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It left John sitting so silent and rapt that he did not for some
time notice the usher tapping him lightly on the shoulder and
saying politely, "Will you step this way, please, sir?" A
little surprised, he arose quickly at the last tap, and, turning
to leave his seat, looked full into the face of the fair-haired
young man. For the first time the young man recognized his
dark boyhood playmate, and John knew that it was the Judge's
son. The White John started, lifted his hand, and then froze
into his chair; the black John smiled lightly, then grimly, and
followed the usher down the aisle. The manager was sorry,
very, very sorry,--but he explained that some mistake had
been made in selling the gentleman a seat already disposed
of; he would refund the money, of course,--and indeed felt
the matter keenly, and so forth, and--before he had finished
John was gone, walking hurriedly across the square and
down the broad streets, and as he passed the park he buttoned
his coat and said, "John Jones, you're a natural-born fool."
Then he went to his lodgings and wrote a letter, and tore it
up; he wrote another, and threw it in the fire. Then he seized
a scrap of paper and wrote: "Dear Mother and Sister--I am
coming--John."
"Perhaps," said John, as he settled himself on the train,
"perhaps I am to blame myself in struggling against my
manifest destiny simply because it looks hard and unpleasant.
Here is my duty to Altamaha plain before me; perhaps they'll
let me help settle the Negro problems there,--perhaps they
won't. 'I will go in to the King, which is not according to the
law; and if I perish, I perish.'" And then he mused and
dreamed, and planned a life-work; and the train flew south.
Down in Altamaha, after seven long years, all the world
knew John was coming. The homes were scrubbed and scoured,
--above all, one; the gardens and yards had an unwonted
trimness, and Jennie bought a new gingham. With some
finesse and negotiation, all the dark Methodists and Presbyterians
were induced to join in a monster welcome at the Baptist
Church; and as the day drew near, warm discussions arose on
every corner as to the exact extent and nature of John's
accomplishments. It was noontide on a gray and cloudy day
when he came. The black town flocked to the depot, with a
little of the white at the edges,--a happy throng, with "Good-mawnings"
and "Howdys" and laughing and joking and
jostling. Mother sat yonder in the window watching; but
sister Jennie stood on the platform, nervously fingering her
dress, tall and lithe, with soft brown skin and loving eyes
peering from out a tangled wilderness of hair. John rose
gloomily as the train stopped, for he was thinking of the "Jim
Crow" car; he stepped to the platform, and paused: a little
dingy station, a black crowd gaudy and dirty, a half-mile of
dilapidated shanties along a straggling ditch of mud. An overwhelming
sense of the sordidness and narrowness of it all
seized him; he looked in vain for his mother, kissed coldly
the tall, strange girl who called him brother, spoke a short,
dry word here and there; then, lingering neither for handshaking
nor gossip, started silently up the street, raising his
hat merely to the last eager old aunty, to her open-mouthed
astonishment. The people were distinctly bewildered. This
silent, cold man,--was this John? Where was his smile and
hearty hand-grasp? "'Peared kind o' down in the mouf,"
said the Methodist preacher thoughtfully. "Seemed monstus
stuck up," complained a Baptist sister. But the white postmaster
from the edge of the crowd expressed the opinion of
his folks plainly. "That damn Nigger," said he, as he shouldered
the mail and arranged his tobacco, "has gone North
and got plum full o' fool notions; but they won't work in
Altamaha." And the crowd melted away.
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