he
respect within their power, and often go out of their way to do this.

Not very long ago I was making a journey between Dallas (Texas) and
Houston. In some way it became known in advance that I was on the train.
At nearly every station at which the train stopped, numbers of white
people, including in most cases of the officials of the town, came
aboard and introduced themselves and thanked me heartily for the work
that I was trying to do for the South.

On another occasion, when I was making a trip from Augusta, Georgia,
to Atlanta, being rather tired from much travel, I rode in a Pullman
sleeper. When I went into the car, I found there two ladies from Boston
whom I knew well. These good ladies were perfectly ignorant, it seems,
of the customs of the South, and in the goodness of their hearts
insisted that I take a seat with them in their section. After some
hesitation I consented. I had been there but a few minutes when one of
them, without my knowledge, ordered supper to be served for the three
of us. This embarrassed me still further. The car was full of Southern
white men, most of whom had their eyes on our party. When I found that
supper had been ordered, I tried to contrive some excuse that would
permit me to leave the section, but the ladies insisted that I must eat
with them. I finally settled back in my seat with a sigh, and said to
myself, "I am in for it now, sure."

To add further to the embarrassment of the situation, soon after the
supper was placed on the table one of the ladies remembered that she had
in her satchel a special kind of tea which she wished served, and as
she said she felt quite sure the porter did not know how to brew it
properly, she insisted upon getting up and preparing and serving it
herself. At last the meal was over; and it seemed the longest one that I
had ever eaten. When we were through, I decided to get myself out of the
embarrassing situation and go to the smoking-room, where most of the men
were by that time, to see how the land lay. In the meantime, however, it
had become known in some way throughout the car who I was. When I went
into the smoking-room I was never more surprised in my life than when
each man, nearly every one of them a citizen of Georgia, came up and
introduced himself to me and thanked me earnestly for the work that I
was trying to do for the whole South. This was not flattery, because
each one of these individuals knew that he had nothing to gain by try