"I must be up early, Kathleen, to go to the hospital. Will you lend me a hat?"
"That I will."
"And an old coat? I'll send it back to you."
"Anything I have."
"Oh, Kathleen, do you think I'll get there in time? Shall I be too late?"
"There's the best of chances. Old folks have more strength than we give them credit for. Probably she'll be better again."
Hertha still clutched her friend's hand. "Do you remember the old Major, Kathleen, when he told me to keep out of the conflict?"
"Indeed I do. Wasn't he cross that evening!"
"I tried to follow his advice. I wanted not to fight, just to let things go the easiest way, but I couldn't."
Her friend, looking at her, thinking of the past and of the days to come, of the loneliness of a life among the whites and the tragic circumscription of a life among the colored, could find no comforting answer. She was face to face with a harder problem than any she had tried to solve. The machine, sucking the vitality of the child; the long day of toiling men and women; fierce, relentless competition; there were tools with which to battle against these; she had used them and in the end she and her comrades would conquer with them. But where were the tools with which to fight the base cruelty, the cheap conceit that left a boy on a hospital bed to-night bruised in body and spirit, and sent this gentle girl to her half-crazed with grief and pain? In the church? The persecutors of the black man were the pillars of the church. In the state? When the Negro was beaten or shot or lynched the state winked slyly at the white offender. In the working class? They were brothers of the blacks when they were hungry. An advantage won and they, too, persecuted the weak. Where then were the tools? Where, unless with the black men and women themselves; but if they took them up how unequal must be the battle!