Someone has said that all bad Americans go to Chicago when they die; hence perhaps we may infer that all good ones, granted they have any choice in the matter, go South. Even the Semitic gentleman pounding out popular songs in a grubby office just West of Broadway, has caught something of this tendency tp localise the national heart, and is perpetually admonishing the homesick, regardless of their original habitat, to wend their erring footsteps thither.

Yqu cannot understand America unless you know something of the South; and you cannot know the South unless you understand something of the Negro, for it is the black Mammy who is really responsible for the shy friendliness, the gentle courtesy, the lovely mysticism of the little white boys and girls who grow up under her care.

The oversight on the part of my otherwise estimable parents, which prevented me from being born in the South, was partly mitigated by the amply proportioned Mammy who came to rule over our nursery. Aside from her red bandanna and her gold ear-rings, her great fascination lay in the tradition that she was the daughter of a very gorgeous and very black African king. We were convinced that nothing but generations of the purple robe, the homage of prostrate natives and a possible diet of evangelical missionaries, could account for her supreme dignity or the proud lift of her white-haired head.

After the manner of children, we loved and feared her alternately. There were moments, when in her simple piety, we were sure that she walked with the Lord, and others when we were equally positive that she consorted with the devil, beliefs coloured possibly by our own state of grace at the moment.