Le system of society, all democracies are based on
discussion. Our old Witenagemot--" "But it wasn't _our_ old
Witenagemot," said the girl. "Well--no," admitted the mulatto, "that's
true." They moved along for some distance in silence, when the girl
asked: "What
are you going to do now, Peter?" "Teach, and keep
working for that training-school," stated Peter, almost belligerently.
"You didn't expect a little thing like a hundred dollars to stop me,
did you?" "No-o-o," conceded Cissie, with some reserve of judgment in
her tone. Presently she added, "You could do a lot better up North,
Peter." "For whom?" "Why, yourself," said the girl, a little
surprised.
Siner nodded. "I thought all that out before I came back here, Cissie.
A friend of mine named
Farquhar offered me a place with him up in Chicago,--a string of
garages. You'd like Farquhar, Cissie. He's
a materialist with an absolutely
inexorable brain. He mechanizes the universe. I told him I couldn't
take his offer. 'It's like
this,' I argued: 'if every negro with a little ability leaves the
South,
our people down there will never progress.' It's really that way,
Cissie, it takes a certain mental atmosphere to develop a people as a
whole. A few individuals
here and there may have the strength to spring up by themselves, but
the run of the people--no. I believe one of the greatest
curses of the colored race in the South is the continual draining
of its best individuals North. Farquhar argued--" just then Peter saw
that Cissie was not attending his discourse.
She was walking at his side in a respectful silence.
He stopped talking, and presently she smiled
and said
