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, so far as mere book knowledge
was concerned, 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. . . .

The opening of the school in the Kanawha Valley brought to me one of
the keenest disappointments that I ever experienced. I had been
working in a salt furnace for several months, and my stepfather had
discovered that I had a financial value, and so, when the school
opened, he decided that he could not spare me from my work. This
decision seemed to cloud my every ambition. The disappointment was
made all the more severe by reason of the fact that my place of work
was where I could see the happy children passing to and from school,
morning and afternoons. Despite this disappointment, however, I