Working With the Hands / Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee

by Booker T. Washington

As I remember, at least half a dozen boys had been successively chosen to live with her, but their residence in service had been consistently short-lived. I think a week was about the average period, in spite of the widely advertised fact that the household had the redeeming reputation of always providing good things to eat. In addition to pies and cakes, which boys in a community like ours seldom saw in their own cabin homes, the orchards around the house bore heavy yields of the finest fruits, yet such extraordinary inducements as these could not hold the boys, who one by one returned to the village with the same story, that the lady of the mansion was too strict and too hard to please.

After a long record of these mutual disappointments, my mother told me that my turn had come, as the rich and exacting personage had sent to ask me to come and live with her, with the promise of five dollars a month in wages. After a long and serious talk with my mother I decided to make the effort to serve this woman, although the tidings of so many failures filled me with foreboding. A few days later, with my clothes made as presentable as possible, and with my heart thumping in fear and anxiety, I reported for duty.

I had heard so much about Mrs. Ruffner, her wealth, her fine house, and her luxurious surroundings, overshadowed by her appalling severity and exacting discipline, that I trembled with a terror which I shall not try to describe at the thought of facing her. My life had been lived in a cabin, and I was now to try to toil in what looked to me like a grand mansion, an enchanted palace filled with alarms. But I got a grip on all the courage in my scanty stock, and braced myself to endure the ordeal with all possible fortitude.

The meeting was not at all what I had expected. Mrs. Ruffner talked to me in the kindliest way, and her frank and positive manner was tempered with a rehearsal of the difficulties encountered with the boys who had preceded me, how and why they had failed to please, and what was expected of them and of me. I saw that it would be my fault if I failed to understand my duties, as she explained them in detail. I would be expected to keep my body clean and my clothes neat, and cleanliness was to be the motto in all my work. She said that all things could be done best by system, and she expected it of me, and that the exact truth at all times, regardless of consequences, was one of the first laws of her household—a law whose violation could never be overlooked.

I remember, too, that she placed special emphasis upon the law of promptness, and said that excuses and explanations could never be taken in the place of results. At the time, this seemed to me a pretty stern program to live up to, and I was fighting a sense of discouragement when, toward the end of the interview, she told me that if I were able to please her she would permit me to attend school at night during the winter. This suggestion so stimulated my ambition that it went a long way toward clinching the decision to make the effort of my life to satisfy my employer and to break all records for length of service in her household.

My first task, as I remember it, was to cut the grass around the house, and then to give the grounds a thorough "cleaning up." In those days there were no lawn-mowers, and I had to go down on my knees and cut much of the grass with a little hand-scythe. I soon found that my employer not only wished the grass cut, but also demanded that it be trimmed smooth and even. Any one who has tried to mow a lawn with a dull hand-scythe or sickle can realise the difficulties which beset this labour. I am not ashamed to say that I did not succeed in giving satisfaction the first, or even the second or third time, but at last I made the turf in that yard look as smooth and velvety as if I had been over it with the most improved pattern of lawn-mower. With this achievement my sense of pride and satisfaction began to stir itself and to become a perceptible incentive. I found, however, that cutting the grass was not the whole task. Every weed, tuft of dead grass, bit of paper, or scrap of dirt of any kind must be removed, nor did I succeed at the first attempt in pleasing my employer. Many times, when tired and hot with trying to put this yard in order, I was heartsick and discouraged and almost determined to run away and go home to my mother.

But I kept at it, and after a few days, as the result of my efforts under the strict oversight of my mistress, we could take pleasure in looking upon a yard where the grass was green, and almost perfect in its smoothness, where the flower beds were trimly kept, the edges of the walks clean cut, and where there was nothing to mar the well-ordered appearance.

When I saw and realised that all this was a creation of my own hands, my whole nature began to change. I felt a self-respect, an encouragement, and a satisfaction that I had never before enjoyed or thought possible. Above all else, I had acquired a new confidence in my ability actually to do things and to do them well. And more than this, I found myself, through this experience, getting rid of the idea which had gradually become a part of me, that the head meant everything and the hands little in working endeavour, and that only to labour with the mind was honourable while to toil with the hands was unworthy and even disgraceful. With this vital growth of realisation there came the warm and hearty commendation of the good woman who had given me what I now consider my first chance to get in touch with the real things of life.

When I recall this experience, I know that then and there my mind was awakened and strengthened. As I began to reap satisfaction from the works of my hands, I found myself planning over night how to gain success in the next day's efforts. I would try to picture the yard as I meant it to look when completed, and laid awake nights trying to decide upon the prettiest curves for the flower beds and the proper width of the walks. I was soon far more absorbed in this work than in filling in my leisure time seeking mischief with the village boys.

I remained in this family for several years, and the longer I was employed there the more satisfaction I got out of my work. Instead of fearing the woman whom the other boys had found so formidable, I learned to think of her and to regard her now (for she still lives) as one of my greatest teachers. Later, whether working in the coal mines or at the salt furnaces, I learned to find the same kind of satisfaction in everything I did for a livelihood. If while sweeping or dusting a room, or weeding a bed of flowers or vegetables, there remained the least imperfection, I was unhappy, and felt that I was guilty of dishonesty until the flaw in my work had been removed.