New York had been preparing for Christmas. From all over the world
beautiful things had poured in at her docks and stations to be
distributed among her stores and shops. From the great steamers that
came daily to her ports, from the trains that snorted up to her depots,
were unloaded cases filled with garments of every texture and color;
rich silks; fanciful ribbons, undergarments far too lovely to be hidden,
that later would shine resplendent in shop windows. Household
possessions came; graceful vases; plates of china rimmed with gold;
many-hued glass; tables and chairs with slender fragile legs; soft,
sumptuous rugs; heavy figures in white marble. Out of the boxes came gay
and intricate toys; dolls of varied ages but all newly born; brightly
illustrated picture books; tinkling music boxes. The shop windows each
day, in number beyond number, recorded the multitude of possessions that
make up the life of civilized man.
These possessions, however, were to be found in the city all the year,
though they grew more lovely and numerous at holiday time; but as
December advanced the trains brought in the special harbingers of
Christmas. From Maine came the fir-balsam, most fragrant of trees, some
tall and thickly boughed, others a child's measure in height;
ground-pine and laurel were brought from nearer by; while holly and
mistletoe traveled up from the South. All stood in display upon the
sidewalks in both the poor and the resplendent sections of the town.
When the noon hour came, and, seated by the machines, the other girls
opened their packages of luncheon and ate and visited with one another,
Hertha went out to walk. She did not spend more than ten minutes in the
clattering restaurant, but hurried on to the great department store
where the wealth of the world was on exhibit. There she would wander
each day, sometimes in toy-land, sometimes where the pianos were playing
or the victrolas singing, sometimes among the lovely dresses or under
the great rotunda where the silks shone in rainbow colors. At first she
was fearful lest she had no right to examine these wonderful things that
she could not purchase, but she soon found that no one was troubled by
her presence. Once in a while she would buy a little candy or a picture
card to feel the importance of a customer, but the very multiplicity of
the things about her and the simplicity and narrowness of her own life
made expensive purchases incredible. She smiled sometimes as she thought
of Miss Patty's suggestion of a large expenditure upon clothes. The soft
blue evening dress with the touch of yellow at the neck would have
become her; but Miss Patty would have recognized as soon as she, that
there was nothing in her present life to claim kinship with the gown. To
have worn it, or a cheap imitation of it, to some dance-hall would never
have entered the head of either of them. Whether wisely or not, she had
chosen the position of a working girl in this, her new life, and the
doors of social intercourse that might, as a student, have been ajar had
she gone with Miss Witherspoon, were now closed.
Nevertheless, the splendor of the shop did make its impression upon her
and she felt that her aristocratic lineage became her as she walked
among its beautiful and costly things. "Now remember," she would say to
herself each day as she entered, "you are Hertha Ogilvie, Miss Ogilvie
of Florida. Your grandfather was a distinguished judge and left you
money, and after his death you came to New York to live." So far, so
good; but she must have a fuller story if she were to satisfy the
natural questions of her friends. Kathleen had respected her reserve,
for which she was most grateful, but if she saw Richard Brown again, and
accepted him in her life, he would want to know a great deal. Southern
folk were always talking about personal affairs with a kindly, active
curiosity, and there was little hope that a short sojourn in the North
would cure any one of them of such a trait. Yes, she must build up an
unreal past in which she moved among strange people, a white child
unknown even to herself. To have told her life as she had lived it, with
its strange and dramatic change from one race to another, was repugnant
to her. It was partly to escape the curious glances, the whispered
remarks about her appearance--"Yes, one could see she might have been
taken for a Negro, that curly hair"--the inquisitive questions regarding
her bringing up among blacks, that she had turned from the Boston world
that Miss Witherspoon had prepared for her. But Hertha Williams found it
difficult to create a life story for Hertha Ogilvie and to carry it
through its normal vicissitudes and adventures for twenty-three years.
It was repugnant to her to conceive and carry out a lie; and as she
walked down one long aisle and up another, she had an annoying way of
forgetting her grandfather and the many years she had lived with him
(she made no effort to visualize other relatives) and of recalling her
own black people at home.
They should know, these dear people whom she could not forget, that
Christmas found her alive and well, but she would send no address and
would receive no welcome word in return. That was what they had meant.
Hertha Ogilvie's two feet were not yet planted firmly enough in the
white world for her to return, even for a short time, to the black. So
on a little card that showed a cottage standing in a field of snow, she
sent to foster-mother and sister her greeting of love and her assurance
of health and happiness. To Tom she sent a top, his favorite toy. He had
been famous at spinning his top, and it was pleasant to send him a
child's gift. And when she had dropped both card and toy in the box at
the post-office she turned away winking the drops from her eyes.
William Applebaum at this time was a great comfort. He was a whole
Christmas, in himself, for he loved every custom associated with the
day, German, English, American, and carried them all to Kathleen's home.
With Hertha he hung up wreaths of holly in the four windows, and two
days before Christmas he appeared carrying a ten-pound turkey. "I bought
it myself," he said, as Kathleen glared as though she thought it might
have come from the Salvation Army. "I wanted to make sure of my dinner
here, and if Miss Hertha will let me, I'll cook it under her
supervision." On Christmas eve, which happened to be Sunday, he took
them to a concert given by his choral society, and leaving them in the
best seats in the house, went upon the stage and sang the choruses in
The Messiah with a rapture of happiness and good-will. When the two
women returned home, after saying good-night to him at the door, they
found within a little tree, not four feet in height, but set out in the
regalia of the season, tinsel, cornucopias, candles, and at the top a
golden star. They lighted the candles and sat for a time in their
radiance until Hertha declared that they must be blown out that they
might be lighted again to-morrow.
"He's a good man," Kathleen said as she examined the little gilt toys on
the boughs, "but he lacks vision."
Christmas morning was lowering, but after she had tidied up her room,
Hertha went out to church. She walked through the park, a gray and
cheerless place to-day, and felt aggrieved that no one was there to meet
her. There was, of course, no reason why she should have thought to see
her new acquaintance, but she had half expected it both Sunday and now
and his absence was a disappointment. And at the library, while she had
scrupulously kept to her usual routine, visiting it neither more nor
less than usual, she had not seen him either. Her life, whether set in
the South, where roses and purple clematis were blooming now over the
doorways, or in the North of gray clouds and snow, was just a place into
which people entered for a time to play a part, and, at the end of the
act, went out and left her to finish as best she could alone.
Once within the church, however, with the organ pealing out the music
she had heard the night before of the shepherds keeping watch over their
flocks, she ceased to feel aggrieved and with deep emotional happiness
entered into the service. As Hertha Ogilvie she had at once gone to the
Episcopal Church. To enter its portals and take part in its ritual
seemed to her as much in keeping with her new character as sitting down
at table with white men and women. But her nature so swiftly responded
to beauty, there were so many sensitive chords of the spirit that
vibrated to the chant of the service, or to the moments of silent prayer
within the darkened church amid the multitude of throbbing souls, that
she grew to love the church of her adoption. "How glad I am to be
white," she thought as she stood up and heard the Te Deum ring through
the softly lighted spaces. "And yet how queer it is to be glad, for I've
always been just the same."
The snow began to fall at one o'clock, and when Applebaum appeared for
dinner at three (he had not been allowed to help in its preparation) he
made much ado of standing in the hall and shaking off the flakes.
"I especially ordered a white Christmas for you, Miss Hertha," he called
as he stood in the open doorway.
She smiled in reply and asked him to come in.
"Could I have a word with Kitty?" he stammered.
Leaving him still in the hall, clutching nervously at his umbrella, she
went into the kitchen and sent out Kathleen.
Applebaum was much embarrassed. "Would you mind, Kitty?" he said.
"There's a little boy downstairs that was in the street a minute ago,
yelling loud enough to drown a whole orchestra because they were taking
his mother away to the hospital. He was pounding and kicking the doctor
until I promised him a turkey dinner, when he stopped as if his
mouthpiece was broken. Do you mind if I bring him up?"
"Why, of course not," she answered, "it's only you that would mind, for
you're not used to children."
When he appeared in the hall again he was accompanied by a singularly
unattractive boy of eight with a colorless face and incredibly dirty
hands.
"We hadn't time to fix up," Applebaum said with forced cheerfulness,
endeavoring to make proper connections between a very shabby pair of
trousers and a soiled shirt. "There, that's better."
"Come this way," Hertha called, and to the surprise of the others the
boy followed her down the hall into her bedroom.
Getting some hot water, she helped him roll up his sleeves and then,
handing him her soap, told him to wash.
At this point he shook his head vigorously. "I can't, Miss," he
explained; "it would chap 'em. Yer don't wash yer hands in winter."
"Just try," she suggested.
With a great splash he plunged in his hands, found the warm water
pleasant, the soap agreeably slippery; and while he scowled as he
rubbed, under Hertha's silent supervision, he made a thorough job.
"Now, look," she said when he had finished with her towel.
The boy looked down and out beyond his coat-sleeves, where once there
had been black, were now white, astonishingly white, hands. They gleamed
against his dark trousers. Slowly a smile spread over his face as though
he were welcoming back summer friends.
"Tom could never get a result like that," Hertha thought as they walked
into the kitchen together. She placed the lad at Kathleen's left where
he watched voraciously the carving of the deliciously browned turkey. He
grabbed at the first plate, which, nevertheless, went on its way to
Hertha. But when the second turned not to the left but to the right and
landed in front of Applebaum, his anger rose.
"Damn you," he said, grabbing Kathleen by the arm, "gimme something to
eat!"
In a flash she had boxed his ear. "Keep your mouth shut," she commanded,
"if you want to get anything in it. No wonder your poor mother's in the
hospital!"
The boy sniffled a little, but remained silent. When he received his
portion he fell upon it voraciously, swallowing potato in gulps, tearing
at bones, and cleaning the plate of its last drop of gravy. This
accomplished (it occupied not more than five minutes) he seized his cap,
ran from the room, leaving the doors wide open in his flight so that
they heard the front door slam, and rushed into the street.
Hertha looked at the empty plate. "I've seen hungry boys before, but
never one so hungry as that," she said.
"Poor little kid," said Kathleen, "and he missed his pudding!"
"You weren't pitying him a while ago." There was reproach in Hertha's
voice.
Kathleen made haste to explain. "That was the only language he knew. I
done that or he would have had us in hell in a minute. Perhaps you could
have managed better," she added, almost humbly, "you got him to wash his
hands."
Applebaum had risen from his place while they were talking and had taken
away the boy's plate. The exit of his unsightly, bad mannered guest was
a great relief, and he now sat down and attacked his food with interest.
"We have fed the hungry," he said solemnly from the depths of his plate.
Kathleen flew at him. "And so that's why you done it! I was wondering
you were so thick with the kids all of a sudden. You wanted to ease your
conscience on Christmas day! Well, you're in it now with the Bowery
Mission and the Salvation Army and Tim Sullivan and you can enjoy
yourself. Charity to-day is on the job."
"Why not say the Christmas spirit?" he made answer. "I meant it kindly."
A lovely look came over the Irish woman's face. All her irritability
vanished, and, smiling at them like some strong saint, she lifted her
coffee cup. "To the Christmas spirit, then, and may it stay with us all
the year round."
"Hertha, here, is the Christian," she said later, when they were all
comfortably seated in the front room, "she goes to church more times
than I can count."
"It's a good habit for a woman," Billy retorted. "What did they preach
about this morning?"
"I hardly know," Hertha answered. "The sermon was very short, but the
service and the singing by the choir boys was most beautiful."
"And the priests in their robes and the altar with its candles and the
incense," Kathleen added.
"Oh, we are not High Church like that."
"Why not do the whole thing if you're about it? I wouldn't stop at one
gown, I'd have two, a dozen for the great events, and as many candles as
the rich could pay for. But what is there in it all for a hungry heart?
"I remember once," Kathleen continued, a look of sorrow coming into her
gray eyes, "going to church of a Palm Sunday. I had broken from the
faith since the priest went against me and the girls in my big strike,
but I thought of how my father and mother, if they'd been living, would
have asked me to go, and I went to please them. I'd hardly entered the
door, though, when the smell of the incense and the sight of the
priests' rich robes sickened me. I thought of the lowly Nazarene who had
not where to lay His head, and it seemed to me that I must scream; so I
left and walked down the street, and across the way I saw another
building, with a plain entrance, and over the doorway the words
'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' 'I don't know what it may mean,' I
thought to myself, 'but that must be the place for me.' So I went inside
and sat at the back against the wall where no one saw me.
"There was a pleasant looking man on the platform, dressed as he would
be dressed to go into the street, and he was telling the meaning of Palm
Sunday. It was when our Saviour was coming into Jerusalem riding on an
ass, the people following Him. But His followers all being poor, like
Himself, had nothing to give, so they tore the leaves from the palm
trees as He rode by and threw them in His path, their only offering. And
as I sat there and listened, and heard of the hard road that the poor
must tread, something broke in my heart and I leaned against the wall
and sobbed."
Hertha was deeply moved. "Where did that man preach, Kathleen?" she
asked.
"It was a long way from here, darling, and likely as not they've thrown
him out of his church by this time. He was too good to be let long to do
as he liked."
"Oh, Kathleen, Kathleen!"
"Well, well, I mustn't be making remarks like that on Christmas. Has
Billy told you the story yet, Hertha, of how his grandfather fought in
the German Revolution and made his escape from prison?"
Their visitor left early, and for a time they worked together in the
kitchen clearing away the things. This task done, Kathleen brought out
her Christmas cards and gifts and looked them over, commenting on this
or that friend or patient, while Hertha sat quietly by, her hands in her
lap. The day had brought her no remembrance save a gift from Kathleen.
"There's one thing I do love about you, Hertha," her friend said,
"you're not always fidgeting; you know how to rest."
"Yes. It's been a real vacation for me, these two days."
"Still it must be hard not to be home at playtime."
Hertha remained silent.
"I'm not asking questions, dearie," her friend went on. "It's for you to
talk or not, as you wish. But sometimes when we're by ourselves we want
to speak and yet we don't know how. If there's anything you'd feel like
saying, I'd keep it to myself. I know," looking closely at the young
girl, "you've heard nothing at all from home."
It was very quiet. As Hertha sat looking at her hands in her lap, she
heard the clock tick and smelled the fragrance of the geranium blossoms.
She was struggling with a desire to get up and, throwing her arms about
her friend's neck, tell her her whole story. Hating deception, fearing
that she could play her part but poorly, she wanted above everything
else to do as her friend asked and reveal what was close to her heart.
But reticence and, too, a feeling that she must keep to the plan that
she had formulated, held her back. So she only said in a half whisper,
"I am very much alone, Kathleen."
"I'm knowing that, darling."
"I never knew my father or my mother. I saw more of my grandfather than
of any one else. But he died last summer and left me with a little
money, only a little, and I came to New York."
"You've no sister to turn to?"
"No," very slowly.
"You said you had a brother once?"
"Yes, but he's a long way off. I don't see him any more."
"That's a lonely way to be. And is your grandmother alive now?"
"No." Then, with a touch of petulance, "I didn't like her much."
"But you're grieving, dear, I can tell that; and it's not for the dead,
but the living."
"Perhaps."
"Is it some man now that you're needing?"
"No," Hertha said with a little laugh that ended in a sob, "it's not a
man, Kathleen, it's my black mammy."
She put her arms around her friend's neck and kissed her good-night; and
then went to her room, her head erect, her carriage that of the
granddaughter of Judge Ogilvie. She had taken the first step and the
next would not be so difficult. But Kathleen, out in the kitchen, shook
her head and looked mystified.