Wayne consented doubtfully. “I wouldn’t want him to come after me, though, and fetch me home with him,” he said. “I dare say he could do that, but I don’t believe he would. From what you’ve told me of him--or, maybe, from what you haven’t told me--I gather that he might be rather relieved to be rid of the expense of clothing and feeding you, Sloan. Anything in that?” “A heap, I reckon. I don’t mind his knowing where I am as long as he doesn’t make trouble.” “I don’t see what trouble he could make,” objected Pattern. “Anyway, you’d feel better for writing. I’d tell him why I left, that I was well and getting on and that I meant to make my own way.” “June wrote to his mother a little while after we got here, so I reckon Mr. Higgins knows I’m still alive. June didn’t tell where we were, though.” “Where did he mail his letter?” asked the other. “Here in Medfield?” “Yes.” “Then it seems to me he may have a suspicion,” laughed Pattern. “I never thought of that!” exclaimed Wayne, joining the laughter. “I reckon if he’d wanted me back he’d been after me before this, then. I’ll write tonight, before I go home.” “I would. What about this boy that’s with you? Why doesn’t he join here, too?” “June? Why, he--he’s coloured!” “So you said. What’s that got to do with it? Isn’t he a clean, decent boy?” “Why, yes, but--I thought----” “We don’t draw the colour line up here, Sloan. We’ve got more than a dozen coloured fellows in the Association right now. Some of them are mighty well liked, too. You’d better get your friend to come in. It’ll be good for him and good for us. We’re trying to get all the new members we can. See if you can’t persuade him.” “Oh, he will join if I tell him to,” responded Wayne carelessly. “But it seems--sort of funny----” “Yes, but you’re not down in Dixie now, my boy. Remember that.” For once, however, Wayne’s authority failed him. June firmly and respectfully declined to have anything to do with the Y. M. C. A. “Maybe it’s jus’ like you-all say, Mas’ Wayne, but I ain’ fixin’ to act like these yere Northern darkies, no, sir! I done watch ’em. They acts like they thought they was quality, Mas’ Wayne, dressin’ themselves up in store clothes an’ buttin’ white folks right off’n the sidewalk! If they was down in Colquitt County someone’d hit ’em over the head with a axe!” “But this isn’t Colquitt County, June. This is up North, and things are different here. Up here a coloured man is as good as a white man--at least they think he is.” “No, sir, Mas’ Wayne, they don’ think that, sir. They jus’ perten’ they thinks it. Don’ no white man sit down to a table with a nigger, does they? They lets you ride in the same car with the white folks, but you can’ go to white folkses hotel. It’s mighty mixed up, Mas’ Wayne, an’ you don’ know where you is!” “But there are a lot of coloured fellows in the Y. M. C. A., June. Doesn’t that show that it’s all right for you to join it?”