“Ken, why did you come back to Central City?” he asked. He went on without waiting for a reply. “If I had had your chances of studying up North and in France, and living where you don’t have to be A afraid of getting into trouble with Crackers all the time, I’d rather’ve done anything else than to come back to this rotten place to live the rest of my life.”
Kenneth laughed easily, almost as though a five-year-old had asked some exceedingly foolish question.
“Why did I come back?” he repeated. “That’s easy. I came back because I can make more money here than anywhere else.”
“But that isn’t the most important thing in life!” Bob exclaimed.
“Maybe not the most important,” Kenneth laughed, “but a mighty convenient article to have lying around. I came back here where the bulk of coloured people live and where they make money off their crops and where there won’t be much trouble for me to build up a big practice.”
“That’s an old argument,” retorted Bob. “Nearly a million coloured people went North during the war and they’re making money there hand over fist. You could make just as much money, if not more, in a city like Detroit or Cleveland or New York, and you wouldn’t have to be always afraid you’ve given offence to some of these damned ignorant Crackers down here.”
“Oh, I suppose I could’ve made money there. Dr. Cox at Bellevue told me I ought to stay there in New York and practise in Harlem, but I wanted to come back home. I can do more good here, both for myself and for the coloured people, than I could up there.” He paused and then asserted confidently: “And I don’t think I’ll have any trouble down here. Papa got along all right here in this town for more than fifty years, and I reckon I can do it too.”
“But, Ken,” Bob protested, “the way things were when he came along are a lot different from the way they are now. Just yesterday Old Man Mygatt down to the bank got mad and told me I was an ‘impudent young nigger that needed to be taught my place’ because I called his hand on a note he claimed papa owed the bank. He knew I knew he was lying, and that’s what made him so mad. They’re already saying I’m not a ‘good nigger’ like papa was and that education has spoiled me into thinking I’m as good as they are. Good Lord, if I wasn’t any better than these ignorant Crackers in this town, I’d go out and jump in the river.”
Bob was working himself into a temper. Kenneth interrupted him with a good-natured smile as he said:
“Bob, you’re getting too pessimistic. You’ve been reading too many of these coloured newspapers published in New York and Chicago and these societies that’re always playing up some lynching or other trouble down here—”