Page:Boys Life of Booker T. Washington.djvu/70

54 the country and every one was becoming interested.

But that debt of five hundred dollars for the land on which the school was being built had not been paid. Where was the money coming from? That was the hard question. Miss Davidson started the plan of having suppers or "festivals." She would go about town and get friends to donate a chicken or a cake or a pie for a supper. In this way a good sum was raised. Washington wrote to his friends, explained the situation, and asked for contributions. He asked the negroes as well as the white people in town to give, and they did. Washington says that sometimes they would give five cents, or twenty-five cents, or a quilt or some sugar cane. "I recall one old colored woman," he says, "who was about seventy years of age,—she hobbled into the room where I was, leaning on a cane. She was clad in rags, but they were clean. She said: 'Mr. Washington, God knows I spent de bes' days of my life in slavery. God knows I's ignorant and poor; but I know what you and Miss Davidson is tryin' to do. I knows you is tryin' to make better men and women for de colored race. I ain't got no money, but I wants you to take dese six eggs, what I's been savin' up, and I wants you to put dese eggs into de eddication of dose boys and gals.'" Washington says that he has received many gifts for Tuskegee,