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Memories of a Long Life                                            17

Chapter Six

 

MY MANY TRIALS

 

            Well, I taught a school in the upper part of Moore County, N.C.  The schoolhouse was near Fair Promise M. E. Church.  Rev. W. F. Clegg was he pastor on that circuit.  The people in the neighborhood wanted a school, and their pastor told them from the pulpit that he had known me all my life (I was raised nearby), so I was engaged.  The people were all just as kind as I could ask, even more so.  Uncle Bob Phillips, as he was called by many, married Uncle Edward Gean’s widow, my father’s baby brother.  He and Aunt Milberry told me that they would give me my board and bed free.  Aunt would do my washing rather than let me do it on Saturday.  It was winter and about a mile from their home to the schoolhouse, but I did not mind the walk.  Rev. Louis Phillips, younger brother of uncle Bob, lived so near the church the preaching and singing could be heard.  He and his wife, with a maiden sister, three daughters and his son and his wife, all lived in the house, yet they told me to come and stay.  I would be so near that even in rain or snow I could get there without danger.  Well, I went, and oh, they were all so kind.  There old Mrs. Betsey Womble, a widow with a grandchild, wanted me to come and board with her.  She did not live more than half a mile, and would give me board and washing.  I did hate to leave them, for I will say I have boarded in a great many families, but that is one in which I never did hear one unkind word.  Well, I went to board with Mrs. Womble.  Her granddaughter, she said, was not as quiet as she wanted her to be, and she felt that if I would I could be a help to her granddaughter and a comfort to her, as she was too old and feeble to watch over her.  They al, even Aunt Caroline, the colored woman, seemed anxious to wait on me.  I had always loved to make up rhymes, so I got the names of all the scholars, boys and girls, rhymed them and set them to a tune, and wrote a copy for every family.  We practiced singing the tune until all could sing it so well that when I closed the session I had some pieces spoken and the song sung by all standing in a circle, and it was complimented.  If I could remember all the children’s names I would try to write it again, for I would be willing to pay fifty cents, yes, one dollar, for it.  Well, when my session ended and I came home it was in summer.  My father had planted cotton, but it was hard to get anyone to chop, so he asked me if I would chop in his cotton.  I went out and it was not long ere I had queer feeling, and I went into the house.  “Well,” father asked me, “are you too proud to chop cotton for your father?”