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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