THE SCOTCH GIRL
It had been just four years since I bought the relinquishment and seven
since leaving southern Illinois. I had been very successful in farming
although I had made some very poor deals in the beginning, and when my
crops were sold that season I found I had made three thousand, five
hundred dollars. Futhermore, I had in the beginning sought to secure the
best land in the best location and had succeeded. I had put two hundred
eighty acres under cultivation, with eight head of horses--I had done a
little better in my later horse deals--and had machinery, seed and feed
sufficient to farm it. My efforts in the seven years had resulted in the
ownership of land and stock to the value of twenty thousand dollars and
was only two thousand dollars in debt and still under twenty-five years
of age.
During the years I had spent on the Little Crow I had "kept batch" all
the while until that summer. A Scotch family had moved from Indiana that
spring consisting of the father, a widower, two sons and two daughters.
One of the boys worked for me and as it was much handier, I boarded with
them.
The older of the two girls was a beautiful blonde maiden of twenty
summers, who attended to the household duties, and considering the small
opportunities she had to secure an education, was an unusually
intelligent girl. She had composed some verses and songs but not knowing
where to send them, had never submitted them to a publisher. I secured
the name of a company that accepted some of her writings and paid her
fifty dollars for them. She was so anxious to improve her mind that I
took an interest in her and as I received much literature in the way of
newspapers and magazines and read lots of copy-right books, I gave them
to her. She seemed delighted and appreciated the gifts.
Before long, however, and without any intention of being other than
kind, I found myself being drawn to her in a way that threatened to
become serious. While custom frowns on even the discussion of the
amalgamation of races, it is only human to be kind, and it was only my
intention to encourage the desire to improve, which I could see in her,
but I found myself on the verge of falling in love with her. To make
matters more awkward, that love was being returned by the object of my
kindness. She, however, like myself, had no thought of being other than
kind and grateful. It placed me as well as her in an awkward
position--for before we realized it, we had learned to understand each
other to such an extent, that it became visible in every look and
action.
It reached a stage of embarrassment one day when we were reading a
volume of Shakespeare. She was sitting at the table and I was standing
over her. The volume was "Othello" and when we came to the climax where
Othello has murdered his wife, driven to it by the evil machinations of
Iago, as if by instinct she looked up and caught my eyes and when I came
to myself I had kissed her twice on the lips she held up.
After that, being near her caused me to feel awkwardly uncomfortable. We
could not even look into each other's eyes, without showing the feeling
that existed in the heart.
Now during the time I had lived among the white people, I had kept my
place as regards custom, and had been treated with every courtesy and
respect; had been referred to in the local papers in the most
complimentary terms, and was regarded as one of the Little Crow's best
citizens.
But when the reality of the situation dawned upon me, I became in a way
frightened, for I did not by any means want to fall in love with a white
girl. I had always disapproved of intermarriage, considering it as being
above all things, the very thing that a colored man could not even think
of. That we would become desperately in love, however, seemed
inevitable.
* * * * *
Lived a man--the history of the American Negro shows--who had been the
foremost member of his race. He had acquitted himself of many honorable
deeds for more than a score of years, in the interest of his race. He
had filled a federal office but at the zenith of his career had brought
disappointment to his race and criticism from the white people who had
honored him, by marrying a white woman, a stenographer in his office.
They were no doubt in love with each other, which in all likelihood
overcame the fear of social ostracism, they must have known would follow
the marriage. I speak of love and presume that she loved him for in my
opinion a white woman, intelligent and respectable and knowing what it
means, who would marry a colored man, must love him and love him dearly.
To make that love stronger is the feeling that haunts the mind; the
knowledge that custom, tradition, and the dignity of both races are
against it. Like anything forbidden, however, it arouses the spirit of
opposition, causing the mind to battle with what is felt to be
oppression. The sole claim is the right to love.
These thoughts fell upon me like a clap of thunder and frightened me the
more. It was then too, that I realized how pleasant the summer just
passed had been, and that I had not been in the least lonesome, but
perfectly contented, aye, happy. And that was the reason.
During the summer when I had read a good story or had on mind to discuss
my hopes, she had listened attentively and I had found companionship. If
I was melancholy, I had been cheered in the same demure manner. Yet, on
the whole, I had been unaware of the affection growing silently; drawing
two lonesome hearts together. With the reality of it upon us, we were
unable to extricate ourselves from our own weak predicament. We tried
avoiding each other; tried everything to crush the weakness. God has
thus endowed. We found it hard.
I have felt, if a person could only order his mind as he does his limbs
and have it respond or submit to the will, how much easier life would
be. For it is that relentless thinking all the time until one's mind
becomes a slave to its own imaginations, that brings eternal misery,
where happiness might be had.
To love is life--love lives to seek reply--but I would contend with
myself as to whether or not it was right to fall in love with this poor
little white girl. I contended with myself that there were good girls in
my race and coincident with this I quit boarding with them and went to
batching again, to try to successfully combat my emotions. I continued
to send her papers and books to read--I could hardly restrain the
inclinations to be kind. Then one day I went to the house to settle with
her father for the boy's work and found her alone. I could see she had
been crying, and her very expression was one of unhappiness. Well, what
is a fellow going to do. What I did was to take her into my arms and in
spite of all the custom, loyalty, or the dignity of either Ethiopian or
the Caucasian race, loved her like a lover.
* * * * *
It was during a street carnival at Megory sometime before the Tipp
county opening, when one afternoon in company with three or four white
men, I saw a nice looking colored man coming along the street. It was
very seldom any colored people came to those parts and when they did, it
was with a show troupe or a concert of some kind. Whenever any colored
people were in town, I had usually made myself acquainted and welcomed
them--if it was acceptable, and it usually was--so when I saw this young
man approaching I called the attention of my companions, saying, "There
is a nice-looking colored man." He was about five feet, eleven, of a
light brown complexion, and chestnut-like hair, neatly trimmed. He wore
glasses and was dressed in a well-fitting suit that matched his
complexion. He had the appearance of being intelligent and amiable.
I was in the act of starting to speak, when one of the fellows nudged me
and whispered in my ear, that it was one of the Woodrings from a town a
short distance away in Nebraska, who was known to be of mixed blood but
never admitted it.
According to what I had been told, the father of the three boys was
about half negro but had married a white woman, and this one was the
youngest son. Needless to say I did not speak but kept clear of him.
There is a difference in races that can be distinguished in the
features, in the eyes, and even if carefully noted, in the sound of the
voice.
It seemed the family claimed to be part Mexican, which would account for
the darkness of their complexion. But I had seen too many different
races, however, to mistake a streak of Ethiopian. Having been in Mexico,
I knew them to be almost entirely straight-haired (being a cross between
an Indian and a Spaniard). When I observed this young man, I readily
distinguished the negro features; the brown eyes, the curly hair, and
the set of the nose.
The father had come into the sand hills of Nebraska some thirty-five
years before, taken a homestead, but from where he came from no one
seemed to know. It was there he married his white wife, and to the union
was born the three sons, Frank, the eldest, Will, and Len, the youngest.
The father sold the homestead some twenty years before and moved to
another county, and had run a hotel since in the town of Pencer, where
they now live.
Unlike his younger brother, Frank, the eldest son, could easily have
passed for a white, that is, so long as no one looked for the streak.
But when the fellow whose timely information had kept me from
embarrassing myself, and perhaps from insulting the young man, a few
minutes later called out, "Hello, Frank!" to a tall man, one look
disclosed to my scrutiny the negro in his features. I was not mistaken.
It was Frank Woodring.
In view of the fact, that in some chapters of this story I dwell on the
negro, and on account of the insistence of many of them who declare they
are deprived of opportunities on account of their color, I take the
privilege of putting down here a sketch of this Frank Woodring's life.
And although these people deny a relation to the negro race, it was well
known by the public in that part of the country, that they were mixed,
for it had been told to me by every one who knew them, therefore the
instance cannot be regarded altogether as an exception.
Shortly after coming to Pencer, he went to work for an Iowa man on a
ranch near by, and later a prosperous squaw-man, who owned a bank, took
him in, where in time he became book-keeper and all round handy man,
later assistant cashier. The ranchman whom Woodring had worked for
previous to entering the bank, bought the squaw-man out, made Woodring
cashier, and sold to him a block of stock and took his note for the
amount. In time Woodring proved a good banker and his efficient
management of the institution, which had been a State bank with a
capital stock of twenty-five thousand dollars, had been incorporated
into a National bank and the capital increased to fifty thousand
dollars, and later on to one hundred thousand dollars. He dealt in
buying and selling land as well as feeding cattle, on the side, and had
prospered until he was soon well-to-do. Coincident with this prosperity
he had been made president of not only that bank--whose footing was near
a half-million dollars--but of some other three or four local banks in
Nebraska, also a Megory county bank at Fairview--which is the county
depository--and a large bank and trust company at the town of Megory,
with a capital stock of sixty thousand dollars. Today Frank Woodring is
one of the wealthiest men in northwest Nebraska.
The local ball team of their town was playing Megory that day, and a few
hours later out at the ball park, I was shouting for the home team with
all my breath, the batter struck a foul, and when I turned to look where
the ball went, there, standing on the bench above me, between two white
girls, and looking down at me with a look that betrayed his mind, was
Len Woodring. Our eyes met for only the fraction of a minute but I read
his thoughts. He looked away quickly, but I shall not soon forget that
moment of racial recognition.
[Illustration: Everything grew so rank, thick and green.]
And now when I found my affections in jeopardy regarding the love of the
Scotch girl, I thought long and seriously over the matter, and pictured
myself in the place of the Woodring family, successful, respected,
and efficient business men, but still members of the down-trodden race.
I pondered as to whether I could make the sacrifice. Maybe they were
happy, the boys had never known or associated with the race they denied,
and maybe were not so conscientious as myself, although the look of
Len's had betrayed what was on his mind.
I had learned that throughout these Dakotas and Nebraska, that other
lone colored men who had drifted from the haunts and homes of the race,
as I had--maybe discontented, as I had been--and had with time and
natural development, through the increase in the valuation of their
homesteads or other lands they had acquired, grown prosperous and had
finally, with hardly an exception, married into the white race. Even the
daughter of the only colored farmer between the Little Crow and Omaha
was only prevented from marrying a white man, at the altar, when it was
found the law of the state forbids it.
I could diagnose their condition by my own. Life in a new country is
always rough in the beginning. In the past it had taken ten and fifteen
years for a newly opened country to develop into a state of cultivation
and prosperity, that the Little Crow had in the four years.
At the time it had been opened to settlement, the reaction from the
effects of the dry years and hard times of 93-4 and 5 had set in and at
that time, with plenty of available capital, the early extension of the
railroad, and other advantages too numerous to mention, life had been
quite different for the settlers. Such advantages had not been the lot
of the homesteader twenty and thirty years before.
These people had no doubt been honorable and had intended to remain
loyal to their race, but long, hard years, lean crops, and the long,
lonesome days had changed them. It is easier to control the thoughts
than the emotions. The craving for love and understanding pervades the
very core of a human, and makes the mind reckless to even such a grave
matter as race loyalty. In most cases it had been years before these
people had the means and time to get away for a visit to their old
homes, while around them were the neighbors and friends of pioneer days,
and maybe, too, some girl had come into their lives--like this one had
into mine--who understood them and was kind and sympathetic. What
worried me most, however, even frightened me, was, that after marriage
and when their children had grown to manhood and womanhood, they, like
the Woodring family, had a terror of their race; disowning and denying
the blood that coursed through their veins; claiming to be of some
foreign descent; in fact, anything to hide or conceal the mixture of
Ethiopian. They looked on me with fear, sometimes contempt. Even the
mixed-blood Indians and negroes seemed to crave a marriage with the
whites.
The question uppermost in my mind became, "Would not I become like that,
would I too, deny my race?" The thought was a desperate one. I did not
feel that I could become that way, but what about those to come after
me, would they have to submit to the indignities I had seen some of
these referred to, do, in order that they may marry whites and try to
banish from memory the relation of a race that is hated, in many
instances, for no other reason than the coloring matter in their
pigment. Would my life, and the thought involved and occupied my mind
daily, innocent as my life now appeared, lead into such straits if I
married the Scotch girl. It became harder for me, for at that time, I
had not even a correspondence with a girl of my race. As I look back
upon it the condition was a complicated affair. I confess at the time,
however, that I was on the verge of making the sacrifice. This was due
to the sights that had met my gaze when I would go on trips to Chicago,
and such times I would return home feeling disgusted.