[Illustration: Hazel]
HAZEL
BY
MARY WHITE OVINGTON
AUTHOR OF “HALF A MAN”
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_
BY
HARRY ROSELAND
CRISIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
26 VESEY STREET
NEW YORK
Copyright, 1913
BY
MARY WHITE OVINGTON
ROBERT N. WOOD,
PRINTER
202 East Ninety-ninth Street, New York
TO
E. D. M.
PREFACE
When I was a little girl, my favorite books dealt with children whose
lives were like my own. I smudged with many readings the pages that
told of Susy and Prudy and Dotty in Portland, of their visits to the
country, of their every-day happenings. Their adventures were far
dearer to me than those of foreign lads and lasses and richly clad
little princesses whose ways were not as my ways.
I have thought for some time that the colored children in the United
States might also like to have their intimate books telling of
happenings that were like their own. They must be tired of reading
always of far-away children. So, out of my years of experience among
these soft-eyed, velvet-cheeked small friends, I have written this
story.
I have purposely avoided dialect. Correct English spelling is difficult
enough to young readers without superimposing other forms for the
not too-familiar words. I have, however, tried to give the turn of
expression in the southern speech.
I hope my colored child friends will smudge my pages. And if the white
child stops to read, I trust that she will feel an awakened sympathy
for the dark-faced boys and girls whose world is outside her own.
M. W. O.
BROOKLYN, N. Y.,
_September 15, 1913_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE QUEEN OF SHEBA 7
II. HEALTH AND A DAY 20
III. LEAVE TAKING 30
IV. THE JOURNEY 41
V. GRANNY 54
VI. LETTERS 67
VII. THAT OLD TIME RELIGION 74
VIII. BROTHER AND SISTER 84
IX. LOST 98
X. SPRING 114
XI. CHOOSING A BIRTHDAY 125
XII. GOOD-BYE 139
XIII. HOME 153
HAZEL
CHAPTER I
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
It was raining, and Hazel Tyler had not been allowed to go out all day.
As she sat looking out of her window into the narrow Boston street she
would have made a pretty picture but for the woe-begone expression on
her brown face. Her hair was soft and curly, her eyes dark and clear,
her mouth full, but delicate. Usually it was happy in expression; but
this afternoon it drooped at the corners. Four o’clock! Two hours more
before supper. Oh, this stupid, stupid Saturday!
She got up and walked from the tiny parlor, where she had been sitting,
into a tiny bedroom where a large baby doll lay on the bed she and her
mother shared. Hazel took the doll up, shook it severely, and put it
down again. She was growing to care very little for dolls; they were
not warm and dimpled and you had to do all the talking for them. She
left the tiny bedroom and stepped into a tiny kitchen thus making the
tour of the apartment.
“Mother,” she said to a slender woman who stood at an ironing-board,
“may I go around and play with the McGinnis’s baby? It’s such a little
way.”
Mrs. Tyler looked up. Her face like Hazel’s was gentle and delicate,
but the features were finer and the skin lighter in shade. She was
ironing an elaborate pink tea gown, and she seemed ill-fitted for such
taxing work.
“No, Hazel,” she replied. “I’ve told you that you can’t go out in the
rain while you have a cold. There is no use in teasing.”
Hazel knew this to be true, and for a time was silent, watching her
mother. She ran her slender finger along the tucks of the pink gown.
“What pretty clothes Mrs. Hollingsworth always has,” she said. “I wish
I could have something pretty. I’ve nothing to wear but this blue
serge.”
Hazel’s mother looked at her a second and the child felt abashed.
She knew very well that since her father’s death--her dear, dear
father--her mother had had to support them both, and how hard she had
worked at whatever would bring in money--at sewing, hairdressing, and
even this tiring laundry. She knew, too, that when the rent was paid,
and the grocer’s and butcher’s bills settled, the little money left
went first to her and her wants. Why, only last week she had had pretty
hair ribbons; and her mother’s black dress was growing shabby. She bent
over and kissed the hand that was patting the pink wrapper into place.
“I’ll go into the parlor and make my picture-puzzle,” she said.
“That’s right, dear,” Mrs. Tyler answered.
The little girl worked for a time at the elaborate puzzle spread out
on the parlor table; but its green trees were perplexing, and she soon
returned to the kitchen to find the pink dress finished and on the top
of a pile of speckless linen in the laundry basket. Her mother stood
with hat and coat on.
“I’m going to run out to make sure that John comes to-night to get the
clothes,” Mrs. Tyler said. “Now, don’t look so woe-begone, dear. I’ll
cook waffles for supper, and we’ll have the maple syrup that Mrs. Brown
brought us from the country.”
Hazel’s face brightened. “May we eat off the pretty china?” she asked.
“Yes, you may set the table with it when I get back.” And Mrs. Tyler
went out into the narrow hall, down the dark stairs and into the narrow
street.
She could hardly have reached the corner when Hazel heard a knock at
the door, and opened it to a little black girl who at once stepped
gaily into the room.
“Where you been all day, Hazel?” she asked.
She was a jolly little girl of ten, a year younger than Hazel, with
plump arms and legs and a sturdy body. Her crinkly hair was tied with
a bright red ribbon, and she wore a gay bandanna about her neck. Her
black eyes shone with good will.
“How do you do, Charity?” Hazel said, a little hesitatingly.
She liked this new neighbor and had played with her the rare afternoons
that she had been allowed on the street; but she knew her mother
scarcely approved of Charity. But then her mother did not approve of
any of the girls and boys on Hammond Street and one must play with some
one.
“Your mother’s out,” said Charity. “I know, for I saw her go. Where you
been all day, Hazel?”
“Here at home,” Hazel answered. “I’ve got a sore throat, and I’m not
allowed to go out, and there’s nothing to do in this poky place.”
“Let’s play,” said Charity, “you shut your eyes and I’ll hide.”
“Pooh,” Hazel replied contemptuously, “you know, Charity, there isn’t a
single place here big enough for a cat to hide in.”
“Well, let’s, let’s,” Charity looked about for inspiration, and her
glance fell on the doll in the adjoining room, “let’s play house.”
“No, you would just beat the baby. Let’s play a new game, something
brand new that we never played before.”
Charity began jumping about on one foot, and on into the little parlor,
but she had no suggestion to offer. Hazel followed her and as her eye
fell on the family Bible, her face lighted with excitement.
“I know,” she declared, “let’s play a Bible game. Let’s act a Bible
story the way we act history at school.”
Charity stood on her two feet. “George Washington?” she asked.
“No, not George Washington, but like that. A Bible story. We can’t be
Joseph and his Brethren,” Hazel went on musing, “there’re too many of
them. I don’t like Jacob--”
“I’ll be King Solomon,” Charity exclaimed quite suddenly.
She sat in the arm chair and held herself erect. Taking her bandanna
she wreathed it in a turban about her head.
“That’s splendid, Charity,” Hazel said heartily. “That’s your crown and
you’re sitting on your throne. Now who shall I be?”
“You? Why, of course, you’ll be the Queen of Sheba.”
Hazel laughed gleefully. “I’ll be a real queen, won’t I? What’ll I do,
Charity?” Her friend’s knowledge of Bible history was evidently greater
than her own.
“You ask me questions,” Charity explained, “all sorts of questions, and
I answer them.”
“But what do I wear?”
“Let me recollect.” Charity shut her eyes to think the harder. “The
Queen of Sheba she come to Jerusalem, with, with a very great _train_.
You must wear a train, Hazel.”
“There isn’t a thing with a train here,” Hazel replied mournfully.
Looking into the kitchen her eyes fell upon the laundry basket with the
pink dress on top. “I could borrow Mrs. Hollingsworth’s tea gown,” she
said.
Now Charity might make slips in grammar and slap unoffending dolls,
but the laundry was sacred to her. Once the pile of muslin was ironed
and placed in the basket it was not to be tampered with.
“You daren’t,” she said.
Hazel walked into the other room, took the pink wrapper and slowly put
it on. Her heart beat fast and her fingers trembled, but she fastened
the dress at the throat and held it up about her. Entering the parlor
she went to the chair in which King Solomon sat, and bowed low,
dropping the pink dress so that it trailed upon the floor. Then she
looked up into the king’s dark face.
“Isn’t this a royal great train?” she said softly.
King Solomon nodded. He was saying to himself, “You bet, my mother
needn’t say she’s such a good little girl again!”
The Queen of Sheba bowed once more. “What do I do next, Charity?”
“You ask me questions.”
“I can’t think of any;” and the queen, like Alice in Through the
Looking Glass, courtesied again to help her think. “What did I have
for dinner?” she said at last.
“Myrrh and mint and jasper and honey and the honeycomb.”
The queen looked up in admiration. “That’s a beautiful answer; how did
you think of all those things? But is jasper something to eat?”
King Solomon did not regard the question. “Ask me something else?” he
demanded.
“What--what--what did I have for breakfast?”
The king stuck out his tongue derisively. “Can’t you think of a single
thing, Hazel Tyler, but food?”
Hazel felt her lack of originality. “Have you had pleasant weather this
past week in Jerusalem?” she asked politely.
“It has rained,” replied King Solomon, “for forty days and nights; and
great was the fall thereof.”
The king’s answers were so much more impressive than the queen’s
questions that Hazel sought for first place.
“Now I shall dance before the king,” she said, and began slowly
advancing and receding before King Solomon’s throne, holding up the
pink dress as she moved. She looked very pretty and graceful as she
made her low courtesies and King Solomon’s eyes gleamed approbation.
“If you like a me, as I like a you,” he began to sing and the Queen of
Sheba stepped in a little livelier fashion toward the kitchen door.
“’Cause I love you,” he went on, and the little queen danced before him
over the door-sill and into the kitchen where she struck against the
table and fell in a heap upon the floor.
The singing stopped. Charity stooped to where Hazel sat, a frightened
heap. She examined the pink gown. It had a black smudge on the back.
“Have to be done all over again,” said Charity briefly.
Hazel rose and took the dress off. Her lip quivered.
“I’d best go home,” said Charity. “There ain’t nothing I can do. Oh,
Hazel won’t you catch it!”
“My mother never whips me,” said Hazel sharply.
“She ain’t like mine,” said Charity.
The bandanna was off King Solomon’s head and he crept out of the door
and down the stairs to his home.
The Queen of Sheba sat on the kitchen chair with the soiled dress on
her lap. Like the queen of old, “there was no more spirit in her.”
She remained quite still two, three, five minutes. Then she heard her
mother knock.
She opened the door, the dress in her hand, and showed the spot without
speaking.
“How did it happen?” Mrs. Tyler asked.
“I was playing with Charity. It wasn’t her fault,” hastily, “she told
me not to touch it, but I was the Queen of Sheba and I wanted a train.
Will it have to be done all over, Mother? Charity said it would have to
be done all over.”
“Yes, it will,” said Mrs. Tyler, and turned to the tub where she began
to draw water.
“You must go to bed, Hazel,” she said sternly. “Later I will bring you
a supper of bread and milk.”
As the little girl lay in bed, she could hear her mother rub, rubbing
the dress against the wash-board. Then that sound ceased, and the door
of the refrigerator was opened and shut. She silently ate the bread
and milk brought her. No jolly time together at the table over the
waffles and maple syrup and the pretty flowered plates! She heard her
mother’s tired footsteps moving from ironing-board to stove and back
to ironing-board, and she noted the click of the iron as it fell upon
the metal holder. She could almost count each movement up and down the
waist and the long skirt.
At length John came. He was kept waiting a few minutes. Then the basket
was handed him, the outer door closed, and the long day’s work was done.
Hazel stole out of bed into the kitchen where her mother sat. She put
her arms about her neck and kissed her again and again.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Her mother kissed back and held her close.
“It does seem, Mother dear,” Hazel said at length, “as though, ever
since we came to this place, I couldn’t have the least bit of fun
without making such a lot of trouble.”