no supper last night nor dinner
yesterday!"

"Well, I reckoned as much. Now you take this quarter and go over to that
stand and buy you a drumstick, a cup of coffee and two fried cakes!"

The lad didn't need urging. He took the money in his palm, went over to
the man who the night before had called him a lazy nigger, and showing
the silver, picked out his piece of chicken.

The man hastened to wait on him, and said it was a fine day and hoped he
was well.

* * * * *

Arriving at Hampton, this colored boy, who had tramped the long, weary
miles, stood abashed before the big brick building which he knew was
Hampton Institute.

He was so little--the place was so big--by what right could he ask to be
admitted?

Finally he boldly entered, and in a voice meant to be firm, but which
was very shaky, said, "I am here!" and pointed to the bosom of his
hickory shirt.

The Yankee woman motioned him to a chair. Negroes coming there were
plentiful. Usually they wanted to live the Ideal Life. They had a call
to preach--and the girls wanted to be music-teachers.

The test was simple and severe: would they and could they do one useful
piece of work well?

Booker sat and waited, not knowing that his patience was being put to
the test.

Then Miss Priscilla, in a hard, Neill Burgess voice, "guessed" that the
adjoining recitation-room needed sweeping and dusting. She handed Booker
a broom and dust-cloth, motioned to the room, and went away.

Oho! Little did she know her lad. The colored boy smiled to
himself--sweeping and dusting were his specialties--he had learned the
trade from a Yankee woman from Vermont! He smiled.

Then he swept that room--moved every chair, the table, the desk. He
dusted each piece of furniture four times. He polished each rung and
followed around the baseboard on hands and knees.

Miss Priscilla came back--pushed the table around and saw at once that
the dirt had not been concealed beneath it. She took out her
handkerchief and wiped the table top, then the desk.

She turned, looked at the boy, and her smile met his half-suppressed
triumphant grin.

"You'll do," she said.

* * * * *

General Samuel C. Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute, and the
grandfather of Tuskegee, was a white man who fought the South valiantly
and well.

He seems about the only man in the North who, at the close of the war,
clearly realized that the