.

Winter cut short any illusion that I was bound for my promised land. I was leveled by illness.

I was accustomed to the cold, and it was always cold on the northeast side of Beacon Hill, which was untouched by the afternoon sun. It was the smoke from wood fires and coal that made me ill, not the frigid temperature. No white doctor would see patients in the neighborhood known as “Nigger Hill”, so Mrs. Howard sent for a colored doctor who had only to hear my coughing and feel my burning forehead to tell me that I was suffering from bronchitis. 

“You can’t have a fire smoking in here, so stay in bed, well-bundled,” he advised me. “And don’t plan to spend another winter in Boston. You might not survive it.” ...

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