write, but he helps the
school and church.

J. C. Calloway was born near us. He graduated from Tuskegee, and has
continued to work near his old home. He married James Whitlow's
daughter. He has a very good two-room frame house. Mr. Whitlow gave them
40 acres of land, and he is trying to buy an additional 100 acres. He
raised 17 bales of cotton this year and 150 bushels of corn. He has 4
horses and mules and 7 head of cattle, besides hogs, chickens, etc. He
is very highly thought of in his school work, and is successful as a
farmer.

I believe we are doing well. Our community is rated high, and I shall
never fail to praise Tuskegee for starting us in the way we are going.

VI

THE STORY OF A CARPENTER

BY GABRIEL B. MILLER

The plantation on which I was born in 1875 is located near Pleasant
Hill, Ga. At that time Pleasant Hill was twenty miles from any railroad,
and I did not see a railroad train till I was twelve years of age.

I lived on a plantation on which more than two hundred men and women
worked for the owner. The children had no especial educational
opportunities. Few of them were even permitted to attend the makeshift
public school located near. For six months only, of the twelve years my
father lived on that plantation, did I attend any school, and that a
small one taught by a Southern white woman who had owned my father. When
I was twelve years of age my father moved from the plantation on which
he had been working "on shares" and rented land which he and his family
cultivated. Soon there were thirteen children in his family, of which
number I was the second.

In December, 1892, I drove a wagon with two bales of cotton to a little
Georgia town. While waiting for the wagon preceding me to move off the
scales on which the cotton was weighed, I heard a colored man, who had
heard of Tuskegee Institute, telling of its advantages, and he quite
glowingly recounted the glories of the place as they had been related to
him. As he proceeded he informed those gathered about him that at this
school a boy could work his way if perchance he could reach the
institution. I got nearer to him and heard and treasured every word he
said. Especially did I remember his statement that he had been informed
that some of the boys graduating from there had not paid a single cent
in cash for their education, having worked it all out.

When I reached home that night I told my father of what I had heard. For
three succe