They had come to the farm field to tell mother and father I was the little girl they had selected to go to Scotia. It was a thrilling day for me, when I was called from the field by my father and teacher said, “Mary Jane, would you like to go to Scotia?”
I asked, “What is Scotia?” and they told me that it was a school in Concord, North Carolina, and that a good woman was going to send me.
I pulled my cotton sack off, got down on my knees, clasped my hands, and turned my eyes upward and thanked God for the chance that had come.
So mother and father started getting me ready to go. I did not have a trunk. We used to have little cracker boxes. We kept our clothing in them, so my father went down and got me a little trunk.
Some neighbors knitted me a little linsey dress, little aprons, this and that and the other, and when that October day came I can see myself now, going down to Maysville to take the train for the first time in my life. All of the neighbors stopped work that afternoon, got out the wagons, mules, ox-carts; some riding, some walking. They were going to Maysville to put me on the train to go to school.
I had never before been on a train. It was all so strange. My teacher wired on to Columbia to Dr. Johnson to meet me and put me on the right train since I had to change. My little heart was going pit-a-pat. I can see my mother as she clasped me in her arms and she said, “God bless my child.” Tears and hand-shakes; all bidding little Mary good-bye.
As the train moved on, I had so strange a feeling and wondered what it was all about. It seemed that as the train was puffing its steam it was saying, “Scotia, Scotia, Scotia.”
