CHAPTER III.
THE PARSON'S ADVICE.
With heavy heart and with eyes cast upon the ground, Mrs.Piedmont walked back home after leaving Belton with his teacher.

She had intended to make a special plea for her boy, who had all along displayed such precociousness as to fill her bosom with the liveliest hopes.

But the teacher was so repulsive in manner that she did not have the heart to speak to him as she had intended.
She saw that the happenings of the morning had had the effect of deepening a contemptuous prejudice into hatred, and she felt that her child's school life was to be embittered by the harshest of maltreatment.
No restraint was put upon the flogging of colored children by their white teachers, and in Belton's case his mother expected the worst.
During the whole week she revolved the matter in her mind.

There was a conflict in her bosom between her love and her ambition.

Love prompted her to return and take her son away from school.