He did not resent the old man’s remark, for he knew the judge could not understand that he was much more contented as a member of a race that was struggling upward than he would have been as one of that race that expended most of its time and thought and energy in exploiting and oppressing others. The judge followed him to the door promising to draw up the necessary legal documents for the co-operative society. When Kenneth broached the subject of payment, the old man waved his hand again in protest.
“Ain’t got long to live, so’s I got to do what little I can to help. ’Tain’t much I can do, but I’ll help all I can.”
Thanking him, Kenneth started to leave, but the judge recalled him after he had reached the hallway. “Ken, just consider all I said as between us. Can’t tell what folks’d say if they knew I been running on like this.”
There was almost a note of pleading in his voice. Kenneth assured the judge their conversation would be treated as confidential. As he walked home, he reflected on the anomalous position the judge and men like him occupied, hemmed in, oppressed, afraid to call their souls their own, creatures of the Frankenstein monster their own people had created which seemed about to rise up and destroy its creators. No, he said to himself, he would much rather be a Negro with all his problems than be made a moral coward as the race problem had made the white people of the South.
The judge stood at the window, dim with the dust of many months, and gazed at Kenneth’s broad back as he swung down Lee Street. Long after he had disappeared, the old man stood there, chewing on the cigar which by now was a mangled mass of wet tobacco. At last he turned away and resumed his seat in the comfortable old chair where Kenneth had found him. He shook his head slowly, doubtfully, and murmured, half to himself, half to the dusty, empty room:
“Hope this thing turns out all right. Hope he don’t get in no trouble. But even if he does, there’ll be more like him coming on—and they got too much sense to stand for what nigras been made to suffer. Lord, if we only had a few white folks who had some sense …”
It was almost a prayer.
CHAPTER XII
From Judge Stevenson’s office Kenneth went directly to tell Jane of the interview. So absorbed was he in contemplation of the wider vision of the problem he was attacking which the judge’s words had given him, he forgot to telephone her to ask if it was agreeable for him to call at so unconventional an hour. He found her clad in a bungalow apron busily cleaning house and singing as she worked.
They sat on the steps of the back porch while he told her all that had been said. Taken out of his preoccupation with his own affairs, Kenneth had shaken off his negative air and now he talked convincingly of their plans. Jane said nothing until he had finished.