"I must confess," he admitted sincerely, "that I feel awkward indeed when a negro student walks by my side ... even for a few steps...."
Coach Shaughnessy declared himself boldly—
"I'll admit frankly to you, Gregory, but don't, of course, repeat what I say—that I'll never let a nigger play on the football team ... when they sweat they stink too badly ... no, sir, John Brown's State or not, the negro was never meant to mix with the white on terms of equality."
It was mainly out of consideration for Langworth, and desire to please him, that I now joined the Unitarian Church, of which all the old settlers of Laurel were members. This included a testy old gentleman named Colonel Saunders, who had been one of John Brown's company, had quarrelled with him,—and who now, every year, maintained, at the annual meeting of old settlers, that Brown had been a rogue and murderer ... a mad man, going about cutting up whole families with corn knives....
At this juncture in his speech, which was made undeviatingly every year, a sentimental woman would rise and cry out—
"John Brown, God bless him, whatever you say, Colonel Saunders, his soul still goes marching on—"
"I grant that, madam—that his soul still goes marching on—I never contested that—but where does it go marching on!"
Then the yearly riot of protests and angry disputation would wake.
And every spring, in anticipation of this mêlée, reporters from the Kansas City papers were sent to cover the story of the proceedings of the Old Settlers' Society.