It was a gala day in Tennis Court.  Annette had passed a highly successful examination, and was to graduate from the normal school, and as a matter of course, her neighbors wanted to hear Annette “speak her piece” as they called the commencement theme, and also to see how she was going to behave before all “them people.”  They were, generally speaking, too unaspiring to feel envious toward any one of their race who excelled them intellectually, and so there was little or no jealousy of Annette in Tennis Court; in fact some of her neighbors felt a kind of pride in the thought that Tennis Court would turn out a girl who could stand on the same platform and graduate alongside of some of their employers’ daughters.  If they could not stand there themselves they were proud that one of their race could.

“I feel,” said one, “like the boy when some one threatened to slap off his face who said ’you can slap off my face, but I have a big brother and you can’t slap off his face;’” and strange as it may appear, Annette received more encouragement from a class of honest-hearted but ignorant and well meaning people who knew her, than she did from some of the most cultured and intelligent people of A.P.  Nor was it very strange; they were living too near the poverty, ignorance and social debasement of the past to have developed much race pride, and a glowing enthusiasm in its progress and development.  Although they were of African descent, they were Americans whose thoughts were too much Americanized to be wholly free from imbibing the social atmosphere with which they were in constant contact in their sphere of enjoyments.  The literature they read was mostly from the hands of white men who would paint them in any colors which suited their prejudices or predilections.  The religious ideas they had embraced came at first thought from the same sources, though they may have undergone modifications in passing through their channels of thought, and it must be a remarkable man or woman who thinks an age ahead of the generation in which his or her lot is cast, and who plans and works for the future on the basis of that clearer vision.  Nor is it to be wondered at, if under the circumstances, some of the more cultured of A.P. thought it absurd to look for anything remarkable to come out of the black Nazareth of Tennis court.  Her neighbors had an idea that Annette was very smart; that she had a great “head piece,” but unless she left A.P. to teach school elsewhere, they did not see what good her education was going to do her.  It wasn’t going to put any meal in the barrel nor any potatoes in the bin.  Even Mrs. Larkins relaxed her ancient hostility to Annette and opened her heart to present her with a basket of flowers.  Annette within the last year had become very much changed in her conduct and character.  She had become friendly in her manner and considerate in her behavior to Mrs. Larkins since she had entered the church, during a protracted meeting.  Annette was