Read "J. Poindexter, Colored" by Irvin S. Cobb online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Next morning after we gets across into Ohio, Mr. Dallas he fetches me into the Pullman car where he's riding. I finds myself more comfortable there than I has been riding up front in the colored compartment, but lesser easy in my mind. I enjoys the feel of them soft seats and yet I gets sort of uneasy setting amongst so many strange white folks. Still, there ain't nobody telling me to roust myself out from there and after a while I gets more used to being where I now is. Also I gets acquainted with two of the porters, the one on our car and the one on the car which is hitched on next to us. When they ain't busy, we all three gets out in the little porches betwixt the cars and confabs together. 'Course I don't let on to them, but all the time I studies them two boys.
The one on our car, which his given name is Roscoe, is short and chunky and kind of fatted out; he's black as the pots and powerful nappy-headed besides. His head looks like somebody has done dipped it in a kettle of grease and then throwed a handful of buckshot at it and they all stuck. But he's smart; he knows what's service. I sees that plain.