He only thought they might pester the horse to plague
him, and the horse might get away and be hurt. We didn't, none of
us, think what the white folks would feel, because we didn't know.
You did."
"But why should this affect you?"
"Just because it shows that education is something more that I
had thought--something so large and difficult that one of my age,
raised as I have been, can only get a taste of it at the best."
"Well, what then? You are not discouraged?"
"Not for myself--no. The pleasure of learning is reward enough to
me. But my people, Miss Mollie, I must think of them. I am only
a poor withered branch. They are the straight young tree. I must
think of them and not of Eliab. You have taught me--this affair,
everything, teaches me--that they can only be made free by knowledge.
I begin to see that the law can only give us an opportunity to make
ourselves freemen. Liberty must be earned; it cannot be given."
"That is very true," said the practical girl, whose mind recognized
at once the fact which she had never formulated to herself. But
as she looked into his face, working with intense feeling and so
lighted with the glory of a noble purpose as to make her forget
the stricken frame to which it was chained, she was puzzled at what
seemed inconsequence in his words. So she added, wonderingly, "But
I don't see why this should depress you.
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