Chapter 39 - Page 2

left New York, if you wa'n't Colonel French?"

"Yes, I'm Mr. French--Colonel French, if you want it so."

"I 'lowed it must be you, suh, though you've changed the cut of your beard, and are looking a little older, suh. I don't suppose you remember me?"

"I've seen you somewhere," said the colonel--no longer the colonel, but like the porter, let us have it so. "Where was it?"

"I'm Henry Taylor, suh, that used to teach school at Clarendon. I reckon you remember me now."

"Yes," said the colonel sadly, "I remember you now, Taylor, to my sorrow. I didn't keep my word about Johnson, did I?"

"Oh, yes, suh," replied the porter, "I never doubted but what you'd keep your word. But you see, suh, they were too many for you. There ain't no one man can stop them folks down there when they once get started."

"And what are you doing here, Taylor?"

"Well, suh, the fact is that after you went away, it got out somehow that I had told on Bud Johnson. I don't know how they learned it, and of course I knew you didn't tell it; but somebody must have seen me going to your house, or else some of my enemies guessed it--and happened to guess right--and after that the coloured folks wouldn't send their children to me, and I lost my job, and wasn't able to get another anywhere in the State. The folks said I was an enemy of my race, and, what was more important to me, I found that my race was an enemy to me. So I got out, suh, and I came No'th, hoping to find somethin' better. This is the best job I've struck yet, but I'm hoping that sometime or other I'll find something worth while."

"And what became of the industrial school project?" asked the colonel. "I've stood ready to keep my promise, and more, but I never heard from you."

"Well, suh, after you went away the enthusiasm kind of died out, and some of the white folks throwed cold water on it, and it fell through, suh."

When the porter came along, before the train reached Chicago, the colonel offered Taylor a handsome tip.

"Thank you, suh," said the porter, "but I'd rather not take it. I'm a porter now, but I wa'n't always one, and hope I won't always be one. And during all the time I taught school in Clarendon, you was the only white man that ever treated me quite like a man--and our folks just like people--and if you won't think I'm presuming, I'd rather not take the money."

The colonel shook hands with him, and took his address. Shortly afterward he was able to find him something better than menial employment, where his education would give him an opportunity for advancement. Taylor is fully convinced that his people will never get very far along in the world without the good will of the white people, but he is still