"I find a great many of the people—intelligent people—who do not care to see this side of it," Wyeth remarked.
"Half of the school teachers, for instance, seem to wish not to see it. And they get stung! But they are so anxious to be seen, and to be referred to in a position beyond their means, no wonder."
So Sidney Wyeth had to take this man's point of view for more than one reason. Like Attalia—but worse, these people considered literature, as a whole, dead stock. More than sixty thousand in number, the demand among them for books and magazines, was insufficient to justify any one's running a place for such a purpose. It was not large enough to justify either of the Negro drug stores carrying periodicals in stock, even those that were carried by all white drug stores, excepting those in districts occupied and patronized by the colored people. And with all this, there was not the least claim for that kind of knowledge. More than a hundred churches never encouraged the people to read anything but the Bible: apparently, the obtaining of a library had not worried any but Sidney Wyeth; it has been seen how they worried over the securing of a park. Is it a wonder, with all this under his observation, that Sidney Wyeth, who came from a land where people read and thought, and had some perspective, eventually came to be regarded as a chronic critic? He had witnessed more murders than he had in all the days of his life.
Having digressed to such a length, we will return now to Miss Annie Palmer, who was possessed with the ambition to be established in a home of her own, and to be seen by those who knew her.
"Just think of it, suga'," she said to the other teacher. "You can get the nicest kind of a home in the west end for a moderate sum, and only fifty or a hundred dollars down on the best of them. The rest is paid just like you pay rent, and no more." It was this, Wyeth recalled, that got them. "It cost no more than to pay rent after the first payment."
"Um-um," from the other.
"And the sewers, and sidewalks, and streets and lights are all there," said Wyeth kindly.
"Oh, there you go for an argument," Miss Palmer retorted, angrily. Wyeth grinned.
"Well, these things have all been completed to include this property...."