ht
for some things . . . their property, and their vote and their work. And I
guess the colored people have got to fight for those, themselves. But
there are some other things . . . some of the nicest . . . why, if you
fight for them, you tear them all to pieces, trying to get them."

Paul did not have the least idea what this meant.

"If what you want is to have people respect what you are worth, why, if
you fight them to make them, then you spoil what you're worth. Anyhow,
even if you don't spoil it, fighting about it doesn't put you in any
state of mind to go on being your best. That's a pretty hard job for
anybody."

Paul found this very dull. His attention wandered back to that queer
flicker, so excited about something.

The old man tried to get at him again. "Look here, Paul, Americans that
happen to be colored people ought to have every bit of the same chance
to amount to their best that any Americans have, oughtn't they?"

Paul saw this. But he didn't see what Mr. Welles could do about it, and
said so.

"Well, I couldn't do a great deal," said the old man sadly, "but more
than if I stayed here. It looks as though they needed, as much as
anything else, people to just have the same feeling towards them that
you have for anybody who's trying to make the best of himself. And I
could do that."

Paul got the impression at last that Mr. Welles was in earnest about
this. It made him feel anxious. "Oh _dear_!" he said, kicking the toe of
his rubber boot against the rock. He couldn't think of anything to say,
except that he hated the idea of Mr. Welles going.

But just then he was startled by a sharp cry of distress from the bird,
who flew out wildly from the beech, poised herself in the air, beating
her wings and calling in a loud scream. The old man, unused to forests
and their inhabitants, noticed this but vaguely, and was surprised by
Paul's instant response. "There must be a snake after her eggs," he said
excitedly. "I'll go over and chase him off."

He started across the pool, gave a cry, and stood still, petrified.
Before their eyes, without a breath of wind, the hugh beech solemnly
bowed itself and with a great roar of branches, whipping and crushing
the trees about, it fell, its full length thundering on the ground, a
great mat of shaggy roots uptorn, leaving an open wound in the stony
mountain soil. Then, in a minute, it was all as still as before.

Paul was scared almost to death. He scrambled back