Well--well, are you going to be like him, or are
you going to try to put fool ideas of rising and equality into
these folks' heads, and make them discontented and unhappy?"
"I am going to accept the situation, Judge Henderson,"
answered John, with a brevity that did not escape the keen
old man. He hesitated a moment, and then said shortly,
"Very well,--we'll try you awhile. Good-morning."
It was a full month after the opening of the Negro school
that the other John came home, tall, gay, and headstrong.
The mother wept, the sisters sang. The whole white town was
glad. A proud man was the Judge, and it was a goodly sight
to see the two swinging down Main Street together. And yet
all did not go smoothly between them, for the younger man
could not and did not veil his contempt for the little town,
and plainly had his heart set on New York. Now the one
cherished ambition of the Judge was to see his son mayor of
Altamaha, representative to the legislature, and--who could
say?--governor of Georgia. So the argument often waxed hot
between them. "Good heavens, father," the younger man
would say after dinner, as he lighted a cigar and stood by the
fireplace, "you surely don't expect a young fellow like me to
settle down permanently in this--this God-forgotten town
with nothing but mud and Negroes?" "I did," the Judge
would answer laconically; and on this particular day it seemed
from the gathering scowl that he was about to add something
more emphatic, but neighbors had already begun to drop in to
admire his son, and the conversation drifted.
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