TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE AND ITS PRESIDENT. 595 



de Lawd ! ' when the reading was finished, but my mother, bending 

 down to where I was clinging to her dress, whispered to me that 

 we were free." 



Not long after the close of the war the Washingtons left the 

 plantation and went to West Virginia, where, in the coal mines, 

 work could be had which would pay money wages. At first Booker 

 worked in the mines with his brothers, but he soon became dissatis- 

 fied with the chance for improvement which that work afforded. 

 " The first thing that led me to study," he has said, " was seeing a 

 young colored man slowly reading a newspaper to a group of col- 

 ored people who surrounded him with open mouths and gaping 

 eyes. He was almost a god to them." The chance to study was 

 soon found. An energetic woman of kindly nature hired the 



MRS. BOOKEK T. WASHINGTON. 



young colored boy to work about her house as a general chore-boy. 

 Finding that he was anxious to learn, she offered to teach him to 

 read in the spare minutes of his work, and did so. One day he 

 overheard a man talking about Hampton, where General Arm- 

 strong had already begun his noble work. This, the man said, was 

 a place where black boys could go to school, and at the same time 

 work to pay their way. " As soon as I heard that," Mr. Washing- 

 ton has said, " I made up my mind that Hampton was just the place 

 for me, and that I would go there. I started, although I had no 

 money and did not even know where Hampton was. I felt sure I 

 could inquire the way as I went, and work my passage. I walked 

 a good share of the way, begged some rides, and when I had earned 



