and sit in my parlor, then, by God! we'll hold them under if we
have to lynch every Nigger in the land. Now, John, the question is,
are you, with your education and Northern notions, going to accept the
situation and teach the darkies to be faithful servants and laborers as
your fathers were,--I knew your father, John, he belonged to my
brother, and he was a good Nigger. Well--well, are you going to be
like him, or are you going to try to put fool ideas of rising and
equality into these folks' heads, and make them discontented and
unhappy?"

"I am going to accept the situation, Judge Henderson," answered John,
with a brevity that did not escape the keen old man. He hesitated a
moment, and then said shortly, "Very well,--we'll try you awhile.
Good-morning."

It was a full month after the opening of the Negro school that the
other John came home, tall, gay, and headstrong. The mother wept, the
sisters sang. The whole white town was glad. A proud man was the
Judge, and it was a goodly sight to see the two swinging down Main
Street together. And yet all did not go smoothly between them, for the
younger man could not and did not veil his contempt for the little
town, and plainly had his heart set on New York. Now the one cherished
ambition of the Judge was to see his son mayor of Altamaha,
representative to the legislature, and--who could say?--governor of
Georgia. So the argument often waxed hot between them. "Good heavens,
father," the younger man would say after dinner, as he lighted a cigar
and stood by the fireplace, "you surely don't expect a young fellow
like me to settle down permanently in this--this God-forgotten town
with nothing but mud and Negroes?" "I did," the Judge would answer
laconically; and on this particular day it seemed from the gathering
scowl that he was about to add something more emphatic, but neighbors
had already begun to drop in to admire his son, and the conversation
drifted.

"Heah that John is livenin' things up at the darky school," volunteered
the postmaster, after a pause.

"What now?" asked the Judge, sharply.

"Oh, nothin' in particulah,--just his almighty air and uppish ways.
B'lieve I did heah somethin' about his givin' talks on the French
Revolution, equality, and such like. He's what I call a dangerous
Nigger."

"Have you heard him say anything out of the way?"

"Why, no,--but Sally, our girl, told my wife a lot of rot. Then, too,
I don't need to heah: a Nigge