In spite of the secrecy surrounding the meeting, next morning all Central City talked of what had taken place on the previous evening. In such a town, where little diversion exists, the inhabitants seize with avidity upon every morsel of news that promises entertainment. Though they had taken fearful oaths of secrecy, it was asking too much of human frailty to expect three hundred men to refrain even from mysterious hints of their doings. With the love that simple minds have of the clandestine, the midnight secrecy, the elaborately arranged peregrinations to the place of meeting, the safeguards adopted by the leaders not so much to prevent interference as to impress their followers, the “inviolable oath,” the grips and passwords—all these added to the human desire to be considered important in the eyes of family and friends and neighbours. Thus many of the three hundred dropped hints to their wives of what had been said and done. Over back fences, at the stores on Lee Street, in the numerous places where women contrived to meet and gossip, the one topic discussed was the meeting of the night before. One told her bit of information to another, who in turn contributed her mite. Each in turn told a third and a fourth. With each telling, the ball of gossip grew, and each repetition bore artistic additions of fact or fancy designed to add to the drama of the story. By noon the compounded result assumed the proportions of a feat bordering on the heroic.
At the noonday meal, known as dinner, the men found themselves viewed in a new and admiring light by their spouses and offspring. They basked in the temporary glamour and sought to add to the fame of their midnight prowling by elaborate hints of deeds of dark and magnificent proportions.
In turn, to the Negro section of Central City were borne the tales by cooks and laundresses and maids, servants, with acutely developed ears, in the houses of the whites. Everywhere in the Negro section, in homes, on street corners, over back fences, the news was discussed by the dusky inhabitants of the town. In the eyes of a few, fear could be discerned. Most of the Negroes, however, discussed the news as they would have talked about the coming of the circus to town. Some talked loudly and in braggart fashion of what they would do if the “Kluxers” bothered them. Others examined for the hundredth time well-oiled revolvers. Most generally the feeling was a hope the Klan would not bother any coloured person—but if it did—! …
It was natural that the news should eventually reach Nancy Ware and Tom Tracy and, last of all, Kenneth. Mrs. Amos, bustling with importance, hastened as fast as her rheumatism would allow to tell Mrs. Harper what the Klansmen had said or, to be more accurate, what Dame Rumour said the Klansmen had said, about Kenneth and Bob. It was obvious the two men had taken on a new importance in her eyes in being singled out for the attention of the clandestine organization.
That night in Kenneth’s office the brothers talked over the news. Kenneth scoffed at what seemed to him a fantastic and improbable tale. He looked searchingly at his brother.
“Well Bob, what do you make of it?”
“Trouble for somebody,” said Bob positively. “And I have a sort of feeling that that somebody is us,” he added after a pause.
“I’m not so sure,” was Kenneth’s doubtful rejoinder. “Some of these Crackers are just mean enough to start something, but I’m pretty sure there are enough decent white people in Central City to check any trouble that might start.”
Bob said nothing, though his face showed plainly he did not share his brother’s confidence. Kenneth went on:
“Besides, they must have sense enough to know that a sheet and pillowcase won’t scare coloured folks today as they did fifty years ago. It wasn’t hard to scare Negroes then—they’d just come out of slavery, and believed in ghosts and spooks and all those other silly things. But today—”
“I think white people are right sometimes,” broke in Bob with conviction, “when they say education ruins a Negro. One of those times is when you talk like that.”
The irony in his voice was but thinly veiled. He continued:
“The Southern white man boasts he knows the Negro better than anybody else, but he knows less what the coloured man is really thinking than the man in the moon. I’ll bet anything you say, that seven out of every ten men in town believe that you and I and all the rest of us coloured folks are scared to death every time we hear the word ‘Ku Klux.’ They believe the sight of one of those fool robes’ll make us run and hide under a bed—”
“Oh, I don’t go quite that far,” interrupted Kenneth. “I only said I thought some of the good white people.”
“You can name all your ‘good white folks’ on one hand,” replied Bob irritably. “A lot they could do if these poor white trash decide to raise hell. Why, they’d lynch Judge Stevenson or Roy Ewing or anybody else if they tried to stop ’em. Look what they did to Governor Slaton at Atlanta just because he commuted the sentence of that Jew, Leo Frank!” he added triumphantly. “A mob even went out to his house to lynch him—the governor!”
“But that was an extraordinary case,” replied Kenneth.
“Call it what you will, it just shows you how far they will go when they
