"They do not close at night; therefore, they do not have to go to the trouble of opening in the morning."

"Uh huh!"

"There are saloons here that boast of having not closed since before the Revolutionary War."

"Good night!" Wyeth laughed. "Something historical down here!"

"You'll learn more when you have been here a while. This is the city of history--American history. We turn here."

And Wyeth came to see for himself. They were crossing the wide street now, and went up another that was as wide, but no cars ran up that way.

"This is Basin court," said the other, as they paused outside of a two-story structure, that opened its doors upon the street.

A big, fat, brown-skinned man appeared presently, and bade them enter.

When they were inside they met another--a woman, and she was fatter still. It was the man's wife, and she appeared to be in charge, from her statements regarding the rental. They were from Alabama, and one glance was sufficient to show they were not creole.

Wyeth bought some beer, and the fat man went for it with a pitcher. He returned with as much for a dime, as would have cost twenty-five cents in Effingham. He said so to the other, and then the others laughed and said:

"This is the city where they drink it. They drink more here than anywhere else in the world." Wyeth recalled a year before--but then these people had seen only a small part of the world, as their conversation later revealed, and, of course--but it didn't matter.

"You genemens goin' to the dance?" said the woman.

"To the dance?" Wyeth repeated. "This is Sunday!"

They smiled at him now--all of them--and then said:

"Sunday is the day of sport in this town. More dances occur on Sunday than any other day."

Wyeth whistled.

"This is the creole city," and they smiled again.

"This gentleman is from a more pious territory," said the porter, appreciatively. He seemed to be very intelligent.

"What kind of work do the genemen follow?" asked the hostess.

"Books," Wyeth replied.

"They don't read much down here," she said, dubiously.

"Some do everywhere--more or less!"

"They are strongly engaged in the art of having a good time here,"

remarked the porter, and laughed.

"I suppose so," said Wyeth. "And, since practically half of the colored people of the state are illiterate, I am, of course, compelled to agree with you."

They talked on other topics now, and Wyeth, not feeling sleepy, suggested venturing out sight seeing. He went alone, and what he saw, he did not soon forget.

When the door had closed behind him, and his steps died away in the distance, the fat man winked and the woman smiled; then the pair spoke, in the same breath:

"Books--huh! He he! Books--huh! He he!" They regarded the porter with a smile; but he did not, strange to say, share their point of view. But they had their say, nevertheless.

"Books--huh!"

CHAPTER TWO

_At Last She Didn't Care_

Mildred stood in the middle of the room, directly under the electric light that filled the room with its bright rays. She could see the end of the key, as it turned in the lock, and, in that moment, a scheme entered her head, like a flash. Locating the direction of the door, and facing toward it, she reached up suddenly and switched off the light.

Instantly the room was ingulfed in darkness. She hurried to the door, and stood just to one side. Presently the k.n.o.b turned and the man entered. He stood on the threshold a moment, and she heard him say:

"Ah, the little girl is sleeping peacefully," and laughed. "That was a devil of a dose a-whiskey that girl gave her, though! Knocked her stiff!

Darned if I don't believe she was handing the straight dope after all."

He advanced now toward the middle of the room. Quick as a flash she stepped out, and, seeing he had left the key in the lock, she jerked the door closed, and, turning the key, which she allowed to remain, rushed to the end of the steps, and hurried down as fast as she could safely venture.

It was dark outside, and no one stood about the entrance. She struck the pavement, looked up and down a brief moment, and then hurried in a direction that led to whither she knew not, but to escape was her only thought. She hurried along for fully three blocks, and then turned in another direction, and then one block in another, and paused--feeling safe at last.

Up to this time, she was not conscious that her head was aching to a point that was almost splitting. She placed her hand upon her forehead, and only then was she aware that she had the paper she had picked from the dresser, closely clutched in her hand. The words she had seen there, made her at once forget her headache and all else.

She thought of something then. She looked at the watch on her wrist.

"Yes, thank G.o.d, there is yet time." An hour later she came back to the place where she had stood, and continued in the direction she had been going, looking from right to left for a lodging house.

She stopped at several places where a sign over the front advertised rooms, but, at each one they wanted men only. She had no thought of going back to where she had been stopping the last week; and, besides, she knew not where she was, nor did she know the street or number where she had been stopping, therefore was confident she could not have found it, had she wished to return.

Upon the street, she encountered many people celebrating the event of the coming year, and then she tried a small house that set back in a yard, and which appeared very neat from where she viewed it. She secured a room, and retired at once. Setting the oil lamp on a chair next to the bed, she unfolded the paper and read the article on the front page carefully, over and over again. It was an Effingham paper, and a date of some time before. When she had read it, until she was convinced that she was not dreaming, she sighed restfully as she murmured:

"At last, oh Lord, at last!"

It was the Effingham _Age-Herald_, and the issue contained the article by Sidney Wyeth, in which he severely arraigned the leading people of his race in that city for their disregard of the general welfare of their people.

"I'm so glad, so glad," she whispered softly. "And to think that it came to my attention in such an extraordinary manner!" She felt her forehead, and winced when the heat and throb came into contact with the touch. She made a wry face, as she recalled the taste of stale whiskey. Only then did she become aware, that when she had turned at the sound of the piano, someone had filled her gla.s.s with liquor. And she had drunk it before she realized that it had been doped. She thought of the incident; from the time she had met Miss Jones at the corner, and had been informed of the part of the town she was in. She shuddered and drew the coverlets closely about her, as her mind went over it again. She then tried to recall how she had followed Miss Jones to the place where she had met the men. And there she had drunk for the first time in her life, whiskey, although she was not at the moment aware of it. She rose out of the bed, as the dream came back to her; how the tornado had taken Sidney into the air, and then the story of the hills and the Indians. She pondered for a time, and wondered if such a thing had been the history of the _Rosebud Country_. And Sidney Wyeth had not been caught in a tornado, but had swept a mult.i.tude of people with his pen, in a burning article. She read over a part of it again. The very evils he had berated the most fiercely, were the things she had heard Wilson Jacobs deplore, and speak of more than once. Yes, Sidney Wyeth had written the truth.

And from the way it was pictured, she reckoned that it must have created a bit of excitement. And that was the kind of man Sidney Wyeth was. She smiled as she thought of it.

"And I love him. Was it because of these principles, that I strangely felt were inherent in him, that he has been my dream, which has grown larger in my estimation, in the months I have had no word of him?" she asked herself. "I am going to him--I am, tomorrow. Of course," she replied to herself in the next sentence, "I am not going directly to him.... He wouldn't quite appreciate that--oh, he wouldn't appreciate me at all; but I love him, and am going where he is, and after that----"

she had no other words, nor thoughts. To be where he was, maybe to see him, became the uppermost desire in her mind.

She did not, strangely enough, think any more about the Y.M.C.A. She thought of her lover as, with a peaceful smile, she fell asleep. She did not dream that night, but lay as she had fallen asleep, and it was six o'clock the following morning, the first of January, when she awakened.

She lay a half hour without any thoughts in her mind, and then, observing a window next to the bed, she raised it slightly, and peeped out. It was not yet so very light. It was, apparently, a quiet street, occupied by working people who were now in many numbers on the way to their work. A boy with a bunch of papers under his arm was pa.s.sing in their midst, and then suddenly she wrapped on the window pane. He looked up, being accustomed to doing so, and, catching sight of her hand, entered the gate and stood under the window with an upraised paper, while she fished out a nickel and dropped it into his hand.

She smiled with an expression of satisfaction, as she read the article relating to the Y.M.C.A. for colored youth of the city, and was glad to note that Wilson Jacobs came in for a great deal of praise. She laid it aside for a time, and was thoughtful again.

"Yes," she whispered to herself, "I will leave the city at once. The one thing I so much desired, and which has kept me here through these weary months, has been obtained." She closed her lips and planned further.