That was the end of it for that day, and the night settled down.
It would cost ten dollars cash to secure release through professional bondsmen; and, inasmuch as John had not the tenth part of that, he reposed for several days in his new place of abode, and became very dirty and bedraggled in the meantime. Always so clean and tidy—thus the Mis' kept him, that he was hardly recognizable, when a few days afterward, he returned. It was Murphy who secured bond, and Wyeth came upon him in some surprise that evening. He sat quietly on the porch with the Bible in his hand, so, greeting him, Wyeth asked how he "liked" it. The other said:
"Whew! The worse place I was ever in." He had been in them before, but not this one; but he did not, of course, deem it necessary to make this mention. It had been made by others. "Two hundred nigga's in the room I was in, and God knows how many more elsewhere. And they were one-armed and one-legged, one-eyed and toothless, earless and one-eared; but the whole bunch, every one of them, were filthy. And the place was rotten!"
Yet more than five hundred Negroes, most of them young men, preferred the place to freedom.
CHAPTER TWENTY
"I Love You!" She Said
Miss Annie Palmer had about despaired of winning Sidney Wyeth, and by this time was not nearly so considerate when he called, as she had been some weeks before. And, besides, Wyeth had an insistent way of seeing things, which was not the custom of her friends. When he called, sometimes, instead of giving up to the easier things in life, and which concerned the select few, he was liable to bring up a subject concerning the future of the Negro of the south, as he is today, etc., etc., etc. So it came to pass, that Miss Palmer was only good at times; and at those times, she was liable to be good by fits and starts, and then she "got cranky." Notwithstanding the fact, they were still friends, nothing more, and, as Miss Palmer sometimes sighed to herself, "Will never be anything more."
"You were, I thought," she declared one day, "the sweetest kind of a boy. But of late you are so concerned about Y.M.C.A.'s, and libraries, and schools, and the like, for our people, and how many are being killed and all that, that I am sometimes serious in my belief that you are losing your mind."
"I came to show you the article in The Herald, by the park commissioner, with regard to the establishing of a park for Negroes. I suppose you have read it? I am certainly glad to know that you have white people in your city, who are showing some interest in the civic welfare of our race; and from what he has suggested, with regard to this park for our people, to be centrally located, there is conclusive evidence, that the white people are coming to appreciate that the evolution of these black people can be brought about otherwise than in the chain gang."