ons as being in verity an inferno on earth. A
broader knowledge of the causes which operated to produce the cheerless
life against which my child-nature rebelled, and a clearer insight into
the possibilities of rural life, have altered this early impression; and
to-day I find myself thinking some thoughts relative to the life lived
near to nature's heart which are not at all complimentary to the bustle
and selfishness of city life.

The death of my mother furnished the opportunity to leave the farm and
go to a city; and I took advantage of this, going to Vicksburg, Miss.,
to live with an older sister. I had always desired to go to school, and
had spent four terms of six months each in the country school near my
home; but for some reason, which I can not now remember, I attended the
city school in Vicksburg but one year, after which I was employed as a
cake-baker's assistant and bread-wagon driver. A short time before this
I was a house-boy in the city. I was, at the time of my employment in
the bakery, an omnivorous reader of the newspapers, and, in fact, of all
kinds of literature; but my hours of labor at both places were so long
and incessant that I found it almost impossible to do any reading during
my employment at either place.

Finally I saw and took advantage of an opportunity to secure employment
with the drug firm of W. H. Jones & Brother; and I count my work in this
store, and with these gentlemen as employers, as the turning-point in my
life, because there my work demanded some intelligence above the
average. I had some chance to study, and in addition, when it was found
by these white men that I loved to read, all magazines, newspapers, and
drug journals, not needed by the firm and the physicians whose offices
were with them, were given to me. I never make any mention of my life in
Vicksburg without mentioning, in particular, Mr. W. H. Jones; for not
only was he a kind and considerate employer, but I learned from his
actions that a white man could be kind and interested in a Negro--a fact
which no amount of reasoning could have driven into my stubborn
understanding previous to that time.

There came a time when I learned that at the Tuskegee Institute, in
Alabama, any poor Negro boy who was willing to work could pay for all
his education in labor. To hear was to act. I wrote to Mr. Washington,
asking if my information was correct. The affirmative answer came at
once. It was the middle of August, and schoo