[n.b. - page numbers refer to printed text. Available at https://archive.org/details/blackmansburden0000will ] CHAPTER IV Things went smoothly for a while, now that I was back at Tuskegee. Then my brother came, and I had to help support him. As soon as I had adjusted myself to this situation a letter came from my thirteen-year-old sister, who was then hired out to a hotel as chambermaid. The letter read : "I cannot amount to anything if I stay here. I want to be something. Will you help me?" There was no alternative, so I sent for her at once. Knowing that I should have to support her almost wholly, I was almost in despair. At one time I had only one pair of trousers, and they had been worn until they were threadbare. I had patched them so often and so long that the patches refused to hold, therefore it was necessary to devise some other way to mend them. Being a printer and bookbinder, I knew the properties of printers' glue, and so I used to do my patching on Sunday at the printing office while the others were attending the services. I remember that on one occasion while Bishop Derrick was preaching one of his most powerful sermons in the chapel I was patching my trousers in the printing office, and by the time he had finished his sermon I had finished my trousers. His text was : "Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy." I was eager to do this, but I found it difficult to reconcile the Holy Sabbath with holey trousers. These patches looked 6o THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN well, while they lasted, but the ingredients in the glue further injured the cloth so that within a few days the patches began to fall off, one by one, taking more cloth with them. In my embarrassment, I went to one of the teachers, from whom I thought I could get some sym- pathy and perhaps a pair of trousers ; but I got neither. What I did get was a dignified lecture on independence and self-reliance. After that I made up my mind that I would go naked before I would ask for another gar- ment. Mrs. Washington came to my rescue and pro- vided me with a fine second-hand Prince Albert suit, which she had f otmd among the second-hand clothes sent to the school by kind friends to meet just such emer- gencies. My fellow-students, both boys and girls, made all sorts of faces at me when I appeared in my new suit, calling me "Preacher," "Reverend," "Doc," and other similar names. This did not lessen my gratitude to Mrs. Washington, for the Prince Albert suit enabled me to remain in school. Shortly afterward I was made a substitute teacher in the night school at Tuskegee at eight dollars a month, and my pecuniary burdens came to an end. Toward the end of my senior year I decided to com- pete for the Trinity prize of twenty-five dollars, which was offered for the best original oration. Remembering Mr. Washington's constant advice that a man gets out of a thing just what he puts into it, I tried to put one hun- dred dollars' worth into my oration. Fortunately, no other contestant put in quite so much. During this my last year at school I received many offers of work as a teacher in other schools. Tuskegee THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN 6i also offered me a place as a teacher in its academic de- partment, but my mind was made up. In the first place, I had from childhood wished to be a lawyer, but my father, in his lifetime, as well as my mother, was op- posed to my studying for that profession. Father wished me to be a teacher, and just before his death he called me to his bedside and repeated his wish, — ^that I lay aside the thought of studying law and become a teacher of my people. He had some very peculiar ideas about lawyers. With him the name was S3ntionymous with "liar." If anyihing more than his wishes had been needed to change my ideas regarding the study of law, it would have been found in my career at Tuskegee, which cer- tainly does not encourage the study of law, although it may not directly discourage it. Mr. Washington's con- stant advice to us in his Sunday evening talks was that after leaving school we should go into one of the remote i:ural districts, where we were most needed, and teach. For eight years I had listened to this kind of teaching and this, added to my father's wishes, made it seem that there was nothing else for me to do but to find one of those backwoods places and render it whatever service I could. Mr. Washington's arguments were often reinforced by stories from his own experiences. Here is one that I remember : He once called upon a woman somewhere in Massa- chusetts to solicit a contribution for Tuskegee. The woman, who was poor herself, went into a corner of the house and pulled from a hiding-place a few pennies, which she gave him. Meantime she explained that she 62 THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN was poor, and really had no money to give to charity; but she was so eager that the struggling boys and girls at Tuskegee should have a chance to educate themselves that she refused to use matches in her house, and used strips of paper instead, for lighting her lamps. In this way she saved her match money for the aid of Tuskegee. This so impressed me that I felt bound to try to be worthy of such generosity. So I refused all positions that were offered to me and determined to go to Mississippi, which to my mind was the darkest section of the South for a colored man. I had no money, for the prize money that I had won in the oratorical contest had to be used to defray the expenses of my mother, who came to see me graduated. While I was debating as to what I should do, or rather how I could get away from Tuskegee, Mr. William J. Edwards, who had graduated at Tuskegee five years before, crossed my path. I told him of my plans to go to Mississippi, and to try to do what he was doing in the southern part of Alabama, where he had founded an industrial school, then five years old. He showed great interest in my project and invited me to take a position at Snow Hill and remain there until such time as I should be in a position to carry out my plans in Mississippi. I accepted a position as a printer in that school. The school had no printing office, but a good friend of his had given to it a little press. I knew the printer's trade, so I set up the press and got ready for work. But there was no t3rpe. I organized the teachers, —eight in all, — into a publishing company and induced each one of them to contribute a dollar out of their small THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN 63 wages. Mr. R. O. Simpson, — sl Southern planter of con- siderable means, who had always been interested in the school, and who had, in fact, helped Mr. Edwards to found it,— came by one day and examined my little press. Then he said, "Despise not small beginnings," and gave me a ten-dollar bill. Putting this with what I had ob- tained from the teachers, I bought eighteen dollars' worth of type, and so began the trade of printing at Snow Hill. The printing shop actually made money. Nearly all the white merchants in the towns in the neighborhood of Snow Hill sent in their work, and I made fair profits. At the end of that year I received a letter from Mr. Washington, who was then in Europe, telling me that he had recommended me to an English s)aidicate to take charge of a training school in the island of Montserrat, which, I believe, is one of the Leeward Islands, in the West Indies. I felt that I ought to accept this position because the work was purely missionary. In a few weeks I was on my way to Montserrat, but when I reached New York City to embark I received a cable from Mr. Sturgis, of Birmingham, England, telling me that he had been informed that the island had been destroyed by a tornado, and that perhaps there were no inhabitants left. I found myself in New York for the first time, practically without money, for it was here that I was to get the funds with which to fiinish the trip. Mr. Washington, who happened to be in New York at the time, looked me up and lent me my fare back to Tuskegee, where I was to await further information. I remained there over a month, but no word came from England. Upon Mr. Washington's advice that it was 64 THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN time to find something else to do, I determined to try my forttme in Mississippi. However, I was a stranger, and could make no headway. All the public schools had been taken up, so that I could not get a school to teach, and I got for a few weeks the job of handling cotton at a warehouse. Then I tried hotel work, but I fotmd that altogether distasteful to me. As there seemed nothing else to do, I determined to make a situation for myself. Purchasing a set of sewing- machine tools, I set out as a traveling clock repairer, but I had never repaired a clock in my life, so that the first two or three clocks that I attempted to fix were left not much better off than they were when I found them. After a while, however, I was able to do good work, and I made from five to ten dollars a week. Still the work, as well as the results, was too uncertain for me. At length, I wrote to Mr. Edwards again and told him the exact situation, and that I would like to come back to Snow Hill. I received an immediate reply from him, with money for railroad fare, telling me that he had no opening for me at the time but would be glad to have me come back and wait until he could find something for me to do. I was at Snow Hill but a short time before he placed me in the responsible position of financial agent for the In- stitution. At the end of that year I went again to Mississippi, but failed in my undertaking, as I had done before. Then the trustees of Snow Hill elected me treasurer of the school, and raised my salary to twenty-five dollars a month. By this time I began to think that perhaps I had Mrs, William H. Holtzclaw THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN 65 better settle down. My convictions on this point were so pleasantly satisfied that after a year I was married to Miss Mary Ella Patterson, a Tuskegee graduate, who was at the head of the Women's Department of the Snow Hill school. We decided that we would like to build a home, so Mr. Edwards borrowed the money for us with which to build it We were to pay him back each month out of our twenty-five dollars, and he was thus to pay the persons from whom he borrowed the money, — some Northern friends whom I do not know. It looked now as if we had settled down for good, yet in my own mind I was not settled. I knew that some day I would go to Missis- sippi, though I confess it seemed now as if the trip had been postponed indefinitely. In the course of time we had a very dear addition to our family, a little son, whom we named William Syd- ney, for my brother and myself. The birth of this little boy brought into our family great happiness, — ^happiness such as only those can know who have had a similar ex- perience, but after six months he. was taken from us by an attack of pneumonia. I had no more interest in our home after that ; in fact, I felt better away from it, and I think my wife felt the same way. I had been for two years trying to persuade her to think as I did about the Mississippi venture, but she would not be convinced. After the death of our child, however, she was willing that I should make the venture again. One year later I went to Mr. Edwards and told him that I had decided to go to Mississippi for the last time, and that I did not intend ever to return to Snow 66 THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN Hill again. I had returned so many times that it had become a joke, and everybody looked for me back the next week. The fact is, the last time I had returned it had taken almost all the courage out of me. This time I burned the bridges behind me. Three times I had failed to carry out what I had taken on myself as a duty ; now I felt like a coward. About that time somebody sent me a copy of Orison Swett Marden's book, "Pushing to the Front." I read it immediately. Up to that time it was Mr. Marden's mas- terpiece. No one can read the book without catching some of its inspiration. It not only aroused me, but seemed also to condemn me ; every chapter I read seemed to say, "You are a coward not to stick to what you know to be your duty." At length, when I had finished the book I threw it down, stood up, and resolved that I would go to Missis- sippi, and that nothing but death should ever again come between me and the fulfilment of my purpose.