'Nebber will I get 'cross,' said Flo. 'Nebber, nebber!'

Again she tried, and still again. Once she stepped down and advanced a few inches, but a shout of warning drove her back. When at last the lights came on she gave up hope. The sky grew dark; the Square became a place of shadows and glaring, shifting, treacherous shafts of light. Weak with hunger, but forgetting the bread in her pocket, she sat muttering to herself. 'I must get to de Jedge. I must get to de Jedge.'

Once the judge in whom she trusted went swinging past, boldly crossing the Square directly, but she did not see him. She saw only the sheeted figures — all, it seemed, were putting on regalia as it grew dark. The other benches were occupied, but she sat alone until a Klansman, as tall and broad as the one she had encountered in the afternoon, came toward her. She held her hands before her face to shut out the dreadful sight, but she heard his tread close at hand. She felt oh, horror! -the bench sag as he sank down beside her. He made, to her further terror, no motion; he simply sat, statuelike. Her heartbeats shook her body; her jaws clapped softly together; her feet, in their worn shoes, danced a jig.

At last, unable to endure the suspense, she turned her head.

'Is you my gua'deen?' she inquired in a shriek. 'If not, say so!'

The man gave a mighty start. His mask had the same effect as blinders on a horse, and he had not been aware of her presence. Never had she looked so eerie, so witchlike. She lifted her face, and the light from the standard above her shone in upon her glittering eyes. It shone also upon his own eyes, and Flo saw in them a strange sight.

'Humph!' said Flo after a long moment. 'It's a whole half dollah!' 'Humph!' said Flo after five minutes. 'I eats mah refreshments.'

'Humph!' said Flo after fifteen minutes. 'I takes up mah staff and gets to work.'

IV

A cessation in the flow of cars, an access of bravery on the part of Flo, and she had crossed the street. She went at a leisurely pace, staff in hand, her skirts dragging. She put her half dollar into her pocket. It was a fine pocket; it held in turn bread and meat and candy and tobacco and money. Sometimes it held them all together. She approached three masked and sheeted figures at the corner. She could not prevent her body from trembling a little, but her hand was steady. 'You help po' Flo?' she said, ingratiatingly.

The three men jumped; then they looked at her. Without masks they were three gentle souls, one a clerk in a shoe store, one a clerk in a dry-goods store, one the janitor of a church. They knew Jewish people and liked them; they knew Catholic people and were entirely friendly with them; but, coming from the northern border of the state, they knew few colored people and stood in terror of them. Each put his hand into his pocket and drew out a

'My, she scared me!' said one. 'I'm glad I'm not in the black belt,' declared another.

'I tell you, brothers' began the third, and they passed out of hearing.

Flo sucked in her lips as though she tasted something good. She looked about and saw near by another group. She took a few steps and held out her hand.

'You gent'men help po' Flo?'

These gentlemen also felt beneath their sheets and put their hands into their pockets. They were moved not by fright but by a different impulse. They held Ku Klux principles, but they did not carry them out against individuals. They presented their donations with flourishes, hoping that they were observed giving gifts to this poor old Negress.

Flo fingered the coins and dropped them into her pocket. Evidently the Cluckses were rich. People usually gave her dimes or nickels or even pennies. She took another step, and a man said, 'Why, yes, aunty, surely I'll give you something!'

'Is you one of dese Cluckses?' she asked.

'No,' answered he, amused.
'Nor is I,' said Flo.

'You're not afraid of them, then?' said the kindly gentleman.

Flo saw another group ahead. 'No mo' dan a rabbit,' she said, and stepped away.

The band tunes grew livelier, the cars more numerous. In the distant field preparations were being made for a huge meeting, but it was not to be called until ten o'clock, and ten o'clock was still far off. Round and round the Square went Flo, her hand outstretched. Nine o'clock struck and half past. At quarter to ten the Square began to empty.

aftah Jedge.'

Walking at a pace which was little more than a crawl, leaning upon her staff, she proceeded out the street. If she had lifted her head she might have seen against the sky a bright glow. The fiery cross had been erected and was now ablaze. But she did not lift her head.

'I goes slow,' she said to herself, with amusement. 'But it ain' my hundred and twenty yeahs, it's my heavy weight.'

When she reached the Judge's house she had to lift her pocket with her hand in order to get up the step. Confident of a welcome, she rang the bell, and the Judge himself answered. He was slender and straight, and he looked down upon his visitor from a great height. "Why, Flo!' said he. 'You're out late!'

'I is,' smiled Flo.

'Aren't you afraid of all these Ku Klux?'

'I is n't,' declared Flo.
'Will you sit down?'

'Inside,' stipulated Flo. 'I has private business.'

The Judge laughed and bade her

enter.

'Ise dog tiad!' she sighed as she sank down into a pleasant chair.

"You look tired,' said the Judge. 'Would you like something to eat?'

'No, sah,' answered Flo. 'What I needs is to get rid of mah money.'

'Your money?' As a frequent contributor to Flo's treasury, the Judge was surprised.

'Mah money,' insisted Flo. 'Jedge, you pull down de shades and shet de do' an' I'll show you mo' money dan you saw in yo' life. You get a basket.'

Greatly amused, the Judge obeyed directions.

'How big a basket?'

"Bout a bushel. If you was me and could feel dis pocket bangin' 'gainst yo' laig, you'd know how big a basket.' The Judge spread a paper on a deep chair.

'Put it in here.'

Flo thrust her hand into her pocket. 'Dimes, qua'tahs, nickels, half dollahs,' she said, emptying handfuls into the paper.

'Where did you get all this?'

'I got it from de Cluckses,' explained Flo. 'Dey's 'fraid of me- dey can't look me in de eye. De chilluns in my neighborhood, dey's 'fraid of me, but mos' grown folks is n't 'fraid of me 'cept Cluckses. Roun' an' roun' de Squah I went, holdin' out mah han'. I did n't need say no word. shrinks from me an' shivers.' 'You spoiled the Egyptians, did you?'

Dey

'I don't know 'bout spilin' de 'Gyptians,' said Flo, 'but I suah did spile de Cluckses. Now you keep mah money. When col' wintah comes, I got wood; when I gets hungry, I has food; when I gets col', I buys myself clothes.' The Judge had begun to count, and she watched him earnestly. 'I don't need no Red Cross no mo'. When dose ladies comes roun' I say, "No Red Cross fo' me de firey cross is what I stands by." I says to dem, "Yo' takes yo' bed an' yo' basket elsewhah." How much is I got, Jedge?'

'Forty-seven dollars and ten cents,' answered the Judge. "That's a good deal.'

'Fo' de lan' sakes!' cried Flo. She tried to rise and failed. 'Ise worn out at last.'

'I'll take you home,' offered the

Judge. 'You sit still till I get the car.' 'I suah will,' said Flo. She sank back into her chair and remained there till the Judge summoned her. 'I prayed de Lo'd fo' peace an' plenty, an' He sent me peace an' plenty, an' now he sets me up in a chariot like a king.' Having recovered her strength, she stepped nimbly into the car. 'I asks you to drive roun' de Squah, Jedge, so's I can look whah I sat in tribulation.' The Judge laughed and drove round the Square.

'Dey is mostly gone,' said Flo. 'Only a few po' samples lef'."

'Now home?' asked the Judge. 'Home,' answered Flo. 'Ise got a good home an' Ise glad.'

'Roof tight?' asked the Judge. 'Yes, sah. An' if it is n't tight, I has ample money to fix it.'

The car stopped and Flo stepped down. Under the great tree her tiny cabin looked like a doll's house. She herself looked like a strange, untidy doll.

'You do me one mo' kindness, Jedge?' It would have been hard to refuse, so wheedling was Flo's tone. 'What's that?'

'You blow yo' ho'n, good an' loud.' The Judge complied with vigor. 'Want your neighbors? They don't seem to hear.'

Flo looked back from the door where she was fumbling with the padlock. No day had ever had so satisfying a climax.

'Dey heahs all right,' she called. 'Dey's lookin' fru de cracks ob de shade. I said I goin' to visit de bes' families an' I wants 'em to know I tells de truf. Dey sees you an' dey knows you, an' I bids you good-night.'

MOST Americans would be prepared to explain the system upon which American university life and teaching are organized. No doubt a traveler could have for the asking an account of courses and credits, majors and minors, fraternities and student bodies, that would enrich, if it did not enlighten, his intelligence. A corresponding account of how things are managed at Oxford or Cambridge might be less easy to obtain, but it could scarcely fail to confound a mind already in possession of the American system. Indeed, one who has to compare the two for the first time may be excused for thinking that one or the other might be rational, but not both.

I am mainly concerned, of course, with the contrast between Oxford1 and Cambridge on the one hand and the American universities on the other; but it may be well to say in passing that with the exception of Trinity College, Dublin, the other universities of the United Kingdom and the Dominions are organized in very much the same way as those of America. They derive, indeed, from a common type worked out, I think, in Scotland and much influenced by the way in which things were done in Holland. With all the differences, one feels that the academic kinship is clear and 1 I have no right to speak of Oxford, least of all to generalize about it, and the more I learn about it the better I understand how deeply it differs from Cambridge. The two, however, have much the same structure, and they resemble each other to the verge of identity in differing from all other universities. -THE AUTHOR

close, and that after all we are beset with nothing more than the old difficulty of trying to understand how the same goal can be reached by so many seemingly divergent roads. It may be worth while, therefore, to consider a little some of the English ways that are unfamiliar to academic folk in America, particularly to the younger of them.

I

The European universities are older than the colleges which composed or, as in the case of Oxford and Cambridge, still compose them. It was and is the business of the university to teach in varying amounts and to certify, after due application of tests, the proficiency of those whom it has taught. But men require to be fed and clothed, housed and warmed, and young men at least may be the better for some supervision, some guiding of their feet toward the paths of peace and of their minds into habits of industry and application. These needs were no less urgent at Bologna, Paris, or Oxford in the thirteenth century than at Ann Arbor, Madison, or Berkeley in the twentieth.

The ways in which they have been met are at once so like and so unlike each other as to make one suspect that history may indeed repeat itself on condition of never using the same language twice. The medieval undergraduates hired houses where they lived in common, generally under the presidency of a master of arts, and