ditch?"

"Yes, Henry, that is the truth; but I am afraid the white people
wouldn't wish to handle the same books."

"Very well, then we will give the coloured folks a library of their
own, at some place convenient for their use. We need not strain our
ideal by going too fast. Where shall I build the library?"

"The vacant lot," she said, "between the post-office and the bank."

"The very place," he replied. "It belonged to our family once, and I
shall be acquiring some more ancestral property. The cows will need to
find a new pasture."

The announcement of the colonel's plan concerning the academy and the
library evoked a hearty response on the part of the public, and the
_Anglo-Saxon_ hailed it as the dawning of a new era. With regard to
the colonel's friendly plans for the Negroes, there was less
enthusiasm and some difference of opinion. Some commended the
colonel's course. There were others, good men and patriotic, men who
would have died for liberty, in the abstract, men who sought to walk
uprightly, and to live peaceably with all, but who, by much brooding
over the conditions surrounding their life, had grown hopelessly
pessimistic concerning the Negro.

The subject came up in a little company of gentlemen who were gathered
around the colonel's table one evening, after the coffee had been
served, and the Havanas passed around.

"Your zeal for humanity does you infinite credit, Colonel French,"
said Dr. Mackenzie, minister of the Presbyterian Church, who was one
of these prophetic souls, "but I fear your time and money and effort
will be wasted. The Negroes are hopelessly degraded. They have
degenerated rapidly since the war."

"How do you know, doctor? You came here from the North long after the
war. What is your standard of comparison?"

"I voice the unanimous opinion of those who have known them at both
periods."

"_I_ don't agree with you; and I lived here before the war. There is
certainly one smart Negro in town. Nichols, the coloured barber, owns
five houses, and overreached me in a bargain. Before the war he was a
chattel. And Taylor, the teacher, seems to be a very sensible fellow."

"Yes," said Dr. Price, who was one of the company, "Taylor is a very
intelligent Negro. Nichols and he have learned how to live and prosper
among the white people."

"They are exceptions," said the preacher, "who only prove the rule.
No, Colonel French, for a long time _I_ hoped that there was a future
for the