The look of happiness on Dick's face made Hertha pass a restless night.
She tossed for a long time on her bed, and only fell into a deep sleep
by morning. And from this she was awakened by a vivid dream. She was
back in her old home among the pines, and never in her waking hours had
she seen the cabin more clearly, its log walls, the weeds growing out of
the white sand. And as she saw her own home, she saw, too, the home of
the whites with its overhanging vines and its broad balcony. In her
dream she moved through one and then another, but each room was deserted
and empty. She ran among the pines and under the live-oaks, draped with
their fringe of swaying moss, but on all her way encountered no human
being; only against the blue sky was a long wavering line of birds. The
loneliness overwhelmed her, it bore down upon her like a physical
weight, until, struggling against the feeling of oppression, she awoke
into the hot morning, threw off her blanket and raised herself on her
pillow the better to breathe.
As she dressed and thought of her dream, she was overcome with remorse.
If the homes were empty, it was because she had made them so. Their life
was in her thought, and she had deliberately thrust them far back in her
mind. Her lover, whom she tried hard to despise; Miss Patty, who had
shown her so many kindnesses; her mother and sister and brother--the
command to her heart had been that they should be forgotten. Standing
before her mirror and coiling her hair, her hands shook as she thought
of the death of her past. And she resolved that before long, when she
could reach a decision as to the present, she would bring at least some
of the figures back to the empty rooms.
The time had come, she told herself, to determine upon her next step. It
was neither kind nor right to play month after month with a man's
affection, allowing him to spend money upon her, to grow daily to care
more for her, if she was sure that she could never care for him. She
sighed a little at her conscientiousness, for Dick, when he kept where
he belonged, was a pleasant adjunct to her life. And her second decision
must be in regard to her profession. If she could not do better at
stenography, she must cease to spend her income trying to master the
subject. It would never do to stay on here exhausting her legacy
fruitlessly. She turned from her mirror to her desk and took up a
calendar that hung above it. To-day was May 22. School would be over on
June 24. The day after that would be Saturday. Putting a circle around
the date, June 25, she determined in her mind that she would at that
time definitely decide on her next step. This resolution taken, she was
genuinely relieved, for she knew that, as she would have obeyed such a
mark at school had it meant the handing in of a problem or a written
paper, so she would obey it now in her difficult life. It was with a
feeling of righteous satisfaction, as though the decision had already
been reached, that she went down to breakfast.
Dick was late and she slipped out of the house before he saw her. Her
day's plan was made, and for the first time in some weeks she went to
New York and back to her own church. In Brooklyn she had looked in upon
one ecclesiastical edifice after another to be dissatisfied with each,
and it was with a feeling of rest and happiness that she returned to her
first church home. But though the music was as beautiful as always,
there was no one there to remember her, and she went out a little
lonely.
Her cheeks were pink as she climbed the three flights and knocked at
Kathleen's door. Kathleen had not been cordial to her since her
defection. But Hertha, who gave her affection to few and who, finding it
hard to give, found it equally difficult to take away, had sought her
old friend more than once, ignoring Kathleen's refusal to cross the
river. It was some weeks now since they had had a chat together, and as
she stood outside the door the young girl found her heart beat fast in
hope of a cordial welcome and perhaps a dinner at the little table with
Billy sitting between them. If Kathleen would only invite her to dinner,
she would help to get it.
The lower hall door had been open and she had no intimation as to
whether or not Kathleen was home. Her knock brought no response.
Thinking that her friend might return shortly, she sat on the stairs and
waited until one o'clock had passed and she felt sure that Kathleen was
out at work or dining elsewhere. She was miserably disappointed and
wished that at least she had her old key and might enter and look in at
the rooms. Probably the flowers were wilting, needing, like herself, a
friend. With a white face and drooping mouth she turned downstairs.
An ice cream soda at a drug store is not a sufficient Sunday dinner and
it was with a feeling of faintness, a desire to eat her meal alone and
sulk if she wished, that Hertha sat down at the supper table.
"Hallo," Dick called out from his seat as she slipped into hers, "where
did you get your Sunday dinner?"
"In New York," was the answer.
"You missed a peach at home. A fried chicken peach with corn fritters. I
can taste it now!" And Dick ostentatiously smacked his lips. "What did
you have?" he asked.
"Nothing especial."
"Well, you missed it."
"I suppose I did," said Hertha, with more than a touch of crossness,
"but that doesn't prevent my eating my supper."
"Indeed you are not seeing that any of us are helped," Mrs. Pickens
cried, calling Dick's attention to his duties at the head of the table,
and Hertha soon found herself making the best of the left-overs of the
previous meal.
No one seemed in good spirits. Mrs. Wood told them all a half dozen
times that her head ached, and her daughter showed on her face that she
had heard the same tale at regular and irregular intervals during the
day. She looked more than ever as though she wished she were a man, a
desire that was rarely absent from her thoughts. "A man," she was wont
to say, "is not expected to earn the family income and also be a
companion and nurse, and if by any chance he did take all three
positions he would make sure to be paid well for them." Mrs. Pickens was
tired, she was always tired on Sunday, it being the maid's easiest and
her hardest day; and Dick was disgusted that yesterday's happiness had
been spirited away with the morning. So the conversation lagged and only
as the meal was almost concluded did it take an unexpected and exciting
turn.
It was Miss Wood who began it. "You are from the South, I think, Miss
Ogilvie?" she said, addressing Hertha.
"Yes," answered Hertha.
"So am I," called out Dick.
"I am aware of that fact," Miss Wood went on in anything but a cordial
tone, "but I wished to ask Miss Ogilvie's opinion on a certain question.
I was reading in a magazine to-day," she looked across at Hertha,
ignoring the young man at the table's head, "in an article by a southern
physician, a man, I understand, of some note, a very sweeping statement.
In writing of the Negroes he said that he was confident there was not a
pure colored woman in the country above the age of sixteen."
Mrs. Pickens choked over her bread and butter. She had not been brought
up to discuss sociological questions and she deeply disapproved of the
way Miss Wood frequently introduced them, especially at meal time. Last
week they had been treated to a shocking tale of reformatories, but this
was the first time they had been drawn into the social evil. Looking at
Hertha, she expected to see her with drooping head murmuring a gentle
nothing. But she was mistaken. The southern girl's face was on fire,
with anger, not shame.
"It's not true," she said.
"And I say it _is_ true," cried Dick, bringing his fist down on the
table. "That doctor knew what he was writing about. It's damned true,
every word of it."
He gulped as he realized he had been guilty of swearing, but Miss Wood,
who was in control of the conversation, paid no attention to him. "I am
interested in what you say," she went on to Hertha, "for it agrees with
my own impression. I have not met many colored people in my work, but I
have had a few cases among them, and while I have seen degradation it
has not seemed to me any greater than that among the whites of the same
class. Such a sweeping statement as this is unjust."
"It's wicked," said Hertha, addressing Miss Wood. Despite every effort
at control, she found her chin trembling and her voice shaking a little.
"I have known many colored women, servants and teachers, and I know they
were pure and good."
"You were fooled," Dick cried excitedly. "That doctor knew what he was
talking about. A nigger wench is always rotten. Why, every southern man
knows it."
"Indeed?" Miss Wood looked at him for the first time.
"Dick!" said Mrs. Pickens, in real consternation at the turn the
conversation was taking. "You should not talk like that. You owe us an
apology."
"I didn't start the subject."
"That's quite true," his landlady replied, "and we'll drop it."
Dick was still defiant. "I'm sorry I swore," he said, speaking more
quietly, "but it's a swearing subject. And I won't be picked up as
meaning what I didn't intend. A man needn't be rotten to know what a
woman's like. And the nigger women are all the same. They don't
understand what it means to be pure. And I tell you, the men are worse.
Why, every white woman down South's afraid of them. And good reason,
too. It ain't safe for them to go out alone at night. Some places it
ain't hardly safe day or night. If we didn't string up a black buck
every now and then for an example, we'd never be safe. They're a bad
lot, the whole crew of them, and they're getting more blasted
impertinent every day."
He brought his fist down again and faced them all, his mouth set in its
narrow, ugly line, his eyes hard as steel.
Miss Wood smiled over at Hertha. "I'm glad you don't agree," she said.
She was genuinely interested in the subject, and she also rejoiced in
showing Richard Brown at a disadvantage. It was her earnest hope that he
would not win so attractive a girl as Hertha for his wife.
"No!" said Hertha, "I don't agree." She was close to tears. Unless she
told her whole story, nothing that she might say about the Negroes would
count, and she was not prepared to tell her story. But her heart was hot
with anger, and turning to Dick for the first time in the discussion she
cried out, "What do you know about it? You're nothing but a cheap
Georgia cracker!" and with this retort rose from the table and hurried
to her room.
"Dick, how could you?" Mrs. Pickens asked when the two were left alone
together.
"I didn't begin it," he said again.
"No, but you certainly went on with it. How can you expect a girl like
Hertha to like you when you talk so coarsely and say such terrible
things? She was right, anyway; I'm a southerner and I don't believe such
a sweeping statement as that."
"Well, I do," said Dick emphatically, back at the dispute again. "I'm
not a nigger lover." He wiped his face with his handkerchief and,
getting up, began to pace the room. "That stiff old maid with her darned
talk makes me want to kill somebody."
He stopped in front of Mrs. Pickens and took up the subject again.
"Haven't I known the niggers? They worked my father's land, when they
didn't loaf and get drunk. Pure women! Every mother's child with a
different father! I know 'em. Ain't I seen 'em, the splay-footed,
stinking devils!"
Mrs. Pickens looked at him, surprised at the intensity of his feeling.
She had taken the black people all her life as a matter of course,
accepting their failings and shortcomings, never questioning their
inferiority, but also never questioning their good qualities and their
value in the world in which she was reared.
"I think you ought not to talk that way about any human being," she said
gently, "and on Sunday, too."
"They ain't human," Dick declared, and then added sulkily, "anyway not
more than half human."
"You don't believe," Mrs. Pickens spoke a little hesitatingly, "you
don't think, Dick, that they're our brothers in Christ?"
"No," he roared in answer, "they're no brothers of mine, the dirty,
big-lipped, splay-footed bucks. What are you giving me? Want me to take
'em into my parlor, marry 'em to my sisters----"
"Oh, come!" said Mrs. Pickens, with a little laugh, "I'm a southerner,
you know! You don't have to talk that stuff to me."
"Well, and ain't I a southerner? No, I'm nothing but a cheap Georgia
cracker, that's what I am. But I ain't a nigger lover, anyway. Pretty
way to talk to a feller, ain't it, now?" he said, facing Mrs. Pickens,
the anger dying in his eyes.
"It was very unkind; I don't wonder you're angry." Then she added,
looking keenly at him, "If she thinks that way about you, why don't you
give her up?"
"Oh, don't say that!" The lad's whole appearance changed, his mouth
softened, the tears started to his eyes. He gripped the table and looked
at his woman friend as though she had struck him a blow. "I couldn't
stand that. I love her so."
"But you know, Dick," there was a teasing smile on Mrs. Pickens' face,
"an attractive girl like Hertha is sure to have a lot of beaus, and she
can't marry all of them."
"There isn't anybody else; you can see for yourself there isn't anybody
else. I've got to have her. I'll go to the devil if I don't!"
He was so changed, so shaken with feeling, that Mrs. Pickens took the
hand that hung by his side and patted it. And then to her amazement and
her happiness, for it was good to mother this long-legged piece of
masculinity, she found the boy kneeling by her side, his head buried on
her shoulder.
"I suppose," he said, looking up after a minute and blinking, "she had
an old black mammy that took care of her and loved her and that she
loved. Perhaps," contemptuously, "she played with nigger babies when
they were cute and small. Nigger babies can be awful cute."
Mrs. Pickens smoothed his ruffled hair, but said nothing.
"Well, I'm a Georgia cracker," he declared next, with desperate
calmness, "and she's right in thinking I come cheap."
"She didn't mean it like that!"
"I don't know what she meant," he went on wearily. "I don't half
understand her. The only time we get along together is when neither of
us says a word."
Mrs. Pickens laughed, and Dick, rising sheepishly to his feet, walked to
the open window. When he turned back he seemed his usual self again.
"I'll be out of the way soon enough now," he said. "I'm off on the road
to-morrow."
"Yes, dear."
"You couldn't go to her room by and by, could you, and tell her I'm
sorry I made such a rumpus?"
"Of course. And I will say, Dick, that I think this time she is as much
to blame as you. You only ran down the darkies, but she----"
"She lambasted me, all right. I know I'm not her kind. But what does she
think she's going to get?" His anger flared up again for a moment. "Does
she expect to find a prince in that precious school of hers? Or perhaps
she thinks she'll meet him when she goes to work in Wall Street. That's
so, she might, and he'd fall to her, all right."
He grew jealous at his picture and fear overtook him; for as Mrs.
Pickens had said, there was more than one beau for a pretty girl, and
Hertha was more than pretty--she was a woman whom a man could not
forget.
"I've got to have her," he said, looking beyond the reach of the room
out into the space in which Hertha's self stood out before him. "I can't
see anything without her. You're mighty good to me," he added as he
turned to go, "it was a lucky day when Jim Watson steered me up these
steps."
"I haven't done anything," Mrs. Pickens made haste to answer, "but I
promise after this I'll do what I can."
At ten o'clock she knocked at his door. He opened to her at once, and,
seeing his face drop, she knew that he had hoped for a word from another
visitor.
"You'll see her at breakfast, Dick; that's all I could get for you. I
think she's more hurt than you or I can understand."
Dick sat at his open window until midnight, and tossed on his bed for a
long time after that. He remembered the afternoon of yesterday when
together they had sat in the boat and had walked among the flowers,
quietly living in the spirit of the spring. And now, to-night a
thunderstorm had come and drenched them both! He liked his imagery, and,
tired of cursing himself, turned over at last and went to sleep.
She did appear at breakfast the next morning dressed for her school, and
looking as she always looked, quite composed and very lovely. But when
at the door he stopped to say good-by, she, for the first time, went out
and walked to the car with him. All the way he did not say a word, so
fearful was he of uttering the wrong one. They stood on the corner, both
silent, till her car came in sight.
"I hope you'll have a pleasant trip," she said, holding out her hand to
him.
"Thank you," he answered, shaking the hand limply.
So fearful was he that he would offend her by holding it a moment too
long that he scarcely grasped it at all. But, save for this slight
error, certainly on the safe side of the account, he behaved with the
utmost correctness. She boarded the car and passed from his sight. But
to the inward eye of memory she stood, illumined with the golden light
of a lover's worship, aureoled, winged, a creature for the heaven of the
enraptured gods.