There was a young lady
sitting in the car, who remarked to her mother, as a very filthy-looking
white man entered, 'See, they will let that filthy creature ride and
prohibit a decent respectable colored person!' The mother quietly
assented.
"From her dress I took her to be a Quakeress, for she had a lovely dress
of dove-colored silk. The young lady had scarcely uttered the words when
a young man who sat next the mother deliberately arose, and beckoned to
the man with the sooty clothes to take his seat; but fortunately for the
Quakeress, a lady who was sitting next her daughter arose just at that
moment, and left the seat, and the old man without noticing the
manoeuvre passed over to the other side, and thus avoided the contact. I
was amused, however, about one thing; for the young man who gave up his
seat was compelled to ride about a mile standing."
"Served him right," said Thomas Carpenter; "it was a very contemptible
action, to attempt to punish the hardihood of the young lady by
attempting to soil her mother's dress; and yet little souls who feel a
morbid satisfaction in trampling on the weak, always sink themselves in
the scale of manhood."
While this conversation was going on, the tea bell rang, and Josiah and
his little charge sat down to a well supplied table; for the Friends,
though plain and economical, are no enemies to good living.
Pages:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51