In a week Tom was going away to school. It should not come as a
surprise, Ellen repeatedly told him, for she had from time to time
apprised him of the approaching fulfilment of her plans; but Tom had
rested, like Hertha, in the present moment, believing, too, that Ellen's
plans might go astray. This, however, was little likely to take place,
for in his older sister he dealt with a general, intelligent,
resourceful, and with a contempt for the enemy, poverty. Her efforts had
at length secured a scholarship, and four years of savings were to be
expended for traveling and necessary clothes. The rest depended upon Tom
who would be equipped to go out and do his share in gaining an
education.
"Surely," Ellen said at the supper-table when the announcement of the
final arrangements was made, "you know I'm right, Tom, and that a
colored boy needs an education more than a white boy."
Aunt Maggie wiped her eyes. "We sure need Tom," she said.
The older sister looked around the table, at Hertha's sad face, at Tom's
sullen one, at her mother's tears, and for a moment felt the severity of
the coming catastrophe; but for a moment only. Emotion soon gave place
to reasoned thought.
"Tom has a right to an education," she said solemnly. "If he doesn't
learn a trade at school he never will learn one, and we shouldn't keep
him here no matter how much we shall need him and miss him."
Aunt Maggie rose. "You don' know what it means," she said, "to part a
mudder f'om her only son." Her rich voice sounded with a certain
finality as though, while appreciating Ellen's power, she wished her to
understand her responsibility. "You's taken a deal upon you'self." And
she left her children and went into her room.
Tom and Hertha slipped out of doors. In time of trouble they always got
away from the house, and now in silence they made their way to the
river.
It was a hot night in late September with a wind blowing from the east.
In the summer, unless held home by some imperative need, all the people
of the plantation, black and white, came in the evening to the wharf to
taste the fresh breeze. But the wharf was long and seclusion possible,
so the two slipped to their favorite place at the far end, and leaning
against a post dangled their feet over the water.
"If it would do any good," Tom said morosely, "I'd run away."
Hertha laughed.
"Ellen thinks she can boss the whole of us," he went on, "but the time
am coming when she can't boss me."
"'Is,' Tom."
"Yes, ma'am."
Tom's speech was a queer mixture of good English acquired from his
sisters, who had been drilled by northern teachers, and colloquial
speech picked up from his surroundings.
"It does seem too bad," Hertha declared, "to leave just now when Mr.
Merryvale has come back and you can have work with some pay."
"I ain't going for more'n a year," Tom declared.
"You'll be grown up by that time."
"I'm as tall as you now."
Hertha looked across the water into the deep, velvet sky, and thought of
the long days in which she would have to go about her work without her
baby. Tom was seven years younger than she and since his birth had been
her special charge. Hundreds of times she had washed his face and his
soft little brown hands to which the grubby earth was as dear as to the
roots of a flower. She it was who had always shielded him from severity,
finding many and ingenious excuses for him. He had grown up a quiet,
serious boy of a meditative cast, and sometimes came out with unusual,
even startling remarks. Tom's "thinking" was one of the jokes of the
family. Hertha found it hard to imagine life without him.
"Do you remember," she said after they had sat silent for a time; "once
I struck you?"
"Naw!"
"Of course you don't remember, you weren't more than three. We were out
visiting at Aunt Mary's and I had dressed you for the afternoon. We were
on the steps. I had some sewing and you slipped away and went off
berrying. Oh, but weren't you a sight when you came back!"
Tom grunted.
"You came right up to me and leaned against my knee, not a bit afraid. I
scolded and you looked up and smiled. You were very little then, seems
to me you weren't more than a baby."
"Yes?"
"I slapped you on your cheek!"
"Whew! I don't believe it would have killed a mosquito."
"You were so grieved! You looked at me as though I had bruised your
heart. Your mouth trembled and you hid your face in my lap and cried."
"And then you took me in your lap and petted me and told me about the
three little pigs and washed me and got me into another dress without
Mammy's knowing!"
"You can't remember, Tom!"
"Yes, I can."
"I don't believe you were as old as three."
"Well," meditatively, "if I don't remember that time I remembers heaps
of others like it. You never went back on me."
"Probably Ellen is right," Hertha remarked later, "she usually is,
though I don't think it was worth while my spending that last year in
school, I was so homesick."
"You can never tell about an education," Tom said, wise in another's
case.
Behind them came the sound of conversation, broken occasionally by a
boisterous laugh. Some one was thrumming on a banjo and now and then
singing a few lines from a popular song.
"What do you reckon it'll be like at school?" Tom asked.
"Oh, doing things. First one thing and then another until you're so
tired at night you fall at once to sleep and wake up and start to do
more things."
"That ain't much different from home."
Hertha did not answer. She never disputed but she thought Tom would find
a difference.
They looked out into the starlight. "I was thinking," the boy said,
"you're like that star up there." He pointed to a planet, bright in the
heavens. "That's like you, beautiful and alone."
"Well!" She gave his arm a little squeeze. "But I'm not alone and
neither is the star. See the little stars about."
"They don't count."
They sat for two hours looking into the starlight, talking a little and
dreaming a good deal more until, growing sleepy, they rose and went
home.
"What do you two find to say to one another?" Ellen asked, not unkindly,
as she met them on their return. But part of their pleasure in one
another's company was that they did not need to talk.
The days before a long parting are always difficult. We see the
inevitable before us, we try to adjust ourselves, we wait impatient and
yet anxious to make each minute last, watching the closing in of time.
Mammy got some consolation in looking over and over again her son's
clothes that Hertha always attended to and kept in neat repair, and in
cooking his favorite dishes. "After the feast he'll surely feel the
famine," Ellen thought, remembering the scanty fare of her school days;
but she tried in every way to be as considerate as she could,
appreciating that she had brought a sorrow, though a necessary one, to
the household. For Hertha, who had known a year's tragic homesickness,
the future looked black for Tom as well as for herself. She dared not
face it and lived each day trying to forget the dark hours that were to
come.
Lee Merryvale had been genuinely provoked at losing one of his best
hands. He talked earnestly to Tom, who sent him to Ellen, and after a
lengthy but fruitless controversy with the older sister he turned to the
younger one. "See here," he said to Hertha one day as she was arranging
the living-room of the great house, "can't you keep Tom at home?"
"I'd like to."
"He doesn't want to go."
"It seems best," was all Hertha could answer.
"There isn't much in learning a trade these days. Everything is done in
the factory. A carpenter doesn't make his doors or his sashes, his sills
or his windows; he simply puts together other people's work. I can teach
Tom a lot about orange-growing right here, and then he can go off if he
wants and have a grove of his own and grow blossoms for his bride."
He laughed at his joke, but added seriously, "Why don't you keep him at
home?"
"Ask Ellen," was all Hertha could answer.
As she went home that night Merryvale met her in the grove, and again
held her in conversation about her brother until Tom himself came upon
them.
"I'm trying to get your sister to persuade you to stay at home," said
Merryvale, addressing the boy but looking at the girl. "You know you
don't want to go. Why do you let a woman boss you?"
"Perhaps," said Tom cannily, "ef I let her do a big bit o' bossing now,
I'll be rid of it fer good by-and-by."
"You mean you'll be your own boss when you get away? Don't you think it!
They'll boss you every hour of the twenty-four at school. Better stay
here and work for me."
"I like you, boss, all right," the boy answered soberly. Then, turning
to walk away, he called, "Coming, Sister?" and Hertha went with him.
"Sister, rot!" said Merryvale impatiently, looking after them. "They
adopted that girl. She never came out of that nest."
That evening, seated at the table about the large lamp, Ellen went over,
not for the first time, Tom's school course, and explained from the
catalogue the studies he was to pursue. His mother was all interest,
examining the pictures depicting the boys at their various tasks. Hertha
sewed at the flannel shirt that was a farewell gift and occasionally put
in a word. Tom was profoundly silent. Except when questioned he refused
to make any contribution to their discussion. "One 'ud think," his
mother said at last, "as it was Ellen goin' ter school, not you."
"Why don't she?" was his sole answer.
Ellen looking into his sullen face was both indignant and troubled. Many
colored boys, she knew, had walked hundreds of miles to secure entrance
at this institution and, once admitted, had accepted privations without
a murmur, intent only on gaining the power that comes through knowledge.
Tom was to travel in comparative comfort, he would have money for his
actual needs, and yet he did not wish to avail himself of this unique
opportunity. It was not as though he were a stupid boy; he had done well
for every one for whom he had worked. Evidently he simply did not wish
to leave home.
The older sister rose and closed the catalogue. "It's time we all went
to bed," she announced. "To-morrow you and Hertha will want to have a
long walk together, I know," turning to Tom, "and we'll have dinner when
you get back; and then it'll be Mammy's turn to be with you."
She put herself in the background, genuinely anxious to do all she could
to make endurable her immutable decree. Life to her was like a quilt
made up of great, glowing patches, each patch an achievement; and if the
weaving together of the patches brought with it pricks of pain they were
essential to the completed whole. But Tom not only objected to the
pricking, but had his own ideas as to the color and fabric of his quilt.
The next day found him with Hertha two miles down the river. It had been
very warm in the pine country, and they had followed the open stream.
"I's gwine the way they all go," Tom said meditatively, looking to the
north. "The brooks flow to the rivers and the rivers to the sea. Don't
you want to go too?"
"I? No, indeed."
"I've been thinking, Sister, it must be mighty slow here fer you; and
when I'm gone it'll be worse. Why don't you settle in the city this
winter and go out to work?"
At Merryvale the city always meant the port, twenty-five miles away.
"What a strange notion, Tom. I'd be lonesome there."
"Oh, there'd be lots to do. Church every Sunday, and picnics, and
excursions. You're so pretty, you'd be the best liked girl in the
place."
Hertha laughed. "Now, don't you begin to plan for me! I like it right
where I am at home."
"Most girls marry," Tom remarked after a few moments, "and so do most
fellers. The boys round here ain't your kind. I don't wonder you don't
notice 'em. But they's fine chaps down there," pointing down the stream,
"lawyers, and doctors and teachers."
The girl looked at her brother a little curiously as though wondering if
he meant more than he said.
"Well, this is the first time you've tried to marry me off! Mammy talks
that way and Ellen wants me to choose a career, but I thought you loved
Merryvale like I do and were only sorry to go away."
"It's natural for the human being ter marry," Tom went on sententiously.
"Don't think I will though," he added, "Ef you marry you don't have a
chance to think. Now it might be, jest as I was thinking something very
important, my wife 'ud interrupt and have a baby!"
There was a finality in this remark that left them in silence, and
dropping plans for the future they watched the light clouds gather in
masses in the deep blue sky until it was time to start homeward.
When they were within a short distance of the great house, rain began to
fall, and by the time they had reached the live-oaks there was a
downpour.
"Come up here," Lee Merryvale called authoritatively from the porch.
It was the front porch and they had no thought of setting foot on it,
expecting instead to run for shelter to the kitchen door. Hertha moved
forward but Tom drew back until Merryvale again commanded them to come.
"You're wet," he said to Hertha as she stepped on the porch. And then
turning sharply to Tom: "Can't you take care of your sister better than
this?"
"I'm all right," Hertha said quickly, abashed at the importance given to
her. "Come up, Tom," she said calling to him, but he remained standing
in the rain.
"You can go home if you want," Lee Merryvale nodded his head toward Tom,
"and Hertha can stay here until it stops. Don't you know we're sure to
have a shower in the afternoon?"
"It arrived ahead of time to-day," Hertha explained. And then noting Tom
on the wet sand, the rain beginning to soak through his coat, her
motherliness got the better of her embarrassment. "Come up on the
porch," she said coaxingly. "I'll run upstairs and get a coat I keep
here for just such a time as this. I won't be a moment. Please!"
He mounted the steps to please her and then walked to the end that was
furthest from Merryvale.
The white man sat down in a porch chair, threw his head back, crossed
his knees, and began to smoke.
"You smoke, Tom?"
"No, sir."
"The first thing you'll do when you go to school will be to smoke; not
because you like it but because it's against the rules. Break all the
rules you can, my boy, and get sent home, for you're needed here."
"Naw," Tom replied turning at him and almost snarling, "I ain't no use."
Young Merryvale regarded the boy with some amazement, then noting the
grimness of his expression, said nothing further. In a moment Hertha,
wearing her long coat, came down the stairs and she and her brother went
on their way.
Before he went to his room that night, Tom spoke a word alone with
Ellen. "Don't let Sister grieve too much," he said.
Ellen looked at him sadly. "You put me in a very hard position, Tom. You
make me seem almost cruel."
"Never mind about that. What's done can't be mended. But don't let
Hertha grieve--not if you can help it."
He kissed his older sister good-night and went into his little room,
there to sit upon his trunk and with his face in his hands bury himself
in thought.
"Ef I was any use," he said, "Ellen couldn't drag me away; but I ain't
the brother she needs."
He stepped up the gangway into the little boat the next morning like a
man. They were all there to see him off: his mother wiping her eyes and
telling him to be her good boy; Ellen, resolute, not giving way to her
sorrow; and Hertha, his beautiful sister, waving her handkerchief, her
lips trying to smile. He watched them until the boat was far out in the
stream; and then, with a very sober face, took his seat where he could
look ahead toward the nearing sea.