At the close of the “big meeting” I left the settlement where it was being held, full of enthusiasm.  I was in that frame of mind which, in the artistic temperament, amounts to inspiration.  I was now ready and anxious to get to some place where I might settle down to work, and give expression to the ideas which were teeming in my head; but I strayed into another deviation from my path of life as I had it marked out, which led me upon an entirely different road.  Instead of going to the nearest and most convenient railroad station, I accepted the invitation of a young man who had been present the closing Sunday at the meeting to drive with him some miles farther to the town in which he taught school, and there take the train.  My conversation with this young man as we drove along through the country was extremely interesting.  He had been a student in one of the Negro colleges—­strange coincidence, in the very college, as I learned through him, in which “Shiny” was now a professor.  I was, of course, curious to hear about my boyhood friend; and had it not been vacation time, and that I was not sure that I should find him, I should have gone out of my way to pay him a visit; but I determined to write to him as soon as the school opened.  My companion talked to me about his work among the people, of his hopes and his discouragements.  He was tremendously in earnest; I might say, too much so.  In fact, it may be said that the majority of intelligent colored people are, in some degree, too much in earnest over the race question.  They assume and carry so much that their progress is at times impeded and they are unable to see things in their proper proportions.  In many instances a slight exercise of the sense of humor would save much anxiety of soul.  Anyone who marks the general tone of editorials in colored newspapers is apt to be impressed with this idea.  If the mass of Negroes took their present and future as seriously as do the most of their leaders, the race would be in no mental condition to sustain the terrible pressure which it undergoes; it would sink of its own weight.  Yet it must be acknowledged that in the making of a race overseriousness is a far lesser failing than its reverse, and even the faults resulting from it lean toward the right.

We drove into the town just before dark.  As we passed a large, unpainted church, my companion pointed it out as the place where he held his school.  I promised that I would go there with him the next morning and visit awhile.  The town was of that kind which hardly requires or deserves description; a straggling line of brick and wooden stores on one side of the railroad track and some cottages of various sizes on the other side constituted about the whole of it.  The young school teacher boarded at the best house in the place owned by a colored man.  It was painted, had glass windows, contained “store bought” furniture, an organ, and lamps with chimneys.  The owner held a job of some kind on the railroad.