While my being absent from the school so much unquestionably has its disadvantages, yet there are at the same time some compensations.

The change of work brings a certain kind of rest.

I enjoy a ride of a long distance on the cars, when I am permitted to ride where I can be comfortable.

I get rest on the cars, except when the inevitable individual who seems to be on every train approaches me with the now familiar phrase: "Isn't this Booker Washington?
I want to introduce myself to you." Absence from the school enables me to lose sight of the unimportant details of the work, and study it in a broader and more comprehensive manner than I could do on the grounds.

This absence also brings me into contact with the best work being done in educational lines, and into contact with the best educators in the land.
But, after all this is said, the time when I get the most solid rest and recreation is when I can be at Tuskegee, and, after our evening meal is over, can sit down, as is our custom, with my wife and Portia and Baker and Davidson, my three children, and read a story, or each take turns in telling a story.