“ Her father removed to the South after the war, and Miss Brooks went to Little Rock, Ark., in 1870. Two years afterwards, in conversation with a friend, she warmly argued that women should earn their own money, and he made a wager that she would not do it herself. As a joke, he found her a school in Fouche Bottom, where the gnats were so thick that a smudge had to be kept continually burning. She accepted the position and taught there IDA JOE BROOKS. faithfully and well. In 1873 Miss Brooks, with a liking for the work, began to teach in the public schools of Little Rock. ”