_Dark Secrets_
Some of the folks which has been following our experiences, as I has
wrote them down, might think it was my bounden duty to go straight-away
to Mr. Dallas and promulgate to him these here remarks which I hears
pass betwixt Mr. H. C. Raynor and the permanent-wavy lady on that Sunday
night six weeks ago, coming back from our week-end in the country. But I
does not by no means see my way clear to doing so. In the first place, I
ain't never been what you might call a professional promulgator. In the
second place, I figures the time ain't ripe to start in telling what I
believes and what I suspicions. In the third place, I don't know yet if
it ever will be ripe.
Some white folks, seems like, is just naturally beset with a craving to
bust into colored folkses' business and try for to run their personal
affairs for 'em. Mr. Dallas, he is not gaited that way in no particular
whatsoever; him having been born and raised South and naturally knowing
better anyhow; but some I might mention is. Still, and even so, most
white folks don't care deeply for anybody at all, much less it's
somebody which is colored, to be telling 'em onpleasant and onwelcome
tidings. And he is white and I is black--and there you is!
Another way I looks at it is this way: There's a whole heap of white
folks, mainly Northerners, which thinks that because us black folks
talks loud and laughs a-plenty in public that we ain't got no secret
feelings of our own; they thinks we is ready and willing at all times to
just blab all we knows into the first white ear that passes by. Which I
reckon that is one of the most monstrous mistakes in natural history
that ever was. You take a black boy which he working for a white family.
Being on close relations that-a-way with 'em he's bound to know
everything they does--what they is thinking about, what-all they hopes
and what-all they fears. But does they, for their part, know anything
about how he acts amongst his own race? I'll say contrary! They maybe
might think they knows but you take it from J. Poindexter they
positively does not do nothing of the kind. All what they gleans about
him--his real inside emotions, I means--is exactly what he's willing for
'em to glean; that and no more. And usually that ain't so much.
Yes sir, the run of colored folks is much more secretious than what the
run of the white folks give 'em credit for. I reckon they has been made
so. In times past they has met up with so many white folks which taken
the view that everything black men and black women done in their lodges
or their churches or amongst their own color was something to joke about
and poke fun at. Now, you take me. I is perfectly willing to laugh with
the white folks and I can laugh to order for 'em, if the occasion
appears suitable, but I is not filled up with no deep yearnings to have
'em laughing at me and my private doings. 'Specially if it's strange
white folks.
Furthermore there's this about it: I've taken due notice that, whites
and blacks alike, pretty near anybody will resent your coming to 'em on
your own say-so and telling 'em right out of a clear sky that they is
making a grievous big mistake in doing this or that. If they themselves
takes the lead--if they seeks you out of their own accord and says to
you, confidential-like, they is in a peck of trouble and craves to know
how they is going to get out from under the load--why, that's different.
Then you can step in, in friendship's name, and do your best to help 'em
unravel the tangle which they has got themselves snarled up in it. If
you asks me, I would say that advice gets a heap warmer welcome where
you goes hunting for it than where it comes hunting for you. And,
likewise, sympathy is something which you appreciates all the more if
you went out shopping for it yourself. You don't want it to come
knocking at the door like one of these here old peddlers taking orders
for enlarging crayon portraits and forcing its way right into your
fireside circle whether or no, and camping there in your lap.
Moreover, speaking in particular of our own case, what right has I got
to be intimating to Mr. Dallas my private beliefs about the private
characters of this here brisk crowd which he has gone and got so thick
with since we arrived here on the scene? Right from the first I has had
my own personal convictions about the set he's in with. I has made up my
mind that they ain't the genuine real quality; that they is just a
slicked-up, highly-polished imitation of the real quality; that they
ain't doing things so much as they is overdoing 'em. The way I looks at
it, they bears the same relation to regulation high-toney folks which a
tin minnow does to sure-enough live bait. You maybe might fool a fish
with it but you couldn't fool the world at large for so very long. And
as for me, I ain't been fooled at all, not at no time. But I naturally
can't go stating my presenterments to Mr. Dallas without he the same as
practically invites me first for to do so. Now, can I? But if he finds
it out for himself and approaches me, that's a roan horse of another
color.
So the above reasons is why I is at present keeping my mouth shut in
front of him about what concerns him solely. Besides, so many things
continues to happen from day to day here in New York it keeps me right
busy just staying up with the procession and not overlooking the stray
bets. For instances, now, there's my moving-picture scheme which I
thinks up out of my own head and which promises to turn out mighty
profitable if everything goes well.