So I threw
up the job that made me smell so unpleasantly.
* * * * *
The city of Laurel had been, in the early days, in the memory of
settlers yet living a hale life, a pioneer outpost. Through it flowed a
great, muddy river. The flat roofs of its main street still preserved a
frontier appearance. It was surrounded by high, wind-swept bluffs.
They still talked of the Quantrell raid and repeated the story of it ...
and of how the six men were lynched under the bridge that swung over the
dam....
At the time of the slavery agitation its citizens had encouraged the
negroes to escape, had petted them, idealised them as no human beings of
any race should be idealised ... had run schools specially for them
where it was considered an honour for the women of the settlers to
teach.
Now, the great negro population, at first so encouraged, was crowded
into a festering multitude of dilapidated buildings that stood on the
flats close by the region where the river coiled through level acres of
low-lying country. This place was known as the "Bottoms."
I am trying to give you the flavour of the town.
They had prohibition there, too ... long before it won nation-wide power
... consequently the negroes drove a vast trade in bootlegging ... and a
concomitant prostitution of coloured women and girls throve. One or two
students on the hill had, to my knowledge, negro mistresses of whom they
were fond.
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