THE CHILDREN’S PAGE.
A TEACHER’S STORY.
The following letter is from a young girl who has not gone through the Middle Class at Hampton, but is showing much energy and tact, and doing good work as teacher in one of the rough places of the far South:
FLORIDA.
I will first say, I am a colored girl; my native home is in St. Augustine. I was raised by kind Northern friends. I am teaching school on the St. John’s River, about thirty or forty miles from St. Augustine. In giving my descriptions, I will first describe my school-house. It is made entirely of logs, with the exception of the door and windows, which were given by Miss M. The skies may be seen in any part of the room. The cracks in the floor are large enough to put your hands through. When it rains, it leaks in like water dropping from the trees. There is no fire-place, nor was there any way for keeping warm until, the past week, a young man got me a little stove. But the house is so open this does but little towards heating it up. We have had some cold days, and the only way I had to keep my scholars warm was, to build two large fires and have the poor little children set around them (out of doors). I rubbed their little cold hands and bare feet, and oh! how it made my heart ache to see the tears stand in their eyes, when I asked them why they didn’t put on shoes and warmer clothes, and the reply would be, “I have on all the clothes I got, and I ain’t got no shoes.” Sometimes, when I have on all I can to keep warm, most of my girls have only two garments on, the boys nothing but pants and shirt. Some of my pupils have to come between two and three miles, and then cross a creek. I have a sewing-school for my girls once a week. I read to them, and teach them things to sing while they are sewing. They are to keep what they make. I have been teaching three-and-a-half months. The age of my scholars is from three-and-a-half to twenty-four years. I have enrolled thirty scholars, most of them very good, all anxious to learn. The people are very, very poor, and have real hard times in getting clothing, and keeping from starving. They live in log huts, some of which leak, and are in a dreadful condition. I don’t know how to describe some of them. There are a few white settlers here; some of them, when the folks work for them, won’t pay. This makes it real hard, as the work they get from them is mostly their entire support.