A fat woman in a faded print dress laid a damp hand on Gray Ellen’s wrist. “Don’t listen to that mess, honey. There’s more to this than meets the eye.” The petite woman walked away in a huff.

Gray Ellen cocked her head to listen amid the growing din of jeers and catcalls. “What do you mean?”

“Ain’t from around here, are you? That nigrah paper wa’nt doing nobody no harm. Got carried away, is all.”

“Who’s the fellow in the sleeves?”

The fat woman squinted, then shook her head so her pink chins fluttered. “Can’t say—but it’s not Manly. Don’t see Manly anywheres. You’ll know Manly—pencil moustache, a real rooster. Smooth and cool—ice wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Could be his new assistant.”

“Who’s the priest?” Gray Ellen had not yet visited her new church, St. Thomas’s. This priest looked more like a prizefighter than a man of the cloth.

The fat woman chuckled in admiration. “That’s Father Dennen, works with the coloreds over to St. Thomas’s. A real hellion, that father.”

“You’re Catholic?”

The woman looked at her, horrified. “Honey, I’m a Christian woman, but I draw the line. I don’t go in for all that wine guzzling first thing on a Sunday morning.”

“Well, it’s not exactly—”

“Just you take a look at what that Manly wrote—that’s what’s causing all the fuss, honey. Poor man wa’nt thinking clear, that’s a fact.”

Gray Ellen quickly read a few sentences of the editorial: “A Mrs. Felton from Georgia makes a speech before the Agricultural Society at Tybee, Ga., in which she advocates lynching as an extreme measure. This woman makes a strong plea for womanhood, and, if the alleged crimes of rape were half so frequent as is oftentimes reported, her plea would be worthy of consideration.”

To Gray Ellen, the tone seemed reasonable. Maybe the controversial part came later. “Who is this Mrs. Felton?”

“Congressman’s wife. Likes to sound off. It’s politics, is what it is,” the fat woman said. “MacRae and that crowd, they’re the ones behind it. Wouldn’t trust that man to give me change back for a dollar.”

Lovely, Gray Ellen thought—twice in one day. Of all the people in this town to have for a sponsor. She’d never even met MacRae.

The Record staff all climbed onto the dray, perching on the sideboards. Gray Ellen noticed a girl among them, with a lovely, clear face. She wore a high-collared cotton blouse with balloon sleeves, her long muslin skirt wrapped by a blue denim apron. And eyeglasses. The girl clambered nimbly over the high sideboards.

At last, with a braying heave, the mules got the overburdened wagon moving, and it rumbled slowly through the heavy horse-drawn traffic up the long hill of Market Street, farther and farther from the river.