t
in his boyhood days had gone unnoticed or been greeted with a laugh.
He felt angry now when men did not call him "Mister," he clenched his
hands at the "Jim Crow" cars, and chafed at the color-line that hemmed
in him and his. A tinge of sarcasm crept into his speech, and a vague
bitterness into his life; and he sat long hours wondering and planning
a way around these crooked things. Daily he found himself shrinking
from the choked and narrow life of his native town. And yet he always
planned to go back to Altamaha,--always planned to work there. Still,
more and more as the day approached he hesitated with a nameless dread;
and even the day after graduation he seized with eagerness the offer of
the Dean to send him North with the quartette during the summer
vacation, to sing for the Institute. A breath of air before the
plunge, he said to himself in half apology.

It was a bright September afternoon, and the streets of New York were
brilliant with moving men. They reminded John of the sea, as he sat in
the square and watched them, so changelessly changing, so bright and
dark, so grave and gay. He scanned their rich and faultless clothes,
the way they carried their hands, the shape of their hats; he peered
into the hurrying carriages. Then, leaning back with a sigh, he said,
"This is the World." The notion suddenly seized him to see where the
world was going; since many of the richer and brighter seemed hurrying
all one way. So when a tall, light-haired young man and a little
talkative lady came by, he rose half hesitatingly and followed them.
Up the street they went, past stores and gay shops, across a broad
square, until with a hundred others they entered the high portal of a
great building.

He was pushed toward the ticket-office with the others, and felt in his
pocket for the new five-dollar bill he had hoarded. There seemed
really no time for hesitation, so he drew it bravely out, passed it to
the busy clerk, and received simply a ticket but no change. When at
last he realized that he had paid five dollars to enter he knew not
what, he stood stockstill amazed. "Be careful," said a low voice
behind him; "you must not lynch the colored gentleman simply because
he's in your way," and a girl looked up roguishly into the eyes of her
fair-haired escort. A shade of annoyance passed over the escort's
face. "You WILL not understand us at the South," he said half
impatiently, as if continuing an argument. "