We went through the Yard into the Square, not speaking, walking side by side. I noticed him take out a cigarette, put it into a holder and light up, shielding the wind with his pudgy hands. He walked as if to some music, a march, his arms swinging at his sides. We found a restaurant; he ordered tea; I, coffee.

When we were seated he reached out his hand. “Bennett Bradshaw.” I took his hand and told him my name, the first words I had spoken.

He began to laugh. “My word! A southerner. A kindred soul and yet a southerner.”

At first I was a bit embarrassed, but then I was glad he had commented on the strangeness of the situation, the circumstances, and I began to laugh myself. He asked me what part of the South I was from; I told him and the mind which was to impress me more and more as we talked made a quick conclusion. “You’re related to General Dewey Willson, aren’t you?”

For an instant I was going to “confess” to it, but then I decided I would test him. “Why do you think so?”

“Well, first of all, you’re from his state and your name is Willson.”

“But many people took his name after the war. A lot of folks that weren’t related to him.”

“Yes, but they couldn’t afford to come here, could they? They wouldn’t have inherited his intelligence, would they? Besides that—”

“You win; you’ve got me pigeonholed. He was my great-grand-father.” I chuckled, shook my head.

“And might I add, although I can’t wholly agree with what he fought for, he fought and led admirably. But tell me, David—I may call you David, mayn’t I?” He did not wait for an answer; I would have consented. “Why were you, of all people, at such a meeting?”

I told him how I felt about my poor, lost South and what I hoped I could do for it and some of the things I had already looked into. He seemed quite pleased and when I had finished, began to explain his own reasons. He was pretty much chain-smoking.

“My people, too, need something new, something vital. In my opinion, their leadership has followed in the footsteps of the negro overseers of plantation times. Each is out for himself and money is the thing. I’ve done a great deal of reading since I graduated from high school.” (It seems he is twenty-one years old and has worked four years to save money to come to school, and is now working in a cleaning and dyeing shop over in Boston.) “But I could find nothing. I had hoped I could find it here. Perhaps socialism or communism holds the answer, but certainly not that hollow variety we witnessed tonight—a new kind—that and trade unionism and other things.”