Читать книгу Working With the Hands. Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee онлайн

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After a long record of these mutual disappointments, my mother told me that my turn had come, as the rich and exacting personage had sent to ask me to come and live with her, with the promise of five dollars a month in wages. After a long and serious talk with my mother I decided to make the effort to serve this woman, although the tidings of so many failures filled me with foreboding. A few days later, with my clothes made as presentable as possible, and with my heart thumping in fear and anxiety, I reported for duty.

I had heard so much about Mrs. Ruffner, her wealth, her fine house, and her luxurious surroundings, overshadowed by her appalling severity and exacting discipline, that I trembled with a terror which I shall not try to describe at the thought of facing her. My life had been lived in a cabin, and I was now to try to toil in what looked to me like a grand mansion, an enchanted palace filled with alarms. But I got a grip on all the courage in my scanty stock, and braced myself to endure the ordeal with all possible fortitude.