Page:The Story of the Jubilee Singers (7th).djvu/121

 help of friendly soldiers his family made their escape from home unobserved, as they lay concealed in an army-waggon, and found their way to Nashville.

America was on hand to enter Fisk School the first day it was opened, and continued in attendance until the autumn of 1874. She taught school during the summer vacations to help support herself. She began to teach when but thirteen years old, and her first school numbered eighty-seven scholars. Afterwards she taught one numbering one hundred and fifty. On Sundays she superintended a Sabbath-school. Teaching four months each year, and studying eight, she was prepared to enter college in the first Freshman class admitted to the University, and would have received her diploma with the first class graduated had she not left her studies a few months before the close of the year to engage in the Jubilee work.