, easily won all his pupils, but I could never
forgive him for winning and finally eloping with his pretty assistant
teacher.

Christmas eve, 1889, I went to bed a boy. Just after breakfast the next
morning I became a man--my own man. "Sandy Claw" did not come that
night, although I had hung up my stocking, and I was feeling bad about
it. After breakfast my father called me out into the yard, where we
seated ourselves on the protruding roots of a large oak-tree, and there
he set me free.

"Son," said he, "you are nearing manhood, and you have no education;
besides, if you remain with me I will not be able to help you when you
are twenty-one. We've decided to make you free, if you'll make us one
promise--that you will educate yourself."

By that time my mother had joined the party. I cried, I know not why,
and my mother cried; even my father could not conceal his emotion. I
accepted the proposal immediately, and although we usually took
Christmas till New Year's day, my Christmas that year was then at an
end. Manhood had dawned upon me that morning. I tried to be calm, but
inwardly I was like a fish out of water.

I struck out to find work, that I might make money to go to school. One
mile across the forest brought me to a man who hired me, and promised me
$9.25 a month for nine months.

At the end of six months I came across the Tuskegee Student, published
at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. I read every line in
it. On the first page was a note: "There is an opportunity for a limited
number of able-bodied young men to enter the Tuskegee Normal and
Industrial Institute and work their way through, provided application is
made at once. Booker T. Washington, Principal."

Work their way through! I had never heard of such a thing before.
Neither had I heard of Tuskegee. I sent in my application. I did not
know how to address a letter, and so only put "Booker T. Washington" on
the envelope. Somehow he received it and gave me permission to come.

There ensued a general scramble to get ready to go by the opening of
school. I broke off relations with my employer by compromising for a
suit of clothes and $8 in money. My chum, a man of about forty years of
age, seeing the struggle I was making to get off, offered to help me, or
rather to show me how to get the money easily by stealing a few chickens
and selling them. It was a tempting bait, but against all the previous
teachings of my mother. He argued, and my