At this point the talk drifted to the negro question and what a problem it was getting to be and I found that we thought alike on most points, and I finally made him understand that I was acting from diplomatic motives entirely, and because I understood the temper of the New Englanders so well. “Remember that it was in a town in Connecticut,” said I, “that a colored man was ejected from a white man’s restaurant, and it is in New England that little colored children have a hard time at school, because they are black, and for no other reason. Being in New England, the country of liberty, you must give me the liberty of arranging my concert so that it shall be a success, and therefore (I smiled) there must be no mixture of races on the stage.” We decided that the early part of September would be a good time to give it, as the haying would by that time have been done and we could count on a larger audience. On the way home James told me that he had a brother and a little sister, who could be brought into the concert, and that with them he could furnish some very nice quartettes. Ethel looked at me meaningly, and said, “Minerva might go there and practise. Do they live at your mother’s?” “Yes, ma’am.” I realized that it would be better for them to practise at his house than at ours, because, while the practice of music makes perfect, it sometimes also makes maniacs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XI THE HORSE IN THE KITCHEN. “NOW, I’ll tell Mis. Vernon, if you do dem tricks. Stop.” “Why, he’s perfectly harmless, Minerva. Look, I’m holding him.” “Don’ you let him get at me. Mah goodness, he has a head like a horse. Ooh, Lawdy, where’s he gone?” It was raining and Ethel and I were in the sitting room when we heard these loud words and then Minerva burst into the room. She had her skirts held at a height that would have been all right for ballet dancing, but Minerva is not a ballet dancer and Ethel bade her remember herself. Now it seemed to me that that was exactly what she was doing. Fright is memory of self as nearly as I can make out, and Minerva was evidently frightened at a new animal that “looked like a horse.” I had a mental picture of a pony that James had smuggled into the kitchen and then I remembered that New York was not a stranger to ponies and that perhaps in her childhood Minerva might have ridden a pony in Central Park or at Coney Island. No, it must be some other beast. “What is the matter. Don’t you see that Mr. Vernon is reading to me?”