Miss Taylor was disappointed.

Her dream had been a post-graduate course at Bryn Mawr; but that was out
of the question until money was earned. She had pictured herself earning
this by teaching one or two of her "specialties" in some private school
near New York or Boston, or even in a Western college. The South she had
not thought of seriously; and yet, knowing of its delightful
hospitality and mild climate, she was not averse to Charleston or New
Orleans. But from the offer that came to teach Negroes--country Negroes,
and little ones at that--she shrank, and, indeed, probably would have
refused it out of hand had it not been for her queer brother, John. John
Taylor, who had supported her through college, was interested in cotton.
Having certain schemes in mind, he had been struck by the fact that the
Smith School was in the midst of the Alabama cotton-belt.

"Better go," he had counselled, sententiously. "Might learn something
useful down there."

She had been not a little dismayed by the outlook, and had protested
against his blunt insistence.

"But, John, there's no society--just elementary work--"

John had met this objection with, "Humph!" as he left for his office.
Next day he had returned to the subject.

"Been looking up Tooms County. Find some Cresswells there--big
plantations--rated at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Some
others, too; big cotton county."

"You ought to know, John, if I teach Negroes I'll scarcely see much of
people in my own class."

"Nonsense! Butt in. Show off. Give 'em your Greek--and study Cotton. At
any rate, I say go."

And so, howsoever reluctantly, she had gone.

The trial was all she had anticipated, and possibly a bit more. She was
a pretty young woman of twenty-three, fair and rather daintily moulded.
In favorable surroundings, she would have been an aristocrat and an
epicure. Here she was teaching dirty children, and the smell of confused
odors and bodily perspiration was to her at times unbearable.

Then there was the fact of their color: it was a fact so insistent, so
fatal she almost said at times, that she could not escape it.
Theoretically she had always treated it with disdainful ease.

"What's the mere color of a human soul's skin," she had cried to a
Wellesley audience and the audience had applauded with enthusiasm. But
here in Alabama, brought closely and intimately in touch with these dark
skinned children, their color struck her at first with a sor