The Fire in the Flint by Walter White

Bob was packing for his journey to Cambridge, whistling cheerfully the while. It was certainly great to be going away up to Boston to school. All his life he had wanted to live there for a while where he could learn the things which he knew of only at second hand now. He pictured in his mind how he would arrange his life at school. There'd be none of the kiddish pranks he had read about that college boys did. He was too old for that. He had seen too much of the seamy and sordid side of life to waste his time playing. He'd study every minute he could. He'd make a record in scholarship that would make his mother and Mamie and Kenneth proud of him. He'd go to summer school so as to finish the rest of his college course in two years instead of three. And then, law school. By jiminy, he'd be the best lawyer there was! Not the best coloured lawyer. The best lawyer! Never did youth have more brilliant dreams of life than Bob. He paused at the sound which came from downstairs through the half-opened door. It couldn't be in Ken's office, for he had gone to Atlanta with Mrs. Tucker that morning. It sounded like crying -- as one would cry who had suffered some great bereavement or terrible misfortune. He went out in the hall and leaned over the balustrade, the better to find out what was the matter.

It was Mamie and his mother. He looked puzzled, for he could think of nothing to make Mamie cry that way. His mother was trying to soothe and calm her as Mamie told her the cause of her weeping. Bob crept down the stairs as softly as he could to hear.