Imperium in Imperio: A Study of the Negro Race Problem | Page 7

and anxious not to lose his
recompense, cried out loudly from the loft: "Amanda Ann you git mine
fur me."
The preacher looked up but saw no one. Seeing that his request did not
have the desired effect, James Henry soon tumbled down full of dust,
straw and cobwebs, and came into possession of his appeasing money.
The preacher laughed heartily and seemed to enjoy his experience
highly.
The table was cleared, and the preacher and Mrs. Piedmont dismissed
the children in order to discuss unmolested the subject which had
prompted her to extend an invitation to the parson. In view of the
intense dislike the teacher had conceived for Belton, she desired to
know if it were not best to withdraw him from school altogether, rather
than to subject him to the harsh treatment sure to come.
"Let me gib yer my advis, sistah Hannah. De greatest t'ing in de wul is
edification. Ef our race ken git dat we ken git ebery t'ing else. Dat is de
key. Git de key an' yer ken go in de house to go whare you please. As
fur his beatin' de brat, yer musn't kick agin dat. He'll beat de brat to
make him larn, and won't dat be a blessed t'ing? See dis scar on side my
head? Old marse Sampson knocked me down wid a single-tree tryin' to
make me stop larning, and God is so fixed it dat white folks is
knocking es down ef we don't larn. Ef yer take Belton out of school

yer'll be fighting 'genst de providence of God."
Being thus advised by her shepherd, Mrs. Piedmont decided to keep
Belton in school. So on Monday Belton went back to his brutal teacher,
and thither we follow him.

CHAPTER IV.
THE TURNING OF A WORM.
As to who Mr. Tiberius Gracchus Leonard was, or as to where he came
from, nobody in Winchester, save himself, knew.
Immediately following the close of the Civil War, Rev. Samuel
Christian, a poor but honorable retired minister of the M.E. Church,
South, was the first teacher employed to instruct the colored children of
the town.
He was one of those Southerners who had never believed in the
morality of slavery, but regarded it as a deep rooted evil beyond human
power to uproot. When the manacles fell from the hands of the Negroes
he gladly accepted the task of removing the scales of ignorance from
the blinded eyes of the race.
Tenderly he labored, valiantly he toiled in the midst of the mass of
ignorance that came surging around him. But only one brief year was
given to this saintly soul to endeavor to blast the mountains of stupidity
which centuries of oppression had reared. He fell asleep.
The white men who were trustees of the colored school, were sorely
puzzled as to what to do for a successor. A Negro, capable of teaching
a school, was nowhere near. White young men of the South, generally,
looked upon the work of teaching "niggers" with the utmost contempt;
and any man who suggested the name of a white young lady of
Southern birth as a teacher for the colored children was actually in
danger of being shot by any member of the insulted family who could

handle a pistol.
An advertisement was inserted in the Washington Post to the effect that
a teacher was wanted. In answer to this advertisement Mr. Leonard
came. He was a man above the medium height, and possessed a frame
not large but compactly built. His forehead was low and narrow; while
the back of his head looked exceedingly intellectual. Looking at him
from the front you would involuntarily exclaim: "What an infamous
scoundrel." Looking at him from the rear you would say: "There
certainly is brain power in that head."
The glance of Mr. Leonard's eye was furtive, and his face was sour
looking indeed. At times when he felt that no one was watching him,
his whole countenance and attitude betokened the rage of despair.
Most people who looked at him felt that he carried in his bosom a dark
secret. As to scholarship, he was unquestionably proficient. No white
man in all the neighboring section, ranked with him intellectually.
Despite the lack of all knowledge of his moral character and previous
life, he was pronounced as much too good a man to fritter away his
time on "niggers."
Such was the character of the man into whose hands was committed the
destiny of the colored children of Winchester.
As his mother foresaw would be the case, Belton was singled out by the
teacher as a special object on which he might expend his spleen. For a
man to be as spiteful as he was, there must have been something
gnawing at his