From a Private Letter of a Pastor’s Daughter on a Visit to Talladega College, Alabama.
By the Road-side, Aug. 24, ’78.
Dear Auntie: Where do you think I am? This morning, Miss L. (the matron of the college) and Mr. W. (one of the teachers) and I started out, with horse and open buggy, for Anniston, a little town twenty-six miles away. We got up early, and ate our breakfast before the rest, then put the three satchels and water-proof, shawl, two umbrellas, two blankets and pail of oats and lunch-basket in the bottom and back of the buggy. Then we three piled in, stopping in the village just long enough to get some lemons. We had a lovely ride—part of the way through the woods—catching glimpses of the mountains in the distance, all along.
Perhaps you know that Alabama abounds in springs; so, whenever we go out for a drive or a picnic, we always aim for a spring—taking a gourd with us for a cup. We learned at a little town just below here that there was a fine spring a little farther on; and here we are now right in the woods. I am writing on a Sabbath-school Teacher, which doesn’t take the place of a desk very well. We have eaten our dinner and washed the dishes, and have been reading aloud. We are now just ready to pick up the blankets and things, and start again, for we have eleven miles yet to go. So, bye-bye, till the next stopping-place.
Anniston, Ala., Sunday.
I am going to write part of my letter Sunday, you see. I didn’t tell you what we came here for, did I? Well, many of the scholars at the college go out to teach in the summer, and sometimes the teachers who are staying there through vacation go off to see their old scholars, and encourage them in their Sunday-schools. They do a great deal of good in this way. I have visited two of these mission-schools; and this time we came to see Mr. M., one of the theological students who has just been ordained here at Anniston.
We found him and his wife living in a neatly-painted house, close by his little church. It did me so much good to go into his home and see what it was. Not much like most of the colored people’s houses—log-huts, dirty, low, and only one room, with so few comforts. This was a house of two rooms—the front room carpeted neatly; a nice bureau and bed in the room; a little table with books on it (one of which was a copy of Shakspeare!) In one corner of the room was his writing desk, with library over it—and a very good library it was; books on Isaiah and Psalms; Gospels and Epistles; several, or rather all of Barnes’ Notes; a book on Moral Philosophy, etc. I suppose that doesn’t sound like much of anything to you; but when you know how many of these people live, and how ignorant they are, it seems so much. There were pictures on the wall, a clock on the mantel, shades and curtains at the windows, etc. The church has a good bell, and is to be painted very soon.
We attended Sunday-school this morning. Mr. M. has a little blackboard, a review chart, question-books, Gospel-hymns, and all such things. It did seem, this morning, when I was there, that the colored people were advancing some. I am really interested in them, Aunt Sarah. Have you heard of my little Sabbath-school? May H., a girl a little older than myself, and three of the students (girls), and a driver, start at half-past two o’clock every Sunday afternoon, in a mule-wagon. The school is held in a Mr. Allen’s house—colored—(not the house, but the man, you know). We have to go jolting over the roughest kind of a road to get there, crossing the railroad track twice. When we reach the place, we crawl through the fence and enter the little house. We find the children seated on benches made of rough boards. May and I take our places in chairs at the head of the school. Sometimes we have over forty children. We open the school by singing some of the Gospel-hymns, then follows the prayer; after talking a minute or two to the scholars, the teachers take their classes and benches out of doors, and teach right among the bee-hives and hollyhocks!
The room is too small for so many scholars, especially as there are two beds in it. After a while, the classes are called in, and one of the scholars chooses a hymn to sing. Then I ask questions about the lesson. Then we count the scholars and call their names, and give out papers. Then I ask for verses from the children, which they have learned in the classes. We then repeat the Twenty-third Psalm together, and close by saying, in concert, the Lord’s Prayer.
Now, you know a little of my Sabbath-school. I take ever so much pleasure in planning for it. Friday evenings we have a Teachers’ Meeting, just for us six teachers to talk over the school, and study the lesson for the next Sabbath. Those are dear little meetings. I enjoy them so much. I hope I am helping a little to raise up these poor neglected people.
I will leave the rest of my paper for my next stopping-place.
By the Road-side, Monday.
Here we are again, at the same lovely spring where we took our dinner Saturday. We have just lunched, and Miss L. is reading. Leila, our horse, is taking her dinner, and when she finishes it, we shall start again for home.
This morning we passed a whole field full of cardinal flowers. We picked some beautiful ones, which are now bathing in the spring. When riding here, we see such different sights from what we do in the North. There are such beautiful tall pines here. They grow up fifty or sixty feet before putting out any branches. The sweet gum-tree, too, is very pretty. In the distance it looks like a maple. We often see wild grape-vines covering trees, the stems as large at the bottom as my two fists. The English ivy seems to like this climate, too, for when it is planted by the side of a tree, it grows way up into the branches, and almost covers the whole tree sometimes. The passion flower grows in the fields here.
Leila is just eating her last oat, so we must be starting. I suppose my next stopping place will be Talladega. Good-bye. From your loving niece,
Laura P. H.