The faculty resumed its conference and the students passed the query around as to what was the matter with the “newcomer.”  A number tapped their heads significantly, saying:  “Wrong here.”  How far wrong were they!  They should have put their hands over their hearts and said:  “The fire of patriotism here;” for Belton had here on a small scale, the gratification of the deepest passion of his soul, viz., Equality of the races.  And what pleased him as much as anything else was the dignified, matter of fact way in which the teacher bore his honors.  Belton afterwards discovered that this colored man was vice-president of the faculty.

On a morning, later in the session, the president announced that the faculty would hold its regular weekly meeting that evening, but that he would have to be in the city to attend to other masters.  Belton’s heart bounded at the announcement.  Knowing that the colored teacher was vice-president of the faculty, he saw that he would preside.  Belton determined to see that meeting of the faculty if it cost him no end of trouble.  He could not afford, under any circumstances, to fail to see that colored man preside over those white men and women.

That night, about 8:30 o’clock, when the faculty meeting had progressed about half way, Belton made a rope of his bed clothes and let himself down to the ground from the window of his room on the second floor of the building.  About twenty yards distant was the “mansion,” in one room of which the teachers held their faculty meetings.  The room in which the meeting was held was on the side of the “mansion” furthest from the dormitory from which Belton had just come.  The “mansion” dog was Belton’s friend, and a soft whistle quieted his bark.  Belton stole around to the side of the house, where the meeting was being held.  The weather was mild and the window was hoisted.  Belton fell on his knees and crawled to the window, and pulling it up cautiously peeped in.  He saw the colored teacher in the chair in the center of the room and others sitting about here and there.  He gazed with rapture on the sight.  He watched, unmolested, for a long while.

One of the lady teachers was tearing up a piece of paper and arose to come to the window to throw it out.  Belton was listening, just at that time, to what the colored teacher was saying, and did not see the lady coming in his direction.  Nor did the lady see the form of a man until she was near at hand.  At the sight she threw up her hands and screamed loudly from fright.  Belton turned and fled precipitately.  The chicken-coop door had been accidentally left open and Belton, unthinkingly, jumped into the chicken house.  The chickens set up a lively cackle, much to his chagrin.  He grasped an old rooster to stop him, but missing the rooster’s throat, the rooster gave the alarm all the more vociferously.  Teachers had now crowded to the window and were peering out.  Some of the men started to the door to come out.  Belton saw this movement and decided that the best way for him to do was to play chicken thief and run.  Grasping a hen with his other hand, he darted out of the chicken house and fled from the college ground, the chickens squalling all the while.  He leapt the college fence at a bound and wrung off the heads of the chickens to stop the noise.