College Men Without Money - Carl Brown Riddle

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to do.”

      The question then arose, how was I to get my books? I knew father would not get them for me. I told my cousin (Miss Nettie Bruce) my situation, and she agreed to lend me her books the first year. After that I always raised turkeys or ducks enough to buy everything that I needed in school.

      I went to the public schools five sessions. During this time I made fairly good progress. An almost uncontrollable thirst for knowledge took possession of me. I was not satisfied unless I had a book in my hand. My teacher told me that I ought to go to college. I thought this was impossible. So I decided that I would teach the next year.

      During the summer Professor J. J. Lincoln, one of father’s old schoolmates, paid us a visit. He insisted on my going to college. Father wanted to send me, but was not financially able. Professor Lincoln told him how I could go with very little cost to him. He told him that he could get me a position in the dining room, by which I could pay half of my board. He thought that father could certainly arrange to lend me the other half, and the college would wait until I finished for my tuition. This seemed reasonable, and after a little consideration father agreed to send me.

      On September 5, 1906, I started to Elon College, N. C. This was my first trip from home. The first few weeks were trying ones with me. The thought of being two hundred and fifty miles from home without money or friends was almost more than I could bear. But I plucked up courage enough to conquer the homesickness, and just determined to stay. It was not long before I began to make friends.

      I entered the sub-Freshman class. Had the faculty allowed me, I would have undertaken two years’ work in one. I went there with the determination to do all that my strength would permit. I managed to get them to allow me to take twenty-six hours’ work a week. This gave me all that I could do. I did not have much time for pleasure like the other girls. As I was kept very busy, the time soon slipped away.

      On April 21 I received a telegram saying, “Mother is very ill. Come home at once.” The next day I arrived at home and found her very ill. I knew that she could not live long. I sat by her bedside until the 9th of June, when God called her home.

      My hopes of ever receiving an education were now gone. As I was the oldest girl, and my youngest brother was only four years old, the responsibilities of the home and mother fell largely upon me. I tried to fill her place in my humble way the very best I knew, feeling that this was the only way that I could honor her.

      The next fall before school opened I made preparation for my younger brothers and sisters to enter school the first day. How I did wish that I could go too, but I knew that this was impossible, as father could not get anyone to keep house for him. During the winter I devoted every spare minute that I could find to my books; but you may know that I did not find much spare time after sewing, cooking, washing, ironing and mending, and keeping the house straight for such a large family. Of course, my sisters helped me every evening and morning.

      The next year I decided to teach the public school just three miles away, where I could board at home, and look after the home affairs too. This year, by raising turkeys and teaching I cleared one hundred and fifty dollars, which was enough to pay half my board and other expenses (not including tuition) for one year in college.

      Father was very anxious for me to go to college now. Sister being seventeen years old, father said he thought that she could keep house. Still I felt that she could not, and that it was my duty to stay at home, but at the same time I was praying for an opportunity to go to school. Taking father’s advice, the next fall I went back to Elon.

      The following spring, before I came home, sister ran away and married. This made the way difficult for me to go back to college, but father succeeded in hiring a housekeeper, and I went back the next fall. Before I came home in the spring someone had persuaded our housekeeper to leave us and keep house for him. Father tried in vain to get another.

      “Where there is a will there is a way.” I never gave up the hope of an education. I did my best, and left the rest with Him, Who doeth all things well. He opened the way, led and directed, and I did the acting. The next fall, one week before college opened, God sent one of my cousins to keep house for us until I should finish my college course.

      I continued waiting on the table in the college dining-room as long as I was in college. This paid half of my board bill. Father lent me the other half. During my vacation I raised chickens and turkeys enough to buy my clothes and books. I gave the college my note for my tuition.

      I graduated last spring and am now principal of the Holy Neck Graded School. I hope to clear enough money this year to pay my college tuition.

       Elkton, Va.

       REV. MARTIN LUTHER FOX, A.B., A.M., D.D.

       Table of Contents

      I was born on a Michigan farm the third in a family of ten children. Some of the first words, the meaning of which I learned, were Debt, Mortgage, and Interest. And I soon appreciated that the united toil of the entire household was required through the season to provide for interest and annual payments on the mortgage. We were happy, notwithstanding the scarcity of money. The produce from the farm furnished us with an abundance of good food and we had cheap but comfortable clothing. With my brothers and sisters I attended the district school and completed my course in it at fifteen. Two or three young men of the neighborhood had gone to college and I was fully bent on going too. It never occurred to me that poverty was a barrier to a college course. I was large for my age. So I took a teacher’s examination and was granted a certificate and taught a six months’ term of country school, closing it seven days after I was sixteen. I boarded at home and received $130 for the six months. Half of this money I gave to my father and with the other half I entered and completed the spring term of the high school. During the winter evenings while I was teaching I studied Latin grammar and Jones’ “First Latin Lessons.” Hence I was able, with some help from my brother, to join the Latin class on entering the high school, to pass the examination at close of the term, and thus to have a year’s Latin to my credit. I returned to school at the opening of the fall term, but left at Thanksgiving, when I returned home to teach the same school I had taught the previous winter. I received this time $120 for four months. I studied my Cæsar evenings, and on reëntering school in the spring found myself able to join the class and to maintain a passing grade. I always was needed on the farm as soon as school closed in June. There was a large hay crop and a wheat harvest of 75 to 100 acres. Then followed plowing and preparation of soil for fall seeding. But I generally found a few weeks and a few rainy days, that I could take for making money. I canvassed the country one summer selling a United States wall map. The price was $2.00, within the reach of the farmer’s purse. I was quite successful in making sales, and the commission was good. Indeed, I regarded it a poor day in which I did not make five dollars, so that in two or three weeks I earned about $60, my capital for the coming school year.

      I entered college in the fall of 1883. I really had no money and had no hope of any financial help from home. During the summer I had earned enough to purchase a four years’ scholarship, the value of which was $100, but which I secured at a reduced price. This, together with good health and a hopefully inclined temperament, was my capital with which to begin my college course. I secured a room in the men’s dormitory, and to obtain necessary furniture, I had to incur a debt of $16. The room was to cost me $12 per year. Of course, I had to have books and that increased my debt; but I was perfectly familiar with the word, for my whole previous life had been concerned with it. I did not worry. But with neither wheat nor potatoes growing to pay my debt, I realized that the situation required some attention. I noticed in a corner of the campus about fifteen cords of four foot beech and maple wood. I made inquiry and learned that it belonged to the college president. Then I called upon him and applied for the position of wood sawer to him. He asked me whether I had ever sawed wood. I replied truthfully that I had never sawed much, but that I knew how it was done. He said he would furnish the saw and the “horse” and that I would have to saw only enough each day to keep him supplied. That

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