirty of them, on the rough benches, their faces
shading from a pale cream to a deep brown, the little feet bare and
swinging, the eyes full of expectation, with here and there a twinkle
of mischief, and the hands grasping Webster's blue-back spelling-book.
I loved my school, and the fine faith the children had in the wisdom of
their teacher was truly marvelous. We read and spelled together, wrote
a little, picked flowers, sang, and listened to stories of the world
beyond the hill. At times the school would dwindle away, and I would
start out. I would visit Mun Eddings, who lived in two very dirty rooms,
and ask why little Lugene, whose flaming face seemed ever ablaze with
the dark red hair uncombed, was absent all last week, or why I missed
so often the inimitable rags of Mack and Ed. Then the father, who worked
Colonel Wheeler's farm on shares, would tell me how the crops needed the
boys; and the thin, slovenly mother, whose face was pretty when washed,
assured me that Lugene must mind the baby. "But we'll start them again
next week." When the Lawrences stopped, I knew that the doubts of the
old folks about book-learning had conquered again, and so, toiling up
the hill, and getting as far into the cabin as possible, I put Cicero
pro Archia Poeta into the simplest English with local applications, and
usually convinced them--for a week or so.

On Friday nights I often went home with some of the children; sometimes
to Doc Burke's farm. He was a great, loud, thin Black,