PART IV

The coming of the Reverend Thomas Grayson to the Phosphate Mining Camp

created surprisingly little comment at the time. Later, when the man

became an all-absorbing topic to both white and black, it was said that

he had deliberately misled the Company, from whom he had rented the

cabin in which he lived and the larger one near it that he converted

into a church. He had come, it was then remembered, in rather shabby

clothes, and had been civil-spoken enough, although reticent as to his

plans. It is a more plausible theory, however, that he went about his

business in a perfectly natural manner, having not the least suspicion

that he would encounter any opposition. He attended to his affairs with

his characteristic deliberation and persistence, and said very little

about them, for the man was not a large talker. It is possible that

the season might have contributed to the lack of questioning, for he

arrived during that period that lies between summer and fall, when the

long pressure of the sultry months had laid a lethargy upon both white

and black, reducing their vitality to a point at which they did only

what became absolutely necessary with the hands, and waited to reason

until the bracing days should come to wake them for their season’s

work. Grayson had simply gone to the office and asked whether they had

any vacant cabins. They had taken his money for six months’ rent in

advance, and, if the tide had been at flood, had continued to doze on

the veranda, if at the ebb, to fish in a shady spot on the river bank.

It was not until well into October, when the scrub oaks were commencing

to blaze against the dark green of the pines, that the new preacher

finished the little belfry that he had erected over the gable end of

the larger of his cabins, hung a cheap farm bell in it, installed

some benches and a reading desk, donned his vestments, and opened for

service.

The negroes, in the meantime, were becoming aware of his presence.

He had been visiting quietly among them, talking his strange speech,

like that of a white man, telling them of the new church that he was

going to open, and inviting them to attend. Slowly their interest in

him awakened. He was so utterly unlike any preacher, or negro for

that matter, that they had ever seen, that the element of curiosity

accomplished for him what no eloquence could have done.

It is likely that Saint Wentworth alone guessed the potentialities of

his advent. Grayson had gone to the commissary immediately after his

arrival, purchased some supplies, and asked Saint if he could recommend

some good woman whom he could get to come and cook for him.

The hour of the visit was a quiet one at the store, and after he had

waited on his customer Saint seated himself on the counter with his

legs swinging and asked idly: “Going to settle here?”

“Yes,” the man answered, and Saint noticed that he did not use the

“sir” in addressing him, “yes, I think I am needed here, and, in God’s

name, I am going to do what I can.”

The white man studied him intently from under half-closed lids. Grayson

was rather under middle height, about thirty-five years old, and

probably a shade darker than quadroon. His face was serious to the

point of solemnity, and there were directness and sincerity in his

gaze. He spoke with deliberation and with a careful choice of words,

but neither then nor at any subsequent time did Saint detect so much

as a single gleam of racial humour or imagination in the otherwise

strongly marked negroid face.

“Preacher?” Wentworth inquired.

“Yes, but I hope to be a little more than just that. There are so many

things that my people need here. I hope to do more than merely preach

to them.”

Saint’s interest in the man extended to his attitude. It was different,

strange. He was neither servile nor assertive. He seemed to take for

granted a relationship that did not exist in the camp. He appeared to

think it a matter of course that he and Saint should discuss on an

equal basis. Neither respectful nor lacking in respect, he was merely

himself. The white man was intrigued and continued his questioning.

“From the North, I suppose?”

“New York City, and I studied divinity in New England. But I don’t like

the big cities, I want to get started in the home mission field, and

this is my first venture. You will realise that all of this is very new

to me,” and he swept his arm inclusively toward the settlement.

Saint felt a pang of pity for his customer, more acute because it was

the last thing that he would have wanted of him. He spoke impulsively:

“Say, I’m not much of an advice giver, but you had better go slow

around here. Take your good time and learn the lay of the land. There

are lots of things you ought to know about. The magistrate, for

instance--your rival, Reverend Whaley--the way your own people feel

about certain things.”

“That’s very good of you, but, to be quite frank, I haven’t a great

deal of money. My mission is not backed by the board, and must get

quick results. The people whom I have interested in the venture expect

me to open for service in a month. They said up North that ought to be

time enough.”

“All right, only remember this isn’t New York. Better watch your step.”

Saint went to the back door and whooped for Davy. The young negro

entered smiling. He had a dark intelligent face quick with an

irrepressible sense of humour.

“The Reverend wants a cook,” Saint said. “Can’t your ma go and look

after him?”

“Ah reckon so, suh.”

“Well, take him along with you and see. She’s level-headed, as well as

a good cook, and she knows how things stand around here. You better see

something of the Reverend yourself, and, for God’s sake, try to keep

him out of mischief.”

Saint smiled at his visitor. For the moment he had spoken in the usual

offhand manner employed with the negroes that he knew, but he was now

conscious of the fact that it had not been understood by Grayson. The

man stood before him, trying in his deliberate way to decide how it

had been meant--whether the white man was taking him and his mission

trivially. Finally, without answering Saint’s smile, he said briefly,

“Thank you,” and went out with his guide.

Saint thought, “He can’t laugh--that’s bad. No matter how bad a tangle

things get in out here, if we can laugh together there’s a chance. He

can’t get hold here without it-- I wonder.”

* * * * *

The first Sunday in October had the blue cleanness of a tempered blade.

It clove the sluggish September vapours to ribbons and rang audibly

against the straight, naked boles of the pines.

The new church stood at a little distance from the old meeting house.

Brave in a coat of fresh whitewash and topped by its small sky-blue

belfry, it stood sharply transfigured by the clear autumnal sunlight.

From a comfortable cabin at the end of the village, the heavy form

of the Reverend Quintus Whaley lowered itself into the road, and

proceeded ponderously toward the old meeting house. At the same time,

Thomas Grayson arrived at the door of the new church. Presently the

Sunday silence was sent clattering by the rival clamour of the two

bells.

During the last month the Reverend Quintus had elected openly to ignore

the presence of Grayson in the village, in private, however, poking sly

fun at his speech and referring to him as “Dat Yankee nigger.”

But now the gauge was fairly cast. There was the new church, and there

was no denying that its bell had at least as loud a voice as the old

one.

Presently the negroes began to leave the cabins and straggle toward

the summoning bells. They gathered in little knots midway between the

two buildings and discussed the situation. The talk grew in volume and

bred excitement. Whaley was by no means a universally popular figure.

The men especially distrusted him, and, with that play instinct that is

so often their undoing, they now recognised in the situation a game of

large possibilities. Eyes rolled toward the old meeting house, where

the Reverend could be seen through a window peering hopefully toward

them while he tugged away at the bell rope.

They hung on in the middle of the road deliberately, tantalisingly,

and emitted explosive bursts of frank African laughter. The laughter

increased in shrillness as the women became infected by the spirit

of the occasion. No one thought of God now, and His gentle Son. Even

the devil was a pallid figure of the imagination. They stood there

deliberately baiting the two perspiring divines, and having the time of

their lives in the doing of it. They knew what Whaley could give them,

and even those who doubted his sincerity had always been proud of his

ability to “slap it to them good and hot.” There was no other preacher

for miles around who could kick up such a lather in a sermon or shake

the timbers as he could with a spiritual. But across the way hid the

lure of the unknown.

A quarter of an hour passed, and the hilarity increased rather than

diminished. Upon which one should they lay their bets? That was the

all-absorbing question. Then a small negro boy came from behind the

new church, his eyes showing white. He arrived at the group scarcely

able to speak for excitement. Finally he managed to articulate: “Great

Gawdamighty! De new preacher done all dress up in a long white shroud,

same like uh corpse.”

They had never seen a surplice, Whaley having always preached in his

vaunted tail-coat. Now a silence fell upon them. Here was a sensation

indeed.

Davy seized the opportune moment and announced: “Ah goin’ to de new

church. Come on, folks.” He took his mother by the arm and, followed

closely by Maum Vina and Baxter, who had postponed her Sunday morning

visit with Mamba in order to be present, started toward the new

building. In a moment the whole crowd was stampeded. They jammed their

way through the door and stood looking about them. They were impressed

by what they saw. The benches had backs, and the reading desk was an

imposing structure covered with fair white cloth. Behind the desk stood

the preacher in his flowing robe, and at the side of the platform a

small organ glistened in a shaft of sunlight.

Across the way the old bell gave up the fight slowly, dying, as it

were, by inches--a clap--a wait--a clap--silence. A face was thrust

from a window and regarded the new church with an expression that one

would have scarcely expected to discover upon the visage of a man of

God. Then, after a moment, Whaley emerged like a black and menacing

cloud and set off in the direction of the Company’s office.

In the new church Grayson stood face to face with a tremendous

opportunity. The congregation was in a state of repressed excitement,

and, had he possessed the touch of a true evangelist, he could have

bound them to his cause then and there. His rival would have known

so well how to go about it. He would have flung the coils of his

mellifluous voice about them and released that excitement into the

all-possessing rhythm of a spiritual.

But Grayson saw in the moment a miraculous turning to his God from the

half-pagan, and wholly undignified, worship of the old church. He saw

them as already converted, and asking merely that he lead them. Hymnals

and prayer books had been placed in the pews, but as scarcely any of

his flock could read they were useless. And so he read the full morning

service through by himself. Strange words flowing out over the serried

benches--a beautiful rhythm--a vague loveliness of sound--a thing

utterly separate and apart from themselves. Slowly the excited faces

went cold. Feet commenced to shuffle, benches to creak under shifting

bodies. Now and then there was a brief recrudescence of life when

Grayson seated himself at the organ and sang the hymns, but in this, no

less than in the reading, he was alone, and after the brief animation

of each hymn the congregation’s interest went flat.

The sermon was long, for in it he told them of his plans and all that

he hoped to mean to them. The collection followed, and was both a

financial and social failure. Not that the congregation was stingy.

Every one there had a coin for the occasion, but Grayson’s system

was new to them. In Whaley’s church this was a moment replete with

exquisite humour. It was during the collection time that the great man

was truly at his best. A plate would be set before the reading desk,

and the congregation would be cajoled, flattered, wheedled, twitted

with sly personal allusions, told pointed jokes, until at last, in

a gale of high spirits, they would disgorge the last penny and feel

themselves well repaid.

Now, when Davy, who had been unwillingly commandeered for the occasion,

passed a plate among them, they kept their pennies, hoping against hope

that at last the new preacher would break through his restraint and

give them the usual final run for their money.

When at long last the service was over, and the recessional hymn sung,

it was after one o’clock. The exit was a hasty and a noisy one. They

were anxious to escape in a hurry, and they did.

A strange sequel to Grayson’s first Sunday morning service was the

fact that he did not in the least realise what had happened. He had

triumphed, but he was not vainglorious over it. It had been God’s

work. Now it remained for him to till the fertile field. He was up and

out early on Monday morning, intent upon launching the first of his

schemes for the village. By the merest luck, he hit upon the one thing

that could possibly even temporarily have stemmed the tide that had

started to ebb the day before, and that would have swept the entire

congregation back to Whaley on the following Sunday.

* * * * *

This first inspired act was the installation of a vested choir. Robes

for the ten best singers in the congregation! The men had gone to the

fields when the new preacher set out to unfold his plan to the village,

but the women gathered, and when they heard that the choir was to be

given the robes and allowed to sit on the platform with the preacher,

their flagging interest was immediately revived. Grayson set an hour

during the afternoon for testing voices, and left them to talk it over

among themselves.

That afternoon when he went to the church he found practically all the

women in the camp present, dressed in their best, rolling their eyes,

giggling, and nudging each other. But there was not a man to be seen,

proving that his visit to the pits which had followed the talk with the

women had been unproductive of results. Well, he would start without

bass or tenor, and hope to bring them in later. In the meantime there

was no lack of enthusiasm among the women. In fact, Grayson was a

little at a loss how to cope with their lack of reverence, and decided

that it would be wise to curb it at the start. He stood for a moment

looking over the benches with their rows of laughing faces, their

gorgeous accidental colour combinations wrought by head kerchiefs,

hats, and dresses. Finally, the inevitable occurred, and his gaze was

arrested by the vast magenta-clad bulk of Hagar.

“What is your name, my daughter?” he inquired.

She hesitated, then gave her adopted title of Baxter, her broad,

ingenuous face wreathed in smiles. Immediately a chorus of giggles

burst free among the benches.

Across the irreverent sound the pastor’s voice fell chill and

authoritative: “Sing something, please. I want to try your voice.”

Baxter was undoubtedly enjoying the situation. She stood like a child

at a party, deliberately hesitating for effect.

“Go on,” he encouraged, “sing anything. I only want to test your voice.”

Instantly from her silence, her deceptive air of embarrassment, she

launched full-voiced into song. The voice might have been that of Mamba

herself. It had the same depth and tenderness in the lower register,

the same whimsical way of catching for an imperceptible beat on the

high notes with the effect of laughter broken by a sob. But where

Mamba’s voice lacked volume Hagar’s came from her great lungs with

the magnitude of organ music. Unfortunately, in common with the other

aspirants for robes, she had remained impervious to the reproof in the

voice and manner of the pastor, and now her song, beating with the

spirit of irrepressible and eternal youth, rolled forth and filled the

building:

“My mammy tell me long time ago,

‘Gal, don’t yo’ marry no man yo’ know.

Take all yo’ money, steal all yo’ clo’es.

What will become of yo’ Gawd only knows.’”

The performance was greeted with whoops of delight from the floor, and

cries of “Dat right, Baxter.” “Tell um, Sistuh!” “Gawd know dat de

trut’.” And after the general laughter had died down a fresh outburst

was provoked by an ancient Gullah negress who called in a high cackling

voice: “Dat gal woice loud succa guinea hen.”

Grayson stood regarding them in stern silence until the noise abated.

Then he pointed out in a few brief but well-chosen words that the

occasion was not one for ribaldry and that they were in the house of

God. Down, down slid the mercurial spirits of the sisterhood. They sat

in solemn rigid rows while one after another of their number was called

forward to go through a constrained and self-conscious test on some

familiar spiritual.

Finally Grayson singled out ten of the number, including Baxter, and

dismissed the others. Then, seating himself at the organ, he commenced

to whip the raw material into shape for the début on the following

Sunday.

The week that followed was a busy one in the village. Grayson had

purchased the entire stock of white longcloth from the commissary, as

well as many yards of black cotton goods. He had engaged the services

of several women who could sew, and himself supervised the designing

and fitting of the vestments. Then, late every afternoon, he called a

rehearsal at the church, thus dislocating the supper hours of a number

of hungry and tired negro labourers.

But during those days of busy preparation Grayson was not the only

energetic divine in the neighbourhood. The huge bulk of the Reverend

Quintus could be seen at all hours visiting among the cabins, and to

judge by the gales of laughter that attended him wherever he went he

must have been in his most entertaining vein. Also he paid several

visits to the office of the Company. These last, however, were not

humorous in intention, to judge from the denunciatory exclamations that

punctuated the conferences.

But when Sunday again dawned, victory returned to perch upon

the little sky-blue belfry. Not one shroud now, but eleven!

The lure was irresistible. Again the Reverend Quintus swung

in vain upon his bell rope. Again the cheerful summons lost

heart--clanged--waited--clanged--stopped. Once more an irate face

glared from the window.

The service was more effective in holding attention than it had been

the previous week. The choir was an unqualified success. It knew the

hymns, and even a simple chant, and the presence of the vestments

awakened a new awe in the worshippers that held them sitting quietly

with solemn faces. When Grayson commenced the sermon they were ready to

listen.

He preached upon “the powers of darkness.” He had learned something

during the week, and that was the necessity of plain speech. He had

flown over their heads, perhaps, but now he would talk to them so

simply that a child could understand. Accordingly, with directness and

lucidity he struck at the hold of superstition upon the minds of his

hearers. Fortune tellers and conjurers were children of hell, and their

utterances were lies. Charms were devices of the devil, and those who

believed in them were destined for destruction, unless they turned from

their evil ways and prayed for forgiveness.

From where Baxter was sitting in the choir she saw a long shudder

run through the frail old body of Maum Vina. She looked keenly at

her friend and saw her eyes blur under a film of tears. Baxter had

been listening to the sermon, but it had been a thing apart from her

own needs. She had made no effort to personalise it, to relate it

to herself. But Maum Vina, for all her years, took things in with

remarkable clearness. What the new preacher was saying was meant for

her. Had he not fixed her with his gaze while he talked? She made an

heroic struggle to control herself. Baxter felt it, while only dimly

beginning to grasp its cause. She got quickly to her feet and half

carried her old friend into the open. Then she was shocked at what she

saw in the ancient negress’s face. It seemed to have been suddenly

extinguished, and there was a sag to the whole body. Then Maum Vina

commenced to shake violently, as with a palsy, and to sob in long, weak

breaths.

“Yo’ heah what he say, Baxter?” she asked between her sobs.

“Sho, but dat don’t mean nuttin’. Le’s we forget it an’ get ’long home.”

“Yes, it do mean somet’ing. Dat man ain’t like Whaley. He tellin’ de

trut’. Ah know dat, an’ Ah ain’t nebber goin’ fin’ dat money in de road

what de cunjer ’oman promise me.”

They were joined by several other members of the congregation who had

walked out and had been none too quiet in the manner of their going.

“Don’t yo’ b’liebe um, Aunt Viny,” an old negro advised; “go ask

Rev’rent Whaley. He know what he talkin’ ’bout.”

Baxter led her friend away, trying to console her with clumsy, tender

pats, as though she were a child. Then she noticed that the eager light

had gone out of the old eyes, and that they no longer searched the road

with their incessant weaving motion.

“Better watch whar yo’ goin’,” Baxter cautioned. “Fus’ t’ing yo’ know,

yo’ goin’ miss dat money.”

“’Tain’t no use, gal,” came the answer. “Ah’s goin’ be a care on

strangers long as Ah las’. ’Tain’t no use to s’arch no mo’.”

* * * * *

During the ensuing week the new pastor was an industrious parochial

visitor. There was something definitely wrong, some maladjustment

between himself and his flock that pointed toward disaster if it

were not quickly located and rectified. He reasoned that by adroit

questioning he could draw his parishioners out and ascertain the

trouble. But when he found the negroes at home he had encountered an

attitude with which he was incapable of dealing. If they could not

avoid him, they greeted him with a sort of negative cordiality. They

would smile and ask him to sit, then disappear within themselves, speak

only of abstractions, be deliberately vague and noncommittal. When he

had touched on the subject of church or religion they had smiled again,

and if it seemed the part of politeness to say something in reply,

they had, still smiling, remarked that times were certainly hard for

a country nigger, that last winter had been unusually cold, or that

no food served so well to sweeten the mouth as hominy and a fat fried

porgy.

There was nothing to lay hold upon. He began to experience a sense of

vast futility. And his money was nearly exhausted. The experiment had

been his own idea, and he had had to depend upon what he could raise

from private sources. He had hoped to make an instantaneous success

that would win full backing for the mission from the board. But now

failure was staring him in the face.

Grayson was particularly puzzled by the behaviour of Cora, the mother

of Davy, who served him as housekeeper. She had been a regular

attendant at church, and when he had talked with her in her small,

immaculately kept kitchen, she had a way of looking into his face with

a candid and trustful gaze that seemed incapable of concealment or

deception. But now, as the momentous week advanced, he noticed that

there were long, unexplained absences, and that the dishes often stood

unwashed after a meal. Finally, upon entering the kitchen silently, he

found her with her face buried in her apron while her body shook with

deep elemental sobs.

An overwhelming wave of pity rendered him suddenly speechless. He

had tried so hard and so unsuccessfully to be understood that his

self-confidence was shaken. This was the sort of opportunity for

which he had been hoping, when he might enter into the sorrows of his

people and let his heart speak in actions as well as words. But now he

experienced a feeling of utter impotence. It came to him that the words

that he would speak would be mere empty symbols uttered in a foreign

tongue. He crossed the room and dropped a hand gently on the heaving

shoulder. The startled woman looked up into his face with an expression

that changed from grief to sudden fright.

“Tell me, Cora,” he urged, “what can I do for you?”

“Lemme go home,” she sobbed. “Ah gots to go now.”

“Certainly,” he assured her, “go at once, and I’ll go home with you. If

you are in trouble I want to share it with you.”

“No, no,” she cried in panic. “Yo’ stay here. Ah’ll come back. Ain’t

nuttin’ yo’ can do.” Then she was gone in a heavy lumbering run down

the road in the direction of her cabin.

Two days passed and Cora failed to reappear. Now Grayson’s visits

seemed even more fruitless than early in the week, for the village

was deserted. For the most part he found only children at the cabins,

children and the ubiquitous yellow curs. The pickaninnies gaped at

him when he questioned, but the curs with their singular instinct for

sensing the moods of their owners followed him to the gates, hanging

just out of reach, with their small sharp teeth bared. Finally, on

Friday morning, he met Wentworth, who was swinging along the sandy road

with a package under his arm.

“I suppose you’re on your way to Cora’s,” hazarded the white man. “It’s

too bad about her trouble, and Davy’s badly knocked out by it too. He

was devoted to the little fellow, used to bring him to the store pretty

much every afternoon.”

“Cora’s trouble?” inquired Grayson, and Saint was surprised by the

agitation reflected in his face.

“Why, yes. She lost her youngest child last night. It has been in

desperate shape for the week. The whole village has been sitting around

out there with her. I thought you might have noticed. I am taking her

along some mourning and a little money for the burial saucer.”

While the two had been talking they had proceeded in the direction of

the cabin, which lay well beyond the regular confines of the village,

and now, through the clear, resonant air they caught the distant

strains of a spiritual. Very distinctly the music sounded across

the distance, not the robust shouting like that of a Sunday morning

service, but the shrill, agonised voices of many women, each of whom

had personalised the desolation of the mother and made it her own, and,

tramping along an octave below them, the mellow, flexible beauty of a

single tremendous bass.

Saint cast a sidelong glance at his companion and saw the broad

benevolent face go ashen, the eyes light with a spurt of naked pain.

He spoke impulsively: “I’m awfully sorry. I didn’t think you cared so

much, and I thought you would have known. They sent for Whaley three

nights ago, and he hasn’t left the house since. He is going to hold the

funeral services to-morrow afternoon. They don’t change quickly back

here, you see, and he knows their ways.”

There was silence except for the sound of singing that shook the air

with its unearthly harmonies. Grayson had stopped in the road. Finally,

in a shaken voice, he said: “I can’t go on, Mr. Wentworth. My heart is

breaking with that woman’s sorrow, and if I went to her I’d only give

her pain.”

For a full minute he stood silently, his face working with emotion.

Habit had carried his hand to a small gold cross that hung on a black

cord from his neck, and he fingered it absently.

Saint could think of nothing to say but a trite, “I’m sorry.” Then he

saw the face that he had come to think of as being insensitive, almost

stolid, quiver, and the eyes fill slowly with tears. At last, still

fingering the little cross with an unconscious mechanical movement,

Grayson turned slowly on his heel and commenced to retrace his steps

toward his cabin.

From the house of mourning swept the music of the dirge. Shrill,

monotonous, unvarying, it throbbed across the sunny afternoon with its

burden of human desolation, and always under the shrill grief of the

women marched the sustaining beauty and power of the single enormously

vital bass.

* * * * *

Sunday morning was ushered in with a triumphant clanging from the old

meeting house. Groups arrived, laughing and chattering, and filled the

building to its doors. When the crowd had jammed its way in, Reverend

Whaley started them off with a rousing spiritual. With one accord they

flung themselves into it. It was good to be back with the old agreeable

God again, the God who wanted them to sing and shout, to pour their

sorrow out in a flood of song, who minded his own business most of the

time and had a pleasant, laughing way with him when he touched upon

theirs. Yes, they were foolish to have strayed for even a few misguided

weeks.

In the new church Grayson sat alone, listening to the uproar with an

expression of deep sadness upon his habitually solemn face. Yes, this

was the end. They needed so much--and they would not let him give it to

them. He had come full of confidence to bring enlightenment. His own

people! Now he saw no use remaining in the empty building that was so

eloquent a reminder of failure.

He rose to go, then he saw that a woman had entered silently and was

sitting on the last bench, just inside the door. He walked down the

aisle and stopped before her. Then he saw that it was the woman known

as Baxter.

“Have you come to worship with me?” he asked.

Hagar nodded violently but said nothing.

Grayson’s heavy face caught a fleeting gleam from an inner light. “Then

we’ll have our service just as though the church was full,” he assured

her.

He retired and donned his vestments, then asked her to come and sit

just below the reading desk on the front bench while he held service.

Vast and submissive, she went forward and took her seat before him.

While he went through the service, omitting only the sermon, she kept

her eyes on his face with an expression of dumb, uncomprehending

steadfastness.

Grayson pronounced the benediction, then came and sat beside her. Then

he said, “I am very grateful to you for coming to-day. You have put new

heart into me.”

Baxter was overcome with embarrassment, but she managed to say, “T’ank

yo’, suh.”

A silence followed during which the woman’s embarrassment heightened to

actual distress.

At last Grayson urged, “You do believe in the God that I preach about,

do you not? A God of beauty and light and loving-kindness?”

Baxter’s gaze was on the floor. She was absolutely still. Then suddenly

she shook her head in a violent negative.

Grayson almost jumped, so unexpected was her answer.

“Then why did you come in to-day?” he asked.

She had trouble getting started. Words eluded her, and she was trying

terribly hard to be honest and yet not hurt him. At last she said, “Ah

been lonely a lot too. Ah ain’t likes tuh be by myself in my trouble.

Ah done set out fuh de ole church, and when Ah pass, Ah see yo’ here,

an’ Ah can see yo’ lookin’ lonely. Den Ah come in. Dat’s all.”

The preacher got to his feet without a word and commenced to close the

windows. Baxter sat on, watching him, not knowing what to do next. When

finally the building was made fast and only the door remained open he

came back to her and held out his hand. Then she saw that it contained

a book.

“I want you to keep this to remember me by,” he said. “It is called

the Book of Common Prayer. And see, here in the front is my name

and address. You must remember it always as that of somebody who is

grateful to you, who wants always to be your friend. You have been a

real Christian to-day. And now, good-bye.”

He held out his hand, and Baxter took the book; then she dropped

an awkward curtsy and said, “Good-bye, suh,” and stepped over the

threshold into the bright autumn weather.

* * * * *

At the very moment when Baxter entered the new church, a conference

which also bore directly upon the destinies of the Reverend Thomas

Grayson was taking place upon the sunny piazza of a bungalow near the

Company’s office. It had an appearance of great casualness about it.

Two white men had been sitting there since breakfast, enjoying their

pipes and the long Sunday quiet. The rattle of a vehicle sounded in the

distance, the rumble of hoofs over a wooden bridge, and presently Proc

Baggart turned into the private road behind his span of trotters. He

alighted, hitched his horses, and stepped up on the piazza.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “this is a mighty pretty spell of weather

we are having.”

One of the white men motioned toward a chair. “Have a seat, Cap’n, and

make yourself at home. Yes, the weather’s set fair, I guess. When you

can hear the town bells up here, it usually means a pretty spell.”

Silence then for a moment, except for the far, faint throb of chimes

that followed the river all the way from the city, and stirred the air

about the men with a soft humming. Baggart lighted a cigar, gripped it

in his strong, stained teeth, and smiled his mirthless, muscular smile.

“They tell me that the Reverend Quintus is having a nervous spell,” he

commented.

“Yes, and hard luck too,” remarked the taller of his two companions.

“The old fellow has put in the greater part of his life working among

these niggers, and he ought not to be interfered with.”

Baggart’s eyes met those of the speaker, and his muscular smile

broadened into a grin. “Yes, a nigger’s a simple soul,” he remarked,

“and he’s got simple ideas on religion. It would be a pity to have them

upset. This crowd here’s well behaved and an easy-going lot. They know

what’s good for ’em, and they ain’t ready for new ideas yet.” He puffed

in silence for a moment, then asked casually:

“How’d that fellow Grayson get in here, anyway?”

The shorter white man flushed slightly under his tan as he explained:

“Oh, he came in one day when we were just shutting up and said he

wanted to work here. Looked straight enough and laid the money down for

the empty shacks. I never thought much about it at the time.”

“What sort of a lookin’ cuss is he--how dark?”

“High yaller, I guess you’d call it. Comes from New York, I hear, and

talks like a college president.”

“Bad morals in New York, ’specially among the niggers. Can’t have these

God-fearing labourers perverted, as you might say.” Baggart permitted

a moment to pass, and a glint in his eyes like the refraction of light

from blue granite paid tribute to his humorous subtlety.

The two white men laughed softly, and Baggart’s next question fell

casually into the conversation: “Anybody told him yet that it’s pretty

unhealthy ’round here?”

One of the men said, “Well, to tell you the truth, Cap’n, we’d rather

not mess up in the affairs of the labour. We make it our business to

keep hands off in matters that are their own concern.”

“Yes, very wise policy, I am sure, but some kind-hearted citizen ought

to warn him. It’s a mighty sickly country for a stranger, ’specially

one with a touch of white blood, what with malaria and all that. If you

gentlemen would like, I’ll be passin’ through the village to-night, and

I could stop and give him a friendly word of advice as easy as not, or

I could get Bluton to stop and see him.”

The two white men were obviously relieved. The taller one said, “Well,

that’s mighty good of you, Cap’n. And don’t forget, any time we can do

any little thing for you, you know where to find us.”

“Sure,” Baggart answered, and his voice was almost hearty. “Always glad

to co-operate in any way, and I know you gentlemen feel the same way

about it.”

Suddenly all three men sat forward in listening attitudes, then

exchanged glances of satisfaction and understanding. From the direction

of the village came the full-bodied music of a spiritual, swelling out

across the marshes and ringing clear and sweet along the river.

“Hello!” ejaculated the short man who had rented the cabins to Grayson.

“Sounds like old Quintus has ’em all back in the fold again.”

Baggart got to his feet and threw away the stump of his cigar. “Sure

he has,” he said. “They know what they want better’n we do. Anyhow, I

may just as well drop by to-night--never believe in leaving loose ends.

Good-day. See you gentlemen again.”

But that night when the trotters pulled up before the cottage in which

Grayson had set up his simple housekeeping there was no one to answer

Baggart’s peremptory hullo. He got down from the rig and rapped smartly

on the door with his whip. Inside the empty house there was a desolate

momentary reverberation, then silence.

The trotters were feeling the chill night air and were pawing trenches

in the soft sand with their fore feet. Baggart went to their heads

and caught a muzzle in each hand with a sudden fierce affection. They

whinnied, and he felt the brush of soft, warm velvet against his jaw.

“We all know what we want,” he thought. “Niggers--horses. You don’t

have to tell a horse to leave spaghetti alone and eat hay.”

* * * * *

The spring of 1917, and half the world in fiery dissolution. America

in at last. Money. Ships. Then, suddenly--man power. Up north at

Washington the daily minting of beautiful illusory phrases--“A world

made safe for democracy”--“Self-determination for all peoples”--“The

war that will end war”--The mobilisation of a nation’s advertising

power--the press--Committee on Public Information--Four-Minute

Men--Ministers of the Gospel gone militant--The flag and the

cross side by side on Sunday morning. That indomitable good

fellow, the community song leader, abroad in the land--febrile

meetings--campaigns--campaigns--campaigns.

Atrocities. Handless children. Violated women. Nuns. “The mad dog of

nations” loose, and the clamour of the hunt ringing around the globe.

Charleston, the deliberate old city, deliberate no longer, separate

and self-sufficient no longer. Fort Sumter forgotten at last, and the

futile agonies of the ’sixties. All one people now. One flag.

Again and again, from the stage, the pulpit, the press, atrocities. The

women. Smashing like a cannonade against the traditional sanctities.

Suppose it were your mother. Your wife. Saint Wentworth’s blood crawled

cold to his heart, then flung back in a burning tide, leaving a red

haze before his eyes and a taste like brass on his tongue. Now, if

ever, he needed the heroic dreams to help him through. But they would

not come to him. On the contrary, after the first flush of anger, there

were hideous little tremors at the pit of his stomach. But he had

certain knowledge of what he must do.

He turned the store over to Davy and went to town. In a week he was

back. Crops were essential to victory--phosphates to crops--Saint,

according to unanswerable departmental logic, was essential to

phosphates. He was told to stick to the mines until he was called.

Back again into the quiet of black Carolina. He could scarcely believe

that he inhabited the same planet as his friends a few miles away in

town. Out in the wide solitudes of marsh and pine forest the shocks

that were being delivered against the inertia of public opinion were

muted to a far, faint murmur.

Then slowly the change commenced to come. Invading committees

arrived. Groups of negroes from the coloured organisations in town,

for the most part. Keen young mulattoes, very much in earnest,

discovering their backwoods brethren for the first time, telling

them that this was the great opportunity for the race--“A world made

safe for democracy.” “After this war--the Negro’s chance”--getting

pitiful little contributions to war funds. Then a young white lawyer

from town with a gift for oratory, and two lovely girls in nurses’

costumes. The Red Cross. Not vague abstractions now like bond

issues and saving stamps, but suffering humanity--the welter of the

battlefield--blood--agony--“The Good Samaritan”--Who was going to

help? The realism of the speaker was cut short by a piercing scream.

A babblement of sobbing filled the room, punctuated by wails of agony.

An unsteady voice called, “De blood put he maak on me.” The line was

caught up by the packed assemblage, and the spiritual crashed out in

the little meeting house.

In twos and threes the congregation commenced to slip out, while those

that remained kept the spiritual going. Finally there were only a few

left. The young lawyer was frankly disgusted. He had been wasting

his time on a bunch of crazy negroes, and they had walked out on him

without so much as a single donation. He got into his overcoat, and

called the two pretty nurses. There was no use fooling around with this

sort of thing.

Suddenly the chorus swelled up again, and he saw that they were coming

back. Into the church they packed and commenced to come forward to the

platform. Then he saw that they had money in their hands, coppers,

nickels, and here and there even a dollar bill. They came and piled it

before him. Every penny in the village. They gave their tears, and the

outpouring of human sympathy was a presence in the room.

After that, in the black belt, there was the first glimmer of

realisation of the stupendous tragedy that was raging beyond the city

somewhere out in the void.

Then the draft: thirty prime boys from the camp, dressed in

their Sunday clothes, waiting in the road before Baggart’s

office, not knowing a great deal about it all--very excited and

self-important--boasting inordinately. Women--lots of them, crowding

about, with the memory of the Red Cross speech in their minds, and an

old, dark jungle terror of the unknown stiffening their faces, widening

their eyes, and here and there ripping free in a gust of hysteria. An

incredibly ancient crone, whose mind had slipped a cog and snapped back

seventy years, peering from half-blind eyes and wailing: “Dey’s goin’

tuh sell um tuh de sugar-cane fields. Ah knows it. Dey’s goin’ sen’ um

tuh Louisiana, an’ we ain’t nebber goin’ see um no mo’. Oh, Gawd hab a

little pity.”

A month since the men had gone; then, one bright day, Saint called

the women to the commissary piazza and distributed envelopes from the

government that contained the first separation allowances. Everybody

rich now--excitement--laughter--and the dark fear forgotten. The thirty

women who had been wept over when the men went away were now objects of

envy in the village.

Strange talk in the air--something about “Gold Star mothers”--mystery.

Then the spry little dentist who came and explained it all to

everybody’s satisfaction. So it was not “Gold Star” after all, but

gold-tooth mothers, and the government wanted the women to come to

the dentist’s office in town every month and get a gold tooth out of

the check--one tooth a month to make them beautiful and to show how

long their men had been away. After that, Midas moving through the

village--smiles showing wide, and ever wider stretches of glittering

yellow metal. And the spry little dentist happening by now and then to

see how things were getting along, driving a twin-six that pulled up a

great dust cloud wherever he went.

Now the commissary was getting its share of checks that seemed to

vie with one another to see how soon they could vanish the day they

arrived, and Gilly Bluton, who, strangely enough, had not been called,

with his eyes everywhere, keener than ever at discovering unlicensed

curs about the yards, and participants in hidden crap games.

Now labour was growing scarce and wages were soaring. The result was

obvious: three days a week in the pits for the men who were left,

instead of six. Why should a man in his good senses work a whole week

when in half that time he could earn enough to keep alive and have a

plenty of time to lie perfectly flat in warm sand, absorbing sun, or

gossip on the store piazza? And so the camp developed a leisure class

that loitered gloriously through the late summer and into the long

autumnal quiet.

Letters came from the boys in concentration and training camps which

were brought to Saint to read. They were having the time of their lives

and sent photographs of themselves with chests straining at bronze

buttons. Truly the war cloud that hung over half the world and cast its

malign shadow across millions of hearts had nothing for this forgotten

corner of black America but a gleam from its silver lining.

* * * * *

But over the old city across the narrow Ashley the shadow was widening.

When Saint went to church now with his mother he saw the service flag

with its fifty-five stars hanging in the vestibule, and, as the months

passed, gold commenced to take the place of the white. Three of his

boyhood friends gone now!

He went to headquarters and made another effort to be transferred to

active service. He told them the whole truth about his job. But they

were too busy now to listen to old stories with new twists to them, and

he was sent back to the mines to wait.

Valerie Land wrote from her Red Cross unit in France:

“I wanted you to be in it, dear, until I got here and saw it. But now

I am _glad_, _glad_ that you were made to wait. It is not a bit like

the posters. At first, in the canteen at Havre, it had the thrill

of adventure about it, and I wished for you. But then the boys were

going out. Now, here in the hospital, they are coming back, and my

heart breaks into little pieces every day. If it were not for two of

the old New York crowd who were wounded while serving in a camouflage

unit and who are here in the hospital, I don’t know what I would

do....”

Then another time she said:

“My boys are getting better, but their nerves are gone. Imagine

sending an artist into it! Of course, camouflage is playing an

important part in the war, but it is a terrible thing to keep the

boys under fire. They are tremendously brave about it, but they have

spent their lives learning to see clearly and feel keenly, and they

can’t protect themselves as well as the others, and they have to pay

so dearly.”

Saint’s fingers closed over the insensate letter as though it were a

part of the girl who had written it, and he felt her slipping out of

his grasp. For the first time in his life he was furiously jealous.

His blood seethed with rebellion. He strode about the little room with

fists clenched and angry tears forcing themselves into his eyes, making

him feel more useless and futile than ever.

He heard some one rapping on the counter to call him to the store. The

sound came as the crowning and ultimate indignity. He flung open his

door and stood glaring into the room.

Bluton was leaning against the counter. “Lemme have a coupla cigars,”

he called, and like an insult Wentworth heard the metallic ring of

silver on wood.

Instead of going behind the counter he crossed the floor, his heels

hitting hard, his fists clenched. When he was within two feet of

Bluton the negro looked up and saw his face. His expression was one of

ludicrous surprise. He backed away several steps, with the white man

closing them in upon him. Then the surprise in his eyes gave place to a

flicker of fear.

A wave of exultation swept over Wentworth. Exquisite tremors shook his

muscles, then passed, leaving them pulled tight. He said in a hard,

level voice: “Get out!”

The negro backed rapidly toward the door; then, with the opening at his

back, he spoke: “What de matter? Ah ain’t done nuttin’.”

He was palpably afraid, and the knowledge of it flamed through Saint

like an intoxicant. He closed the remaining distance that separated

them and caught Bluton by the coat collar. The negro went slack in his

grasp, waiting, terrified and inert, babbling softly and incoherently

with loose lips. Saint swung him around, thrust him through the door,

and kicked him squarely off the piazza.

Bluton lit and drew himself together for a bolt.

“Stop,” Saint commanded.

The word brought the negro up like a tautened lariat, catching him in

the very act of springing and pulling him about.

Saint looked him squarely in the eyes and said:

“I just want to tell you that I’ve got something on you that will put

you up for ten years. It’s all ready for you, and it’s locked up in the

office of a town lawyer. If you ever stick a leg in this store again

I’ll have you arrested. Get that? And if you take it out on any of my

negroes, it’s the same thing. Now, get to hell out of here.”

There was an ashy tinge to Bluton’s complexion. Without a word the man

turned on his heel.

Wentworth opened and closed his fists several times, examining them

in an impersonal and detached manner. Then he gave a short exultant

laugh and put a question to the pines: “Now, where in the world did I

get that from?” He stood pondering the question, his head bowed, his

brow furrowed. Slowly the answer came to him. In the beginning he had

unthinkingly taken the estimate of others on Bluton. The negroes feared

him, and fear is contagious. The white men at the mines believed him

dangerous on account of his connection with Baggart, and he had adopted

their attitude of tactful and expedient handling. Now, suddenly, he

had encountered the negro in a moment when his own rebellion had freed

him from an habitual attitude of mind. He had been no one but himself.

He had acted spontaneously on instinct, and the result had been

electrifying. For the first time in his life he experienced that wonder

and elation that comes from a successfully executed bluff. For the

first time he realised the advantage that lies with the aggressor.

The two men who represented success to him came to his mind: Atkinson

and Raymond. They did not sit waiting on the defensive. They had gone

out and taken the world by the collar as he had done Bluton. Very well,

he would do the same. If he couldn’t go to France, he would at least

get after the job here with hammer and tongs. He would go to town

to-morrow and put himself at the service of the central committee for

work in the mining district, and at the same time he would drop in and

tell Mr. Raymond the straight story of the episode with Bluton.

The following morning, when Wentworth appeared at the general offices

on Broad Street, he was shown at once into the sanctum of the manager.

Mr. Raymond rose and shook hands warmly. His eyes were quizzical as he

rested them on the face of his storekeeper. He never knew quite what to

expect from Wentworth. He said: “I have just sent a message out to the

mines asking you to come in. Something has happened out there that I

want to discuss with you.”

Saint reddened, but he said firmly: “I kicked him out of the store;

that’s all. I knew I would have to some day, and yesterday was the day.

If you don’t mind I’ll tell you my story now, then leave it to you.”

The employer regarded him with a grin. “Oh, so you kicked him out, did

you? Go ahead. Who was he, and why?”

Saint told his story briefly, then sat back in his chair awaiting the

verdict.

In a voice that gave no indication of his feelings Raymond remarked:

“You have your own way of running things rather independently of the

Company, haven’t you?” Then, without waiting for a reply, he continued,

“Well, I didn’t know about the Bluton kicking. There was something else

that I wanted to talk over with you. Yesterday Goodlow chucked his job.

War pickings are too fat for him to resist. He’s just the sort who

would go in for them. Left us high and dry without a manager for the

stores.”

The completeness with which Saint had given himself to his new

philosophy was demonstrated in his immediate response. He leaned across

the desk, looked point-blank into his employer’s eyes and said: “You’ve

got to give me that job, Mr. Raymond. You’ve just got to.”

“And have you kick my customers out of the front door?”

“You’ll have to leave that to me, sir. You’ll have to let me run things

my own way. But if you do, I’ll promise to give you everything I’ve got

in me.”

The big man got to his feet and held out his hand. “That’s all that an

employer can ask,” he said with a smile. “Shake on it, and I’ll be out

to-morrow at ten to go over the details with you.”

* * * * *

Nineteen hundred and eighteen--a hectic year. Stupendous energies

were hurled into colossal tasks and accomplished miracles over night.

Winter--spring--summer trod on each other’s heels in their haste to

finish the job. But out in the mining camp dew was still unshaken from

the morning grass, sun still poured gracious warmth on laxed bodies,

full moons lifted over vast marshes, pulled their flood tides high

into salt creeks, then released them to dwindle seaward again. Nothing

was changed deeply. It was as though the fossils beneath the feet of

the living spoke to them out of their long death, telling them of the

transitoriness of human existence, the futility of all human effort

in the changeless face of time. The great pines towered above the

scattered villages. The broad marshes rimmed their world with silence.

The men who had gone from that district were in a labour battalion.

Their letters told of a world full of wonders but little of the

horror of war. And, in the meantime, wages were mounting to still

higher levels, separation allowances continued to arrive monthly with

unfailing regularity, and the smiles of the “gold-tooth mothers” grew

always broader and more effulgent. And why not indeed! In the last war

had not Mr. Lincoln come South and smitten the chains from their legs

with his own hands, as shown in pictures upon many cabin walls? And

now, was this war not making them rich? Why then should one be stingy

in the dispensing of golden smiles?

Then suddenly a new word crossed the Ashley and made its début in

the camp. The word was “Armistice.” It had a ringing sound like

smitten brass; it filled the mouth, and it mated well with other fine

reverberant words. The Reverend Quintus Whaley heard it first in the

office of the mining company, memorised it then and there, and the

following Sunday employed it three times with great effect. The first

occasion was: “Ah say unto yo’ sebenty time seben, button on yo’ sword

an’ armistice, an’ battle wid de debil.” Ten minutes later a subtle

change of meaning was revealed in this usage: “An’ dere war t’ree angel

singin’ at de golden gate, an’ one been name’ Gabriel, an’ one been

name’ Philadelphy, an’ de las’ one, an’ de greates’ ob all been name’

Armistice.” But the final appearance of the glittering new acquisition

was at the same time the most audacious and mystifying, for it popped

suddenly into the benediction and associated itself upon terms of such

intimacy with the Trinity that, had an orthodox believer been present,

the result must certainly have been a heresy trial for the Reverend

Quintus.

It was a great word. There was no gainsaying that. But later, when its

meaning became definitely associated with the cessation of hostilities,

there was general disappointment at its obvious temporal limitations.

* * * * *

The Armistice! To not only the Reverend Quintus Whaley did the word

reverberate with varied and significant shades of meaning. From

the Atlantic to the Pacific it rang from a hundred million throats,

clanged from frantic bells, and bellowed from a continent’s factory

whistles. Peace. An end to the slaughter. Then, like a starting gun in

a stupendous race, it thundered back and launched the country upon its

brief and preposterous epoch of post-war extravagance, expansion, and

inflation.

Across the Atlantic the masks were off at Versailles. The Fourteen

Points, impractical, perhaps, but born of the agonies and aspirations

of a people who would have done with war, were being manipulated

cleverly as decoys, then, when the exhausted game had fluttered to

hand, forgotten. Everywhere nations, business, individuals, in a mad

stampede for the spoils. On the exchanges stocks were rocketing,

dazzling unaccustomed eyes, piling up illusory fortunes. Over mountains

and across the plains the rails were humming beneath vast movements of

freight. Wages were soaring. Every one had something to sell--something

to buy.

In the little room behind the store at the mining camp sat a very

different Saint Wentworth from the self-effacing boy who had entered

the employ of the Company as its commissary keeper. The flaring

cowlick still played havoc with all attempts at a disciplined part,

and gave his hair an appearance of sprouting in various directions

from a given point over his left forehead. But the brow seemed to have

heightened with his greater maturity, and the old daydreams that had

filled his slate-coloured eyes with a vague chaos had made way for a

purposefulness that rendered them intensely aware of the physical world

upon which they rested. His figure was slender but muscular and lent an

air to the sombre and rather undistinguished suit that he wore.

He had just completed the final reports on his various war work

committees--the draft board--the work for the Committee on Public

Information--food conservation--agriculture. He had done his best by it

all, but now he was glad that it was over. Glad, with the exception,

perhaps, of the last. That had been largely his own idea. He had

realised the uselessness of attempting to educate the local negroes in

the vast abstraction of the European conflict. He had cast around for

some one concrete and logical use to which they could be put, and had

hit upon the scheme of encouraging them to farm. He had gone to town

with his plan and had made arrangements for the financing of a number

of small tracts that had been put in truck by negro families. He had

become tremendously interested in the experiment, and now that they

had been given a start he intended to keep behind the movement for

the benefit of the negroes themselves, and to prove to his financial

backers that the proposition could be made to pay on its own account.

He glanced around the little room with a rather grim smile. As it

had reflected the boy, with its books, guitar, specimens, so now it

offered dumb but eloquent testimony upon the man. The centre table had

given place to a large flat-top desk, and a filing cabinet stood in

the corner once occupied by the bookcase. The guitar, the collection

of fossils, the treasured bit of African sculpture, the etchings, had

vanished. Valerie had once said that the room was his battlefield.

Well, here it was after the first engagement, and, as Saint surveyed

it on the day of casting up accounts, there was in his own mind not

the least doubt that the fight had gone well. He smiled a little

indulgently as he remembered the doubts, the vague gropings, the boyish

passion that he had put into the quest for something that always eluded

him, something that glimmered now and then from a printed page, that

throbbed in a chord of music, that took him sharply when autumn rang

against the pines. He was done with abstractions now. He was face to

face with something actual, something that yielded results that could

be computed upon an adding machine.

He was living in town now, back in the little brick house. Polly had

fulfilled her destiny and had done very well for herself. Her husband,

already out of olive drab, was back in his substantial law practice in

Richmond; and Richmond was one of the very few other cities in America

in which a Charleston girl could contemplate existence without an

instinctive shudder of repulsion. Then there had been another change in

the little house, a sad one from which Saint’s mind still winced when

his thoughts touched it. Maum Netta had gone. Almost a year before,

when the carnage had been at its height, unknown, except in her tiny

orbit, the old woman had joined in the vast migration and answered

the call of the only voice that could proclaim her emancipation from

the Wentworth family. Now, try as he might, Saint could not become

accustomed to the crisp mulatto maid who had come to take her place.

But there were pleasant things to think about. There was the car to be

exhibited as a symbol of success and to serve when he went the rounds

of the several stores under his control. There also was his desk in

the main downtown office. These things meant the realisation of his

mother’s definitely patterned dream, and it was also beginning to mean

a great deal to him. He was now a gentleman with a Broad Street address

and an adequate income. Now he could think seriously about marriage,

and next week Valerie’s unit was due to sail from France.

* * * * *

Mamba sat in her window over the old carriage house in the rear of the

Atkinsons’ garden. About her everywhere the spring was busy with its

splendid occupation of the old city. At the pavement’s edge it had

captured a gnarled oak that had not yet waked from its winter sleep,

and had buried it beneath the headlong rush of a wistaria vine. Now,

from this vantage point, flying columns were being flung to right and

left to whelm the chrome and madder of a winter wall beneath invading

mauve and purple. During the night the wind had changed. It no longer

lashed in from the sea with its wintry tang of salt, but swept across

the city from the southwest in a broad languorous tide, heavy with

earthy smells from the waking sea islands. It was the season when youth

strains forward with racing pulses; when age, disturbed and saddened,

takes stock of the past and draws solace from such philosophy as the

years may have brought. With elbows on the sill and her face propped

between her palms, Mamba looked upon the alarming visage of spring with

an expression in which the spirit was still unvanquished but in which

fear was held at bay only by her old indomitable look of determination.

Under her feet the years were gathering speed alarmingly now. There

were black moments when she would wonder whether she had it in her

to hold on until Lissa could take care of herself and make her own

way in that strange new world of hers. The Atkinson children were

growing too, and no longer needed her care. But she had made no mistake

when she had elected the family as her white folk and bound them to

herself by an illusory mutual past. As the boy and girl achieved

emancipation from her watchful eyes and became absorbed by school,

athletics, and the social diversion of the ultra-social old city, she

felt herself gradually taking rank as a pensioner of the family. Now

the thousand-and-one odd jobs that had engaged her time when she first

insinuated herself into the lives of the Wentworths were again her lot.

She no longer carried the slipper bag to dances, for Jack, now a breezy

lad of seventeen, resplendent in his first dinner jacket, and his

sister, who was being beautifully finished at an expensive school, went

rolling out of the gate in the big new car that had come to live under

Mamba’s room in the old carriage house. But there were still shoes to

be shined, flowers to be found, and the front door to be tended on

Mrs. Atkinson’s afternoons. She knew that as long as she could hold

on, could successfully substitute the illusion of being valuable for

actual value, Lissa would fare well. Her large clean room over the

garage gave the girl a good home, and her white folks fed her, just

as they did Mamba, in their kitchen. But if she failed, now at this

most critical of all times for her grandchild, the girl would have no

claim on the Atkinsons--and her mother would be less than useless as a

guiding hand. Sometimes now on Sundays, after the long hot walk to meet

Hagar, there would be moments when she would forget names and faces and

the steady light of her purpose would be obscured by blowing mists.

Then she would summon her forces and pull her faculties together again,

but it was an effort that always left her shaken.

Had she spared herself in any particular in her sacrifices for Lissa,

her hardness to Hagar would have been quite without justification, but

she had given everything that she had looked forward to in her old age

for the girl, and so, as a matter of course, should the mother. When

Lissa reached the age of seventeen, so long had it been since she had

seen her mother that the figure had first grown vague and then been

remodelled in her imagination into at least partial conformity with her

new standards. To her friends Ma, who was now “Mamma,” was employed

“up state” and sent her the money for clothes, music, and all of the

things that enabled her to hold her head up in the Reformed Church set.

The girl’s voice was beginning to attract attention. She was doing

solos in church, and in programmes given at the new coloured Y. W. C.

A. rooms. In appearance she was unforgettable. A large girl for her

age, her figure was well developed and straight as an Indian’s, and

that almost obscured strain of Indian in Mamba had flared up in the

grandchild, as it so often will, and given her a skin of pale lustred

bronze through which the colour beat in her cheeks and her full-lipped

small mouth. Her hair, fine and straight, was worn after the fashion

of the Mona Lisa, and beneath it she held in reserve small close-set

ears, which, like her beautifully modelled hands, were a heritage

from her mother’s people. But her glory lay in her eyes, which under

stress of emotion would deepen and brighten until they glowed like

dark amber in sunlight. She had the negro’s faculty of giving her

whole being to an emotion, so that under stress every gesture became a

graphic interpretation, but her years of hard drilling in music, and

her teacher’s directions for posture and platform presence were in

danger of overdisciplining the emotions as well as the body. Her early

natural charm was becoming a studied attitude. Now, only when she was

singing for fun, as she would say, could she let herself go and forget

herself in music. But the cultivated air of well-bred restraint was the

charm that presently admitted her to the most exclusive circle of negro

society in the city.

Among the girls that she knew it was said by many that she was

hard--that what she wanted she took regardless of others. But in a set

rife with jealousies, and with her conspicuous attainments, talk of

this sort was no more than was to be expected.

In the old city that was so strong in its class consciousness among

the whites it was singular that there was so little realisation of the

fact, that, across the colour line, there existed much the same state

of affairs. There were, in the opinion of most of the white residents,

two general classes of negroes--those who knew their place, and those

who did not--and of late years the latter class was drawing upon the

former in lamentably large numbers. If they thought at all of the

innumerable distinct segments that comprised negro society it was apt

to be with mild and, on the whole, indulgent amusement. For it was

well known that the sharp cleavages between full-blooded negroes and

mulattoes, between the waning power of the ministerial union and the

new secular leaders, the labour element and the young but powerful

business class, all served to make any dangerous concerted negro

movement improbable.

In the set in which Lissa moved she seldom met a full-blooded

negro--the barrier of mistrust and prejudice that rose between her

fellow members of the Reformed Church and Mamba’s friends on East Bay

was scarcely less formidable than that separating white from black.

The atmosphere that she breathed was that of the Victorian drawing

room. Music, which had always found a spontaneous outlet in the

spiritual and work chant, colour which was flung with a lavish hand

over house fronts and clashed and rang in the women’s dresses down in

the waterfront district, had, in that rarer air, become “culture,”

and found expression in the Monday Night Music Club, and exhibitions

of paintings. The untrammelled hilarity and broad humour of Mamba’s

friends was here muted to the restrained mirth of the late ’nineties.

The pendulum had swung with a vengeance and was then at the limit of

its range. Far above, in the life of the aristocracy, the new freedom

was beginning to be manifest, smashing conventional usage; talking its

Freud and Jung--rearranging moral standards, and explaining lapses in

its pat psychoanalytical jargon. But in the Monday Night Music Club

ladies were ladies, those who were pale enough blushed, a leg was still

a limb--and gentlemen asked permission to smoke cigarettes.

It was all a little absurd, one might say--copybook gentility with

its middle-class taboos and reticences. Neither the one thing nor the

other in the amazing old city of colourful extremes on the one hand and

interesting tradition on the other. But it must always be remembered

as a beginning. It was establishing standards, putting a premium on

chastity. Drawing-room pioneers, perhaps, but adventurers none the

less, and leading the way into a terrain that was new and strange.

* * * * *

The Monday Night Club held its meeting at the home of Thomas Broaden,

a fine old frame building of the conventional Charleston type with

piazzas along its south façade, overlooking a square of garden on upper

Coming Street.

Seen about the street Broaden was an inconspicuous figure, of middle

height and age and light in colour. He habitually wore a soft felt

hat pulled well down over his eyes, and always walked, although he

was known to be exceedingly well-to-do, and a number of his friends

now owned machines. In his office of the new negro bank, however,

and facing a caller across his desk, he emerged as an individual.

Immediately one would notice the high broad structure of the forehead

and the deep thoughtful eyes. Mrs. Broaden was a perfect partner--small

and delicately made, she carried her fifty years as though they were

thirty and managed the home with that consummate skill which conceals

itself in its work and gives an effect of effortlessness and ease. Both

Mary and Thomas Broaden had taken degrees, but his was from Tuskegee,

while she was a graduate of Howard University.

On the first night that Lissa attended a meeting of the club, such was

her eagerness that she was the first member to arrive at the Broaden

residence. Her hostess greeted her affectionately. “I am so glad that

you have come early,” she exclaimed. “Now I’ll have a chance to make

you feel at home before the others arrive.” Explaining that her husband

had been detained at the bank, she took the girl by the hand and led

her over the lower floor of the house, through large, high-ceilinged

rooms in which periods gave the impression of being superimposed

upon each other like geological strata--red plush--horsehair--down

to several pieces of beautiful old Hepplewhite and Chippendale--for

the Broadens had always been free negroes, and some of the furniture

had been in the family for more than a century. Lissa was amazed at

all that she saw and heard. Here was a life among her own people that

she never knew existed. Finally her hostess stopped before a picture.

It exhibited a group of mansions on East Battery at the time of the

earthquake, porticos down, and great fissures zigzagging across the

walls. She spoke of it sadly as one might of a friend who has received

a hurt.

“Say,” said Lissa with a note of surprise, “you really love this old

town, don’t you?”

“Why not?” she replied with a smile. “It’s home.”

“That’s funny: most of the crowd in the choir and at the Y. talk of

nothing now but a chance to go to New York. That’s where the money is

these days--that’s where coloured people have a chance.”

“I wonder,” said Mary Broaden wistfully; then, with a kind earnestness,

added, “You mustn’t say coloured people, my dear--that doesn’t mean

anything--Japanese, Indian--all are coloured. You are a negro--doesn’t

it make you proud to say it?”

Lissa looked at her closely to see whether she was serious.

“No,” she replied; “my friends don’t like that word. It’s a new idea,

being proud of it.”

Her hostess gave a light indulgent laugh and patted her on the

shoulder. “I am glad that you didn’t wait to say that when the others

are here. Frank North, for one, would have withered you with a look.”

“Frank North?”

“Yes; he’s the painter, you know--and he plays the violin too.”

* * * * *

There was a sharp ring at the bell. Mrs. Broaden stepped to the door

and opened it. From the drawing room Lissa heard several voices

pleasantly blended in a composite greeting. Then they drew apart and

she distinguished a suave low-pitched man’s voice, a higher one with a

bright vital quality that she decided must belong to the artist, and

several women’s voices still interwoven in talk.

When they entered, the owner of the higher man’s voice was at once

presented, confirming her guess as to his identity. He was pale and

slender, with an eager look in his sensitive face. Not more than

twenty, Lissa thought as he held out his hand. Bowing slightly from

the hips, he said, “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss

Atkinson.”

Nella Taylor, her music teacher, was there, and she put her arm around

the girl’s waist and faced the others. “This is my star pupil,” she

said, “and we’re going to give you a treat this evening--aren’t we,

Lissa?”

She felt by the sudden stiffening of the girl that she was embarrassed,

and she hurried on with the introductions. They proved to be an

interesting group. There was Dr. Vincent, a short motherly woman in

late middle life, a graduate of a Northern university who had turned

her back on a promising practice in a large city above the line and had

come back home to the old town to work at a minimum income among the

women and children of her own race.

The owner of the deep, suave voice proved to be Frederick Gerideau, a

contractor and builder who was an authority on colonial architecture

and who had restored most of the old dwellings in the lower part of the

city. He placed a ’cello on the sofa and greeted the girl warmly.

Gardinia Whitmore Lissa already knew--she was the soprano in the

Reformed Church choir, a large girl with a magnificent voice and a

bold mulatto beauty that she flaunted like a battle flag. Lissa liked

Gardinia, and her youth and obvious good-fellowship helped her to feel

at ease in an atmosphere that was commencing to have an overpowering

effect upon her.

They fell into groups, standing about in the large rooms. Others

entered: the secretary of the Y. W. C. A. and a young social worker

from the new civic bureau; both were young mulatto women, and both

exhibited the flawless approach of the trained worker.

In spite of the fact that Lissa was standing with her teacher, to whom

she was devoted, and young North, who was obviously interested in her,

she found herself talking in a constrained half whisper. She felt as

though they were all playing parts and that she alone was not letter

perfect.

North said, “I heard you sing the aria the other night at the Y.

concert and have been wanting to congratulate you. The performance was

entrancing.”

She could only manage an embarrassed “Thank you very much.” Then was

relieved to see that the performers were gathering at the piano. One of

the young women was playing first violin, North second. Gerideau seated

himself with his ’cello against his knee, and Miss Taylor was at the

piano.

“Shall we start with Beethoven?” she inquired with a crisp professional

accent. “How about the ‘Moonlight Sonata’?”

There was a turning of sheets on the stands--silence--then they

launched into an excellent rendition of the piece. Lissa could see

that they were all highly trained musicians, and that technically the

performance was of a very high order. But they played with their eyes

on the notes, and instead of releasing the music that was prisoned

there to fill the room with its magic, they seemed to hold the

performance down to a technical demonstration.

Some one asked for Chopin, and Miss Taylor beckoned to Lissa. The girl

rose unhesitatingly and crossed the room. Her teacher had been drilling

her in the fifth nocturne, and she felt confident of her ability to

acquit herself well. The piece was open, ready. She made a striking

picture seated before the grand piano.

“Ready?” she asked, then, after a moment, commenced to play. She knew

the nocturne by heart, and she loved it, but there was something in the

air about her that kept her from throwing herself into it. This wasn’t

playing for fun. There was a weighty seriousness about it. She found

herself, like the others, reading the page, desperately intent on a

finished technical performance, thinking with an intensity that almost

hurt, conscious of notes--notes. Bound together by the relentless

exactitude of the score they advanced toward its conclusion with a

precision that evoked a round of applause. Later Lissa sang Gounod’s

“Serenade,” and although it was enthusiastically received she knew that

the restraint under which she laboured had rendered it a colourless

performance.

Mrs. Broaden called the girl to her and made a place on the sofa beside

her.

“We shall be very proud of you some day, my dear,” she said. “You have

genius, and we will all be telling that we knew you when you were a

young girl.”

Some one suggested spirituals. Lissa had learned dozens of them from

Mamba, and still sang them with the old woman in their room. She saw

the ice breaking at last and rose impulsively. “Oh, do let’s sing

them,” she cried. “Do you know ‘Play On Your Harp, Little David’?”

“You will find the Burleigh arrangements at the back of the piano,

Nella,” Mrs. Broaden called. “There is a quartette of ‘Swing Low, Sweet

Chariot’ that is quite charming.”

North, Gerideau, and two of the young women took the parts, and Miss

Taylor accompanied.

Lissa took a seat beside her hostess and told herself quite positively

that she was realising a cherished ambition, that this life was

the thing that she most greatly desired, and, finally, almost

argumentatively, that she was enjoying the evening immensely. She

wondered about the others. They were so different from her childhood

associates. What were they thinking, feeling, behind their drawing-room

reserve? North, for instance. She raised her eyes and met his

singularly intense, bright gaze. It gave her a faint pleasurable shock,

and for a moment they sat with the breadth of the room between them,

and a tingling sense of each other’s presence bridging the distance,

drawing them subtly together. Then he smiled and dropped his eyes to

the music. Lissa’s face grew hot, she looked quickly away and noticed

Gardinia Whitmore observing her with open and mocking amusement.

Gardinia was seated alone in a shadowed corner and with her full,

dark body held in forced inertia seemed literally to smoulder in the

gloom. But her smile was not only for Lissa, the girl noticed. From

her retreat it took in all of them one by one. There could be no doubt

about it--she was deliberately laughing at them all. The eyes of the

two girls met, Gardinia’s openly inviting Lissa to share her amusement.

For a fraction of a second there was an instinctive response, then

Lissa’s look changed. It became deliberately unresponsive, obtuse,

ranging her definitely on the defensive and with the club. What right

had Gardinia Whitmore to be pretending a superiority? she thought

angrily. She was lucky to have been taken up by them. She ought to be

thanking her stars.

When the music ceased Mrs. Broaden smiled upon Lissa.

“You see, my dear,” she said, “what our race is accomplishing

artistically--when we have Burleigh, a poet like Paul Laurence Dunbar,

and in painting, Tanner, to speak for us, we have something to be proud

of; and, by the way, you must ask Frank to tell you about Tanner. He

has some photographic reproductions of his pictures, I believe.”

They lingered awhile over ice cream and cakes, and then, to her relief,

the girl found herself out under soft spring stars with the April

night cool against her face. North had asked to see her home, and they

took their way downtown through the deserted streets. Lissa sighed and

stretched her arms in a wide and deliberately undignified gesture.

Then she stole a glance at her companion. He seemed to have brought

the atmosphere of the room with him, and was regarding her with polite

inquiry in his face.

She said, “If I ask you a straight question, will you give me a

straight answer?”

“Why, of course,” he assured her.

“This evening--was that your idea of a good time?”

North was mildly shocked. “I thought the evening was a great success,”

he said on a note of reproof. “What’s your idea of a good time?”

“Oh, I don’t know--I thought I’d rather sing than anything else, but it

doesn’t seem to be the fun that it used to. Don’t let’s talk about it

any more. Tell me about yourself and who was it?--oh, yes, Tanner.”

“You know his work?” he said eagerly, taking up the end of her request

first. Then, without waiting for an affirmative, he plunged into a

description of the artist’s triumphs and methods.

Lissa was sorry that she had started him, it kept the drawing-room

atmosphere tagging along with them. When he paused she asked, “Now tell

me about yourself.”

“Oh, there isn’t much to tell,” and she was relieved to notice that he

was embarrassed. “Graduated from Avery here in town and Dad gave me two

years in an art school in New York. Now I am going in for portraiture.

I want to paint my own people, and they are good about sitting for me.”

Their way had led them through wide unpaved back streets under large

shade trees. A faint air smelling of the sea moved through the young

leaves and made them whisper. At a far street intersection a big

double-truck trolley passed. Lissa heard the clank-clank--clank-clank

and the hum of the motors as it drew away in the distance. Then she

became cognizant of another sound: the unmistakable rhythm of a

spiritual. “Where is that coming from?” she asked.

“I believe I heard that a church near the jail was having a revival

this week,” he said without interest. “We can go that way if you want,”

and he turned into a dark and rather forbidding byway.

Beyond her Lissa saw the menacing battlemented tower of the jail

against the soft stars. Soon they arrived at the church, a small frame

building behind a fence of whitewashed palings. The door and windows

were wide to the spring night, and the building was jammed with black

humanity. The service was well advanced, and the congregation was

swaying to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” This was not the Burleigh

arrangement. Thought had little to do with this performance. The

air rocked to a deep solid chorus, yet a chorus of individuals each

creating his own part--shaving harmonies with fractional notes so fine

and so spontaneous that no written page could ever capture and prison

the sound.

Lissa gripped the palings with her hands. She was trembling with

excitement. “There,” she said, “that’s what I mean. They’re having fun

when they sing. They don’t care whether the notes are right or not.

They are just naturally cutting loose, can’t you feel the difference?”

The rhythm beat in waves against the soft spring night--the air was

heady with the faint, indefinable, yet intoxicating odour of untamed

bodies rocking in a close mass, one with the song that they were

creating.

North’s voice, held on a deliberately casual note, cut across the

music. “Oh, that’s all right for these ignorant negroes, I suppose, but

where’d we be if we stopped at that? We’ve got to go beyond it. We’re

living in a civilised community.”

“Oh, hell!” the girl cried, “forget it, will you?” She caught him by

the arm and urged him forward. He was so amazed at the change in her

that he went a step before he collected himself. Then he stopped and

looked at her. But she kept on tugging at his arm and pleaded, “Oh,

let’s step in and cut loose just once--listen to that,” and she started

to hum the tune. “How can you stand there like a dummy with a chance to

sing like that?”

She felt his arm relax for a moment in her fingers. “Good boy,” she

said, “here we go.”

Suddenly he pulled back sharply. “No,” he said sternly. “It won’t

do--we’ve got to get away from here. I must get you home. This isn’t

our sort of crowd, and we must stand for something, you know. Think

what Mrs. Broaden would say if she heard that we were seen at a

revival--shouting our heads off with a lot of dirty negroes.”

He took her firmly by the arm and was surprised at her sudden and

complete capitulation. She turned away and walked without a word by his

side. Only a few more steps and they were passing the jail. Above them

the high buttressed wall soared, cutting the sky away almost to the

zenith, and above the wall the loom of the battlemented tower hanging

dizzily in sharp outline against the milky way.

Lissa looked up, and the black wall seemed to swoop forward and hang

poised above them. The night was suddenly dank with the suffering of

the thousands who had lain there in the cages--slaves, freemen, her own

people. Her mother’s face sprang vividly up before her, and she thought

that she must go to see her with Mamba next Sunday morning.

Then they were under a bleary gas lamp. She had not said a word since

leaving the church, and now North looked at her curiously. “Why, you’re

crying,” he exclaimed. “What in the world’s the matter?”

“I am lonely,” she said in a trembling voice. “I’m the loneliest girl

in the world, I reckon. Just let’s hurry, please: I want to get home.”

* * * * *

But the following Sunday found Lissa at church as usual, where she had

a small solo part in the offertory selection. She had forgotten all

about it that night when she had that strange brain-storm near the

jail and had decided to cut church and go to see her mother. She would

go some time, of course, but this was her career. Mamba said that her

mother would be the last person to want her to miss an opportunity to

sing.

The solo went well, she did not feel the restraint in church that she

had experienced at the Broadens, and she let herself go into the music.

Everybody spoke about it when service was over and the congregation

went streaming out into the spring sunshine. Absurd, that fancy of hers

that she was lonely. Why, no girl ever had more friends.

North came and asked her to join a party that was going to his studio

to see his pictures, and she found herself stepping into a closed

car with several well-dressed men and women. North introduced her to

Mrs. Prescott, and then, with punctilious observance of the social

code, presented Mr. Prescott to her. His introductions were always

ceremonious.

The Prescotts occupied the front seat, and the man’s large, faultlessly

gloved hands lay in an attitude of easy familiarity upon the wheel.

Lissa had never touched such luxury before. The handsomely dressed

woman gave her a welcoming smile over a cloudy fur collar. The car

exhaled a faint but pervasive violet perfume.

North and Lissa crowded into the rear seat with another young couple,

and while the car glided smoothly over the asphalt he told her how

their hosts had made their money. Prescott had started out as a

carpenter, then climbed into a small contracting business, and now

owned several blocks of negro tenant houses which yielded him a

handsome income. They had just returned from a visit to New York where

they had heard Roland Hayes in a recital, and had seen Paul Robeson in

an O’Neill play, and North asked Mrs. Prescott to tell them about it.

Lissa listened greedily while she told of the successes of the new

negro artists, and the life in Harlem with the theatres and concert

halls, its dances, and its emerging intellectual group.

“Some day I am going there to have my try,” the girl said with flashing

eyes.

“Of course you are, my dear,” Mrs. Prescott assured her; “you can’t

bury a voice like yours here forever, you know.”

North pressed her arm and smiled. “That’s what I’ve been telling her,”

he said, “but she wouldn’t believe me.”

The studio was a large airy second-story room, and a number of

portraits were already hung, while many more were stacked against the

walls. The group scattered, examining the paintings and exclaiming

over them. Lissa was left standing alone before two portraits, a man

and a woman in middle life. Then she recognised them as the Broadens.

She wondered why she had been so slow in knowing them. The likenesses

were good, she could see that the features were those of her host and

hostess of a few nights ago. What was the difference? She turned and

examined other portraits that hung near, puzzling out the problem as

she looked from one to another. Then in a swift revealing moment she

had the answer. In spite of the fact that the drawing was well done and

the features characteristically negro, they gave an effect of not being

negroes at all, but white people painted in darker shades--some subtle

racial element was lacking. While she pondered, this inexplicable lack

commenced to associate itself with other impressions in her mind--the

Broadens’ drawing room, the music that she had heard there that night.

North came and stood beside her, looking eagerly at her face for her

verdict. She tried to find words for her inchoate impressions.

“I can see you know a heap about painting. Those pictures are just like

Mr. and Mrs. Broaden, only they don’t look just like coloured people

and the Broadens do.” North was slightly dashed in spirit. “That’s a

matter of artistic technique,” he explained. “You learn to paint in

the academy by a certain method, a method that has been used by great

artists, then you apply that technique to your own subjects. After all,

if the pictures look like them, that’s about all that we can do, isn’t

it?”

The girl noticed a defensive tone in his voice and hastened to reassure

him. “Oh, I think they’re fine. And I know what you mean about

technique. It’s the same with music. You are awfully smart to catch

them so well.”

They were joined by Mrs. Prescott, and the girl returned at once to the

subject of New York.

“I wish you’d tell me some more about the coloured people up North,”

she begged.

“Certainly, my dear. And Frank must listen too. Things have changed

a lot even in the three years since he has been there.” She stepped

between the young people and slipped her arms through theirs. “Come and

sit down,” she said. “Frank can leave his pictures to entertain his

guests for him. That’s the good of being a painter.”

“Those men you told me about. Do white people go to hear them sing?”

Lissa asked.