A Little Dusky Hero

by Harriet T. Comstock

The outcome of this school-life—not for their own boy, but for G. W.—was a grave matter with the Colonel and the Colonel's wife for those first weeks.

"No one can hold out against his merry sweetness," said Mrs. Austin again and again.

The question with the Colonel was whether the little fellow had the sort of heroism to endure what he could not help.

G. W. was undoubtedly "sweet," undoubtedly brave, but he was not "merry" those first months of school life. The work of lessons was bitter-hard for him, and the school routine most painful. Never in his life before had he given a thought to his color. In the Tampa days, before he had entered Colonel Austin's tent to "offer himself up on the altar of his country," there had never been a question as to his "position;" he had been just a "waif." His "army career" had placed him upon a pinacle where his color had served but to add to his glory.

Here, on the playground, except for Jack and three or four others, G. W. was quietly ignored, and in a helpless way the little fellow felt it keenly, despite the Colonel's warning.

He tried to look ahead. He studied more and more diligently. He meant to be all the kinds of hero that Colonel Austin desired.

"Fo' de Lawd!" he said one day in his room, as he scanned his trim figure in the gray school uniform before the glass. "Fo' de Lawd! I can't understand it." (G. W. was beginning to put the "d's" and "g's" on words now.) "I don't lie, and I ain't afraid of nothing—and I wouldn't do a mean thing any sooner dan dey! It's jes' my skin, and my skin's only a different color on the outside, de inside is jes'—is just de same." Poor little G. W.

"An' I'se getting 'long fine in my classes." (So he was, and at the cost of terrific strain and study.) "An' I likes—I like the—boys first rate—but nawthing in dis education's going to git de black off dis skin!"

There was one hour in the school-day that George Jones—he was "G. W." only to Jack Austin, and that in private—enjoyed thoroughly.

This was an evening hour when one of the younger professors took the smaller pupils into a library and told them history stories; stories dealing with valiant deeds. There was a flavor of camp life and soldiering about many of the tales that George Jones understood far better than the other boys. In the glow of his interest he generally forgot to notice if any boy edged away from him when he chanced to forget his "color" and drew too near; but Colonel Austin's son always noticed it, and his loyal heart ached.