s as she
beats a retreat and he goes upstairs and into the library whistling,
"See, the Conquering Hero Comes."

THE FINISH OF PATSY BARNES

His name was Patsy Barnes, and he was a denizen of Little Africa. In
fact, he lived on Douglass Street. By all the laws governing the
relations between people and their names, he should have been
Irish--but he was not. He was colored, and very much so. That was the
reason he lived on Douglass Street. The negro has very strong within
him the instinct of colonization and it was in accordance with this
that Patsy's mother had found her way to Little Africa when she had
come North from Kentucky.

Patsy was incorrigible. Even into the confines of Little Africa had
penetrated the truant officer and the terrible penalty of the
compulsory education law. Time and time again had poor Eliza Barnes
been brought up on account of the shortcomings of that son of hers.
She was a hard-working, honest woman, and day by day bent over her
tub, scrubbing away to keep Patsy in shoes and jackets, that would
wear out so much faster than they could be bought. But she never
murmured, for she loved the boy with a deep affection, though his
misdeeds were a sore thorn in her side.

She wanted him to go to school. She wanted him to learn. She had the
notion that he might become something better, something higher than
she had been. But for him school had no charms; his school was the
cool stalls in the big livery stable near at hand; the arena of his
pursuits its sawdust floor; the height of his ambition, to be a
horseman. Either here or in the racing stables at the Fair-grounds he
spent his truant hours. It was a school that taught much, and Patsy
was as apt a pupil as he was a constant attendant. He learned strange
things about horses, and fine, sonorous oaths that sounded eerie on
his young lips, for he had only turned into his fourteenth year.

A man goes where he is appreciated; then could this slim black boy be
blamed for doing the same thing? He was a great favorite with the
horsemen, and picked up many a dime or nickel for dancing or singing,
or even a quarter for warming up a horse for its owner. He was not to
be blamed for this, for, first of all, he was born in Kentucky, and
had spent the very days of his infancy about the paddocks near
Lexington, where his father had sacrificed his life on account of his
love for horses. The little fellow had shed no tears when he looked at
his father'