The English teacher closed the door angrily. “Have you looked outside your window?” she asked.

Paton turned his chair, looked briefly, turned back again. “That’s the Cramer fellow, I suppose,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I heard about his speech last night. Tommy Finch told me. I think, Miss Angoff, that we are going to have some problems . . .”

“I know we are. That’s why we ought to do something now. Things can work out—they can, I see that; don’t you? If we’re let alone. The new students are doing fine.”

“That isn’t quite the report I get from Mrs. Gargan,” Harley Paton said, smiling.

“That—” Agnes Angoff swallowed. “Mrs. Gargan gives me a swift pain. I’ve watched the children, and if they get the smallest chance, they’ll make it. We’ve got to do something!”

The principal nodded. “I share your sentiments,” he said, “but there are those who say we’ve done too much already. What do you suggest?”

“I don’t know.” Agnes Angoff sank into a chair. “I just don’t know. But if those . . . people . . . outside get what they’re after, we’ll be set back fifty years. That mustn’t happen.”

She tried to control herself, but she had been controlling herself too long.

Harley Paton felt suddenly embarrassed. He wanted to comfort the woman, tell her somehow that he understood; but he could only watch.

“I was threatened last night,” she said. “If they’ll go that far—I know they must have called you too. Did they?”

“Yes,” Harley Paton said, soberly. He recalled the droning words: “If you don’t want nothing to happen to your family, mister, you better get rid of them coons . . .”

Agnes Angoff said: “Shouldn’t we—” Then the twelve o’clock bell began to shriek, and the halls filled up with noise.

There was a knock at the door. Harley Paton opened it and faced a young boy in levis. It was John Christiansen, a freshman. His parents had called on Monday and said that they did not intend to allow their son to go to school with Negroes.

“There’s a committee of citizens outside,” the boy said rhetorically. “They want you to meet them.”

The principal looked at Miss Angoff. “All right, John,” he said. “Tell Mr. Cramer that I’ll be out shortly.”

“Okay.”

“John—”

The boy stopped. “Yes, sir?”

“Come here for a second. As I remember, John, we spent some time together last semester; it had something to do with failing grades. Do you recall?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I got to know you a little, then, and I thought you were a pretty good boy. I was honest about that. Will you be honest with me?”

The boy looked frightened and embarrassed. “Sure,” he said hesitantly.

Harley Paton said, “Fine. Now would you please tell me why you didn’t come to school yesterday.”