Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days

by Annie L. Burton

The next morning we got into Jacksonville. My idea was to get a place as chambermaid at Green Cove Springs, Florida, through the influence of the head waiter at a hotel there, whom I knew. After I got into Jacksonville I changed my plans. I did not see how I could move my things any farther, and we went to a hotel for colored people, hired a room for two dollars, and boarded ourselves on the food which had been given us in Macon. This food lasted about two weeks. Then I had to buy, and my money was going every day, and none coming in, I did not know what to do. One night the idea of keeping a restaurant came to me, and I decided to get a little home for the three of us, and then see what I could do in this line of business. After a long and hard search, I found a little house of two rooms where we could live, and the next day I found a place to start my restaurant. For house furnishings, we used at first, to the best advantage we could, the things we had brought from Macon. Caroline's cookstove had been left with my foster-mother in Macon. After hiring the room for the restaurant, I sent for this stove, and it arrived in a few days. Then I went to a dealer in second-hand furniture and got such things as were actually needed for the house and the restaurant, on the condition that he would take them back at a discount when I got through with them.

Trade at the restaurant was very good, and we got along nicely. My sister got a position as nurse for fifteen dollars a month. One day the cook from a shipwrecked vessel came to my restaurant, and in return for his board and a bed in the place, agreed to do my cooking. After trade became good, I changed my residence to a house of four rooms, and put three cheap cots in each of two of the rooms, and let the cots at a dollar a week apiece to colored men who worked nearby in hotels. Lawrence and I did the chamber work at night, after the day's work in the restaurant.

I introduced "Boston baked beans" into my restaurant, much to the amusement of the people at first; but after they had once eaten them it was hard to meet the demand for beans.

Lawrence, who was now about eleven years old, was a great help to me. He took out dinners to the cigarmakers in a factory nearby.

At the end of the season, about four months, it had grown so hot that we could stay in Jacksonville no longer. From my restaurant and my lodgers I cleared one hundred and seventy-five dollars, which I put into the Jacksonville bank. Then I took the furniture back to the dealer, who fulfilled his agreement.

My sister decided to go back to Atlanta when she got through with her place as nurse, which would not be for some weeks.

I took seventy-five dollars out of my bank account, and with Lawrence went to Fernandina. There we took train to Port Royal, S. C., then steamer to New York. From New York we went to Brooklyn for a few days. Then we went to Newport and stayed with a woman who kept a lodging-house. I decided to see what I could do in Newport by keeping a boarding and lodging-house. I hired a little house and agreed to pay nine dollars a month for it. I left Lawrence with some neighbors while I came to Boston and took some things out of storage. These things I moved into the little house. But I found, after paying one month's rent, that the house was not properly located for the business I wanted. I left, and with Lawrence went to Narragansett Pier. I got a place there as "runner" for a laundry; that is, I was to go to the hotels and leave cards and solicit trade. Then Lawrence thought he would like to help by doing a little work. One night when I came back from the laundry, I missed him. Nobody had seen him. All night I searched for him, but did not find him. In the early morning I met him coming home. He said a man who kept a bowling alley had hired him at fifty cents a week to set up the pins, and it was in the bowling alley he had been all night. He said the man let him take a nap on his coat when he got sleepy. I went at once to see this man, and told him not to hire my nephew again. A lady who kept a hotel offered me two dollars a week for Lawrence's services in helping the cook and serving in the help's dining-room. When the season closed, the lady who hired Lawrence was very reluctant to let him go.

We went back to Newport to see the landlady from whom I had hired the house, and I paid such part of the rent as I could. Then I packed my things and started for Boston. On reaching there, I kept such of my things as I needed, and stored the rest, and took a furnished room. In about a week's time I went to see the husband of the lady for whom I had worked at Wellesley Hills just previous to my departure for the South. He had told me to let him know when I returned to Boston. He said a man and his wife were at present employed at his farm, but he didn't know how long they would stay. Before another week had passed, this gentleman sent for me. He said his wife wanted me to go out to the farm, and that I could have Lawrence with me. The boy, he said, could help his wife with the poultry, and could have a chance to go to school. I was promised three dollars and a half a week, and no washing to do. I was told that the farm had been offered for sale, and of course it might change hands any day. I was promised, however, that I should lose nothing by the change.

Lawrence was very lonely at the farm, with no companions, and used to sit and cry.

The place was sold about ten weeks after I went there, and I came into Boston to look about for a restaurant, leaving Lawrence at the farm. When the home was broken up, the owners came to the Revere House, Boston. Barrels of apples, potatoes and other provisions were given to me.