He realized, too, for a moment, the continuity of life, how inseparably the present is woven with the past, how certainly the future will be but the outcome of the present.  He had supposed this old wound healed.  The negroes were not a vindictive people.  If, swayed by passion or emotion, they sometimes gave way to gusts of rage, these were of brief duration.  Absorbed in the contemplation of their doubtful present and their uncertain future, they gave little thought to the past,—­it was a dark story, which they would willingly forget.  He knew the timeworn explanation that the Ku-Klux movement, in the main, was merely an ebullition of boyish spirits, begun to amuse young white men by playing upon the fears and superstitions of ignorant negroes.  Here, however, was its tragic side,—­the old wound still bleeding, the fruit of one tragedy, the seed of another.  He could not approve of Josh’s application of the Mosaic law of revenge, and yet the incident was not without significance.  Here was a negro who could remember an injury, who could shape his life to a definite purpose, if not a high or holy one.  When his race reached the point where they would resent a wrong, there was hope that they might soon attain the stage where they would try, and, if need be, die, to defend a right.  This man, too, had a purpose in life, and was willing to die that he might accomplish it.  Miller was willing to give up his life to a cause.  Would he be equally willing, he asked himself, to die for it?  Miller had no prophetic instinct to tell him how soon he would have the opportunity to answer his own question.  But he could not encourage Josh to carry out this dark and revengeful purpose.  Every worthy consideration required him to dissuade his patient from such a desperate course.

“You had better put away these murderous fancies, Josh,” he said seriously.  “The Bible says that we should ’forgive our enemies, bless them that curse us, and do good to them that despitefully use us.’”

“Yas, suh, I’ve l’arnt all dat in Sunday-school, an’ I’ve heared de preachers say it time an’ time ag’in.  But it ’pears ter me dat dis fergitfulniss an’ fergivniss is mighty one-sided.  De w’ite folks don’ fergive nothin’ de niggers does.  Dey got up de Ku-Klux, dey said, on ‘count er de kyarpit-baggers.  Dey be’n talkin’ ’bout de kyarpit-baggers ever sence, an’ dey ’pears ter fergot all ‘bout de Ku-Klux.  But I ain’ fergot.  De niggers is be’n train’ ter fergiveniss; an’ fer fear dey might fergit how ter fergive, de w’ite folks gives ’em somethin’ new ev’y now an’ den, ter practice on.  A w’ite man kin do w’at he wants ter a nigger, but de minute de nigger gits back at ’im, up goes de nigger, an’ don’ come down tell somebody cuts ‘im down.  If a nigger gits a’ office, er de race ‘pears ter be prosperin’ too much, de w’ite folks up an’ kills a few, so dat de res’ kin keep on fergivin’ an’ bein’ thankful dat dey’re lef alive.  Don’ talk ter me ’bout dese w’ite folks,—­I knows ‘em, I