ent for she was almost
alone.

It was eighteen little months ago that she had ridden up to the world
with widening eyes. In that time what had happened? Everything. How well
she remembered her coming, the first reflection of yonder gilded dome
and the soaring of the capitol; the swelling of her heart, with
inarticulate wonder; the pain of the thirst to know and understand. She
did not know much now but she had learned how to find things out. She
did not understand all, but some things she--

"Ticket"--the tone was harsh and abrupt. Zora started. She had always
noted how polite conductors were to her and Mrs. Vanderpool--was it
simply because Mrs. Vanderpool was evidently a great and rich lady? She
held up her ticket and he snatched it from her muttering some direction.

"I beg your pardon?" she said.

"Change at Charlotte," he snapped as he went on.

It seemed to Zora that his discourtesy was almost forced: that he was
afraid he might be betrayed into some show of consideration for a black
woman. She felt no anger, she simply wondered what he feared. The
increasing smell of tobacco smoke started her coughing. She turned. To
be sure. Not only was the door to the smoker standing open, but a white
passenger was in her car, sitting by the conductor and puffing heartily.
As the black porter passed her she said gently:

"Is smoking allowed in here?"

"It ain't non o' my business," he flung back at her and moved away. All
day white men passed back and forward through the car as through a
thoroughfare. They talked loudly and laughed and joked, and if they did
not smoke they carried their lighted cigars. At her they stared and made
comments, and one of them came and lounged almost over her seat,
inquiring where she was going.

She did not reply; she neither looked nor stirred, but kept whispering
to herself with something like awe: "This is what they must endure--my
poor people!"

At Lynchburg a newsboy boarded the train with his wares. The conductor
had already appropriated two seats for himself, and the newsboy routed
out two colored passengers, and usurped two other seats. Then he began
to be especially annoying. He joked and wrestled with the porter, and on
every occasion pushed his wares at Zora, insisting on her buying.

"Ain't you got no money?" he asked. "Where you going?"

"Say," he whispered another time, "don't you want to buy these gold
spectacles? I found 'em and I dassen't sell 'em open, see? They're