no educational facilities until her twelfth year, though then able to read. Upon moving to Yankton she entered school, and is now the leading member of her class in the Yankton high school.
During her continuance in school she has been an incessant reader, and as such is familiar with all questions of interest, and able to write so as to please those who may perchance read her articles. Her first poem, "A Dying Child's Fancy," was written at the age of fourteen. It is said to have been good, all things considered, but it was never published. Beginning her correspondence to papers and periodicals in the summer of 1888, she made herself prominent at once by her lively and interesting articles, which appeared mostly in The Christian Recorder and American Baptist. She is now a regular contributor to Our Women and Children magazine, and we occasionally find articles from her pen in The Indianapolis Freeman. One styles her as being bright in thought and unique in expression.
As a poetical writer, there are few among the young Afro-American women who can excel her. She is given to the lively and vivacious, rather than the pathetic and humorous. We reproduce one of her poems, published in The Indianapolis Freeman, in which she depicts the condition of the Afro-American, and questions its continuance. It is entitled
"A QUESTION OF TO-DAY."
"And shall our people, long oppressed
By fierce, inhuman foe,
Not seek to have their wrongs redressed?
No! by their manhood, no!
"You men do call us women weak.
By Him who ruleth all,
For what was ours we'd dare to speak,
Menaced by cannon ball.
