of you, and you've made a damned fine record. I'm proud to sit by you.’
“I shook his hand and choked. He proved my life-theory. Character and brains were too much for prejudice. Then the blow fell. I had slaved all summer. I was worked to a frazzle. Reckon my hard-headedness had a hand there, too. I wouldn't take a menial job—Pullman porter, waiter, bell-boy, boat steward—good money, but I waved them aside. No! Bad for the soul, and I might meet a white fellow student.”
The lady smiled. “Meet a fellow student—did none of them work, too?”
“O yes, but seldom as menials, while Negroes in America are always expected to be menials. It's natural, but—no, I couldn't do it. So at last I got a job in Washington in the medical statistics department of the National Benefit. This is one of our big insurance concerns. O yes, we've got a number of them; prosperous, too. It was hard work, indoors, poor light and air; but I was interested—worked overtime, learned the game, and gave my thought and ideas.
“They promoted me and paid me well, and by the middle of August I had my tuition and book money saved. They wanted me to stay with them permanently; at least until fall. But I had other plans. There was a summer school of two terms at the college, and I figured that if I entered the second term I could get a big lead in my obstetrical work and stand a better show for the Junior prizes. I had applied in the spring for admission to the Stern Maternity Hospital, which occupied three floors of our center building. My name had been posted as accepted. I was tired to death, but I rushed back to New York to register. Perhaps if I had been rested, with cool head and nerves-well, I wasn't. I made the office of the professor of obstetrics on a hot afternoon, August 10, I well remember. He looked at me in surprise.
“‘You can't work in the Stern Hospital—the places are all taken.’
“‘I have one of the places,’ I pointed out. He seemed puzzled and annoyed.
“ ‘You'll have to see the Dean,’ he said finally.
“I was angry and rushed to the Dean's office. I saw that we had a new Dean—a Southerner.
“Then the blow fell. Seemingly, during the summer the
