prompt:
Chapter: Wellington soon resumed its wonted calm, and in a few weeks the intended
lynching was only a memory. The robbery and assault, however, still
remained a mystery to all but a chosen few. The affair had been dropped
as absolutely as though it had never occurred. No colored man ever
learned the reason of this sudden change of front, and Sandy Campbell's
loyalty to his old employer's memory kept him silent. Tom Delamere did
not offer to retain Sandy in his service, though he presented him with
most of the old gentleman's wardrobe. It is only justice to Tom to state
that up to this time he had not been informed of the contents of his
grandfather's latest will. Major Carteret gave Sandy employment as
butler, thus making a sort of vicarious atonement, on the part of the
white race, of which the major felt himself in a way the embodiment, for
the risk to which Sandy had been subjected.

Shortly after these events Sandy was restored to the bosom of the
church, and, enfolded by its sheltering arms, was no longer tempted to
stray from the path of rectitude, but became even a more rigid Methodist
than before his recent troubles.

Tom Delamere did not call upon Clara again in the character of a lover.
Of course they could not help meeting, from time to time, but he never
dared presume upon their former relations. Indeed, the social
atmosphere of Wellington remained so frigid toward Delamere that he left
town, and did not return for several months.

Ellis was aware that Delamere had been thrown over, but a certain
delicacy restrained him from following up immediately the advantage
which the absence of his former rival gave him. It seemed to him, with
the quixotry of a clean, pure mind, that Clara would pass through a
period of mourning for her lost illusion, and that it would be
indelicate, for the time being, to approach her with a lover's
attentions. The work of the office had been unusually heavy of late. The
major, deeply absorbed in politics, left the detail work of the paper to
Ellis. Into the intimate counsels of the revolutionary committee Ellis
had not been admitted, nor would he have desired to be. He knew, of
course, in a general way, the results that it was sought to achieve; and
while he did not see their necessity, he deferred to the views of older
men, and was satisfied to remain in ignorance of anything which he might
disapprove. Moreover, his own personal affairs occupied his mind to an
extent that made politics or any other subject a matter of minor
importance.

As for Dr. Miller, he never learned of Mr. Delamere's good intentions
toward his institution, but regretted the old gentleman's death as the
loss of a sincere friend and well-wisher of his race in their unequal
struggle.

Despite the untiring zeal of Carteret and his associates, the campaign
for the restriction of the suffrage, which was to form the basis of a
permanent white supremacy, had seemed to languish for a while after the
Ochiltree affair. The lull, however, was only temporary, and more
apparent than real, for the forces adverse to the negro were merely
gathering strength for a more vigorous assault. While little was said in
Wellington, public sentiment all over the country became every day more
favorable to the views of the conspirators. The nation was rushing
forward with giant strides toward colossal wealth and world-dominion,
before the exigencies of which mere abstract ethical theories must not
be permitted to stand. The same argument that justified the conquest of
an inferior nation could not be denied to those who sought the
suppression of an inferior race. In the South, an obscure jealousy of
the negro's progress, an obscure fear of the very equality so
contemptuously denied, furnished a rich soil for successful agitation.
Statistics of crime, ingeniously manipulated, were made to present a
fearful showing against the negro. Vital statistics were made to prove
that he had degenerated from an imaginary standard of physical
excellence which had existed under the benign influence of slavery.
Constant lynchings emphasized his impotence, and bred everywhere a
growing contempt for his rights.

At the North, a new Pharaoh had risen, who knew not Israel,--a new
generation, who knew little of the fierce passions which had played
around the negro in a past epoch, and derived their opinions of him from
the "coon song" and the police reports. Those of his old friends who
survived were disappointed that he had not flown with clipped wings;
that he had not in one generation of limited opportunity attained the
level of the whites. The whole race question seemed to have reached a
sort of _impasse_, a blind alley, of which no one could see the outlet.
The negro had become a target at which any one might try a shot.
Schoolboys gravely debated the question as to whether or not the negro
should exercise the franchise. The pessimist gave him up in despair;
while the optimist, smilingly confident that everything would come out
all right in the end, also turned aside and went his buoyant way to more
pleasing themes.

For a time there were white men in the state who opposed any reactionary
step unless it were of general application. They were conscientious men,
who had learned the ten commandments and wished to do right; but this
class was a small minority, and their objections were soon silenced by
the all-powerful race argument. Selfishness is the most constant of
human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to
sporadic outbursts which sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries;
but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly,
unwearyingly, burrowing always at the very roots of life, and heaping up
fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away. The state was at the
mercy of venal and self-seeking politicians, bent upon regaining their
ascendency at any cost, stultifying their own minds by vague sophistries
and high-sounding phrases, which deceived none but those who wished to
be deceived, and these but imperfectly; and dulling the public
conscience by a loud clamor in which the calm voice of truth was for the
moment silenced. So the cause went on.

Carteret, as spokesman of the campaign, and sincerest of all its
leaders, performed prodigies of labor. The Morning Chronicle proclaimed,
in season and out, the doctrine of "White Supremacy." Leaving the paper
in charge of Ellis, the major made a tour of the state, rousing the
white people of the better class to an appreciation of the terrible
danger which confronted them in the possibility that a few negroes might
hold a few offices or dictate the terms upon which white men should fill
them. Difficulties were explained away. The provisions of the Federal
Constitution, it was maintained, must yield to the "higher law," and if
the Constitution could neither be altered nor bent to this end, means
must be found to circumvent it.

The device finally hit upon for disfranchising the colored people in
this particular state was the notorious "grandfather clause." After
providing various restrictions of the suffrage, based upon education,
character, and property, which it was deemed would in effect
disfranchise the colored race, an exception was made in favor of all
citizens whose fathers or grandfathers had been entitled to vote prior
to 1867. Since none but white men could vote prior to 1867, this
exception obviously took in the poor and ignorant whites, while the same
class of negroes were excluded.

It was ingenious, but it was not fair. In due time a constitutional
convention was called, in which the above scheme was adopted and
submitted to a vote of the people for ratification. The campaign was
fought on the color line. Many white Republicans, deluded with the hope
that by the elimination of the negro vote their party might receive
accessions from the Democratic ranks, went over to the white party. By
fraud in one place, by terrorism in another, and everywhere by the
resistless moral force of the united whites, the negroes were reduced to
the apathy of despair, their few white allies demoralized, and the
amendment adopted by a large majority. The negroes were taught that
this is a white man's country, and that the sooner they made up their
minds to this fact, the better for all concerned. The white people would
be good to them so long as they behaved themselves and kept their place.
As theoretical equals,--practical equality being forever out of the
question, either by nature or by law,--there could have been nothing but
strife between them, in which the weaker party would invariably have
suffered most.

Some colored men accepted the situation thus outlined, if not as
desirable, at least as inevitable. Most of them, however, had little
faith in this condescending friendliness which was to take the place of
constitutional rights. They knew they had been treated unfairly; that
their enemies had prevailed against them; that their whilom friends had
stood passively by and seen them undone. Many of the most enterprising
and progressive left the state, and those who remain still labor under a
sense of wrong and outrage which renders them distinctly less valuable
as citizens.

The great steal was made, but the thieves did not turn honest,--the
scheme still shows the mark of the burglar's tools. Sins, like chickens,
come home to roost. The South paid a fearful price for the wrong of
negro slavery; in some form or other it will doubtless reap the fruits
of this later iniquity.

Drastic as were these "reforms," the results of which we have
anticipated somewhat, since the new Constitution was not to take effect
immediately, they moved all too slowly for the little coterie of
Wellington conspirators, whose ambitions and needs urged them to prompt
action. Under the new Constitution it would be two full years before the
"nigger amendment" became effective, and meanwhile the Wellington
district would remain hopelessly Republican. The committee decided,
about two months before the fall election, that an active local campaign
must be carried on, with a view to discourage the negroes from attending
the polls on election day.

The question came up for discussion one forenoon in a meeting at the
office of the Morning Chronicle, at which all of the "Big Three" were
present.

"Something must be done," declared McBane, "and that damn quick. Too
many white people are saying that it will be better to wait until the
amendment goes into effect. That would mean to leave the niggers in
charge of this town for two years after the state has declared for white
supremacy! I'm opposed to leaving it in their hands one hour,--them's
my sentiments!"

This proved to be the general opinion, and the discussion turned to the
subject of ways and means.

"What became of that editorial in the nigger paper?" inquired the
general in his blandest tones, cleverly directing a smoke ring toward
the ceiling. "It lost some of its point back there, when we came near
lynching that nigger; but now that that has blown over, why wouldn't it
be a good thing to bring into play at the present juncture? Let's read
it over again."

Carteret extracted the paper from the pigeon-hole where he had placed it
some months before. The article was read aloud with emphasis and
discussed phrase by phrase. Of its wording there could be little
criticism,--it was temperately and even cautiously phrased. As
suggested by the general, the Ochiltree affair had proved that it was
not devoid of truth. Its great offensiveness lay in its boldness: that a
negro should publish in a newspaper what white people would scarcely
acknowledge to themselves in secret was much as though a Russian
_moujik_ or a German peasant should rush into print to question the
divine right of the Lord's Anointed. The article was racial
_lese-majeste_ in the most aggravated form. A peg was needed upon which
to hang a _coup d'etat_, and this editorial offered the requisite
opportunity. It was unanimously decided to republish the obnoxious
article, with comment adapted to fire the inflammable Southern heart and
rouse it against any further self-assertion of the negroes in politics
or elsewhere.

"The time is ripe!" exclaimed McBane. "In a month we can have the
niggers so scared that they won't dare stick their heads out of doors on
'lection day."

"I wonder," observed the general thoughtfully, after this conclusion had
been reached, "if we couldn't have Jerry fetch us some liquor?"

Jerry appeared in response to the usual summons. The general gave him
the money, and ordered three Calhoun cocktails. When Jerry returned with
the glasses on a tray, the general observed him with pointed curiosity.

"What, in h--ll is the matter with you, Jerry? Your black face is
splotched with brown and yellow patches, and your hair shines as though
you had fallen head-foremost into a firkin of butter. What's the matter
with you?"

Jerry seemed much embarrassed by this inquiry.

"Nothin', suh, nothin'," he stammered. "It's--it's jes' somethin' I
be'n puttin' on my hair, suh, ter improve de quality, suh."

"Jerry," returned the general, bending a solemn look upon the porter,
"you have been playing with edged tools, and your days are numbered. You
have been reading the Afro-American Banner."

He shook open the paper, which he had retained in his hand, and read
from one of the advertisements:--

"'Kinky, curly hair made straight in two applications. Dark skins
lightened two shades; mulattoes turned perfectly white.'

"This stuff is rank poison, Jerry," continued the general with a mock
solemnity which did not impose upon Jerry, who nevertheless listened
with an air of great alarm. He suspected that the general was making fun
of him; but he also knew that the general would like to think that Jerry
believed him in earnest; and to please the white folks was Jerry's
consistent aim in life. "I can see the signs of decay in your face, and
your hair will all fall out in a week or two at the latest,--mark my
words!"

McBane had listened to this pleasantry with a sardonic sneer. It was a
waste of valuable time. To Carteret it seemed in doubtful taste. These
grotesque advertisements had their tragic side. They were proof that the
negroes had read the handwriting on the wall. These pitiful attempts to
change their physical characteristics were an acknowledgment, on their
own part, that the negro was doomed, and that the white man was to
inherit the earth and hold all other races under his heel. For, as the
months had passed, Carteret's thoughts, centring more and more upon the
negro, had led him farther and farther, until now he was firmly
convinced that there was no permanent place for the negro in the United
States, if indeed anywhere in the world, except under the ground. More
pathetic even than Jerry's efforts to escape from the universal doom of
his race was his ignorance that even if he could, by some strange
alchemy, bleach his skin and straighten his hair, there would still
remain, underneath it all, only the unbleached darky,--the ass in the
lion's skin.

When the general had finished his facetious lecture, Jerry backed out of
the room shamefacedly, though affecting a greater confusion than he
really felt. Jerry had not reasoned so closely as Carteret, but he had
realized that it was a distinct advantage to be white,--an advantage
which white people had utilized to secure all the best things in the
world; and he had entertained the vague hope that by changing his
complexion he might share this prerogative. While he suspected the
general's sincerity, he nevertheless felt a little apprehensive lest the
general's prediction about the effects of the face-bleach and other
preparations might prove true,--the general was a white gentleman and
ought to know,--and decided to abandon their use.

This purpose was strengthened by his next interview with the major. When
Carteret summoned him, an hour later, after the other gentlemen had
taken their leave, Jerry had washed his head thoroughly and there
remained no trace of the pomade. An attempt to darken the lighter spots
in his cuticle by the application of printer's ink had not proved
equally successful,--the retouching left the spots as much too dark as
they had formerly been too light.

"Jerry," said Carteret sternly, "when I hired you to work for the
Chronicle, you were black. The word 'negro' means 'black.' The best
negro is a black negro, of the pure type, as it came from the hand of
God. If you wish to get along well with the white people, the blacker
you are the better,--white people do not like negroes who want to be
white. A man should be content to remain as God made him and where God
placed him. So no more of this nonsense. Are you going to vote at the
next election?"

"What would you 'vise me ter do, suh?" asked Jerry cautiously.

"I do not advise you. You ought to have sense enough to see where your
own interests lie. I put it to you whether you cannot trust yourself
more safely in the hands of white gentlemen, who are your true friends,
than in the hands of ignorant and purchasable negroes and unscrupulous
white scoundrels?"

"Dere's no doubt about it, suh," assented Jerry, with a vehemence
proportioned to his desire to get back into favor. "I ain' gwine ter
have nothin' ter do wid de 'lection, suh! Ef I don' vote, I kin keep my
job, can't I, suh?"

The major eyed Jerry with an air of supreme disgust. What could be
expected of a race so utterly devoid of tact? It seemed as though this
negro thought a white gentleman might want to bribe him to remain away
from the polls; and the negro's willingness to accept the imaginary
bribe demonstrated the venal nature of the colored race,--its entire
lack of moral principle!

"You will retain your place, Jerry," he said severely, "so long as you
perform your duties to my satisfaction and behave yourself properly."

With this grandiloquent subterfuge Carteret turned to his next article
on white supremacy. Jerry did not delude himself with any fine-spun
sophistry. He knew perfectly well that he held his job upon the
condition that he stayed away from the polls at the approaching
election. Jerry was a fool--

"The world of fools hath such a store,
  That he who would not see an ass,
Must stay at home and shut his door
  And break his looking-glass."

But while no one may be entirely wise, there are degrees of folly, and
Jerry was not all kinds of a fool.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: A few weeks pass and Wellington resumes its "wonted calm. Tom leaves only old Mr. Delamere's wardrobe to Sandy and Major Carteret employs him as a butler in his own house. Tom does not visit Clara and Ellis, consumed by work at the office, does not make any immediate romantic advances towards her either. In the nation as a whole, the mood is tilting towards segregationist sentiment. There was a "growing contempt" for equal rights in the South. In the North, "a new Pharaoh had risen, who knew not Israel. who knew little of the fierce passions which had played around the negro in the past epoch. In North Carolina, particularly, the state is given over to "venal and self seeking politicians" who have a mind only for reinstituting white supremacy at all levels. The state adopts the "grandfather clause. This clause stipulates that "all citizens whose fathers or grandfathers had been entitled to vote prior to 1867" are entitled to vote in current elections. This, of course, precludes all black persons since only whites could vote prior to that year. Over the course of time, "the negroes were reduced to the apathy of despair, their few white allies demoralized. This is not enough for those in power in Wellington, however. The "Big Three" meet in the offices of the Morning Chronicle to discuss how to disenfranchise the town's black population further. It will be two years before the grandfather clause goes into effect and "that would mean to leave the niggers in charge of this town for two years after the state has declared for white supremacy. General Belmont inquires over the editorial from the black newspaper that the men had discussed earlier. Carteret finds it and they read it over again. With its strong opposition to lynching, the men see the article as a "racial lese-majeste in the most aggravated form. They decide to republish it. The General calls in Jerry to have him fetch several rounds of liquor. The General is shocked when he sees Jerry and his face is "splotched with brown and yellow patches" and his hair shines as though he had "fallen head-foremost into a firkin of butter. Jerry is embarrassed. The General realizes that Jerry has been reading the black paper and using a cream advertised in that paper that will make hair straight and skin white in just a few applications. This makes McBane sneer. Carteret's thoughts turn to the idea that there is "no permanent place for the negro in the United States, if indeed anywhere in the world, except under the ground. He sees Jerry's actions as pathetic and ignorant. Later, when Carteret questions Jerry, he asks if he will vote in the upcoming elections. Jerry tells him that he will have nothing to do with the elections if the white people tell him not to vote. Carteret thinks Jerry is a fool, but Jerry understands the social dynamics of the town better than Carteret realizes


prompt:
Chapter: Events moved rapidly during the next few days. The reproduction, in the
Chronicle, of the article from the Afro-American Banner, with Carteret's
inflammatory comment, took immediate effect. It touched the Southern
white man in his most sensitive spot. To him such an article was an
insult to white womanhood, and must be resented by some active
steps,--mere words would be no answer at all. To meet words with words
upon such a subject would be to acknowledge the equality of the negro
and his right to discuss or criticise the conduct of the white people.

The colored people became alarmed at the murmurings of the whites, which
seemed to presage a coming storm. A number of them sought to arm
themselves, but ascertained, upon inquiring at the stores, that no white
merchant would sell a negro firearms. Since all the dealers in this sort
of merchandise were white men, the negroes had to be satisfied with
oiling up the old army muskets which some of them possessed, and the few
revolvers with which a small rowdy element generally managed to keep
themselves supplied. Upon an effort being made to purchase firearms from
a Northern city, the express company, controlled by local men, refused
to accept the consignment. The white people, on the other hand, procured
both arms and ammunition in large quantities, and the Wellington Grays
drilled with great assiduity at their armory.

All this went on without any public disturbance of the town's
tranquillity. A stranger would have seen nothing to excite his
curiosity. The white people did their talking among themselves, and
merely grew more distant in their manner toward the colored folks, who
instinctively closed their ranks as the whites drew away. With each day
that passed the feeling grew more tense. The editor of the Afro-American
Banner, whose office had been quietly garrisoned for several nights by
armed negroes, became frightened, and disappeared from the town between
two suns.

The conspirators were jubilant at the complete success of their plans.
It only remained for them to so direct this aroused public feeling that
it might completely accomplish the desired end,--to change the political
complexion of the city government and assure the ascendency of the
whites until the amendment should go into effect. A revolution, and not
a riot, was contemplated.

With this end in view, another meeting was called at Carteret's office.

"We are now ready," announced General Belmont, "for the final act of
this drama. We must decide promptly, or events may run away from us."

"What do you suggest?" asked Carteret.

"Down in the American tropics," continued the general, "they have a way
of doing things. I was in Nicaragua, ten years ago, when Paterno's
revolution drove out Igorroto's government. It was as easy as falling
off a log. Paterno had the arms and the best men. Igorroto was not
looking for trouble, and the guns were at his breast before he knew it.
We have the guns. The negroes are not expecting trouble, and are easy
to manage compared with the fiery mixture that flourishes in the
tropics."

"I should not advocate murder," returned Carteret. "We are animated by
high and holy principles. We wish to right a wrong, to remedy an abuse,
to save our state from anarchy and our race from humiliation. I don't
object to frightening the negroes, but I am opposed to unnecessary
bloodshed."

"I'm not quite so particular," struck in McBane. "They need to be
taught a lesson, and a nigger more or less wouldn't be missed. There's
too many of 'em now."

"Of course," continued Carteret, "if we should decide upon a certain
mode of procedure, and the negroes should resist, a different reasoning
might apply; but I will have no premeditated murder."

"In Central and South America," observed the general reflectively, "none
are hurt except those who get in the way."

"There'll be no niggers hurt," said McBane contemptuously, "unless they
strain themselves running. One white man can chase a hundred of 'em.
I've managed five hundred at a time. I'll pay for burying all the
niggers that are killed."

The conference resulted in a well-defined plan, to be put into operation
the following day, by which the city government was to be wrested from
the Republicans and their negro allies.

"And now," said General Belmont, "while we are cleansing the Augean
stables, we may as well remove the cause as the effect. There are
several negroes too many in this town, which will be much the better
without them. There's that yellow lawyer, Watson. He's altogether too
mouthy, and has too much business. Every nigger that gets into trouble
sends for Watson, and white lawyers, with families to support and social
positions to keep up, are deprived of their legitimate source of
income."

"There's that damn nigger real estate agent," blurted out McBane. "Billy
Kitchen used to get most of the nigger business, but this darky has
almost driven him to the poorhouse. A white business man is entitled to
a living in his own profession and his own home. That nigger don't
belong here nohow. He came from the North a year or two ago, and is hand
in glove with Barber, the nigger editor, which is enough of itself to
damn him. _He'll_ have to go!"

"How about the collector of the port?"

"We'd better not touch him. It would bring the government down upon us,
which we want to avoid. We don't need to worry about the nigger
preachers either. They want to stay here, where the loaves and the
fishes are. We can make 'em write letters to the newspapers justifying
our course, as a condition of their remaining."

"What about Billings?" asked McBane. Billings was the white Republican
mayor. "Is that skunk to be allowed to stay in town?"

"No," returned the general, "every white Republican office-holder ought
to be made to go. This town is only big enough for Democrats, and
negroes who can be taught to keep their place."

"What about the colored doctor," queried McBane, "with the hospital, and
the diamond ring, and the carriage, and the other fallals?"

"I shouldn't interfere with Miller," replied the general decisively.
"He's a very good sort of a negro, doesn't meddle with politics, nor
tread on any one else's toes. His father was a good citizen, which
counts in his favor. He's spending money in the community too, and
contributes to its prosperity."

"That sort of nigger, though, sets a bad example," retorted McBane.
"They make it all the harder to keep the rest of 'em down."

"'One swallow does not make a summer,'" quoted the general. "When we get
things arranged, there'll be no trouble. A stream cannot rise higher
than its fountain, and a smart nigger without a constituency will no
longer be an object of fear. I say, let the doctor alone."

"He'll have to keep mighty quiet, though," muttered McBane
discontentedly. "I don't like smart niggers. I've had to shoot several
of them, in the course of my life."

"Personally, I dislike the man," interposed Carteret, "and if I
consulted my own inclinations, would say expel him with the rest; but my
grievance is a personal one, and to gratify it in that way would be a
loss to the community. I wish to be strictly impartial in this matter,
and to take no step which cannot be entirely justified by a wise regard
for the public welfare."

"What's the use of all this hypocrisy, gentlemen?" sneered McBane.
"Every last one of us has an axe to grind! The major may as well put an
edge on his. We'll never get a better chance to have things our way. If
this nigger doctor annoys the major, we'll run him out with the rest.
This is a white man's country, and a white man's city, and no nigger has
any business here when a white man wants him gone!"

Carteret frowned darkly at this brutal characterization of their
motives. It robbed the enterprise of all its poetry, and put a solemn
act of revolution upon the plane of a mere vulgar theft of power. Even
the general winced.

"I would not consent," he said irritably, "to Miller's being disturbed."

McBane made no further objection.

There was a discreet knock at the door.

"Come in," said Carteret.

Jerry entered. "Mistuh Ellis wants ter speak ter you a minute, suh," he
said.

Carteret excused himself and left the room.

"Jerry," said the general, "you lump of ebony, the sight of you reminds
me! If your master doesn't want you for a minute, step across to Mr.
Brown's and tell him to send me three cocktails."

"Yas, suh," responded Jerry, hesitating. The general had said nothing
about paying.

"And tell him, Jerry, to charge them. I'm short of change to-day."

"Yas, suh; yas, suh," replied Jerry, as he backed out of the presence,
adding, when he had reached the hall: "Dere ain' no change fer Jerry dis
time, sho': I'll jes' make dat _fo_' cocktails, an' de gin'l won't
never know de diffe'nce. I ain' gwine 'cross de road fer nothin', not ef
I knows it."

Half an hour later, the conspirators dispersed. They had fixed the hour
of the proposed revolution, the course to be pursued, the results to be
obtained; but in stating their equation they had overlooked one
factor,--God, or Fate, or whatever one may choose to call the Power that
holds the destinies of man in the hollow of his hand.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The article is published in the Morning Chronicle and the effect is immediate. The whites begin to murmur of violence and the blacks try to arm themselves. No white person will sell them firearms, however, and so they make do with old military rifles and revolvers. An armed contingent guards the office of the editor of the Afro-American Banner; feeling in danger, he disappears from town one evening. The three conspirators are very happy with the work that they have accomplished. General Belmont proposes that they begin the "final act of this drama. He tells them how he witnessed Paterno's revolution against Igorroto in Nicaragua and how Paterno, with the arms and men, easily drove out the ruling government. This, Belmont tells them, is their chance to drive out the Republicans from Wellington. McBane goes one step further and suggests that several should be killed, but Carteret refuses to participate in premeditated homicide. The group goes down a list of all blacks and Republicans who should be kicked out of town. It is decided that the black preachers and Dr. Miller can stay, though Carteret admits to having a personal grievance against Miller. McBane calls this hypocrisy and says, "If this nigger doctor annoys the major, we'll drive him out with the rest. This is a white man's country, and a white man's city, and no nigger has any business here when a white man wants him gone. This brutal statement of the fact "robbed the enterprise of all its poetry, and put a solemn act of revolution upon the plane of a mere vulgar theft of power. The hour of the revolution is fixed, but the conspirators overlook one fact -- "God, or Fate, or whatever one may choose to call the Power that holds the destinies of man in the hollow of his hand


prompt:
Chapter: Mrs. Carteret was very much disturbed. It was supposed that the shock of
her aunt's death had affected her health, for since that event she had
fallen into a nervous condition which gave the major grave concern. Much
to the general surprise, Mrs. Ochiltree had left no will, and no
property of any considerable value except her homestead, which descended
to Mrs. Carteret as the natural heir. Whatever she may have had on hand
in the way of ready money had undoubtedly been abstracted from the cedar
chest by the midnight marauder, to whose visit her death was immediately
due. Her niece's grief was held to mark a deep-seated affection for the
grim old woman who had reared her.

Mrs. Carteret's present state of mind, of which her nervousness was a
sufficiently accurate reflection, did in truth date from her aunt's
death, and also in part from the time of the conversation with Mrs.
Ochiltree, one afternoon, during and after the drive past Miller's new
hospital. Mrs. Ochiltree had grown steadily more and more childish after
that time, and her niece had never succeeded in making her pick up the
thread of thought where it had been dropped. At any rate, Mrs. Ochiltree
had made no further disclosure upon the subject.

An examination, not long after her aunt's death, of the papers found
near the cedar chest on the morning after the murder had contributed to
Mrs. Carteret's enlightenment, but had not promoted her peace of mind.

When Mrs. Carteret reached home, after her hurried exploration of the
cedar chest, she thrust into a bureau drawer the envelope she had found.
So fully was her mind occupied, for several days, with the funeral, and
with the excitement attending the arrest of Sandy Campbell, that she
deferred the examination of the contents of the envelope until near the
end of the week.

One morning, while alone in her chamber, she drew the envelope from the
drawer, and was holding it in her hand, hesitating as to whether or not
she should open it, when the baby in the next room began to cry.

The child's cry seemed like a warning, and yielding to a vague
uneasiness, she put the paper back.

"Phil," she said to her husband at luncheon, "Aunt Polly said some
strange things to me one day before she died,--I don't know whether she
was quite in her right mind or not; but suppose that my father had left
a will by which it was provided that half his property should go to that
woman and her child?"

"It would never have gone by such a will," replied the major easily.
"Your Aunt Polly was in her dotage, and merely dreaming. Your father
would never have been such a fool; but even if he had, no such will
could have stood the test of the courts. It would clearly have been due
to the improper influence of a designing woman."

"So that legally, as well as morally," said Mrs. Carteret, "the will
would have been of no effect?"

"Not the slightest. A jury would soon have broken down the legal claim.
As for any moral obligation, there would have been nothing moral about
the affair. The only possible consideration for such a gift was an
immoral one. I don't wish to speak harshly of your father, my dear,
but his conduct was gravely reprehensible. The woman herself had no
right or claim whatever; she would have been whipped and expelled from
the town, if justice--blind, bleeding justice, then prostrate at the
feet of slaves and aliens--could have had her way!"

"But the child"--

"The child was in the same category. Who was she, to have inherited the
estate of your ancestors, of which, a few years before, she would
herself have formed a part? The child of shame, it was hers to pay the
penalty. But the discussion is all in the air, Olivia. Your father never
did and never would have left such a will."

This conversation relieved Mrs. Carteret's uneasiness. Going to her room
shortly afterwards, she took the envelope from her bureau drawer and
drew out a bulky paper. The haunting fear that it might be such a will
as her aunt had suggested was now removed; for such an instrument, in
the light of what her husband had said confirming her own intuitions,
would be of no valid effect. It might be just as well, she thought, to
throw the paper in the fire without looking at it. She wished to think
as well as might be of her father, and she felt that her respect for his
memory would not be strengthened by the knowledge that he had meant to
leave his estate away from her; for her aunt's words had been open to
the construction that she was to have been left destitute. Curiosity
strongly prompted her to read the paper. Perhaps the will contained no
such provision as she had feared, and it might convey some request or
direction which ought properly to be complied with.

She had been standing in front of the bureau while these thoughts passed
through her mind, and now, dropping the envelope back into the drawer
mechanically, she unfolded the document. It was written on legal paper,
in her father's own hand.

Mrs. Carteret was not familiar with legal verbiage, and there were
several expressions of which she did not perhaps appreciate the full
effect; but a very hasty glance enabled her to ascertain the purport of
the paper. It was a will, by which, in one item, her father devised to
his daughter Janet, the child of the woman known as Julia Brown, the sum
of ten thousand dollars, and a certain plantation or tract of land a
short distance from the town of Wellington. The rest and residue of his
estate, after deducting all legal charges and expenses, was bequeathed
to his beloved daughter, Olivia Merkell.

Mrs. Carteret breathed a sigh of relief. Her father had not preferred
another to her, but had left to his lawful daughter the bulk of his
estate. She felt at the same time a growing indignation at the thought
that that woman should so have wrought upon her father's weakness as to
induce him to think of leaving so much valuable property to her
bastard,--property which by right should go, and now would go, to her
own son, to whom by every rule of law and decency it ought to descend.

A fire was burning in the next room, on account of the baby,--there had
been a light frost the night before, and the air was somewhat chilly.
For the moment the room was empty. Mrs. Carteret came out from her
chamber and threw the offending paper into the fire, and watched it
slowly burn. When it had been consumed, the carbon residue of one sheet
still retained its form, and she could read the words on the charred
portion. A sentence, which had escaped her eye in her rapid reading,
stood out in ghostly black upon the gray background:--

"All the rest and residue of my estate I devise and bequeath to my
daughter Olivia Merkell, the child of my beloved first wife."

Mrs. Carteret had not before observed the word "first." Instinctively
she stretched toward the fire the poker which she held in her hand, and
at its touch the shadowy remnant fell to pieces, and nothing but ashes
remained upon the hearth.

Not until the next morning did she think again of the envelope which had
contained the paper she had burned. Opening the drawer where it lay, the
oblong blue envelope confronted her. The sight of it was distasteful.
The indorsed side lay uppermost, and the words seemed like a mute
reproach:--

"The Last Will and Testament of Samuel Merkell."

Snatching up the envelope, she glanced into it mechanically as she moved
toward the next room, and perceived a thin folded paper which had
heretofore escaped her notice. When opened, it proved to be a
certificate of marriage, in due form, between Samuel Merkell and Julia
Brown. It was dated from a county in South Carolina, about two years
before her father's death.

For a moment Mrs. Carteret stood gazing blankly at this faded slip of
paper. Her father _had_ married this woman!--at least he had gone
through the form of marriage with her, for to him it had surely been no
more than an empty formality. The marriage of white and colored persons
was forbidden by law. Only recently she had read of a case where both
the parties to such a crime, a colored man and a white woman, had been
sentenced to long terms in the penitentiary. She even recalled the
circumstances. The couple had been living together unlawfully,--they
were very low people, whose private lives were beneath the public
notice,--but influenced by a religious movement pervading the community,
had sought, they said at the trial, to secure the blessing of God upon
their union. The higher law, which imperiously demanded that the purity
and prestige of the white race be preserved at any cost, had intervened
at this point.

Mechanically she moved toward the fireplace, so dazed by this discovery
as to be scarcely conscious of her own actions. She surely had not
formed any definite intention of destroying this piece of paper when her
fingers relaxed unconsciously and let go their hold upon it. The draught
swept it toward the fireplace. Ere scarcely touching the flames it
caught, blazed fiercely, and shot upward with the current of air. A
moment later the record of poor Julia's marriage was scattered to the
four winds of heaven, as her poor body had long since mingled with the
dust of earth.

The letter remained unread. In her agitation at the discovery of the
marriage certificate, Olivia had almost forgotten the existence of the
letter. It was addressed to "John Delamere, Esq., as Executor of my Last
Will and Testament," while the lower left hand corner bore the
direction: "To be delivered only after my death, with seal unbroken."

The seal was broken already; Mr. Delamere was dead; the letter could
never be delivered. Mrs. Carteret unfolded it and read:--

MY DEAR DELAMERE,--I have taken the liberty of naming you as executor of
my last will, because you are my friend, and the only man of my
acquaintance whom I feel that I can trust to carry out my wishes,
appreciate my motives, and preserve the silence I desire.

I have, first, a confession to make. Inclosed in this letter you will
find a certificate of marriage between my child Janet's mother and
myself. While I have never exactly repented of this marriage, I have
never had the courage to acknowledge it openly. If I had not married
Julia, I fear Polly Ochiltree would have married me by main force,--as
she would marry you or any other gentleman unfortunate enough to fall in
the way of this twice-widowed man-hunter. When my wife died, three years
ago, her sister Polly offered to keep house for me and the child. I
would sooner have had the devil in the house, and yet I trembled with
alarm,--there seemed no way of escape,--it was so clearly and obviously
the proper thing.

But she herself gave me my opportunity. I was on the point of
consenting, when she demanded, as a condition of her coming, that I
discharge Julia, my late wife's maid. She was laboring under a
misapprehension in regard to the girl, but I grasped at the straw, and
did everything to foster her delusion. I declared solemnly that nothing
under heaven would induce me to part with Julia. The controversy
resulted in my permitting Polly to take the child, while I retained the
maid.

Before Polly put this idea into my head, I had scarcely looked at Julia,
but this outbreak turned my attention toward her. She was a handsome
girl, and, as I soon found out, a good girl. My wife, who raised her,
was a Christian woman, and had taught her modesty and virtue. She was
free. The air was full of liberty, and equal rights, and all the
abolition claptrap, and she made marriage a condition of her remaining
longer in the house. In a moment of weakness I took her away to a place
where we were not known, and married her. If she had left me, I should
have fallen a victim to Polly Ochiltree,--to which any fate was
preferable.

And then, old friend, my weakness kept to the fore. I was ashamed of
this marriage, and my new wife saw it. Moreover, she loved me,--too
well, indeed, to wish to make me unhappy. The ceremony had satisfied her
conscience, had set her right, she said, with God; for the opinions of
men she did not care, since I loved her,--she only wanted to compensate
me, as best she could, for the great honor I had done my
handmaiden,--for she had read her Bible, and I was the Abraham to her
Hagar, compared with whom she considered herself at a great advantage.
It was her own proposition that nothing be said of this marriage. If any
shame should fall on her, it would fall lightly, for it would be
undeserved. When the child came, she still kept silence. No one, she
argued, could blame an innocent child for the accident of birth, and in
the sight of God this child had every right to exist; while among her
own people illegitimacy would involve but little stigma. I need not
say that I was easily persuaded to accept this sacrifice; but touched by
her fidelity, I swore to provide handsomely for them both. This I have
tried to do by the will of which I ask you to act as executor. Had I
left the child more, it might serve as a ground for attacking the will;
my acknowledgment of the tie of blood is sufficient to justify a
reasonable bequest.

I have taken this course for the sake of my daughter Olivia, who is dear
to me, and whom I would not wish to make ashamed; and in deference to
public opinion, which it is not easy to defy. If, after my death, Julia
should choose to make our secret known, I shall of course be beyond the
reach of hard words; but loyalty to my memory will probably keep her
silent. A strong man would long since have acknowledged her before the
world and taken the consequences; but, alas! I am only myself, and the
atmosphere I live in does not encourage moral heroism. I should like to
be different, but it is God who hath made us, and not we ourselves!

Nevertheless, old friend, I will ask of you one favor. If in the future
this child of Julia's and of mine should grow to womanhood; if she
should prove to have her mother's gentleness and love of virtue; if, in
the new era which is opening up for her mother's race, to which,
unfortunately, she must belong, she should become, in time, an educated
woman; and if the time should ever come when, by virtue of her education
or the development of her people, it would be to her a source of shame
or unhappiness that she was an illegitimate child,--if you are still
alive, old friend, and have the means of knowing or divining this thing,
go to her and tell her, for me, that she is my lawful child, and ask
her to forgive her father's weakness.

When this letter comes to you, I shall have passed to--the Beyond; but I
am confident that you will accept this trust, for which I thank you now,
in advance, most heartily.

The letter was signed with her father's name, the same signature which
had been attached to the will.

Having firmly convinced herself of the illegality of the papers, and of
her own right to destroy them, Mrs. Carteret ought to have felt relieved
that she had thus removed all traces of her dead father's folly. True,
the other daughter remained,--she had seen her on the street only the
day before. The sight of this person she had always found offensive, and
now, she felt, in view of what she had just learned, it must be even
more so. Never, while this woman lived in the town, would she be able to
throw the veil of forgetfulness over this blot upon her father's memory.

As the day wore on, Mrs. Carteret grew still less at ease. To herself,
marriage was a serious thing,--to a right-thinking woman the most
serious concern of life. A marriage certificate, rightfully procured,
was scarcely less solemn, so far as it went, than the Bible itself. Her
own she cherished as the apple of her eye. It was the evidence of her
wifehood, the seal of her child's legitimacy, her patent of
nobility,--the token of her own and her child's claim to social place
and consideration. She had burned this pretended marriage certificate
because it meant nothing. Nevertheless, she could not ignore the
knowledge of another such marriage, of which every one in the town
knew,--a celebrated case, indeed, where a white man, of a family quite
as prominent as her father's, had married a colored woman during the
military occupation of the state just after the civil war. The legality
of the marriage had never been questioned. It had been fully consummated
by twenty years of subsequent cohabitation. No amount of social
persecution had ever shaken the position of the husband. With an iron
will he had stayed on in the town, a living protest against the
established customs of the South, so rudely interrupted for a few short
years; and, though his children were negroes, though he had never
appeared in public with his wife, no one had ever questioned the
validity of his marriage or the legitimacy of his offspring.

The marriage certificate which Mrs. Carteret had burned dated from the
period of the military occupation. Hence Mrs. Carteret, who was a good
woman, and would not have done a dishonest thing, felt decidedly
uncomfortable. She had destroyed the marriage certificate, but its ghost
still haunted her.

Major Carteret, having just eaten a good dinner, was in a very agreeable
humor when, that same evening, his wife brought up again the subject of
their previous discussion.

"Phil," she asked, "Aunt Polly told me that once, long before my father
died, when she went to remonstrate with him for keeping that Woman in
the house, he threatened to marry Julia if Aunt Polly ever said another
word to him about the matter. Suppose he _had_ married her, and had then
left a will,--would the marriage have made any difference, so far as the
will was concerned?"

Major Carteret laughed. "Your Aunt Polly," he said, "was a remarkable
woman, with a wonderful imagination, which seems to have grown more
vivid as her memory and judgment weakened. Why should your father marry
his negro housemaid? Mr. Merkell was never rated as a fool,--he had one
of the clearest heads in Wellington. I saw him only a day or two before
he died, and I could swear before any court in Christendom that he was
of sound mind and memory to the last. These notions of your aunt were
mere delusions. Your father was never capable of such a folly."

"Of course I am only supposing a case," returned Olivia. "Imagining such
a case, just for the argument, would the marriage have been legal?"

"That would depend. If he had married her during the military
occupation, or over in South Carolina, the marriage would have been
legally valid, though morally and socially outrageous."

"And if he had died afterwards, leaving a will?"

"The will would have controlled the disposition of his estate, in all
probability."

"Suppose he had left no will?"

"You are getting the matter down pretty fine, my dear! The woman would
have taken one third of the real estate for life, and could have lived
in the homestead until she died. She would also have had half the other
property,--the money and goods and furniture, everything except the
land,--and the negro child would have shared with you the balance of the
estate. That, I believe, is according to the law of descent and
distribution."

Mrs. Carteret lapsed into a troubled silence. Her father _had_ married
the woman. In her heart she had no doubt of the validity of the
marriage, so far as the law was concerned; if one marriage of such a
kind would stand, another contracted under similar conditions was
equally as good. If the marriage had been valid, Julia's child had been
legitimate. The will she had burned gave this sister of hers--she
shuddered at the word--but a small part of the estate. Under the law,
which intervened now that there was no will, the property should have
been equally divided. If the woman had been white,--but the woman had
_not_ been white, and the same rule of moral conduct did not, _could_
not, in the very nature of things, apply, as between white people! For,
if this were not so, slavery had been, not merely an economic mistake,
but a great crime against humanity. If it had been such a crime, as for
a moment she dimly perceived it might have been, then through the long
centuries there had been piled up a catalogue of wrong and outrage
which, if the law of compensation be a law of nature, must some time,
somewhere, in some way, be atoned for. She herself had not escaped the
penalty, of which, she realized, this burden placed upon her conscience
was but another installment.

If she should make known the facts she had learned, it would mean
what?--a division of her father's estate, a recognition of the legality
of her father's relations with Julia. Such a stain upon her father's
memory would be infinitely worse than if he had _not_ married her. To
have lived with her without marriage was a social misdemeanor, at which
society in the old days had winked, or at most had frowned. To have
married her was to have committed the unpardonable social sin. Such a
scandal Mrs. Carteret could not have endured. Should she seek to make
restitution, it would necessarily involve the disclosure of at least
some of the facts. Had she not destroyed the will, she might have
compromised with her conscience by producing it and acting upon its
terms, which had been so stated as not to disclose the marriage. This
was now rendered impossible by her own impulsive act; she could not
mention the will at all, without admitting that she had destroyed it.

Mrs. Carteret found herself in what might be called, vulgarly, a moral
"pocket." She could, of course, remain silent. Mrs. Carteret was a good
woman, according to her lights, with a cultivated conscience, to which
she had always looked as her mentor and infallible guide.

Hence Mrs. Carteret, after this painful discovery, remained for a long
time ill at ease,--so disturbed, indeed, that her mind reacted upon her
nerves, which had never been strong; and her nervousness affected her
strength, which had never been great, until Carteret, whose love for her
had been deepened and strengthened by the advent of his son, became
alarmed for her health, and spoke very seriously to Dr. Price concerning
it.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Olivia Carteret remains disturbed by what her Aunt Polly had told her before her death. The shock of Aunt Polly's murder has kept her from opening the papers that she found in the pine box, but her nervousness over the situation finally allowed her to open them. The first document is a will. It leaves ten thousand dollars and a tract of land to the daughter of Julia Brown. The rest is left to Olivia. This gives Olivia a sense of relief. She takes the will, walks into the next room, and throws it into the fire. Just as it is burning, Olivia sees a line that she had missed -- "All the rest and residue of my estate I devise and bequeath to my daughter Olivia Merkell, the child of my beloved first wife. This word "first" means that her father had taken a second wife. Olivia grabs the envelope again and finds a certificate of marriage, executed in a county in South Carolina, between Julia Brown and her father. This paper shocks Olivia, but she cannot see how such a certificate could be honored since it is illegal for persons of mixed race to marry. She goes to the fireplace and throws the certificate in to burn. There is another letter in the envelope and Olivia takes it out and reads it. It is a long letter, written to Mr. Delamere asking him to be the executor of his estate upon his death. Olivia's father gives his reasons for marrying Julia and asks that if Julia's child should become an educated, virtuous woman in her adulthood, that Mr. Delamere should tell her that she is his lawful child and ask her to forgive his weakness. Several days later, Olivia hypothetically asks her husband what would happen if it was discovered that her father had married his servant. Though Major Carteret thinks that his wife is over thinking the matter, he tells her that it could only be a valid marriage if it was conducted during the military occupation or in the state of South Carolina. Olivia is troubled by this. She feels that marriage is a right given from God. She cannot announce the marriage or make amends from the past, however, without shaming her father in the process. This causes her health to begin to deteriorate


prompt:
Chapter: Mrs. Carteret awoke, with a start, from a troubled dream. She had been
sailing across a sunlit sea, in a beautiful boat, her child lying on a
bright-colored cushion at her feet. Overhead the swelling sail served as
an awning to keep off the sun's rays, which far ahead were reflected
with dazzling brilliancy from the shores of a golden island. Her son,
she dreamed, was a fairy prince, and yonder lay his kingdom, to which he
was being borne, lying there at her feet, in this beautiful boat, across
the sunlit sea.

Suddenly and without warning the sky was overcast. A squall struck the
boat and tore away the sail. In the distance a huge billow--a great
white wall of water--came sweeping toward their frail craft, threatening
it with instant destruction. She clasped her child to her bosom, and a
moment later found herself struggling in the sea, holding the child's
head above the water. As she floated there, as though sustained by some
unseen force, she saw in the distance a small boat approaching over the
storm-tossed waves. Straight toward her it came, and she had reached out
her hand to grasp its side, when the rower looked back, and she saw that
it was her sister. The recognition had been mutual. With a sharp
movement of one oar the boat glided by, leaving her clutching at the
empty air. She felt her strength begin to fail. Despairingly she
signaled with her disengaged hand; but the rower, after one mute,
reproachful glance, rowed on. Mrs. Carteret's strength grew less and
less. The child became heavy as lead. Herself floating in the water, as
though it were her native element, she could no longer support the
child. Lower and lower it sank,--she was powerless to save it or to
accompany it,--until, gasping wildly for breath, it threw up its little
hands and sank, the cruel water gurgling over its head,--when she awoke
with a start and a chill, and lay there trembling for several minutes
before she heard little Dodie in his crib, breathing heavily.

She rose softly, went to the crib, and changed the child's position to
an easier one. He breathed more freely, and she went back to bed, but
not to sleep.

She had tried to put aside the distressing questions raised by the
discovery of her father's will and the papers accompanying it. Why
should she be burdened with such a responsibility, at this late day,
when the touch of time had well-nigh healed these old sores? Surely, God
had put his curse not alone upon the slave, but upon the stealer of men!
With other good people she had thanked Him that slavery was no more, and
that those who once had borne its burden upon their consciences could
stand erect and feel that they themselves were free. The weed had been
cut down, but its roots remained, deeply imbedded in the soil, to spring
up and trouble a new generation. Upon her weak shoulders was placed the
burden of her father's weakness, her father's folly. It was left to her
to acknowledge or not this shameful marriage and her sister's rights in
their father's estate.

Balancing one consideration against another, she had almost decided
that she might ignore this tie. To herself, Olivia Merkell,--Olivia
Carteret,--the stigma of base birth would have meant social ostracism,
social ruin, the averted face, the finger of pity or of scorn. All the
traditional weight of public disapproval would have fallen upon her as
the unhappy fruit of an unblessed union. To this other woman it could
have had no such significance,--it had been the lot of her race. To
them, twenty-five years before, sexual sin had never been imputed as
more than a fault. She had lost nothing by her supposed illegitimacy;
she would gain nothing by the acknowledgment of her mother's marriage.

On the other hand, what would be the effect of this revelation upon Mrs.
Carteret herself? To have it known that her father had married a negress
would only be less dreadful than to have it appear that he had committed
some terrible crime. It was a crime now, by the laws of every Southern
State, for white and colored persons to intermarry. She shuddered before
the possibility that at some time in the future some person, none too
well informed, might learn that her father had married a colored woman,
and might assume that she, Olivia Carteret, or her child, had sprung
from this shocking _mesalliance_,--a fate to which she would willingly
have preferred death. No, this marriage must never be made known; the
secret should remain buried forever in her own heart!

But there still remained the question of her father's property and her
father's will. This woman was her father's child,--of that there could
be no doubt, it was written in her features no less than in her father's
will. As his lawful child,--of which, alas! there could also be no
question,--she was entitled by law to half his estate. Mrs. Carteret's
problem had sunk from the realm of sentiment to that of material things,
which, curiously enough, she found much more difficult. For, while the
negro, by the traditions of her people, was barred from the world of
sentiment, his rights of property were recognized. The question had
become, with Mrs. Carteret, a question of _meum_ and _tuum_. Had the
girl Janet been poor, ignorant, or degraded, as might well have been her
fate, Mrs. Carteret might have felt a vicarious remorse for her aunt's
suppression of the papers; but fate had compensated Janet for the loss;
she had been educated, she had married well; she had not suffered for
lack of the money of which she had been defrauded, and did not need it
now. She had a child, it is true, but this child's career would be so
circumscribed by the accident of color that too much wealth would only
be a source of unhappiness; to her own child, on the contrary, it would
open every door of life.

It would be too lengthy a task to follow the mind and conscience of this
much-tried lady in their intricate workings upon this difficult problem;
for she had a mind as logical as any woman's, and a conscience which she
wished to keep void of offense. She had to confront a situation
involving the element of race, upon which the moral standards of her
people were hopelessly confused. Mrs. Carteret reached the conclusion,
ere daylight dawned, that she would be silent upon the subject of her
father's second marriage. Neither party had wished it known,--neither
Julia nor her father,--and she would respect her father's wishes. To act
otherwise would be to defeat his will, to make known what he had
carefully concealed, and to give Janet a claim of title to one half her
father's estate, while he had only meant her to have the ten thousand
dollars named in the will.

By the same reasoning, she must carry out her father's will in respect
to this bequest. Here there was another difficulty. The mining
investment into which they had entered shortly after the birth of little
Dodie had tied up so much of her property that it would have been
difficult to procure ten thousand dollars immediately; while a demand
for half the property at once would mean bankruptcy and ruin. Moreover,
upon what ground could she offer her sister any sum of money whatever?
So sudden a change of heart, after so many years of silence, would raise
the presumption of some right on the part of Janet in her father's
estate. Suspicion once aroused, it might be possible to trace this
hidden marriage, and establish it by legal proof. The marriage once
verified, the claim for half the estate could not be denied. She could
not plead her father's will to the contrary, for this would be to
acknowledge the suppression of the will, in itself a criminal act.

There was, however, a way of escape. This hospital which had recently
been opened was the personal property of her sister's husband. Some time
in the future, when their investments matured, she would present to the
hospital a sum of money equal to the amount her father had meant his
colored daughter to have. Thus indirectly both her father's will and her
own conscience would be satisfied.

Mrs. Carteret had reached this comfortable conclusion, and was falling
asleep, when her attention was again drawn by her child's breathing. She
took it in her own arms and soon fell asleep.

"By the way, Olivia," said the major, when leaving the house next
morning for the office, "if you have any business down town to-day,
transact it this forenoon. Under no circumstances must you or Clara or
the baby leave the house after midday."

"Why, what's the matter, Phil?"

"Nothing to alarm you, except that there may be a little political
demonstration which may render the streets unsafe. You are not to say
anything about it where the servants might hear."

"Will there be any danger for you, Phil?" she demanded with alarm.

"Not the slightest, Olivia dear. No one will be harmed; but it is best
for ladies and children to stay indoors."

Mrs. Carteret's nerves were still more or less unstrung from her mental
struggles of the night, and the memory of her dream came to her like a
dim foreboding of misfortune. As though in sympathy with its mother's
feelings, the baby did not seem as well as usual. The new nurse was by
no means an ideal nurse,--Mammy Jane understood the child much better.
If there should be any trouble with the negroes, toward which her
husband's remark seemed to point,--she knew the general political
situation, though not informed in regard to her husband's plans,--she
would like to have Mammy Jane near her, where the old nurse might be
protected from danger or alarm.

With this end in view she dispatched the nurse, shortly after breakfast,
to Mammy Jane's house in the negro settlement on the other side of the
town, with a message asking the old woman to come immediately to Mrs.
Carteret's. Unfortunately, Mammy Jane had gone to visit a sick woman in
the country, and was not expected to return for several hours.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Olivia wakes from a "troubled dream. Her son had been a "fairy prince" in the dream, when a storm came over her, and a wall of water suddenly overcame her and the child. She envisions herself floating on the water while her son slowly sinks and she has no power to save him. She knows that it is her "father's folly" and the question of her sister's rights that keeps her awake. She worries that society might believe that she is also the product of an unlawful, "unblessed" union and that her own son might be suspected of being of mixed blood. She decides that the marriage must never be made known. She still feels uneasy about Janet's property rights. By law, Janet is entitled to half her father's estate. It becomes a question so "meum and tuum. This is especially true because Janet is an educated person of status who had married well. Olivia decides that she must keep the marriage between her father and Julia a secret, but that she must also carry out her father's request named in his will. This is a problem as well, however, because much of the Carteret's property is tied up in a mining investment and it is not possible for her to procure ten thousand dollars. She decides that, at some point in the future, she will make a gift in the sum of ten thousand dollars to Dr. Miller's hospital, thus "indirectly both her father's will and her own conscience would be satisfied. The next morning Major Carteret tells Olivia to conduct any business of hers downtown before the afternoon. She is curious about why, but the Major tells her it is a small matter. She decides to call for Mammy Jane so that "the old nurse might be protected from danger or alarm," but Mammy Jane had gone to the country to visit a sick woman


prompt:
Chapter: The Wellington riot began at three o'clock in the afternoon of a day as
fair as was ever selected for a deed of darkness. The sky was clear,
except for a few light clouds that floated, white and feathery, high in
air, like distant islands in a sapphire sea. A salt-laden breeze from
the ocean a few miles away lent a crisp sparkle to the air.

At three o'clock sharp the streets were filled, as if by magic, with
armed white men. The negroes, going about, had noted, with uneasy
curiosity, that the stores and places of business, many of which closed
at noon, were unduly late in opening for the afternoon, though no one
suspected the reason for the delay; but at three o'clock every passing
colored man was ordered, by the first white man he met, to throw up his
hands. If he complied, he was searched, more or less roughly, for
firearms, and then warned to get off the street. When he met another
group of white men the scene was repeated. The man thus summarily held
up seldom encountered more than two groups before disappearing across
lots to his own home or some convenient hiding-place. If he resisted any
demand of those who halted him--But the records of the day are
historical; they may be found in the newspapers of the following date,
but they are more firmly engraved upon the hearts and memories of the
people of Wellington. For many months there were negro families in the
town whose children screamed with fear and ran to their mothers for
protection at the mere sight of a white man.

Dr. Miller had received a call, about one o'clock, to attend a case at
the house of a well-to-do colored farmer, who lived some three or four
miles from the town, upon the very road, by the way, along which Miller
had driven so furiously a few weeks before, in the few hours that
intervened before Sandy Campbell would probably have been burned at the
stake. The drive to his patient's home, the necessary inquiries, the
filling of the prescription from his own medicine-case, which he carried
along with him, the little friendly conversation about the weather and
the crops, and, the farmer being an intelligent and thinking man, the
inevitable subject of the future of their race,--these, added to the
return journey, occupied at least two hours of Miller's time.

As he neared the town on his way back, he saw ahead of him half a dozen
men and women approaching, with fear written in their faces, in every
degree from apprehension to terror. Women were weeping and children
crying, and all were going as fast as seemingly lay in their power,
looking behind now and then as if pursued by some deadly enemy. At sight
of Miller's buggy they made a dash for cover, disappearing, like a covey
of frightened partridges, in the underbrush along the road.

Miller pulled up his horse and looked after them in startled wonder.

"What on earth can be the matter?" he muttered, struck with a vague
feeling of alarm. A psychologist, seeking to trace the effects of
slavery upon the human mind, might find in the South many a curious
illustration of this curse, abiding long after the actual physical
bondage had terminated. In the olden time the white South labored under
the constant fear of negro insurrections. Knowing that they themselves,
if in the negroes' place, would have risen in the effort to throw off
the yoke, all their reiterated theories of negro subordination and
inferiority could not remove that lurking fear, founded upon the obscure
consciousness that the slaves ought to have risen. Conscience, it has
been said, makes cowards of us all. There was never, on the continent of
America, a successful slave revolt, nor one which lasted more than a few
hours, or resulted in the loss of more than a few white lives; yet never
was the planter quite free from the fear that there might be one.

On the other hand, the slave had before his eyes always the fear of the
master. There were good men, according to their lights,--according to
their training and environment,--among the Southern slaveholders, who
treated their slaves kindly, as slaves, from principle, because they
recognized the claims of humanity, even under the dark skin of a human
chattel. There was many a one who protected or pampered his negroes, as
the case might be, just as a man fondles his dog,--because they were
his; they were a part of his estate, an integral part of the entity of
property and person which made up the aristocrat; but with all this
kindness, there was always present, in the consciousness of the lowest
slave, the knowledge that he was in his master's power, and that he
could make no effectual protest against the abuse of that authority.
There was also the knowledge, among those who could think at all, that
the best of masters was himself a slave to a system, which hampered his
movements but scarcely less than those of his bondmen.

When, therefore, Miller saw these men and women scampering into the
bushes, he divined, with this slumbering race consciousness which years
of culture had not obliterated, that there was some race trouble on
foot. His intuition did not long remain unsupported. A black head was
cautiously protruded from the shrubbery, and a black voice--if such a
description be allowable--addressed him:--

"Is dat you, Doctuh Miller?"

"Yes. Who are you, and what's the trouble?"

"What's de trouble, suh? Why, all hell's broke loose in town yonduh. De
w'ite folks is riz 'gins' de niggers, an' say dey're gwine ter kill
eve'y nigger dey kin lay han's on."

Miller's heart leaped to his throat, as he thought of his wife and
child. This story was preposterous; it could not be true, and yet there
must be something in it. He tried to question his informant, but the man
was so overcome with excitement and fear that Miller saw clearly that he
must go farther for information. He had read in the Morning Chronicle, a
few days before, the obnoxious editorial quoted from the Afro-American
Banner, and had noted the comment upon it by the white editor. He had
felt, as at the time of its first publication, that the editorial was
ill-advised. It could do no good, and was calculated to arouse the
animosity of those whose friendship, whose tolerance, at least, was
necessary and almost indispensable to the colored people. They were
living, at the best, in a sort of armed neutrality with the whites; such
a publication, however serviceable elsewhere, could have no other
effect in Wellington than to endanger this truce and defeat the hope of
a possible future friendship. The right of free speech entitled Barber
to publish it; a larger measure of common-sense would have made him
withhold it. Whether it was the republication of this article that had
stirred up anew the sleeping dogs of race prejudice and whetted their
thirst for blood, he could not yet tell; but at any rate, there was
mischief on foot.

"Fer God's sake, doctuh, don' go no closeter ter dat town," pleaded his
informant, "er you'll be killt sho'. Come on wid us, suh, an' tek keer
er yo'se'f. We're gwine ter hide in de swamps till dis thing is over!"

"God, man!" exclaimed Miller, urging his horse forward, "my wife and
child are in the town!"

Fortunately, he reflected, there were no patients confined in the
hospital,--if there should be anything in this preposterous story. To
one unfamiliar with Southern life, it might have seemed impossible that
these good Christian people, who thronged the churches on Sunday, and
wept over the sufferings of the lowly Nazarene, and sent missionaries to
the heathen, could be hungering and thirsting for the blood of their
fellow men; but Miller cherished no such delusion. He knew the history
of his country; he had the threatened lynching of Sandy Campbell vividly
in mind; and he was fully persuaded that to race prejudice, once roused,
any horror was possible. That women or children would be molested of set
purpose he did not believe, but that they might suffer by accident was
more than likely.

As he neared the town, dashing forward at the top of his horse's speed,
he heard his voice called in a loud and agitated tone, and, glancing
around him, saw a familiar form standing by the roadside, gesticulating
vehemently.

He drew up the horse with a suddenness that threw the faithful and
obedient animal back upon its haunches. The colored lawyer, Watson, came
up to the buggy. That he was laboring under great and unusual excitement
was quite apparent from his pale face and frightened air.

"What's the matter, Watson?" demanded Miller, hoping now to obtain some
reliable information.

"Matter!" exclaimed the other. "Everything's the matter! The white
people are up in arms. They have disarmed the colored people, killing
half a dozen in the process, and wounding as many more. They have forced
the mayor and aldermen to resign, have formed a provisional city
government _a la Francaise_, and have ordered me and half a dozen other
fellows to leave town in forty-eight hours, under pain of sudden death.
As they seem to mean it, I shall not stay so long. Fortunately, my wife
and children are away. I knew you were out here, however, and I thought
I'd come out and wait for you, so that we might talk the matter over. I
don't imagine they mean you any harm, personally, because you tread on
nobody's toes; but you're too valuable a man for the race to lose, so I
thought I'd give you warning. I shall want to sell you my property,
too, at a bargain. For I'm worth too much to my family to dream of ever
attempting to live here again."

"Have you seen anything of my wife and child?" asked Miller, intent upon
the danger to which they might be exposed.

"No; I didn't go to the house. I inquired at the drugstore and found
out where you had gone. You needn't fear for them,--it is not a war on
women and children."

"War of any kind is always hardest on the women and children," returned
Miller; "I must hurry on and see that mine are safe."

"They'll not carry the war so far into Africa as that," returned
Watson; "but I never saw anything like it. Yesterday I had a hundred
white friends in the town, or thought I had,--men who spoke pleasantly
to me on the street, and sometimes gave me their hands to shake. Not one
of them said to me today: 'Watson, stay at home this afternoon.' I might
have been killed, like any one of half a dozen others who have bit the
dust, for any word that one of my 'friends' had said to warn me. When
the race cry is started in this neck of the woods, friendship, religion,
humanity, reason, all shrivel up like dry leaves in a raging furnace."

The buggy, into which Watson had climbed, was meanwhile rapidly nearing
the town.

"I think I'll leave you here, Miller," said Watson, as they approached
the outskirts, "and make my way home by a roundabout path, as I should
like to get there unmolested. Home!--a beautiful word that, isn't it,
for an exiled wanderer? It might not be well, either, for us to be seen
together. If you put the hood of your buggy down, and sit well back in
the shadow, you may be able to reach home without interruption; but
avoid the main streets. I'll see you again this evening, if we're both
alive, and I can reach you; for my time is short. A committee are to
call in the morning to escort me to the train. I am to be dismissed from
the community with public honors." Watson was climbing down from the
buggy, when a small party of men were seen approaching, and big Josh
Green, followed by several other resolute-looking colored men, came up
and addressed them.

"Dr. Miller," cried Green, "Mr. Watson,--we're lookin' fer a leader. De
w'ite folks are killin' de niggers, an' we ain' gwine ter stan' up an'
be shot down like dogs. We're gwine ter defen' ou' lives, an' we ain'
gwine ter run away f'm no place where we 'we got a right ter be; an' woe
be ter de w'ite man w'at lays ban's on us! Dere's two niggers in dis
town ter eve'y w'ite man, an' ef we 'we got ter be killt, we'll take
some w'ite folks 'long wid us, ez sho' ez dere's a God in heaven,--ez I
s'pose dere is, dough He mus' be 'sleep, er busy somewhar e'se ter-day.
Will you-all come an' lead us?"

"Gentlemen," said Watson, "what is the use? The negroes will not back
you up. They haven't the arms, nor the moral courage, nor the
leadership."

"We'll git de arms, an' we'll git de courage, ef you'll come an' lead
us! We wants leaders,--dat's w'y we come ter you!"

"What's the use?" returned Watson despairingly. "The odds are too heavy.
I've been ordered out of town; if I stayed, I'd be shot on sight,
unless I had a body-guard around me."

"We'll be yo' body-guard!" shouted half a dozen voices.

"And when my body-guard was shot, what then? I have a wife and children.
It is my duty to live for them. If I died, I should get no glory and no
reward, and my family would be reduced to beggary,--to which they'll
soon be near enough as it is. This affair will blow over in a day or
two. The white people will be ashamed of themselves to-morrow, and
apprehensive of the consequences for some time to come. Keep quiet,
boys, and trust in God. You won't gain anything by resistance."

"'God he'ps dem dat he'ps demselves,'" returned Josh stoutly. "Ef Mr.
Watson won't lead us, will you, Dr. Miller?" said the spokesman, turning
to the doctor.

For Miller it was an agonizing moment. He was no coward, morally or
physically. Every manly instinct urged him to go forward and take up the
cause of these leaderless people, and, if need be, to defend their lives
and their rights with his own,--but to what end?

"Listen, men," he said. "We would only be throwing our lives away.
Suppose we made a determined stand and won a temporary victory. By
morning every train, every boat, every road leading into Wellington,
would be crowded with white men,--as they probably will be any
way,--with arms in their hands, curses on their lips, and vengeance in
their hearts. In the minds of those who make and administer the laws, we
have no standing in the court of conscience. They would kill us in the
fight, or they would hang us afterwards,--one way or another, we should
be doomed. I should like to lead you; I should like to arm every colored
man in this town, and have them stand firmly in line, not for attack,
but for defense; but if I attempted it, and they should stand by me,
which is questionable,--for I have met them fleeing from the town,--my
life would pay the forfeit. Alive, I may be of some use to you, and you
are welcome to my life in that way,--I am giving it freely. Dead, I
should be a mere lump of carrion. Who remembers even the names of those
who have been done to death in the Southern States for the past twenty
years?"

"I 'members de name er one of 'em," said Josh, "an' I 'members de name
er de man dat killt 'im, an' I s'pec' his time is mighty nigh come."

"My advice is not heroic, but I think it is wise. In this riot we are
placed as we should be in a war: we have no territory, no base of
supplies, no organization, no outside sympathy,--we stand in the
position of a race, in a case like this, without money and without
friends. Our time will come,--the time when we can command respect for
our rights; but it is not yet in sight. Give it up, boys, and wait. Good
may come of this, after all."

Several of the men wavered, and looked irresolute.

"I reckon that's all so, doctuh," returned Josh, "an', de way you put
it, I don' blame you ner Mr. Watson; but all dem reasons ain' got no
weight wid me. I'm gwine in dat town, an' ef any w'ite man 'sturbs me,
dere'll be trouble,--dere'll be double trouble,--I feels it in my
bones!"

"Remember your old mother, Josh," said Miller.

"Yas, sub, I'll 'member her; dat's all I kin do now. I don' need ter
wait fer her no mo', fer she died dis mo'nin'. I'd lack ter see her
buried, suh, but I may not have de chance. Ef I gits killt, will you do
me a favor?"

"Yes, Josh; what is it?"

"Ef I should git laid out in dis commotion dat's gwine on, will you
collec' my wages f'm yo' brother, and see dat de ole 'oman is put away
right?"

"Yes, of course."

"Wid a nice coffin, an' a nice fune'al, an' a head-bo'd an' a
foot-bo'd?"

"Yes."

"All right, suh! Ef I don' live ter do it, I'll know it'll be 'tended
ter right. Now we're gwine out ter de cotton compress, an' git a lot er
colored men tergether, an' ef de w'ite folks 'sturbs me, I shouldn't be
s'prise' ef dere'd be a mix-up;--an' ef dere is, me an _one_ w'ite man
'll stan' befo' de jedgment th'one er God dis day; an' it won't be me
w'at'll be 'feared er de jedgment. Come along, boys! Dese gentlemen may
have somethin' ter live fer; but ez fer my pa't, I'd ruther be a dead
nigger any day dan a live dog!"

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Wellington riot begins at three o'clock in the afternoon. Armed white men come into the street "as if by magic" and begin to search and hold up any black man, woman, or child that they see. If he disagrees with the request, there is violence. Dr. Miller is out on a call and as he comes back into town, he sees groups of people with fear on their faces. Miller knows, with his "slumbering race consciousness which years of culture had not obliterated," that there is racial trouble in town. A man tells him that the white people have risen up and are going to kill all the blacks. The man begs Dr. Miller not to go into town, but Miller fears for his wife and child and so he races back. On the road back into town, Miller meets Watson on the road. Watson tells him that the white people have "formed a provisional city government a la francaise" and have ordered many of the more prominent black men to leave town. Watson exclaims that the day before, he had had "a hundred white friends in the town" but that today not one of them even looked at him. As they are talking, Josh Green and a group of men come down the road. Green tells Miller and Watson that their uprising is looking for a leader. Watson and Miller tell them that it is no use and that if they rise up, all will die. Josh tells that "God he'ps dem dat he'ps demselves. Miller tells Green that he would like to lead them, but that this useless exercise would only result in their deaths. Josh tells Miller that his mother died this morning and asks that, if he should die, if Miller will bury her. Miller and agrees and Josh leads the band of rebels, telling them that "I'd ruther be a dead nigger any day dan a live dog


prompt:
Chapter: The party under Josh's leadership moved off down the road. Miller, while
entirely convinced that he had acted wisely in declining to accompany
them, was yet conscious of a distinct feeling of shame and envy that he,
too, did not feel impelled to throw away his life in a hopeless
struggle.

Watson left the buggy and disappeared by a path at the roadside. Miller
drove rapidly forward. After entering the town, he passed several small
parties of white men, but escaped scrutiny by sitting well back in his
buggy, the presumption being that a well-dressed man with a good horse
and buggy was white. Torn with anxiety, he reached home at about four
o'clock. Driving the horse into the yard, he sprang down from the buggy
and hastened to the house, which he found locked, front and rear.

A repeated rapping brought no response. At length he broke a window, and
entered the house like a thief.

"Janet, Janet!" he called in alarm, "where are you? It is only
I,--Will!"

There was no reply. He ran from room to room, only to find them all
empty. Again he called his wife's name, and was about rushing from the
house, when a muffled voice came faintly to his ear,--

"Is dat you, Doctuh Miller?"

"Yes. Who are you, and where are my wife and child?"

He was looking around in perplexity, when the door of a low closet under
the kitchen sink was opened from within, and a woolly head was
cautiously protruded.

"Are you _sho'_ dat's you, doctuh?"

"Yes, Sally; where are"--

"An' not some w'ite man come ter bu'n down de house an' kill all de
niggers?"

"No, Sally, it's me all right. Where is my wife? Where is my child?"

"Dey went over ter see Mis' Butler 'long 'bout two o'clock, befo' dis
fuss broke out, suh. Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy, suh! Is all de cullud folks be'n
killt 'cep'n' me an' you, suh? Fer de Lawd's sake, suh, you won' let 'em
kill me, will you, suh? I'll wuk fer you fer nuthin', suh, all my bawn
days, ef you'll save my life, suh!"

"Calm yourself, Sally. You'll be safe enough if you stay right here, I
'we no doubt. They'll not harm women,--of that I'm sure enough,
although I haven't yet got the bearings of this deplorable affair. Stay
here and look after the house. I must find my wife and child!"

The distance across the city to the home of the Mrs. Butler whom his
wife had gone to visit was exactly one mile. Though Miller had a good
horse in front of him, he was two hours in reaching his destination.
Never will the picture of that ride fade from his memory. In his dreams
he repeats it night after night, and sees the sights that wounded his
eyes, and feels the thoughts--the haunting spirits of the thoughts--that
tore his heart as he rode through hell to find those whom he was
seeking. For a short distance he saw nothing, and made rapid progress.
As he turned the first corner, his horse shied at the dead body of a
negro, lying huddled up in the collapse which marks sudden death. What
Miller shuddered at was not so much the thought of death, to the sight
of which his profession had accustomed him, as the suggestion of what it
signified. He had taken with allowance the wild statement of the fleeing
fugitives. Watson, too, had been greatly excited, and Josh Green's group
were desperate men, as much liable to be misled by their courage as the
others by their fears; but here was proof that murder had been
done,--and his wife and children were in the town. Distant shouts, and
the sound of firearms, increased his alarm. He struck his horse with the
whip, and dashed on toward the heart of the city, which he must traverse
in order to reach Janet and the child.

At the next corner lay the body of another man, with the red blood
oozing from a ghastly wound in the forehead. The negroes seemed to have
been killed, as the band plays in circus parades, at the street
intersections, where the example would be most effective. Miller, with a
wild leap of the heart, had barely passed this gruesome spectacle, when
a sharp voice commanded him to halt, and emphasized the order by
covering him with a revolver. Forgetting the prudence he had preached to
others, he had raised his whip to strike the horse, when several hands
seized the bridle.

"Come down, you damn fool," growled an authoritative voice. "Don't you
see we're in earnest? Do you want to get killed?"

"Why should I come down?" asked Miller. "Because we've ordered you to
come down! This is the white people's day, and when they order, a nigger
must obey. We're going to search you for weapons."

"Search away. You'll find nothing but a case of surgeon's tools, which
I'm more than likely to need before this day is over, from all
indications."

"No matter; we'll make sure of it! That's what we're here for. Come
down, if you don't want to be pulled down!"

Miller stepped down from his buggy. His interlocutor, who made no effort
at disguise, was a clerk in a dry-goods store where Miller bought most
of his family and hospital supplies. He made no sign of recognition,
however, and Miller claimed no acquaintance. This man, who had for
several years emptied Miller's pockets in the course of more or less
legitimate trade, now went through them, aided by another man, more
rapidly than ever before, the searchers convincing themselves that
Miller carried no deadly weapon upon his person. Meanwhile, a third
ransacked the buggy with like result. Miller recognized several others
of the party, who made not the slightest attempt at disguise, though no
names were called by any one.

"Where are you going?" demanded the leader.

"I am looking for my wife and child," replied Miller.

"Well, run along, and keep them out of the streets when you find them;
and keep your hands out of this affair, if you wish to live in this
town, which from now on will be a white man's town, as you niggers will
be pretty firmly convinced before night."

Miller drove on as swiftly as might be. At the next corner he was
stopped again. In the white man who held him up, Miller recognized a
neighbor of his own. After a short detention and a perfunctory search,
the white man remarked apologetically:--

"Sorry to have had to trouble you, doctuh, but them's the o'ders. It
ain't men like you that we're after, but the vicious and criminal class
of niggers."

Miller smiled bitterly as he urged his horse forward. He was quite well
aware that the virtuous citizen who had stopped him had only a few weeks
before finished a term in the penitentiary, to which he had been
sentenced for stealing. Miller knew that he could have bought all the
man owned for fifty dollars, and his soul for as much more.

A few rods farther on, he came near running over the body of a wounded
man who lay groaning by the wayside. Every professional instinct urged
him to stop and offer aid to the sufferer; but the uncertainty
concerning his wife and child proved a stronger motive and urged him
resistlessly forward. Here and there the ominous sound of firearms was
audible. He might have thought this merely a part of the show, like the
"powder play" of the Arabs, but for the bloody confirmation of its
earnestness which had already assailed his vision. Somewhere in this
seething caldron of unrestrained passions were his wife and child, and
he must hurry on.

His progress was painfully slow. Three times he was stopped and
searched. More than once his way was barred, and he was ordered to turn
back, each such occasion requiring a detour which consumed many minutes.
The man who last stopped him was a well-known Jewish merchant. A
Jew--God of Moses!--had so far forgotten twenty centuries of history as
to join in the persecution of another oppressed race! When almost
reduced to despair by these innumerable delays, he perceived, coming
toward him, Mr. Ellis, the sub-editor of the Morning Chronicle. Miller
had just been stopped and questioned again, and Ellis came up as he was
starting once more upon his endless ride.

"Dr. Miller," said Ellis kindly, "it is dangerous for you on the
streets. Why tempt the danger?"

"I am looking for my wife and child," returned Miller in desperation.
"They are somewhere in this town,--I don't know where,--and I must find
them."

Ellis had been horror-stricken by the tragedy of the afternoon, the
wholly superfluous slaughter of a harmless people, whom a show of force
would have been quite sufficient to overawe. Elaborate explanations were
afterwards given for these murders, which were said, perhaps truthfully,
not to have been premeditated, and many regrets were expressed. The
young man had been surprised, quite as much as the negroes themselves,
at the ferocity displayed. His own thoughts and feelings were attuned to
anything but slaughter. Only that morning he had received a perfumed
note, calling his attention to what the writer described as a very noble
deed of his, and requesting him to call that evening and receive the
writer's thanks. Had he known that Miss Pemberton, several weeks after
their visit to the Sound, had driven out again to the hotel and made
some inquiries among the servants, he might have understood better the
meaning of this missive. When Miller spoke of his wife and child, some
subtle thread of suggestion coupled the note with Miller's plight.
"I'll go with you, Dr. Miller," he said, "if you'll permit me. In my
company you will not be disturbed."

He took a seat in Miller's buggy, after which it was not molested.

Neither of them spoke. Miller was sick at heart; he could have wept with
grief, even had the welfare of his own dear ones not been involved in
this regrettable affair. With prophetic instinct he foresaw the hatreds
to which this day would give birth; the long years of constraint and
distrust which would still further widen the breach between two peoples
whom fate had thrown together in one community.

There was nothing for Ellis to say. In his heart he could not defend the
deeds of this day. The petty annoyances which the whites had felt at the
spectacle of a few negroes in office; the not unnatural resentment of a
proud people at what had seemed to them a presumptuous freedom of speech
and lack of deference on the part of their inferiors,--these things,
which he knew were to be made the excuse for overturning the city
government, he realized full well were no sort of justification for the
wholesale murder or other horrors which might well ensue before the day
was done. He could not approve the acts of his own people; neither could
he, to a negro, condemn them. Hence he was silent.

"Thank you, Mr. Ellis," exclaimed Miller, when they had reached the
house where he expected to find his wife. "This is the place where I was
going. I am--under a great obligation to you."

"Not at all, Dr. Miller. I need not tell you how much I regret this
deplorable affair."

Ellis went back down the street. Fastening his horse to the fence,
Miller sprang forward to find his wife and child. They would certainly
be there, for no colored woman would be foolhardy enough to venture on
the streets after the riot had broken out.

As he drew nearer, he felt a sudden apprehension. The house seemed
strangely silent and deserted. The doors were closed, and the Venetian
blinds shut tightly. Even a dog which had appeared slunk timidly back
under the house, instead of barking vociferously according to the usual
habit of his kind.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Miller rushes home and breaks into his own house because everything is locked up so tightly. The Miller's servant tells him that his wife and child went over to the Butlers' home. MIller dashes out of the house again and makes rapid progress towards town on his horse. Suddenly, he comes across a dead body in the streets. He realizes that the news from Miller and Green is true. At the next corner, he sees another dead black man, shot through the head. A voice commands him to halt and demands that he comes down off his horse. The white man, a clerk in a dry goods store that Miller saw frequently, searches him and his buggy. When they finish, they tell him to move along and to leave the streets because the town "from now on will be a white man's town, as you niggers will be pretty firmly convinced before night. At the next corner, he is stopped again and then almost runs into an injured man down the road. He is stopped three more times before Mr. Ellis sees him and rides in the carriage with him so that Dr. Miller will not be disturbed. Ellis is horrified at the spectacle of violence. He knows that the "resentment of a proud people at what had seemed to them a presumptuous freedom of speech and lack of deference on the part of their inferiors. were no sort of justification for the wholesale murder or other horrors which might well ensue before the day was done. When Miller reaches the Butler's house and says goodbye to Ellis, he is worried because the house is dark and no one appears to be home