Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/485

426 light weights, and lend at usury, to live above his income, not because he wants to, but because Mrs. Cuffee in the next shanty gave a party, and Mrs. Abeham across the way has set up a mule carriage, and his wife and family must do as much as they? Will he be a happier or a better man by this way of living than he is now with his old hat and his cheery smile and his pleasant manners and his little niggers singing and laughing with their mother in the humble but sufficient cabin?

Not he; he is choosing the wiser and happier way. Let him go fishing while he may. He has a right to a holiday for at least two whole generations. If the white folks grumble at their work left undone, let them go and do it themselves. They made him do it long enough. Now, let him work just when he likes, or not at all, if he likes.

Keep on, Abeham, just as you are. Have a rest. Your clothes are good enough, and you can hunt for food any time. Civilization will catch you and tame you and dress you and educate you, and make you a provident, careworn, dependent, miserable, compromising, respectable element of society soon enough.

But was that a signal Moseley made to me? Yes, a nervous, quick wave of the hand that says, "Come here! Come here at once!"