Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool was a Wells of Boston, and endured Lake George now and then during the summer for her husband‚Äôs sake, although she regarded it all as rather a joke.
This summer promised to be unusually lonesome for her, and she was meditating a retreat to the Massachusetts north shore when she chanced to meet Mary Taylor, at a miscellaneous dinner, and found her interesting.
She discovered that this young woman knew things, that she could talk books, and that she was rather pretty. To be sure she knew no people, but Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool knew enough to even things.
‚ÄúBy the by, I met some charming Alabama people last winter, in Montgomery‚ÅÝ‚Äîthe Cresswells; do you know them?‚Äù she asked one day, as they were lounging in wicker chairs on the Vanderpool porch. Then she answered the query herself: ‚ÄúNo, of course you could not. It is too bad that your work deprives you of the society of people of your class. Now my ideal is a set of Negro schools where the white teachers could know the Cresswells.‚Äù
‚ÄúWhy, yes‚ÅÝ‚Äî‚Äù faltered Miss Taylor; ‚Äúbut‚ÅÝ‚Äîwouldn‚Äôt that be difficult?‚Äù
“Why should it be?”
“I mean, would the Cresswells approve of educating Negroes?”
“Oh, ‘educating’! The word conceals so much. Now, I take it the Cresswells would object to instructing them in French and in dinner etiquette and tea-gowns, and so, in fact, would I; but teach them how to handle a hoe and to sew and cook. I have reason to know that people like the Cresswells would be delighted.”
“And with the teachers of it?”