"Oh, that's all right,—it wouldn't have mattered."
The old preacher looked at him quietly and a little reproachfully and said:
"If you don' jes' mean things like that, young sah, don' say them. We know. We find, sah, that it is mos' desirable for every one concerned. If yo' like, sah, an' if yo're ready, Ah'll show yo' to yo'r room."
IN AN ALL-NEGRO TOWN. Residents of Bullertown on the day that the census was taken. (Brown Bros.)
Hamilton could not help contrasting this reception with that which he would have received in any town not entirely a negro community, and he expressed this feeling to his host as they went up the stairs.
"It is entirely different hyar, sah," the latter said, "yo' see we are isolated, an' a guest is rare. Then this community is a syndicate an' is not run like a town. Thar's no quest'n hyar, sah, about colored and white people bein' the same,—we know they're different. An' we believe, sah, that it is in preservin' the color line, not in tryin' to hide it, that the future good of our race lies. An' so thar's not a foot o' land in Bullertown owned by any other than people o' color, an' not a white person lives hyar."
"You own all the land, then?"
"The syndicate does, yes, sah."