It was twilight, and Ellen was sitting on the porch for a little space
to rest and think. Since her mother's death, three days before, there
had been no opportunity for rest or for thinking. The neighbors, kindly
but garrulous, had been at the cabin at all hours. Their enthusiasm for
ceremonial, their effusive religious expression, had made the past three
days wearying and difficult. But the last rites had been performed and
the house among the pines was at length peaceful and still. As she idly
watched the long shadows cast by the setting sun she felt her mother
nearer to her than when, with Aunt Lucindy mourning, she lay panoplied
in death upon the bed.
Tom joined her and took his seat on the step below. "How do you feel?"
he asked affectionately.
"All right," Ellen answered, "and you?"
"I'm all right now."
They had spoken in low tones and Tom asked in a whisper, "She's asleep?"
"Yes, she was so worn she's slept the whole day through, like a baby."
"I 'most wish she was a baby again," Tom ventured. "We-all had good
times when we was children."
The virtuous retort regarding a life of service that Ellen would have
given a year ago died upon her lips. During the months of their
separation she saw that Tom had grown fast in stature and understanding.
"Seems sometimes," he went on in his meditative way, "as if the world'd
be better if no one was allowed to grow up. But there's some as can't
help it. You couldn't keep them little children, not if you put a
hundred pound weight on their heads."
There was a sound from the room within. "I'm coming out soon," a voice
said, "and I'm hungry enough to eat two meals in one."
When to the satisfaction of both she had accomplished this feat, the
three went to the porch again and sat together in the starlight.
Thus far they had exchanged no word as to their future; there had been
no opportunity for the privacy of confidence. Now it was possible to
talk into the night without interruption. But the quiet about them, the
sense of rest after the days of sorrowful turmoil, the nearness of their
grief, kept them for some time bereft of words. It was Ellen who first
took up the thought in all their minds.
"We shall have to leave the home here now," she said. "There's no one
but me left, and I've a position waiting for me any moment that I say
I'll go."
"Where?" Hertha asked, startled.
"In Georgia. Augusta Fairfax, you remember Augusta, don't you, Hertha?
She was in the class below me. Such a bright girl! She's started a
school by herself and wants me to join her. It's in the most godforsaken
spot in the United States, not a bit like this, one of those places
where the whites hate schools and want to keep the Negroes always
ignorant. They make everything as difficult as possible for Augusta, but
she has more pluck than all the white folks in the county. Her scholars
are all ages, she says, from four to forty. They're ignorant of
everything that they need to know and their knowledge of the things they
ought not to know is prodigious; but they've the one thing essential, a
desire to improve. Augusta is bound to succeed if the whites only give
her time."
"They may lynch her first," Tom suggested.
"They don't often lynch women," was Ellen's answer.
"You aren't going to a place like that?" There was alarm in Hertha's
voice.
"Why not? Life isn't worth much to black people unless they're doing
hard, absorbing work. Tom was saying just now that we ought all to stay
children, but there are some of us who have to grow up."
"I wasn't just thinking of colored folks," Tom struck in. "I was
thinking of everybody."
"I reckon I know what you were thinking of, that picture in our old
Bible with the little child leading the wolf and the lamb, the leopard
and the kid, the calf and the young lion. You used to love that picture.
Well, I hope for that day; but in the meantime here are all these
Americans making laws to keep colored children so that they won't know
enough to do anything but lie down and be eaten. The prophet didn't mean
to have the lamb stay with the wolf if the wolf was only prepared to
gobble him up!"
Ellen laughed at her own conceit. "Augusta and I aren't lambs," she
announced, "or kids either; and we're both from the South and have a
little sense in our heads. She's made a start, but she needs some one
with her for she's dying of loneliness. I've often thought I'd go there
when I was no longer needed at home."
"Could I go too?" Hertha's voice was almost inaudible.
"You, dear? I don't believe we could have a white teacher. The white
people wouldn't stand for it."
"I wouldn't be white," Hertha answered. "I'd be colored."
Ellen turned and kissed her. "I know what you did for Tom. If I worked
until I was a hundred in the meanest spot in the Union I wouldn't be
doing as brave a thing as you have done."
"Amen," Tom said.
"Oh, no!" Hertha gasped a little at their praise. "I was only too
thankful I had the wit to think of what to say in time."
She leaned over and stroked Tom's head, touching gently the wound that
was healed now. "I'm tired of the white world. I'd truly like to go with
you, Sister. Couldn't I?"
Ellen was slow in giving her answer. "It wouldn't be possible," she said
at last. "I want you more than I can ever say, but it wouldn't be
possible. I'm not young or good-looking, and Augusta is blacker and
homelier than I. But you, if you came with us, it would be like putting
a jewel in a room with thieves."
In the silence that followed Hertha felt that her sister had again
pushed her out of her home. And this time there was no sense of
excitement, no wonderment at what the future would bring. She had
entered the white world and knew it now. Before her was a second exile,
a second effort to make her way among strangers; she believed a second
failure. As she looked into the night with dimmed eyes she knew that
Augusta Fairfax, in her rough cabin among hostile people, was not so
lonely as she.
"What are you going to do, Tom?" Ellen asked.
"I haven't made up my mind yet," he answered. "Maybe I'll stay here for
a while, get work somewhere about, an' maybe I'll go back North. There's
a heap o' things to do in New York. General utility man, now, that's a
good job sometimes. I had a friend last winter as worked in a house that
was run by a lot of girls. He had the time of his life! The girls was
all of them at work, in charities and hospitals and I don't know
what-all societies. At night he'd wait on table for dinner, after he'd
cooked it, and learned more'n he'd ever learn if he stayed in school all
his days. He could talk like a book, that man could. And the girls, they
got to relying on him for all sorts o' little things a man can do about
a house. It's a nice way for girls to live, a lot of 'em together. I
reckon a job like that might be fun."
Though he did not look at Hertha she understood his thought for her and
felt comforted.
"There ain't no use in hurrying," was Tom's final comment. "If one thing
turns out not to be wisest you can try another. As for me, if I ain't
needed for anything else, a colored boy can always get an elevator job."
He rose to his feet giving a prodigious yawn. "Time for me to go to
bed."
Hertha rose too and stood beside him. "You can have your old room now,"
she said softly.
"That ain't my room no more, Sister," he answered. "I give that room to
you. I'm doin' fine at Aunt Lucindy's. Don't you fret." And with a
good-night he left them.
Hertha watched him until he was out of sight. "He's the dearest boy in
the world," she whispered to herself. "The dearest." Then, with a heavy
heart, she turned to go in.
"Don't go to bed yet," Ellen called. "You can't be sleepy. Come, honey,
sit here and talk."
"What about?" Hertha took her place by Ellen's side.
"What about? Why, about everything that's happened. I haven't heard yet
of a thing you've been doing."
"I haven't succeeded at anything."
"I'd rather decide about that."
And so looking out into the starlight, haltingly at first, Hertha told
the story of her eight months' absence. Ellen was all questions,
interested to learn about New York, full of curiosity regarding the
factory and the school, anxious to hear each detail of the many
happenings. Her enthusiasm warmed the narrator and before she was
through Hertha had given a full account of her city life.
"How wonderful!" Ellen said when it was finished.
"There's nothing wonderful about it," Hertha replied, despondent again.
"I've come back with nearly half my money gone and have failed at
everything."
"You haven't failed at all," was Ellen's emphatic answer. "Of course it
might have been better to have gone with Miss Witherspoon and have done
the thing she planned; study dressmaking. But you didn't, and it's
wonderful the way you made your way alone. Of course, Mammy and I
couldn't help worrying--New York was such a big place for you to be
dropped down in without a friend--but we needn't have feared."
Amazed at this unexpected praise, Hertha let her sister go on.
"It must have been great working in a factory and going out on strike!
And Kathleen, I should love her! And if you didn't like stenography
probably you got a good deal out of the course though you don't
appreciate it now. You and Tom don't make plans but I notice you have
all the experiences. I'm so proud of you," Ellen ended. "I reckon quiet
folks have got more in them, more real character, than talkative ones
like me."
"Don't!" Hertha clutched her sister's dress and hid her face on her
shoulder. "Don't say that! If I'm good it's only chance----"
She stopped and in the silence that followed it would have been hard to
have told which heart beat the faster.
"Sister," Ellen whispered. "What happened? I wish you'd let me know,
it's better than guessing. You said, before you went away from here,
that he despised you. What was it? I don't like to believe he's bad,
he's been so good to Mammy and me. Really good, not patting you on the
head the way his father does. Mammy got to relying on him. And he's made
it so easy and pleasant for me at school it's one reason I ought to go
away. I need a harder job."
With all her thought of herself, Hertha could not help smiling at this
Hercules who must always move to a "higher and harder" task.
"He tried to get news of you when he went to New York. He told Mammy he
meant to bring some word, but he couldn't."
"That's partly why I didn't send you my address."
"Oh!"
Summoning all her fortitude, Hertha did tell of the gay mornings and the
dark night.
Ellen listened quietly, showing neither dismay nor astonishment. Life as
she had seen it was a grim affair, and she had known fear for this young
girl at her side. But she judged by accomplished facts rather than by
fearsome thoughts or self-accusation. When Hertha had finished she spoke
in her matter-of-fact way:
"I'm so glad you told me, for I must say, Hertha, you haven't shown much
common sense. Why, Lee Merryvale's the one man in the world you can
trust. You know that he resisted temptation. It isn't likely that the
Lord'll lead him down such a difficult path again."
"You mean----" Hertha cried excitedly.
Ellen went on: "As to his not caring for you--if you'd seen him
wandering around this place as I have, looking like a dog that's lost
his mistress, you'd understand he isn't the sort that changes his mind
every few weeks. He was worried sick when he couldn't find you in New
York. We were all frightened, I'll confess now, but he was the worst.
I've seen him digging in his garden, hour after hour, or working among
the trees, acting as if he hadn't a friend in the world. I'm not
excusing anything, don't think that, but I do believe in giving people
credit for what they are and in understanding when they turn from wrong
and do right."
Suddenly her matter-of-fact mood changed. With a sob she took her little
sister in her arms and kissed her again and again: "Don't say it was
chance!" The tears were on her face. "I don't believe in chance. The
Lord was watching over you all the time."