Memories of Childhoods Slavery Days | Page 8

at a hotel there, whom I knew. After I got into
Jacksonville I changed my plans. I did not see how I could move my
things any farther, and we went to a hotel for colored people, hired a
room for two dollars, and boarded ourselves on the food which had
been given us in Macon. This food lasted about two weeks. Then I had
to buy, and my money was going every day, and none coming in, I did
not know what to do. One night the idea of keeping a restaurant came
to me, and I decided to get a little home for the three of us, and then see
what I could do in this line of business. After a long and hard search, I

found a little house of two rooms where we could live, and the next day
I found a place to start my restaurant. For house furnishings, we used at
first, to the best advantage we could, the things we had brought from
Macon. Caroline's cookstove had been left with my foster-mother in
Macon. After hiring the room for the restaurant, I sent for this stove,
and it arrived in a few days. Then I went to a dealer in second-hand
furniture and got such things as were actually needed for the house and
the restaurant, on the condition that he would take them back at a
discount when I got through with them.
Trade at the restaurant was very good, and we got along nicely. My
sister got a position as nurse for fifteen dollars a month. One day the
cook from a shipwrecked vessel came to my restaurant, and in return
for his board and a bed in the place, agreed to do my cooking. After
trade became good, I changed my residence to a house of four rooms,
and put three cheap cots in each of two of the rooms, and let the cots at
a dollar a week apiece to colored men who worked nearby in hotels.
Lawrence and I did the chamber work at night, after the day's work in
the restaurant.
I introduced "Boston baked beans" into my restaurant, much to the
amusement of the people at first; but after they had once eaten them it
was hard to meet the demand for beans.
Lawrence, who was now about eleven years old, was a great help to me.
He took out dinners to the cigarmakers in a factory nearby.
At the end of the season, about four months, it had grown so hot that
we could stay in Jacksonville no longer. From my restaurant and my
lodgers I cleared one hundred and seventy-five dollars, which I put into
the Jacksonville bank. Then I took the furniture back to the dealer, who
fulfilled his agreement.
My sister decided to go back to Atlanta when she got through with her
place as nurse, which would not be for some weeks.
I took seventy-five dollars out of my bank account, and with Lawrence
went to Fernandina. There we took train to Port Royal, S. C., then

steamer to New York. From New York we went to Brooklyn for a few
days. Then we went to Newport and stayed with a woman who kept a
lodging-house. I decided to see what I could do in Newport by keeping
a boarding and lodging-house. I hired a little house and agreed to pay
nine dollars a month for it. I left Lawrence with some neighbors while I
came to Boston and took some things out of storage. These things I
moved into the little house. But I found, after paying one month's rent,
that the house was not properly located for the business I wanted. I left,
and with Lawrence went to Narragansett Pier. I got a place there as
"runner" for a laundry; that is, I was to go to the hotels and leave cards
and solicit trade. Then Lawrence thought he would like to help by
doing a little work. One night when I came back from the laundry, I
missed him. Nobody had seen him. All night I searched for him, but did
not find him. In the early morning I met him coming home. He said a
man who kept a bowling alley had hired him at fifty cents a week to set
up the pins, and it was in the bowling alley he had been all night. He
said the man let him take a nap on his coat when he got sleepy. I went
at once to see this man, and told him not to hire my nephew again. A
lady who kept a hotel offered me two dollars a week for Lawrence's
services in helping the cook and serving in the help's dining-room.
When the season closed, the