A shrill whistle called them out in two crowded bunches to the polished floor.

Hoping against hope, he had clung to the beautiful thought that Miss Dorothy would be sick, that she had missed her train—but no! There she was, with her shiny high-heeled slippers, her pink skirt that puffed out like a fan, and her silver whistle on a chain. The little clicking castanets that rang out so sharply were in her hand beyond a doubt.

"Ready, children! Spread out. Take your lines. First position. Now!"

The large man at the piano, who always looked half asleep, thundered out the first bars of the latest waltz, and the business began.

Their eyes were fixed solemnly on Miss Dorothy's pointed shoes. They slipped and slid and crossed their legs and arched their pudgy insteps; the boys breathed hard over their gleaming collars. On the right side of the hall thirty hands held out their diminutive skirts at an alluring angle. On the left, neat black legs pattered diligently through mystic evolutions.

The chords rolled out slower, with dramatic pauses between; sharp clicks of the castanets rang through the hall; a line of toes rose gradually towards the horizontal, whirled more or less steadily about, crossed behind, bent low, bowed, and with a flutter of skirts resumed the first position.

A little breeze of laughing admiration circled the row of mothers and aunts.

"Isn't that too cunning! Just like a little ballet! Aren't they graceful, really, now!"

"One, two, three! One, two three! Slide, slide, cross; one, two, three!"

There are those who find pleasure in the aimless intricacies of the dance; self-respecting men even have been known voluntarily to frequent assemblies devoted to this nerve-racking attitudinizing futility. Among such, however, you shall seek in vain in future years for Richard Carr Pendleton.

"One, two, three! Reverse, two, three!"

The whistle shrilled.

"Ready for the two-step, children?"

A mild tolerance grew on him. If dancing must be, better the two-step than anything else. It is not an alluring dance, your two-step; it does not require temperament. Any one with a firm intention of keeping the time and a strong arm can drag a girl through it very acceptably.

Dicky skirted the row of mothers and aunts cautiously.

"Oh, look! Did you ever see anything so sweet?" said somebody. Involuntarily he turned. There in a corner, all by herself, a little girl was gravely performing a dance. He stared at her curiously.

She was ethereally slender, brown-eyed, brown-haired, brown-skinned. A little fluffy white dress spread fan-shaped over her knees; her ankles were bird-like. Her eyes were serious, her hair hung loose. She swayed lightly; one little gloved hand held out her skirt, the other marked the time. Her performance was an apotheosis of the two-step; that metronomic dance would not have recognized itself under her treatment.

Dicky admired. But the admiration of his sex is notoriously fatal to the art that attracts it. He advanced and bowed jerkily, grasped one of the loops of her sash in the back, stamped gently a moment to get the time, and the artist sank into the partner, the pirouette grew coarse to sympathize with clay.

"Don't they do it well, though! See those little things near the door!" he caught as they went by, and his heart swelled with pride.

"What's your name?" he asked abruptly after the dance.

"Thithelia," she lisped. She was very shy.

"Mine's Richard Carr Pendleton. My father's a lawyer. What's yours?"

"I—I don't know!"

"Pooh!" he said, grandly; "I guess you know. Don't you, really?"

She shook her head. Suddenly a light dawned in her eyes.

"Maybe I know," she murmured. "I gueth I know. He—he'th a really thtate!"

"A really state? That isn't anything—nothing at all. A really state?" He frowned at her. Her lip quivered. She turned and ran away.

"Here, come back!" he called; but she was gone.

"That will do for to-day," said Miss Dorothy, presently, and they surged into the dressing-rooms, to be buttoned up and pulled out of draughts and trundled home.

She was swathed carefully in a wadded silk jacket, and then enveloped in a hooded cloak; she looked like an angelic brownie. Dicky ran to her as a woman led her out to a coupé at the curb, and tugged at the ribbon of her cloak.

"Where do you live? Say, where do you?" he demanded.

"I—I don't know." The woman laughed.

"Why, yes, you do, Cissy. Tell him directly, now."

She put one tiny finger in her mouth.

"I—I gueth I live on Chethnut Thtreet," he called as the door slammed and shut her in.

His sister amicably offered him half the plush bag to carry, and opened a running criticism of the afternoon.

"Did you ever see anybody act like that Fannie Leach? She's awfully rough. Miss Dorothy spoke to her twice—wasn't that dreadful? What made you dance all the time with Cissy Weston? She's an awful baby—a regular fraid-cat! We girls tease her just as easy—do you like her?"

"She's the prettiest one there!"

"Why, Dick Pendleton, she is not! She's so little—she's not half so pretty as Agnes, or—or lots of the girls. She's such a baby. She puts her finger in her mouth if anybody says anything at all. If you ask her a single thing she does like this: 'I don't know, I don't know!'"

He smiled scornfully. Did he not know how she did it?

"And she can't talk plain! She lisps—truly she does!"

Was ever a girl so thick-headed as that sister of his!

"She puts her finger in her mouth! She can't talk plain!" Alas, my sisters, it was Helen's finger that toppled over Troy, and Diane de Poitiers stammered!

For two long months the little girl led him along the primrose way. The poor fellow thought it was the main road; he had yet to learn it was but a by-path. But the Little God was not through with him. That very night he reached the top of the wave.

He came down to breakfast rapt and quiet. He salted his oatmeal by mistake, and never knew the difference. His sister laughed derisively, and explained his folly to him as he swallowed the last spoonful, but he only smiled kindly at her. After his egg he spoke.

"I dreamed that it was dancing school. And I went. And I was the only fellow there. And what do you think? All the little girls were Cecilia!"

They gasped.

"You don't suppose he'll be a poet, do you? Or a genius, or anything?" his mother inquired anxiously.

"No!" his father returned. "I should say he was more likely to be a Mormon!"

"A Model Story in the Kindergarten"[D]

BY JOSEPHINE DODGE DASKAM.

(Arranged by Maude Herndon and Grace Kellam.)

It was evident that something was wrong that morning with the children of the kindergarten. Two perplexed teachers were quieting the latest outbreak and marshaling a wavering line of very little people when the youngest assistant appeared on the scene.

"Miss Hunt wants to know why you're so late with them," she inquired. "She hopes nothing's wrong. Mr. R. B. M. Smith is here to-day to visit the primary schools and kindergartens, and—"

"Oh, goodness," exclaimed a teacher, abruptly, ceasing her attempted consolation of Marantha Judd. "I can't bear that woman! She's always read Stanley Hall's last article that proves that what he said before was wrong! Come along, Marantha, don't be a foolish little girl any longer. We shall be late for the morning exercise."

Upstairs a large circle was forming under the critical scrutiny of a short, stout woman with crinkly, gray hair. This was Mr. R. B. M. Smith, who, when the opening exercises were finished, signified her willingness to relate to the children a model story, calling the teacher's attention in advance to the almost incredible certainty that would characterize the children's anticipation of the events judiciously and psychologically selected.

The arm-chairs shortly to contain so much accurate anticipation were at last arranged and the children sat decorously attentive, their faces turned curiously toward the strange lady with the fascinating plumes in her bonnet.

"Nothing like animals to bring out the protective instinct—feebler dependent on the stronger," she said rapidly to the teachers, and then addressed the objects of these theories.

"Now, children, I'm going to tell you a nice story—you all like stories, I'm sure."

At just this moment little Richard Willetts sneezed loudly and unexpectedly to all, himself included, with the result that his ever-ready suspicion fixed upon his neighbor, Andrew Halloran, as the direct cause of the convulsion. Andrew's well-meant efforts to detach from Richard's vest the pocket-handkerchief securely fastened thereto by a large black safety-pin strengthened the latter's conviction of intended assault and battery, and he squirmed out of the circle and made a dash for the hall—the first stage in an evident homeward expedition.

This broke in upon the story, and even when it got under way again there was an atmosphere of excitement quite unexplained by the tale itself.

"Yesterday, children, as I came out of my yard, what do you think I saw?" The elaborately concealed surprise in store was so obvious that Marantha rose to the occasion and suggested:

"An el'phunt?"

"Why, no! Why should I see an elephant in my yard? It wasn't nearly so big as that—it was a little thing!"

"A fish?" ventured Eddy Brown, whose eye fell upon the aquarium in the corner. The raconteuse smiled patiently.

"Why, no! How could a fish, a live fish, get in my front yard?"

"A dead fish?" persisted Eddy, who was never known to relinquish voluntarily an idea.

"It was a little kitten," said the story-teller, decidedly. "A little white kitten. She was standing right near a great big puddle of water. And what else do you think I saw?"

"Another kitten?" suggested Marantha, conservatively.

"No, a big Newfoundland dog. He saw the little kitten near the water. Now cats don't like the water, do they? They don't like a wet place. What do they like?"

"Mice," said Joseph Zukoffsky, abruptly.

"Well, yes, they do; but there were no mice in my yard. I'm sure you know what I mean. If they don't like water, what do they like?"

"Milk!"

"They like a dry place," said Mrs. R. B. M. Smith.

"Now what do you suppose the dog did?"

It may be that successive failures had disheartened the listeners; it may be that the very range presented alive to the dog and them for choice dazzled their imaginations. At any rate, they made no answer.

"Nobody knows what the dog did?" repeated the story-teller, encouragingly. "What would you do if you saw a little white kitten like that?"

Again a silence. Then Philip remarked gloomily, "I'd pull its tail."

"And what do the rest of you think?" inquired Mrs. R. B. M. Smith, pathetically. "I hope you are not so cruel as that little boy."

But fully half the children had seen the youngest assistant giggle at "that little boy's" answer, and with one accord came the quick response, "I'd pull it too."

"Ardelia in Arcady"[E]

(Arranged by Maude Herndon and Grace Kellam.)

When first the young lady from the College Settlement dragged Ardelia from her degradation, she was sitting on a dirty pavement and throwing assorted refuse at an unconscious policeman.

"Come here, little girl," said the young lady, invitingly. "Wouldn't you like to come with me and have a nice, cool bath?"

"Naw," said Ardelia, in tones rivaling the bath in coolness.

"You wouldn't? Well, wouldn't you like some bread and butter and jam?"

"Wha's jam?"

"Why, it's—er—marmalade. All sweet, you know."

"Naw!"

"I thought you might like to go on a picnic," said the young lady, helplessly. "I thought all little girls liked—"

"Picnic? When?" cried Ardelia, moved instantly to interest. "I'm goin'! Is it the Dago picnic?"

The young lady shuddered, and seizing the hand which she imagined to have had the least to do with the refuse, she led Ardelia away—the first stage of her journey to Arcady.

Later arrayed in starched and creaking garments which had been made for a slightly smaller child, Ardelia was transported to the station, and for the first time introduced to a railroad car. She sat stiffly on the red plush seat while the young lady talked reassuringly of daisies and cows and green grass. As Ardelia had never seen any of these things, it is hardly surprising that she was somewhat unenthusiastic.

"You can roll in the daisies, my dear, and pick all you want—all!" she urged eagerly.

"Aw right," she answered, guardedly.

The swelteringly hot day, and the rapid unaccustomed motion combined to afflict her with a strange internal anticipation of future woe. Once last summer, when she ate the liquid dregs of the ice-cream man's great tin, and fell asleep in the room where her mother was frying onions, she had experienced this same foreboding, and the climax of that dreadful day lingered yet in her memory.

At last they stopped. The young lady seized her hand, and led her through the narrow aisle, down the steep steps, across the little country station platform, and Ardelia was in Arcady.

A bare-legged boy in blue overalls and a wide straw hat then drove them many miles along a hot, dusty road, that wound endlessly through the parched country fields. Finally they turned into a driveway, and drew up before a gray wooden house. A spare, dark-eyed woman in a checked apron advanced to meet them.

"Terrible hot to-day, ain't it?" she sighed. "I'm real glad to see you, Miss Forsythe. Won't you cool off a little before you go on? This is the little girl, I s'pose. I guess it's pretty cool to what she's accustomed to, ain't it, Delia?"

"No, I thank you, Mrs. Slater. I'll go right on to the house. Now, Ardelia, here you are in the country. I'm staying with my friend in a big white house about a quarter of a mile farther on. You can't see it from here, but if you want anything you can just walk over. Day after to-morrow is the picnic I told you of. You'll see me then, anyway. Now run right out in the grass and pick all the daisies you want. Don't be afraid; no one will drive you off this grass!"

The force of this was lost on Ardelia, who had never been driven off any grass whatever, but she gathered that she was expected to walk out into the thick rank growth of the unmowed side yard, and strode downward obediently.

"Now pick them! Pick the daisies!" cried Miss Forsythe, excitedly. "I want to see you."

Ardelia looked blank.

"Huh?" she said.

"Gather them. Get a bunch. Oh, you poor child! Mrs. Slater, she doesn't know how!" Miss Forsythe was deeply moved and illustrated by picking imaginary daisies on the porch. Ardelia's quick eye followed her gestures, and stooping, she scooped the heads from three daisies and started back with them. Miss Forsythe gasped.

"No, no, dear! Pull them up! Take the stem, too," she explained. "Pick the whole flower."

Ardelia bent over again, tugged at a thick-stemmed clover, brought it up by the roots, and laid it awkwardly on the young lady's lap.

"Thank you, dear," she said, politely, "but I meant them for you. I meant you to have a bunch. Don't you want them?"

"Naw," said Ardelia, decidedly.

Miss Forsythe's eyes brightened suddenly.

"I know what you want," she cried, "you're thirsty! Mrs. Slater, won't you get us some of your good, creamy milk? Don't you want a drink, Ardelia?"

Ardelia nodded. When Mrs. Slater appeared with the foaming yellow glasses she wound her nervous little hands about the stem of the goblet and drank a deep draught.

"There!" cried the young lady. "Now, how do you like real milk, Ardelia? I declare you look like another child already! You can have all you want every day—why, what's the matter?"

For Ardelia was growing ghastly pale before them; her eyes turned inward, her lips tightened. A blinding horror surged from her toes upward, and the memory of the liquid ice-cream and the frying onions faded before the awful reality of her present agony.

Later, as she lay limp and white on the slippery haircloth sofa in Mrs. Slater's musty parlor she heard them discussing her situation.

"There was a lot of Fresh-Air children over at Mis' Simms's," her hostess explained, "and they 'most all of 'em said the milk was too strong—did you ever! Two or three of 'em was sick, like this one, but they got to love it in a little while. She will, too."

Ardelia shook her head feebly. In a few minutes she was asleep. When she awoke all was dusk and shadow. She felt scared and lonely. Now that her stomach was filled and her nerves refreshed by her long sleep, she was in a condition to realize that aside from all bodily discomfort she was sad—very sad. A new, unknown depression weighed her down. It grew steadily, something was happening, something constant and mournful—what? Suddenly she knew. It was a steady, recurrent noise, a buzzing, monotonous click. Now it rose, now it fell, accentuating the silence dense about it.

"Zig-a-zig! Zig-a-zig!" then a rest.

"Zig-a-zig! Ziz-a-zig-a-zig!"

"Wha's 'at?" she said.

"That? Oh, those are katydids. I s'pose you never heard 'em, that's a fact. Kind o' cozy, I think. Don't you like 'em?"

"Naw."

Another long silence intervened. Mr. Slater snored, William smoked, and the monotonous clamor was uninterrupted.

"Zig-a-zig! Zig-zig! Zig-a-zig-a-zig!"

Slowly, against the background of this machine-like clicking, there grew other sounds, weird, unhappy, far away.

"Wheep, wheep, wheep!"

This was a high, thin crying.

"Burrom! Burrom! Brown!"

This was low and resonant and solemn. Ardelia scowled.

"Wha's 'at?" she asked again.

"That's the frogs. Bull-frogs and peepers. Never heard them, either, did ye? Well, that's what they are."

William took his pipe out of his mouth.

"Come here, sissy, 'n I'll tell y' a story," he said, lazily.

Ardelia obeyed, and glancing timorously at the shadows, slipped around to his side.

"Onc't they was an' ol' feller comin' 'long crosslots, late at night, an' he come to a pond, an' he kinder stopped up an' says to himself, 'Wonder how deep the ol' pond is, anyhow?' He was just a leetle—well, he'd had a drop too much, y' see—"

"Had a what?" interrupted Ardelia.

"He was sort o' rollin' 'round—he didn't know just what he was doin'—"

"Oh! Jagged!" said Ardelia, comprehendingly.

"I guess so. An' he heard a voice singin' out, 'Knee deep! Knee deep! Knee deep.'"

William gave a startling imitation of the peepers; his voice was a high, shrill wail.

"'Oh, well,' s' he, ''f it's just knee deep, I'll wade through,' an' he starts in.

"Just then he hears a big feller singin' out, 'Better go rrround! Better gorrround! Better gorrround!'

"'Lord,' says he, 'is it s' deep 's that? Well, I'll go round then.' 'N' off he starts to walk around.

"'Knee deep! Knee deep! Knee deep!' says the peepers.

"An' there it was. Soon's he'd start to do one thing they'd tell him another. Make up his mind he couldn't, so he stands there still, they do say, askin' 'em every night which he better do."

"Stands where?"

"Oh, I d' know. Out in the swamp, mebbe."

Again he smoked. Time passed by.

Suddenly Mr. Slater coughed and arose. "Well, guess I'll be gettin' to bed," he said. "Come on, boys. Hello, little girl! Come to visit us, hey? Mind you don't pick poison vine."

Mrs. Slater led Ardelia upstairs into a little hot room, and told her to get into bed quick, for the lamp drew the mosquitoes.

Ardelia kicked off her shoes and approached the bed distrustfully. It sank down with her weight and smelled hot and queer. Rolling off she stretched herself on the floor, and lay there disconsolately. At home the hurdy-gurdy was playing, the women were gossiping on every step, the lights were everywhere—the blessed fearless gas lights—and the little girls were dancing in the breeze that drew in from East River.

In the morning Miss Forsythe came over to inquire after her charge's health, accompanied by another young lady.

"Why, Ethel, she isn't barefoot!" she cried. "Come here, Ardelia, and take off your shoes and stockings directly. Shoes and stockings in the country! Now, you'll know what comfort is."

To patter about bare-legged on the clear, safe pavement, was one thing; to venture unprotected into that waving, tripping tangle was another. Ardelia stepped cautiously upon the short grass near the house, and with jaw set felt her way into the higher growth. Suddenly she stopped; she shrieked:

"Oh, gee! Oh, gee!"

"What is it, Ardelia; what is it? A snake?" Mrs. Slater rushed out, seized Ardelia, half rigid with fear, and carried her to the porch. They elicited from her as she sat with feet tucked under her that something had rustled by her "down at the bottom"—that it was slippery, that she had stepped on it, and wanted to go home.

"Toad," explained Mrs. Slater, briefly. "Only a little hop-toad, Delia, that wouldn't harm a baby, let alone a big girl nine years old, like you."

"She's a queer child," Mrs. Slater confided to the young ladies. "Not a drop of anything will she drink but cold tea. It don't seem reasonable to give it to her all day, and I won't do it, so she has to wait till meals. She makes a face if I say milk, and the water tastes slippery, she says, and salty-like. She won't touch it. I tell her it's good well-water, but she just shakes her head. She's stubborn 's a bronze mule, that child. Just mopes around. 'S morning she asked me when did the parades go by. I told her there wa'n't any, but the circus, an' that had been already. I tried to cheer her up, sort of, with that Fresh-Air picnic of yours to-morrow, Miss Forsythe, an s'she, 'Oh, the Dago picnic,' s'she, 'will they have Tong's band?'"

"She don't seem to take any int'rest in th' farm, like those Fresh-Air children, either. I showed her the hens an' the eggs, an' she said it was a lie about the hens layin' 'em. 'What d' you take me for?' s'she. The idea! Then Henry milked the cow, to show her—she wouldn't believe that, either—and with the milk streamin' down before her, what do you s'pose she said? 'You put it in!' s'she. I never should a' believed that, Miss Forsythe, if I hadn't heard it."

"Oh, she'll get over it; just wait a few days. Good-bye, Ardelia. Eat a good supper."

But this Ardelia did not do. Mr. Slater ate in voracious silence. William never spoke, and Mrs. Slater filled their plates without comment. Ardelia had never in her life eaten in silence. Through the open door the buzz of the katydids was beginning tentatively. In the intervals of William's gulps a faint bass note warned them from the swamp.

"Better gorrround! Better gorrround!"

Ardelia's nerves strained and snapped. Her eyes grew wild.

"Fer Gawd's sake, talk!" she cried, sharply. "Are youse dumbies?"

The morning dawned fresh and fair; the homely barnyard noises brought a smile to Miss Forsythe's sympathetic face, as she waited for Ardelia to join her in a drive to the station. But Ardelia did not smile.

At the station Miss Forsythe shook her limp little hand.

"Good-bye, dear. I'll bring the other little children back with me. You'll enjoy that. Good-bye."

"I'm comin', too," said Ardelia.

"Why—no, dear—you wait for us. You'd only turn around and come right back, you know."

"Come, back nothin'. I'm goin' home."

"Why—why, Ardelia! Don't you really like it?"

"Naw, it's too hot."

Miss Forsythe stared.

"But Ardelia, you don't want to go back to that horribly smelly street? Not truly?"

"Betcher life I do!"

"It's so lonely and quiet," pleaded the young lady. Ardelia shuddered. Again she seemed to hear that fiendish, mournful wailing:

"Knee deep! Knee deep! Knee deep!"

They rode in silence. But the jar and jolt of the engine made music in Ardelia's ears; the familiar jargon of the newsboy:

"N' Yawk evening paypers! Woyld! Joynal!" was a breath from home to her little cockney heart.

They pushed through the great station, they climbed the steps of the elevated track, they jingled on a cross-town car. And at a familiar corner Ardelia slipped loose her hand, uttered a grunt of joy, and Miss Forsythe looked after her in vain. She was gone.

But late in the evening, when the great city turned out to breathe, and sat with opened shirt and loosened bodice on the dirty steps; when the hurdy-gurdy executed brassy scales and the lights flared in endless sparkling rows; when the trolley gongs at the corner pierced the air, and feet tapped cheerfully down the cool stone steps of the beer-shop, Ardelia, bare-footed and abandoned, nibbling at a section of bologna sausage, cake-walked insolently with a band of little girls behind a severe policeman, mocking his stolid gait, to the delight of Old Dutchy, who beamed approvingly at her prancing.

"Ja, ja, you trow out your feet good. Some day we pay to see you, no? You like to get back already!"

"Ja, danky slum, Dutchy," she said airily, as she sank upon her cool step, stretched her toes and sighed:

"Gee! N' Yawk's the place!"

"Leave my dog behind? No, sir," said the old fellow, straightening up his bent form. "He's the only friend I have in this world. Why old 'Shep' has been my only friend for the last eight years. I had money, friends and influence when he was a pup, and he had a better bed and better food then than I have had for many a year. I had my carriages once, and a man to drive them, too. I know it sounds strange, now. Sometimes it seems like a dream. But never mind. When I woke up from that dream I had only my wife Martha, my son George, and 'Shep.' Every one else turned from me.

"My wife was a good, brave soul, but our reverses broke her down, and on one spring day we laid her away beneath the daisies and the myrtle. Soon after that my son George was taken from me by that stern monster, death, leaving me alone—alone, with no friend but 'Shep.'

"Where do I sleep? Why, my boy, anywhere. You don't know how many warm stairways there are. 'Shep' and I do, though, and we curl up together in them when the officer on the beat isn't looking. Yes, poor fellow, he's lame; had his leg broken. He got that trying to keep me out of the way of a coal wagon two years ago, when I slipped on the icy street.

"Here's your permit, mister. I won't go out there unless 'Shep' goes with me. He can't? Well, good-bye, good-bye, sir. Come on, 'Shep.' You can't stay there all day. Just as much obliged," and the two passed out into the cold again.

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel at last, heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongues and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, "Cast down your bucket where you are." Cast it down among the eight millions of negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labor wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasure from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your buckets among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this you can be sure in the future as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to the graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

There is no defence or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Efforts or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent. interest. These efforts will be twice blessed—"blessing him that gives and him that takes."

Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third of its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, repressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.

The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.

Here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of the law. This, this, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.