MISSISSIPPI.
Patient Work.
REV G. S. POPE, TOUGALOO.
Sometimes we hear of incidents in the lives of our students plainly showing that what we have said to them about hard, patient work hasn’t ended with talk.
One of the graduating class last June spoke to us of “Labor.” A letter just received by one of the teachers tells how his school-house was so uncomfortable that he thought something must be done. He had a public entertainment to raise money to get lumber for ceiling. He did not realize enough and footed the bill himself. When the lumber arrived he asked the people to come together to do the work, but they did not respond and he ceiled the house himself.
Four of our girls taught near each other, their schools over 40 miles from the railroad. One of them had taught before 14 months in the same neighborhood. The people failed to pay her. At one time she needed some money and persuaded a man who was owing her to kill a hog and let her have it. She put it in a sack and started on horseback to peddle it out. She has an invalid mother and one or two brothers and sisters nearly dependent upon her. She is anxious to educate herself, but the outlook is pretty dark.
Two of them started together for their new field; went to B—— by railroad, paid a man $5 to take them 20 miles, reached town about dark and tried four places before finding any one who could keep them over night. The old woman who took them in was not able to give them anything to eat, but made a cup of coffee for each. One of them had a little lunch with her. They ate part of it and put the rest aside. The next morning one woman who had refused to keep them over night called and invited them around to see her; they took dinner there and went back to the old woman’s house to stay over night again, as they could not find any one to take them further before the Sabbath. They were going to finish their lunch for supper, but the ants had finished it for them, so they had nothing more to eat until about noon, the next day. A man charged them $7 to take them 22 miles. The Lord sent them some lunch through the same woman who fed them the day before. One of them only obtained a two months’ school. She received $36, and had to spend $13 in traveling expenses and $12 for board. She thinks she will have hard work to get through the year on what remains.
In one church there were three ministers and only one Testament. These girls induced them to buy several Bibles.
They wrote for the fourth one to come. She went as far as B—— and had to wait two weeks for her trunk. She then went half-way to her school with the mail carrier and waited there another week before she could get any conveyance to her school. She taught two months, and after purchasing what clothing she absolutely needed, and settling board bills, only had about five dollars. She has just written me that she is picking cotton now, hoping to get a bale to sell, so she can return to school. We have enough such incidents to make a book.