nose pointing toward Canada,
there stood a group of familiar dark faces, and the look they cast
backward was not one of longing for the fleshpots of Egypt. The colonel
saw Grandison point him out to one of the crew of the vessel, who waved
his hand derisively toward the colonel. The latter shook his fist
impotently--and the incident was closed.

Uncle Wellington's Wives

I

Uncle Wellington Braboy was so deeply absorbed in thought as he walked
slowly homeward from the weekly meeting of the Union League, that he let
his pipe go out, a fact of which he remained oblivious until he had
reached the little frame house in the suburbs of Patesville, where he
lived with aunt Milly, his wife. On this particular occasion the club
had been addressed by a visiting brother from the North, Professor
Patterson, a tall, well-formed mulatto, who wore a perfectly fitting
suit of broadcloth, a shiny silk hat, and linen of dazzling
whiteness,--in short, a gentleman of such distinguished appearance that
the doors and windows of the offices and stores on Front Street were
filled with curious observers as he passed through that thoroughfare in
the early part of the day. This polished stranger was a traveling
organizer of Masonic lodges, but he also claimed to be a high officer in
the Union League, and had been invited to lecture before the local
chapter of that organization at Patesville.

The lecture had been largely attended, and uncle* Wellington Braboy had
occupied a seat just in front of the platform. The subject of the
lecture was "The Mental, Moral, Physical, Political, Social, and
Financial Improvement of the Negro Race in America," a theme much dwelt
upon, with slight variations, by colored orators. For to this struggling
people, then as now, the problem of their uncertain present and their
doubtful future was the chief concern of life. The period was the
hopeful one. The Federal Government retained some vestige of authority
in the South, and the newly emancipated race cherished the delusion that
under the Constitution, that enduring rock on which our liberties are
founded, and under the equal laws it purported to guarantee, they would
enter upon the era of freedom and opportunity which their Northern
friends had inaugurated with such solemn sanctions. The speaker pictured
in eloquent language the state of ideal equality and happiness enjoyed
by colored people at the North: how they sent their children to school
with