I finally settled back
in my seat with a sigh, and said to myself, "I am in for it now,
sure."
To add further to the embarrassment of the situation, soon after
the supper was placed on the table one of the ladies remembered that
she had in her satchel a special kind of tea which she wished served,
and as she said she felt quite sure the porter did not know how to
brew it properly, she insisted upon getting up and preparing and
serving it herself. At last the meal was over; and it seemed the
longest one that I had ever eaten. When we were through, I decided to
get myself out of the embarrassing situation and go to the smoking-
room, where most of the men were by that time, to see how the land
lay. In the meantime, however, it had become known in some way
throughout the car who I was. When I went into the smoking-room I was
never more surprised in my life than when each man, nearly every one
of them a citizen of Georgia, came up and introduced himself to me and
thanked me earnestly for the work that I was trying to do for the
whole South. This was not flattery, because each one of these
individuals knew that he had nothing to gain by trying to flatter me.
From the first I have sought to impress the students with the idea
that Tuskegee is not my institution, or that of the officers, but that
it is their institution, and that they have as much interest in it as
any of the trustees or instructors.
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