ared in his expression, he answered hastily:

"Oh, that's all right,--it wouldn't have mattered."

The old preacher looked at him quietly and a little reproachfully and
said:

"If you don' jes' mean things like that, young sah, don' say them. We
know. We find, sah, that it is mos' desirable for every one concerned.
If yo' like, sah, an' if yo're ready, Ah'll show yo' to yo'r room."

[Illustration: IN AN ALL-NEGRO TOWN. Residents of Bullertown on the day
that the census was taken. (_Brown Bros._)]

[Illustration: IN AN ALL-NEGRO TOWN. Residents of Bullertown on the day
that the census was taken. (_Brown Bros._)]

Hamilton could not help contrasting this reception with that which he
would have received in any town not entirely a negro community, and he
expressed this feeling to his host as they went up the stairs.

"It is entirely different hyar, sah," the latter said, "yo' see we are
isolated, an' a guest is rare. Then this community is a syndicate an' is
not run like a town. Thar's no quest'n hyar, sah, about colored and
white people bein' the same,--we know they're different. An' we believe,
sah, that it is in preservin' the color line, not in tryin' to hide it,
that the future good of our race lies. An' so thar's not a foot o' land
in Bullertown owned by any other than people o' color, an' not a white
person lives hyar."

"You own all the land, then?"

"The syndicate does, yes, sah."

"Then you must have some wealthy men among you?"

"No, sah, not one. The town was begun, sah, by the kindness of Colonel
Egerius."

"Colonel--he was, that is, he is--" began Hamilton, stammering.

"He is not a negro, sah," the old man answered finishing the boy's
embarrassed sentence for him with entire self-possession. "Colonel
Egerius, sah, was a plantation owner, befo' the war. Ah was one o' his
slaves, an' mos' o' the people in Bullertown are the children o' those
born in the plantation quarters."

"And he started the town?"

"Yas, sah, in a way. He fought with Lee, sah, an' my brother was his
body-servant all through the war. When Lee surrendered, the Colonel came
back to the old plantation. Some of the slaves had gone, but thar was
quite a few left still. He called us to the big house an' tol' us to
stay by the ol' place an' he would pay us wages. Some--Ah was not one o'
them, though Ah see now they were right,--said the quarters were not fit
to live in."

"But I thought you said Colonel Egerius was a kind maste