w
little thought he had given her. He put his arm about her and let her
passion of tears spend itself on his shoulder.

Long they stood together, peering over the gray unresting water.

"John," she said, "does it make every one--unhappy when they study and
learn lots of things?"

He paused and smiled. "I am afraid it does," he said.

"And, John, are you glad you studied?"

"Yes," came the answer, slowly but positively.

She watched the flickering lights upon the sea, and said thoughtfully,
"I wish I was unhappy,--and--and," putting both arms about his neck, "I
think I am, a little, John."

It was several days later that John walked up to the Judge's house to
ask for the privilege of teaching the Negro school. The Judge himself
met him at the front door, stared a little hard at him, and said
brusquely, "Go 'round to the kitchen door, John, and wait." Sitting on
the kitchen steps, John stared at the corn, thoroughly perplexed. What
on earth had come over him? Every step he made offended some one. He
had come to save his people, and before he left the depot he had hurt
them. He sought to teach them at the church, and had outraged their
deepest feelings. He had schooled himself to be respectful to the
Judge, and then blundered into his front door. And all the time he had
meant right,--and yet, and yet, somehow he found it so hard and strange
to fit his old surroundings again, to find his place in the world about
him. He could not remember that he used to have any difficulty in the
past, when life was glad and gay. The world seemed smooth and easy
then. Perhaps,--but his sister came to the kitchen door just then and
said the Judge awaited him.

The Judge sat in the dining-room amid his morning's mail, and he did
not ask John to sit down. He plunged squarely into the business.
"You've come for the school, I suppose. Well John, I want to speak to
you plainly. You know I'm a friend to your people. I've helped you
and your family, and would have done more if you hadn't got the notion
of going off. Now I like the colored people, and sympathize with all
their reasonable aspirations; but you and I both know, John, that in
this country the Negro must remain subordinate, and can never expect to
be the equal of white men. In their place, your people can be honest
and respectful; and God knows, I'll do what I can to help them. But
when they want to reverse nature, and rule white men, and marry white
women,