1 They are not happy, these black men whom we meet throughout this region.
2 Young and happy, I too went, and I shall not soon forget that summer, seventeen years ago.
3 They tell us in these eager days that life was joyous to the black slave, careless and happy.
4 Indeed, the gaunt father who toiled night and day would scarcely be happy out of debt, being so used to it.
5 No bitter meanness now shall sicken his baby heart till it die a living death, no taunt shall madden his happy boyhood.
6 So far as white men are concerned, this fact is to-day being recognized in the South, and a happy renaissance of university education seems imminent.
7 But here ninety-six per cent are toiling; no one with leisure to turn the bare and cheerless cabin into a home, no old folks to sit beside the fire and hand down traditions of the past; little of careless happy childhood and dreaming youth.
8 On the other hand, the masters and the masters' sons have never been able to see why the Negro, instead of settling down to be day-laborers for bread and clothes, are infected with a silly desire to rise in the world, and why they are sulky, dissatisfied, and careless, where their fathers were happy and dumb and faithful.