Page:The Story of the Jubilee Singers (7th).djvu/119

 and send her children to school, but she also hired her husband's time of his mistress for more than his wages would amount to, that they might all live together in their own home.

Georgia was born in Nashville, in September, 1855. She began to attend the Fisk School very soon after it was opened, and would have entered its Freshman class in 1872 had she not laid aside her studies that year to join the Jubilee Singers, with whom she has been engaged ever since. She is still hoping that it may not be too late for her to return and finish the course after the Singers shall have accomplished their work of raising funds for the endowment of the University.

The father of was the son, by a slave-woman, of his own master, who belonged to one of the oldest and most aristocratic families of Virginia. The child of the bond-woman was kindly treated and taught to read by his master's family, to whom his relationship was no secret. But when there came a shrinkage in their fortune, he was sold, that his more fortunate half-brothers and sisters might keep as much of their old ease and luxury as could be purchased with the money paid for him by the slave-trader.

His new owner lived near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and he married a slave woman, who, like himself, was part white. Here America was born, in January, 1855.

He was a good carpenter, and when the war broke out his master started a gun factory, and