Page:Women of distinction.djvu/71

Rh, filled with the gravest uncertainty as to the results of the then much talked of war, furnished but a very few bright hopes of a brilliant future to this then little girl and her associates. However, the world was open to her and Providence in the lead, to support her feeble, honest, childish efforts.

She left Georgia in 1869, spending about three years in Virginia, reaching New York in 1872, where she entered the public schools, in which she remained four years only, being compelled by necessity to leave and go to work for the support of a widowed mother and herself. This must have been a great trial to one so young and so intensely fond of study. She did not stop, however, because of obstacles and discouragements, but pushed her way onward, hewing out a pathway for herself; and in this way she has applied her powers as a thinker and writer. Ten years ago she began to write stories and has also edited the "Household Columns" in several journals, and has from time to time contributed to most if not all of our leading Afro-American journals and magazines.

She has worked on many of the New York leading dailies for years as a "sub," namely, The Times, Herald, Mail and Express, The Earthy Sunday Mercury and The Phonographic World, and she is now writing some able articles for Ringwood’s Journal of Fashion.

Among her stories are "Aunt Lindy," "Little Things," "Well," "Under the Elm," "The Underground Way," "Steadfast and True," "Nettie Mills," "Eugenia's Mistake," "Zelika," and others of peculiar interest.