"Environment?"
"That's it! His 'nvironment is so bad. He is surrounded by eve' thing conducive t' crime 'n' degeneration. He sees, hears, 'n' is brought in contact, in his eve' day life, with all that is evil, 'n' learns t' drink whiskey befo' he gets into pants. And now, instead of the Negro churches concentrating their efforts toward the raising of the child, they put all the fo'ce into the preacher's lungs, trying t' convert ole sinnahs that nothin' but hell itse'f will effect."
"A library, and Y.M.C.A., properly conducted, might have some effect for the good, don't you think?"
"A dead investment fo' yeahs t' come, fo' the reason that they would have no incentive to attend either. Without clean, intelligent parents, 'n' better conducted churches, such cannot fulfill the purpose."
"Hadn't we better be going?" called Miss Palmer at this moment. "It's getting late."
The two shook hands as they parted. As Sidney went over the hill, that sloped for a long way down to the car line, he did not seem to hear Miss Palmer, and he answered her mechanically.
He was thinking, thinking of what he had learned, in the last hour, from John Smith, merchant.
CHAPTER SIX
"Yes—Miss Latham"