On a tree-lined street in Covington, just a stone's throw from the hurly-burly of the Interstate, time slows to the pace of an earlier era. The air is thick and unhurried and cicadas drawl their summer songs they way they did more than 125 years ago when the street's namesake - a light-complexioned woman with serious eyes - first stepped into town. The year was 1883 and the woman, 30 years old and freshly minted as a teacher with a diploma from Atlanta University's education department, had come to teach the children of Covington's black schools for a few months.