第96章

"'Let them call "nigger" as much as they please; they will laugh out of the other corner of their mouth before the term is over.

"'Your only way is to maintain your dignity. Go straight ahead. If any personal insult is offered, resist it, and then inform me; I will then see what I can do. But I think you need have no fear on that score. Have been out to Windham a few days. All well, and send kind regards. Mary sails for Europe Saturday. President Grant is to be here the 2d. He will be my guest or Governor Jewell's.

"'Yours, etc.,"'D. CLARK.'

"'So Mr. Clark knows the President, does he?'

"'Why, yes; he knows everybody--all the great men. He's a great man himself;' and this poor colored boy stood up, I thought, the proudest champion David Clark ever had.

"'Yes, David Clark is a good man,' I mused, as I saw the grateful tears standing in the colored cadet's eyes.

"When I got back to the hotel I heard a wishy-washy girl, who came up year after year with a party to flirt with the cadets say:

"'O dear! it is hawid to have this colod cadet--perfectly dre'fful. I should die to see my George standing next to him.'

"But Miss Schenck, the daughter of General Schenck, our Minister to the Court of St. James, told Jimmy Smith that she hoped he would graduate at the head of his class, and when the colored boy told me about it he said:

"'Oh, sir, a splendid lady called to see me to-day. Iwish I knew her name. I want to tell David Clark.'

"Every white boy at West Point now agreed to cut the colored boy. No one was to say a single word to him, or even answer yes or no. At the same time they would abuse him and swear at him in their own conversation loud enough for him to hear. It is a lamentable fact that every white cadet at the Point swears and chews tobacco like the army in Flanders.

"Again I saw Jimmy Smith on the 9th of July. The officers of the Academy had been changed. Old General Schriver had given place to young General Upton. The young general is a man of feeling and a lover of justice. He sent for the colored boy, and taking his hand he said:

"'My boy, you say you want to resign, that you can stand this persecution no longer. You must not do it. You are here an officer of the army. You have stood a severe examination. You have passed honorably and you shall not be persecuted into resigning. I am your friend. Come to me and you shall have justice.'

"Then General Upton addressed the cadets on dress parade.

He told them personal insults against their brother cadet, whose only crime was color, must cease.

"One day a cadet came to Jimmy and said he would befriend him if he dared to, 'but you know I would be ostracized if I should speak to you.'

"'What was the cadet's name?' I asked.

"'Oh, I dare not tell?' replied the colored boy. 'He would be ruined, too.'

"'Did your father write to you when you thought of resigning?'

"'Yes; here is his letter,' replied the colored boy:

"'COLUMBIA, S.C., July 3, 1870.

"'My DEAR SON: I take great pleasure in answering your kind letter received last night. I pray God that my letter may find you in a better state of consolation than when you wrote to me. I told you that you would have trials and difficulties to endure. Do not mind them, for they will go like chaff before the wind, and your enemies will soon be glad to gain your friendship. They do the same to all newcomers in every college. You are elevated to a high position, and you must stand it like a man. Do not let them run you away, for then they will say, the "nigger" won't do. Show your spunk, and let them see that you will fight. That is what you are sent to West Point for. When they find you are determined to stay, they will let you alone. You must not resign on any account, for it is just what the Democrats want. They are betting largely here that you won't get in. The rebels say if you are admitted, they will devil you so much that you can't stay. Be a man; don't think of leaving, and let me know all about your troubles. The papers say you have not been received. Do write me positively whether you are received or not.

"'Times are lively here, for everybody is preparing for the Fourth of July. There are five colored companies here, all in uniform, and they are trying to see who shall excel in drill.

"'Stand your ground; don't resign, and write me soon.

"'From your affectionate father,"'ISRAEL SMITH.'""On the 11th of January I visited West Point again. Ifound all the cadets still against the colored boy. Asystem of terrorism reigned supreme. Every one who did not take sides against the colored boy was ostracized.

"At drill one morning Cadet Anderson trod on the colored boy's toes. When Smith expostulated Anderson replied, 'Keep your-- toes away.' When Smith told about it Anderson got two other white cadets to say he never said so. This brought the colored boy in a fix.

"Last July I saw the colored cadet again. He was still ostracized. No cadet ever spoke to him. He lived a, hermit life, isolated and alone.

"When I asked him how he got on with his studies he said:

'As well as I am able, roaming all alone, with no one to help me and no one to clear up the knotty points. If there is an obscure point in my lesson I must go to the class with it. I cannot go to a brother cadet.'

"'If you should ask them to help you what would they say?'

"'They would call me a -- nigger, and tell me to go back to the plantation.'

"Yesterday, after watching the colored cadet for three years, I saw him again. He has grown tall and slender.

He talks slowly, as if he had lost the use of language.

Indeed many days and weeks he has gone without saying twenty lines a day in a loud voice, and that in the recitation-room.

"When they were examining him the other day he spoke slowly, but his answers were correct. His answers in philosophy were correct. But they say he answered slowly, and they will find him deficient for that.

Find him deficient for answering slowly when the boy almost lost the use of language! When he knew four hundred eyes were on him and two hundred malign arts all praying for his failure!