Ruffner were as valuable to me as any education I have ever
gotten anywhere else. Even to this day I never see bits of paper
scattered around a house or in the street that I do not want to
pick them up at once. I never see a filthy yard that I do not
want to clean it, a paling off of a fence that I do not want to
put it on, an unpainted or unwhitewashed house that I do not want
to pain or whitewash it, or a button off one's clothes, or a
grease-spot on them or on a floor, that I do not want to call
attention to it.
From fearing Mrs. Ruffner I soon learned to look upon her as one
of my best friends. When she found that she could trust me she
did so implicitly. During the one or two winters that I was with
her she gave me an opportunity to go to school for an hour in the
day during a portion of the winter months, but most of my
studying was done at night, sometimes alone, sometimes under some
one whom I could hire to teach me. Mrs. Ruffner always encouraged
and sympathized with me in all my efforts to get an education. It
was while living with her that I began to get together my first
library. I secured a dry-goods box, knocked out one side of it,
put some shelves in it, and began putting into it every kind of
book that I could get my hands upon, and called it my "library.
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