"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.
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