“Whose color, Charley?  Surely not yours, for you are whiter than several of Mr. Hazleton’s clerks.  Do you see in your case it was not prejudice against color?”

“What was it, then?”

“It was the information that you were connected by blood with a once enslaved and despised people on whom society had placed its ban, and to whom slavery and a low social condition had given a heritage of scorn, and as soon as he found out that you were connected with that race, he had neither the manliness nor the moral courage to say, the boy is capable and efficient.  I see no cause why he should be dismissed for the crimes of his white ancestors.  I heard an eminent speaker once say that some people would sing, ’I can smile at Satan’s rage, and face a frowning world,’ when they hadn’t courage enough to face their next door neighbor on a moral question.”

“I think that must be the case with Mr. Hazleton.”

“I once used to despise such men.  I have since learned to pity them.”

“I don’t see what you find to pity in Mr. Hazleton, unless it is his meanness.”

“Well, I pity him for that.  I think there never was slave more cowed under the whip of his master than he is under the lash of public opinion.  The Negro was not the only one whom slavery subdued to the pliancy of submission.  Men fettered the slave and cramped their own souls, denied him knowledge and then darkened their own spiritual insight, and the Negro, poor and despised as he was, laid his hands upon American civilization and has helped to mould its character.  It is God’s law.  As ye sow, so shall ye reap, and men cannot sow avarice and oppression without reaping the harvest of retribution.  It is a dangerous thing to gather

  The flowers of sin that blossom
    Around the borders of hell.”

Chapter VIII

“I never want to go to that school again,” said Annette entering Mrs. Lasette’s sitting room, throwing down her books on the table and looking as if she were ready to burst into tears.

“What is the matter now, my dear child?  You seem to be all out of sorts.”

“I’ve had a fuss with that Mary Joseph.”

“Mary Joseph, the saloon-keeper’s daughter?”

“Yes.”

“How did it happen?”

“Yesterday in changing seats, the teacher put us together according to the first letter in our last names.  You know that I, comes next to J; but there wasn’t a girl in the room whose name begins with I, and so as J comes next, she put Mary Joseph and myself together.”

“Ireland and Africa, and they were not ready for annexation?”

“No, and never will be, I hope.”

“Never is a long day, Annette, but go on with your story.”

“Well, after the teacher put her in the seat next to me she began to wriggle and squirm and I asked her if anything was biting her, because if there was, I did not want it to get on me.”