MADAM C. J. WALKER began her life as Sarah Breedlove. The fifth of six children, she was born on December 23, 1867, two years after the end of the American Civil War.
Her parents, Owen and Minerva Breed love, had been slaves but were living as “freemen,” working as sharecroppers on their former master’s plantation. In return for laboring twelve hours a day under the hot sun, they received a share of the cotton harvest. Unfortunately, the money they earned from selling their cotton was usually less than what they spent on equipment and supplies. As a result, Sarah’s family was very poor. To earn a little extra money, Sarah helped her mother raise chickens and sell eggs. She and her sister also laundered clothes for “white folk,” using big wooden tubs set out in their front yard.
When she was seven years old, Sarah found herself sitting on the step of her family’s shack in Delta, Louisiana, scratching in the dusty earth with a stick. Tears trickled down her cheeks. “What will become of me?” she wondered aloud. An epidemic had taken her parents’ lives, as often happened to poor blacks who had little access to doctors or hospitals in the late 1800s. So Sarah, her sister, and her four brothers became orphans.
After her parents’ deaths, Sarah worked on the plantation for three more years. But when her brother Alex moved across the Mississippi River to Vicksburg and that year’s cotton crop failed, Sarah and her sister, Louvenia, were not able to make enough money to keep their home. Forced to move, they, too, fled to Vicksburg.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 2017-Ausgabe von Cricket Magazine for Kids.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der February 2017-Ausgabe von Cricket Magazine for Kids.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
The Tale Of Paddy Ahern
THERE ONCE WAS a lad named Paddy Ahern who trod the green hills of Limerick, Ireland, offering to help farmers with their chores in return for food and lodging.
The Pedestrians
EACH TIME HELGA Estby looked over her shoulder, the big cat was there. Crossing Wyoming’s Red Desert on foot, in the dust and heat of August 1896, was tough.
The Magic Gifts
A Basque Folk Tale
The Dragon's Scales
“THREE YEARS I'VE been waiting, when Torquil promised he’d return them in three days. I’m not waiting three more days to get back what’s mine!” The dragon punctuated his remarks with a smoky snort and a lashing tail.
The Water Bucketre
A Chinese Folk Tale.
Between The Pages
One rainy night, while alone in the castle library with her talking gargoyle, Marcus, Princess Audrey finds a book with the odd title Finding Angel. Meanwhile, in modern times, a girl named Angel is celebrating her thirteenth birthday.
Swim Buddies
I LEAN OVER the side of the catamaran and peer into the crystal blue water. This is my last chance, I think.
The Bushwhackers
I CAN’T ABIDE living one more day in this pigpen!” I groaned and rolled out of bed to pull on my dress.
As American as Appleless Pie!
NOTHING IS MORE American than the humble apple pie. There’s even an old saying to prove it: “as American as apple pie.” So it may come as a surprise that many early settlers who forged the trails of our expanding nation were often without apples to make this most American of desserts. As pioneers headed west in pursuit of territory and gold, they had to leave many things behind, including apples. Not only did life on the trail make fresh fruit like apples hard to carry and keep, apple trees were native only to the east coast, which made finding apples in the West nearly impossible.
The Man Who Built A Better Leg
THE CIVIL WAR was only a few weeks old when seven hundred and fifty Confederate recruits gathered in the fields around Philippi, Virginia. It was early June 1861, and as yet there had been no real battles. The men had eagerly volunteered, but most had no training as soldiers. Their only weapons were the ones they brought from home— old-fashioned flintlock muskets, cap and ball pistols, and a few shotguns.
