"
Notwithstanding my success at Mrs. Ruffner's I did not give up
the idea of going to the Hampton Institute. In the fall of 1872 I
determined to make an effort to get there, although, as I have
stated, I had no definite idea of the direction in which Hampton
was, or of what it would cost to go there. I do not think that
any one thoroughly sympathized with me in my ambition to go to
Hampton unless it was my mother, and she was troubled with a
grave fear that I was starting out on a "wild-goose chase." At
any rate, I got only a half-hearted consent from her that I might
start. The small amount of money that I had earned had been
consumed by my stepfather and the remainder of the family, with
the exception of a very few dollars, and so I had very little
with which to buy clothes and pay my travelling expenses. My
brother John helped me all that he could, but of course that was
not a great deal, for his work was in the coal-mine, where he did
not earn much, and most of what he did earn went in the direction
of paying the household expenses.
Perhaps the thing that touched and pleased me most in connection
with my starting for Hampton was the interest that many of the
older coloured people took in the matter. They had spent the best
days of their lives in slavery, and hardly expected to live to
see the time when they would see a member of their race leave
home to attend a boarding-school.
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