ving any thoughts about anything,
I recall that I had an intense longing to learn to read. I determined,
when quite a small child, that, if I accomplished nothing else in life,
I would in some way get enough education to enable me to read common
books and newspapers. Soon after we got settled in some manner in our
new cabin in West Virginia, I induced my mother to get hold of a book
for me. How or where she got it I do not know, but in some way she
procured an old copy of Webster's "blue-back" spelling-book, which
contained the alphabet, followed by such meaningless words as "ab,"
"ba," "ca," "da." I began at once to devour this book, and I think that
it was the first one I ever had in my hands. I had learned from somebody
that the way to begin to read was to learn the alphabet, so I tried
in all the ways I could think of to learn it,--all of course without a
teacher, for I could find no one to teach me. At that time there was not
a single member of my race anywhere near us who could read, and I was
too timid to approach any of the white people. In some way, within a few
weeks, I mastered the greater portion of the alphabet. In all my efforts
to learn to read my mother shared fully my ambition, and sympathized
with me and aided me in every way that she could. Though she was totally
ignorant, she had high ambitions for her children, and a large fund of
good, hard, common sense, which seemed to enable her to meet and master
every situation. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel
sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.

In the midst of my struggles and longing for an education, a young
coloured boy who had learned to read in the state of Ohio came to
Malden. As soon as the coloured people found out that he could read, a
newspaper was secured, and at the close of nearly every day's work
this young man would be surrounded by a group of men and women who were
anxious to hear him read the news contained in the papers. How I used to
envy this man! He seemed to me to be the one young man in all the world
who ought to be satisfied with his attainments.

About this time the question of having some kind of a school opened for
the coloured children in the village began to be discussed by members
of the race. As it would be the first school for Negro children that had
ever been opened in that part of Virginia, it was, of course, to be a
great event, and the discussion excited the wildest interest. The m