“Of course we will,” snapped Miss Angoff. She was a stout but still attractive woman in her middle thirties. There was a quiet strength about her, but also an almost adolescent enthusiasm which sometimes rankled her colleagues. Nothing pained Agnes Angoff so much as to give a student a failing grade; however, she did not allow this tendency to show. On the outside—to the pupils—she was capable of being stern and cold and businesslike. They respected her, but they did not fear her.

“I hope so,” Mrs. Gargan said wistfully. “I certainly do hope so. This is a nice school.”

Paton felt a happily resistible desire to kick Mrs. Gargan in the fanny. He had experienced the urge many times before. For Mrs. Gargan was that paradox: a woman of intelligence—at least, a woman with an accumulation of knowledge—who nonetheless shared all the common prejudices, hates, likes, of the public. She never saw the dark, mysterious side of youth. She liked things to go well. As long as things went well, Mrs. Gargan was happy.

The Principal of Caxton High School came close, occasionally, to admitting that he had little respect for any member of his faculty, with the exception of Miss Angoff.

“Well,” Mr. Lowell said gruffly, “I guess we better get ready.”

“Yes,” Paton said.

Tom McDaniel lit a cigarette and wondered why things had gone so smoothly: it violated all his fears, and many of his expectations. He was not actually disappointed, except in himself. He had been positive that there would be demonstrations: demonstrations would justify his apprehensions, the remarks he had made in his column, and the long fight he had waged. But the simple fact was, nothing whatever had happened. The Negro children had come down off the hill, they’d walked through the town, and now they were going across the lawn to the school.

Tom was about to leave, when he heard the first shout. It was a tentative, nervous little yell; but it carried.

“Hey-a, niggers!”

He jerked himself back to reality and began to search the ranks of the people. He saw one man, one red-faced man, and he knew at once who had yelled. Abner West. Employed at the Towne Dry Cleaners as a delivery man; a cipher. But a member of the Farragut County Federation for Constitutional Government . . .

“Git on home. We don’t want you!”

The band of Negroes stopped, as though suddenly reined in. Joey Green swiveled, hands balled into fists.

Someone else in the crowd cried: “We don’t want you, black niggers!”

Who was it?

Lorenzo Niesen—the Jumpin’ Preacher; straining like a bantam cock, face all flushed, eyes excited.

Another voice: “This here’s a white school!”

But no one moved. The voices rose and fell, like sporadic gunfire.