The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 10, October, 1879Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 10, October, 1879
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
One man who made his appearance in night-school about the middle
of the winter, I shall never forget. His entrance was quite
overpowering—a big man, big cane, big hat, and a big shawl thrown
over his shoulder, Arab style. I happened to be at leisure, so I
went at once to ask him if he intended coming regularly to school.
Saying that he did, my next question was, “What’s your name?” “I’m
Lucy’s husband, over there.” As I didn’t know Lucy, I was not much
the wiser, and had to repeat the question with the emphasis on the
_your_. Wishing to classify him, I asked, “What book do you read
in?” “The Bible mostly, ma’am.” “Can you read in the First Reader?”
“Yes, first, second, third, fourth and all the other elementary
books.” Thinking I might gain some information where to assign him,
I looked at the books he had brought with him. There were four: a
large family Bible; another book of some size, but very fine print,
on “Presbyterian Ordination Refuted;” a “Child’s Scripture Question
Book,” and a small geography.
But if the night-schools were amusing, the afternoon schools for
the women were not less so. Old women and young women, many of them
in fantastic attire, with hats, caps and dresses that would have
been considered prizes by an antiquary; the dark faces peering
from under the white or speckled turban; old women wiping their
spectacles, vainly endeavoring to get “more light” on the subject,
while picking away at the letters in some old Primer, as if they
were to be transferred bodily to the head. Aunt Chloe Fisher
must have been seventy-five or eighty years old, but still she
was bright and original. She came into school one afternoon very
anxious to learn to read “de way, de troof, and de life.” Seeing
some women in another part of the room reading, she exclaimed, “Jes
hear dem niggers read! If dis nig can’t read, too, won’t she fight
’em?” and then she vigorously applied her finger to the pages of
the Gospel of John which she had with her, finding the words Lord
and God, which were about all she knew. She believed in both faith
and works, for she used to pray most earnestly that God would help
her know the words, and then get up in the middle of the night and
light a pine knot to see if she had a word right. Old Aunt Chloe
was always happy. I never saw her otherwise but once, and then she
was greatly troubled for fear she should lose her place in the
grave-yard. One special place she had chosen, and young people were
dying so fast she was afraid she should not die soon enough to lie
there. She would get happy over her wash-tub or anywhere else, and
her hands and her feet would keep time with some negro hymn in a
most amusing manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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