Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/175

 years before and moved to another county, and had run a hotel since in the town of Fencer, where they now live.

Unlike his younger brother, Frank, the eldest son, could easily have passed for a white, that is, so long as no one looked for the streak. But when the fellow whose timely information had kept me from embarrassing myself, and perhaps from insulting the young man, a few minutes later called out, "Hello, Frank!" to a tall man, one look disclosed to my scrutiny the negro in his features. I was not mistaken. It was Frank Woodring.

In view of the fact, that in some chapters of this story I dwell on the negro, and on account of the insistence of many of them who declare they are deprived of opportunities on account of their color, I take the privilege of putting down here a sketch of this Frank Woodring's life. And although these people deny a relation to the negro race, it was well known by the public in that part of the country, that they were mixed, for it had been told to me by every one who knew them, therefore the instance cannot be regarded altogether as an exception.

Shortly after coming to Fencer, he went to work for an Iowa man on a ranch near by, and later a prosperous squaw-man, who owned a bank, took him in, where in time he became book-keeper and all round handy man, later assistant cashier. The ranchman whom Woodring had worked for previous to entering the bank, bought the squaw-man out, made Woodring cashier, and sold to him a block of stock and took his note for the amount. In