"
"But--but, he's a--a--"
"A Negro. To be sure, he is; and a man in addition. Now, dear, don't
take this too much to heart; this is not a rebuke, but a clumsy warning.
I am simply trying to make clear to you _why_ you should be careful.
Treat poor Zora a little more lovingly, and Bles a little less warmly.
They are just human--but, oh! so human."
Mary Taylor rose up stiffly and mumbled a brief good-night. She went to
her room, and sat down in the dark. The mere mention of the thing was to
her so preposterous--no, loathsome, she kept repeating.
She slowly undressed in the dark, and heard the rumbling of the cotton
wagons as they swayed toward town. The cry of the Naked was sweeping the
world, and yonder in the night black men were answering the call. They
knew not what or why they answered, but obeyed the irresistible call,
with hearts light and song upon their lips--the Song of Service. They
lashed their mules and drank their whiskey, and all night the piled
fleece swept by Mary Taylor's window, flying--flying to that far cry.
Miss Taylor turned uneasily in her bed and jerked the bed-clothes about
her ears.
"Mrs. Vanderpool is right," she confided to the night, with something of
the awe with which one suddenly comprehends a hidden oracle; "there must
be a difference, always, always! That impudent Negro!"
All night she dreamed, and all day,--especially when trim and immaculate
she sat in her chair and looked down upon fifty dark faces--and upon
Zora.
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