I
I know that in writing the following pages I am divulging the great
secret of my life, the secret which for some years I have guarded far
more carefully than any of my earthly possessions; and it is a curious
study to me to analyze the motives which prompt me to do it. I feel
that I am led by the same impulse which forces the un-found-out
criminal to take somebody into his confidence, although he knows that
the act is likely, even almost certain, to lead to his undoing. I know
that I am playing with fire, and I feel the thrill which accompanies
that most fascinating pastime; and, back of it all, I think I find
a sort of savage and diabolical desire to gather up all the little
tragedies of my life, and turn them into a practical joke on society.
And, too, I suffer a vague feeling of unsatisfaction, of regret, of
almost remorse, from which I am seeking relief, and of which I shall
speak in the last paragraph of this account.
I was born in a little town of Georgia a few years after the close of
the Civil War. I shall not mention the name of the town, because
there are people still living there who could be connected with this
narrative. I have only a faint recollection of the place of my birth.
At times I can close my eyes and call up in a dreamlike way things
that seem to have happened ages ago in some other world. I can see in
this half vision a little house--I am quite sure it was not a large
one--I can remember that flowers grew in the front yard, and that
around each bed of flowers was a hedge of vari-colored glass bottles
stuck in the ground neck down. I remember that once, while playing
around in the sand, I became curious to know whether or not the
bottles grew as the flowers did, and I proceeded to dig them up to
find out; the investigation brought me a terrific spanking, which
indelibly fixed the incident in my mind. I can remember, too, that
behind the house was a shed under which stood two or three wooden
wash-tubs. These tubs were the earliest aversion of my life, for
regularly on certain evenings I was plunged into one of them and
scrubbed until my skin ached. I can remember to this day the pain
caused by the strong, rank soap's getting into my eyes.
Back from the house a vegetable garden ran, perhaps seventy-five
or one hundred feet; but to my childish fancy it was an endless
territory. I can still recall the thrill of joy, excitement, and
wonder it gave me to go on an exploring expedition through it, to find
the blackberries, both ripe and green, that grew along the edge of the
fence.
I remember with what pleasure I used to arrive at, and stand before, a
little enclosure in which stood a patient cow chewing her cud, how I
would occasionally offer her through the bars a piece of my bread and
molasses, and how I would jerk back my hand in half fright if she made
any motion to accept my offer.
I have a dim recollection of several people who moved in and about
this little house, but I have a distinct mental image of only two:
one, my mother; and the other, a tall man with a small, dark mustache.
I remember that his shoes or boots were always shiny, and that he wore
a gold chain and a great gold watch with which he was always willing
to let me play. My admiration was almost equally divided between the
watch and chain and the shoes. He used to come to the house evenings,
perhaps two or three times a week; and it became my appointed duty
whenever he came to bring him a pair of slippers and to put the shiny
shoes in a particular corner; he often gave me in return for this
service a bright coin, which my mother taught me to promptly drop in
a little tin bank. I remember distinctly the last time this tall man
came to the little house in Georgia; that evening before I went to
bed he took me up in his arms and squeezed me very tightly; my mother
stood behind his chair wiping tears from her eyes. I remember how I
sat upon his knee and watched him laboriously drill a hole through a
ten-dollar gold piece, and then tie the coin around my neck with a
string. I have worn that gold piece around my neck the greater part of
my life, and still possess it, but more than once I have wished that
some other way had been found of attaching it to me besides putting a
hole through it.
On the day after the coin was put around my neck my mother and I
started on what seemed to me an endless journey. I knelt on the seat
and watched through the train window the corn and cotton fields pass
swiftly by until I fell asleep. When I fully awoke, we were being
driven through the streets of a large city--Savannah. I sat up and
blinked at the bright lights. At Savannah we boarded a steamer which
finally landed us in New York. From New York we went to a town in
Connecticut, which became the home of my boyhood.
My mother and I lived together in a little cottage which seemed to
me to be fitted up almost luxuriously; there were horse-hair-covered
chairs in the parlor, and a little square piano; there was a stairway
with red carpet on it leading to a half second story; there were
pictures on the walls, and a few books in a glass-doored case. My
mother dressed me very neatly, and I developed that pride which
well-dressed boys generally have. She was careful about my associates,
and I myself was quite particular. As I look back now I can see that I
was a perfect little aristocrat. My mother rarely went to anyone's
house, but she did sewing, and there were a great many ladies coming
to our cottage. If I was around they would generally call me, and ask
me my name and age and tell my mother what a pretty boy I was. Some of
them would pat me on the head and kiss me.
My mother was kept very busy with her sewing; sometimes she would have
another woman helping her. I think she must have derived a fair income
from her work. I know, too, that at least once each month she received
a letter; I used to watch for the postman, get the letter, and run
to her with it; whether she was busy or not, she would take it and
instantly thrust it into her bosom. I never saw her read one of these
letters. I knew later that they contained money and what was to
her more than money. As busy as she generally was, she found time,
however, to teach me my letters and figures and how to spell a number
of easy words. Always on Sunday evenings she opened the little square
piano and picked out hymns. I can recall now that whenever she
played hymns from the book her _tempo_ was always decidedly _largo_.
Sometimes on other evenings, when she was not sewing, she would play
simple accompaniments to some old Southern songs which she sang. In
these songs she was freer, because she played them by ear. Those
evenings on which she opened the little piano were the happiest hours
of my childhood. Whenever she started toward the instrument, I used to
follow her with all the interest and irrepressible joy that a pampered
pet dog shows when a package is opened in which he knows there is a
sweet bit for him. I used to stand by her side and often interrupt and
annoy her by chiming in with strange harmonies which I found on either
the high keys of the treble or the low keys of the bass. I remember
that I had a particular fondness for the black keys. Always on such
evenings, when the music was over, my mother would sit with me in her
arms, often for a very long time. She would hold me close, softly
crooning some old melody without words, all the while gently stroking
her face against my head; many and many a night I thus fell asleep. I
can see her now, her great dark eyes looking into the fire, to where?
No one knew but her. The memory of that picture has more than once
kept me from straying too far from the place of purity and safety in
which her arms held me.
At a very early age I began to thump on the piano alone, and it was
not long before I was able to pick out a few tunes. When I was seven
years old, I could play by ear all of the hymns and songs that my
mother knew. I had also learned the names of the notes in both clefs,
but I preferred not to be hampered by notes. About this time several
ladies for whom my mother sewed heard me play and they persuaded her
that I should at once be put under a teacher; so arrangements were
made for me to study the piano with a lady who was a fairly good
musician; at the same time arrangements were made for me to study
my books with this lady's daughter. My music teacher had no small
difficulty at first in pinning me down to the notes. If she played my
lesson over for me, I invariably attempted to reproduce the required
sounds without the slightest recourse to the written characters. Her
daughter, my other teacher, also had her worries. She found that, in
reading, whenever I came to words that were difficult or unfamiliar,
I was prone to bring my imagination to the rescue and read from
the picture. She has laughingly told me, since then, that I would
sometimes substitute whole sentences and even paragraphs from what
meaning I thought the illustrations conveyed. She said she not only
was sometimes amused at the fresh treatment I would give an author's
subject, but, when I gave some new and sudden turn to the plot of the
story, often grew interested and even excited in listening to hear
what kind of a denouement I would bring about. But I am sure this was
not due to dullness, for I made rapid progress in both my music and my
books.
And so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and
my school books. Music took up the greater part of my time. I had
no playmates, but amused myself with games--some of them my own
invention--which could be played alone. I knew a few boys whom I had
met at the church which I attended with my mother, but I had formed no
close friendships with any of them. Then, when I was nine years old,
my mother decided to enter me in the public school, so all at once I
found myself thrown among a crowd of boys of all sizes and kinds;
some of them seemed to me like savages. I shall never forget the
bewilderment, the pain, the heart-sickness, of that first day at
school. I seemed to be the only stranger in the place; every other boy
seemed to know every other boy. I was fortunate enough, however, to be
assigned to a teacher who knew me; my mother made her dresses. She was
one of the ladies who used to pat me on the head and kiss me. She had
the tact to address a few words directly to me; this gave me a certain
sort of standing in the class and put me somewhat at ease.
Within a few days I had made one staunch friend and was on fairly good
terms with most of the boys. I was shy of the girls, and remained so;
even now a word or look from a pretty woman sets me all a-tremble.
This friend I bound to me with hooks of steel in a very simple way. He
was a big awkward boy with a face full of freckles and a head full of
very red hair. He was perhaps fourteen years of age; that is, four or
five years older than any other boy in the class. This seniority was
due to the fact that he had spent twice the required amount of time in
several of the preceding classes. I had not been at school many hours
before I felt that "Red Head"--as I involuntarily called him--and I
were to be friends. I do not doubt that this feeling was strengthened
by the fact that I had been quick enough to see that a big, strong boy
was a friend to be desired at a public school; and, perhaps, in spite
of his dullness, "Red Head" had been able to discern that I could
be of service to him. At any rate there was a simultaneous mutual
attraction.
The teacher had strung the class promiscuously around the walls of the
room for a sort of trial heat for places of rank; when the line was
straightened out, I found that by skillful maneuvering I had placed
myself third and had piloted "Red Head" to the place next to me. The
teacher began by giving us to spell the words corresponding to our
order in the line. "Spell _first_." "Spell _second_." "Spell _third_."
I rattled off: "T-h-i-r-d, third," in a way which said: "Why don't you
give us something hard?" As the words went down the line, I could see
how lucky I had been to get a good place together with an easy word.
As young as I was, I felt impressed with the unfairness of the whole
proceeding when I saw the tailenders going down before _twelfth_ and
_twentieth_, and I felt sorry for those who had to spell such words in
order to hold a low position. "Spell _fourth_." "Red Head," with his
hands clutched tightly behind his back, began bravely: "F-o-r-t-h."
Like a flash a score of hands went up, and the teacher began saying:
"No snapping of fingers, no snapping of fingers." This was the first
word missed, and it seemed to me that some of the scholars were about
to lose their senses; some were dancing up and down on one foot with a
hand above their heads, the fingers working furiously, and joy beaming
all over their faces; others stood still, their hands raised not so
high, their fingers working less rapidly, and their faces expressing
not quite so much happiness; there were still others who did not
move or raise their hands, but stood with great wrinkles on their
foreheads, looking very thoughtful.
The whole thing was new to me, and I did not raise my hand, but slyly
whispered the letter "u" to "Red Head" several times. "Second chance,"
said the teacher. The hands went down and the class became quiet. "Red
Head," his face now red, after looking beseechingly at the ceiling,
then pitiably at the floor, began very haltingly: "F-u--" Immediately
an impulse to raise hands went through the class, but the teacher
checked it, and poor "Red Head," though he knew that each letter he
added only took him farther out of the way, went doggedly on and
finished: "--r-t-h." The hand-raising was now repeated with more
hubbub and excitement than at first. Those who before had not moved a
finger were now waving their hands above their heads. "Red Head" felt
that he was lost. He looked very big and foolish, and some of the
scholars began to snicker. His helpless condition went straight to my
heart, and gripped my sympathies. I felt that if he failed, it would
in some way be my failure. I raised my hand, and, under cover of the
excitement and the teacher's attempts to regain order, I hurriedly
shot up into his ear twice, quite distinctly: "F-o-u-r-t-h,
f-o-u-r-t-h." The teacher tapped on her desk and said: "Third and last
chance." The hands came down, the silence became oppressive. "Red
Head" began: "F--" Since that day I have waited anxiously for many a
turn of the wheel of fortune, but never under greater tension than
when I watched for the order in which those letters would fall from
"Red's" lips--"o-u-r-t-h." A sigh of relief and disappointment went up
from the class. Afterwards, through all our school days, "Red Head"
shared my wit and quickness and I benefited by his strength and dogged
faithfulness.
There were some black and brown boys and girls in the school, and
several of them were in my class. One of the boys strongly attracted
my attention from the first day I saw him. His face was as black as
night, but shone as though it were polished; he had sparkling eyes,
and when he opened his mouth, he displayed glistening white teeth. It
struck me at once as appropriate to call him "Shiny Face," or "Shiny
Eyes," or "Shiny Teeth," and I spoke of him often by one of these
names to the other boys. These terms were finally merged into "Shiny,"
and to that name he answered good-naturedly during the balance of his
public school days.
"Shiny" was considered without question to be the best speller, the
best reader, the best penman--in a word, the best scholar, in the
class. He was very quick to catch anything, but, nevertheless, studied
hard; thus he possessed two powers very rarely combined in one boy. I
saw him year after year, on up into the high school, win the majority
of the prizes for punctuality, deportment, essay writing, and
declamation. Yet it did not take me long to discover that, in spite of
his standing as a scholar, he was in some way looked down upon.
The other black boys and girls were still more looked down upon. Some
of the boys often spoke of them as "niggers." Sometimes on the way
home from school a crowd would walk behind them repeating:
"_Nigger, nigger, never die,
Black face and shiny eye_."
On one such afternoon one of the black boys turned suddenly on his
tormentors and hurled a slate; it struck one of the white boys in the
mouth, cutting a slight gash in his lip. At sight of the blood the boy
who had thrown the slate ran, and his companions quickly followed.
We ran after them pelting them with stones until they separated in
several directions. I was very much wrought up over the affair, and
went home and told my mother how one of the "niggers" had struck a boy
with a slate. I shall never forget how she turned on me. "Don't you
ever use that word again," she said, "and don't you ever bother the
colored children at school. You ought to be ashamed of yourself." I
did hang my head in shame, not because she had convinced me that I had
done wrong, but because I was hurt by the first sharp word she had
ever given me.
My school days ran along very pleasantly. I stood well in my studies,
not always so well with regard to my behavior. I was never guilty
of any serious misconduct, but my love of fun sometimes got me into
trouble. I remember, however, that my sense of humor was so sly that
most of the trouble usually fell on the head of the other fellow. My
ability to play on the piano at school exercises was looked upon as
little short of marvelous in a boy of my age. I was not chummy with
many of my mates, but, on the whole, was about as popular as it is
good for a boy to be.
One day near the end of my second term at school the principal came
into our room and, after talking to the teacher, for some reason said:
"I wish all of the white scholars to stand for a moment." I rose with
the others. The teacher looked at me and, calling my name, said: "You
sit down for the present, and rise with the others." I did not quite
understand her, and questioned: "Ma'm?" She repeated, with a softer
tone in her voice: "You sit down now, and rise with the others." I sat
down dazed. I saw and heard nothing. When the others were asked to
rise, I did not know it. When school was dismissed, I went out in a
kind of stupor. A few of the white boys jeered me, saying: "Oh, you're
a nigger too." I heard some black children say: "We knew he was
colored." "Shiny" said to them: "Come along, don't tease him," and
thereby won my undying gratitude. I hurried on as fast as I could, and
had gone some distance before I perceived that "Red Head" was walking
by my side. After a while he said to me: "Le' me carry your books."
I gave him my strap without being able to answer. When we got to my
gate, he said as he handed me my books: "Say, you know my big red
agate? I can't shoot with it any more. I'm going to bring it to school
for you tomorrow." I took my books and ran into the house. As I passed
through the hallway, I saw that my mother was busy with one of her
customers; I rushed up into my own little room, shut the door, and
went quickly to where my looking-glass hung on the wall. For an
instant I was afraid to look, but when I did, I looked long and
earnestly. I had often heard people say to my mother: "What a pretty
boy you have!" I was accustomed to hear remarks about my beauty; but
now, for the first time, I became conscious of it and recognized it.
I noticed the ivory whiteness of my skin, the beauty of my mouth, the
size and liquid darkness of my eyes, and how the long, black lashes
that fringed and shaded them produced an effect that was strangely
fascinating even to me. I noticed the softness and glossiness of my
dark hair that fell in waves over my temples, making my forehead
appear whiter than it really was. How long I stood there gazing at
my image I do not know. When I came out and reached the head of the
stairs, I heard the lady who had been with my mother going out. I ran
downstairs and rushed to where my mother was sitting, with a piece
of work in her hands. I buried my head in her lap and blurted out:
"Mother, mother, tell me, am I a nigger?" I could not see her face,
but I knew the piece of work dropped to the floor and I felt her hands
on my head. I looked up into her face and repeated: "Tell me, mother,
am I a nigger?" There were tears in her eyes and I could see that she
was suffering for me. And then it was that I looked at her critically
for the first time. I had thought of her in a childish way only as the
most beautiful woman in the world; now I looked at her searching for
defects. I could see that her skin was almost brown, that her hair
was not so soft as mine, and that she did differ in some way from the
other ladies who came to the house; yet, even so, I could see that she
was very beautiful, more beautiful than any of them. She must have
felt that I was examining her, for she hid her face in my hair and
said with difficulty: "No, my darling, you are not a nigger." She went
on: "You are as good as anybody; if anyone calls you a nigger, don't
notice them." But the more she talked, the less was I reassured, and I
stopped her by asking: "Well, mother, am I white? Are you white?" She
answered tremblingly: "No, I am not white, but you--your father is one
of the greatest men in the country--the best blood of the South is in
you--" This suddenly opened up in my heart a fresh chasm of misgiving
and fear, and I almost fiercely demanded: "Who is my father? Where is
he?" She stroked my hair and said: "I'll tell you about him some day."
I sobbed: "I want to know now." She answered: "No, not now."
Perhaps it had to be done, but I have never forgiven the woman who
did it so cruelly. It may be that she never knew that she gave me a
sword-thrust that day in school which was years in healing.