Some of these older people
would give me a nickel, others a quarter, or a handkerchief.
Finally the great day came, and I started for Hampton. I had only
a small, cheap satchel that contained a few articles of clothing
I could get. My mother at the time was rather weak and broken in
health. I hardly expected to see her again, and thus our parting
was all the more sad. She, however, was very brave through it
all. At that time there were no through trains connecting that
part of West Virginia with eastern Virginia. Trains ran only a
portion of the way, and the remainder of the distance was
travelled by stage-coaches.
The distance from Malden to Hampton is about five hundred miles.
I had not been away from home many hours before it began to grow
painfully evident that I did not have enough money to pay my fair
to Hampton. One experience I shall long remember. I had been
travelling over the mountains most of the afternoon in an
old-fashion stage-coach, when, late in the evening, the coach
stopped for the night at a common, unpainted house called a
hotel. All the other passengers except myself were whites. In my
ignorance I supposed that the little hotel existed for the
purpose of accommodating the passengers who travelled on the
stage-coach. The difference that the colour of one's skin would
make I had not thought anything about.
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