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He still counted confidently on the loss of the fortune sufficing to break the match. When he reached the Hightower that night for dinner, he found Percival down-stairs in great glee over what he conceived to be a funny situation. "Don't ask me, Uncle Peter.
"'Fore we could more'n ketch our breaths the chairman called for a ballot and they taken it, and General Hightower was nominated 52 to 51 Captain Stonewall J. Bugg being recorded by the secretary as absent and not voting. And while the up-state fellers was carrying on and swapping cheers with one another, our fellers sat there jest dumfoundered.
"If you'd only learned something useful while you had the chance," began Uncle Peter, dismally, as they were driven to the Hightower, "how to do tricks with cards, or how to sing funny songs, like that little friend of yours from Baltimore you was tellin' me about. Look at him, now. He didn't have anything but his own ability.
Look at them case-knife saws and things, how tedious they've been made; look at that bed-leg sawed off with 'm, a week's work for six men; look at that nigger made out'n straw on the bed; and look at " "You may WELL say it, Brer Hightower! It's jist as I was a-sayin' to Brer Phelps, his own self. S'e, what do YOU think of it, Sister Hotchkiss, s'e?
It was plain that he meant his Negro hearers to make much of the Negro's capacity for self-direction. There was little bitterness and no radicalism in the speech, but to J.W. it had a queer, new note. He said as much to Mr. Drury, on the way home. "Why, that Hightower hardly ever mentioned the church, although he was speaking at a church meeting. And how independent he was!"
As J.W., soon discovered, Hightower was a distinctively modern Negro. Where King Officer had been almost cringing, Hightower's thought, however diplomatically spoken, was that of an up-standing mind; where Officer accepted as part of the social order the colored man's dependence on the white, Hightower spoke of something he called racial solidarity.
When they came into the crowd and lights of the Hightower, he sent the old man up alone. "You go, please, and break it to them, Uncle Peter. I'd rather not be there just at first. I'll come along in a little bit." So Uncle Peter went, protesting that he was a broken old man and a cumberer of God's green earth. Mrs. Bines and Psyche had that moment sat down to dinner.
"She's thes es much like her Gran'pap Poteet," said Mrs. Hightower, "ez ef he'd 'a' spit'er right out'n his mouth that she is." This led to a series of reminiscences more or less entertaining, until after a while, Sis, who had been growing more and more restless, rose and said "Good night, folks; I'm tired and sleepy. The clock has struck eleven." "Yes," said Mrs.
She had blazed into young Milbrey's darkness one night in the palm-room of the Hightower Hotel, escorted by a pleased and beefy youth of his acquaintance, who later told him of their meeting at the American Embassy in Paris, and who unsuspectingly presented him. Since their meeting the young man had been her abject cavalier. The elder Milbrey, too, had met her at his son's suggestion.
You're all right in Wardner or Hellandgone, Billy, but in this here camp you're jest a tender little bed of pansies by the wayside, and these New Yorkers are terrible careless where they step after dark." Notwithstanding which, Mr. Brue continued to behave uniformly in a manner to make all judicious persons grieve. His place of supreme delight was the Hightower.
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