Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/174

 was dressed in a well-fitting suit that matched his complexion. He had the appearance of being intelligent and amiable.

I was in the act of starting to speak, when one of the fellows nudged me and whispered in my ear, that it was one of the Woodrings from a town a short distance away in Nebraska, who was known to be of mixed blood but never admitted it.

According to what I had been told, the father of the three boys was about half negro but had married a white woman, and this one was the youngest son. Needless to say I did not speak but kept clear of him.

There is a difference in races that can be distinguished in the features, in the eyes, and even if carefully noted, in the sound of the voice.

It seemed the family claimed to be part Mexican, which would account for the darkness of their complexion. But I had seen too many different races, however, to mistake a streak of Ethiopian. Having been in Mexico, I knew them to be almost entirely straight-haired (being a cross between an Indian and a Spaniard). When I observed this young man, I readily distinguished the negro features; the brown eyes, the curly hair, and the set of the nose.

The father had come into the sand hills of Nebraska some thirty-five years before, taken a homestead, but from where he came from no one seemed to know. It was there he married his white wife, and to the union was born the three sons, Frank, the eldest, Will, and Len, the youngest.

The father sold the homestead some twenty