"That's what they call themselves."
"My God, it cannot be!"
"Cannot?" The man's face twitched nervously, as, dropping his hat, he threw off his light coat and, opening his shirt-collar and turning away his head, showed his shoulder covered with wales, still raw and bleeding.
"My God!" cried Hesden, as he put up his hand and started back in horror. "And you a white man?"
"Yes, Mr. Le Moyne," said Jackson, turning his face, burning with shame and indignation, toward his high-bred neighbor, "and the only reason this was done—the only thing agin me—is that I was honestly in favor of giving to the colored man the rights which the law of the land says he shall have, like other men. When the war was over, Mr. Le Moyne, I didn't 'give up,' as all you rich folks talked about doing, and try to put up with what was to come afterward. I hadn't lost nothing by the war, but, on the contrary, had gained what I had no chance to git in any other way. So I jest looked things square in the face and made up my mind that it was a good thing for me, and all such as me, that the damned old Confederacy was dead. And the more I thought on't the more I couldn't help seein' and believin' that it was right and fair to free the niggers and let them have a fair show and a white man's chance—votin' and all. That's what I call a fair hack, and I swear, Mr. Le Moyne, I don't know how it may seem to you, but to my mind any man that ain't willing to let any other man have that, is a damn coward! I'm as white as anybody, and hain't no more reason to stand up for niggers than any of the rest of the white people—no, nor half as much as most of 'em, for, as fur as I know, I hain't got no relations among 'em. But I do say that if the white folks of the South can't stand up to a fair fight with the niggers at the polls, without cuttin', and murderin', and burnin', and shootin', and whippin', and Ku Kluxin', and cheatin', and swindlin', they are a damned no-'count people, and don't deserve no sort of show in the world—no more than a mean, sneakin', venomous moccasin-snake—there!"
"But you don't think—" Hesden began.
"Think? Damn it, I know!" broke in Jackson. "They said if I would quit standin' up for the niggers, they'd let me off, even after they'd got me stripped and hung up. I wouldn't do it! I didn't believe then they'd cut me up this way; but they did! An' now I'm goin'. I'd stay an' fight, but 'tain't no use; an' I couldn't look a man in the eye who I thought tuk a hand in that whippin' without killin' him. I've got to go, Le Moyne," he said with clenched fists, "or I shall commit murder before the sun goes down."
"Where are you going?"
"God knows! Somewhere where the world's free and the earth's fresh, and where it's no crime to have been born poor or to uphold and maintain the laws of the land."
"I'm sorry, Jackson, but I don't blame you. You can't live here in peace, and you are wise to go," said Hesden, extending his hand.