In these multiplied labors, she exhibited a martyr spirit, of the true type. Often when she was confined to her bed, her pupils would be found around her, drawing knowledge as it were from her very life. Again and again did Dr. Browne, brigade surgeon, who concerned himself for her like a brother, advise her to consider her weakness, and intermit her exhausting duties. The scene of these labors was the Brown Cottage, near the seminary, fronting on Hampton Roads. The school room was the front room, first story. Her own family apartment was the front room, second story. It will ever be a place about which precious memories will linger.
It was proposed that, on Christmas day, the children of the school should have a festival. All the week previous, they were busy, with their teacher, in preparations and rehearsals. A large room on the first floor of the seminary was decorated with evergreens for the occasion, and at one end a platform was constructed. At an early hour in the evening, the room was crowded with colored children and adults, and soldiers and officers. The programme opened with the singing of "My country, 'tis of thee." Chaplain Fuller read the account of the nativity of Christ. Dr. Linson prayed. Then the children discoursed very sweet music in solo, semi-chorus, and chorus, and at intervals spoke pieces in a very commendable manner, considering that it was probably the first attempt of colored children in the South.
Little Daisy, (Mrs. Peake's only child,) about five years old, was the acknowledged star of the evening. She sang very prettily in solo, and also in connection with the chorus. She sang alone the whole of the hymn, "I want to be an angel."
I spoke of the contrast between the present and the past. A year ago, white children in Hampton could enjoy a scene of this kind, but colored children were excluded. But now times have changed. The white man's child is away, and the colored man's child is on the stage, and swells the choral song. And this is but a miniature picture of what will be. The present is prophetic of the future. The few hundred children about Fortress Monroe, now gathered into schools, after the pattern of this first school, are types of one million of children throughout the sunny South, on whom the sunlight of knowledge is yet to shine.
After the concert exercises, the members of the school and others repaired to the Brown Cottage. Here we were conducted into the school room, which, like the concert room, was tastefully decorated with evergreens; and we filed around a long table laden with refreshments, and surrounded with Christmas trees, loaded with good things, all gotten up spontaneously by, and at the expense of, the colored people in the neighborhood. The viands were partaken of with a relish, and by unanimous consent it was declared a merry Christmas of the right type; the children sang, "Merry Christmas to all! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas to all!"
CHAPTER IV.
Failing of Health.—Religious Joy.—Farewell Messages.—Death.—Funeral.—Conclusion.