_Eunice! Eunice!_
With slow, uncertain step, a wild haunted look in her eye, Eunice,
clutching her little boy's hand until it pained him, moved down the
corridor toward the door leading out of the court house. She was about
to face the world in the South as a member of the Negro race, and the
very thought thereof spread riot within her soul. The nearer she drew to
the door the greater was the anguish of her spirit. More than once she
turned and retraced her steps in the corridor, trying to muster the
courage to face the outer world in her new racial alignment. At last she
stood near the door, her whole frame trembling as a result of the
sweeping over her spirit of storm after storm of emotions. Her little
boy, unable to grasp the import of his mother's behavior was eagerly
scanning her face and weeping silently in instinctive sympathy.
With a sudden burst of courage Eunice stepped out of the court house
door and a young white man, who had been awaiting her, stepped up to
speak to her. His hat was tilted back on his head, a lighted cigar was
in his mouth, and his hands were thrust deep in his trousers pockets.
Eunice looked up at him, saw the wicked leer in his eyes, and recoiled.
"Don't be scared, Eunice. I stayed here to tell you that the hackman who
brought you here got a chance to make a little extra by taking some
white ladies home and said for you to stay here until he got back. He
won't be gone but a few minutes."
The suggestive look, the patronizing tone, the failure to use "Mrs.," on
the part of the man that addressed her, and the action of the hackman in
leaving her to take some white woman home, served as a tonic to brace up
the quailing spirit of Eunice.
Her first brush with the world as a member of the Negro race had aroused
her fighting spirit.
"How dare you address me in that manner, you boorish wretch!" exclaimed
Eunice, her small frame shaking with indignation.
The young man seemed rather to enjoy Eunice's rage and coolly replied,
"Well, Eunice, you know, Eunice, that you are a Negress now and there
are no misses and mistresses in that race. If you were a little older I
would call you 'aunty;' if you were a little older still I would call
you 'mammy;' if very old, 'grandma Eunice.' But as it is, I have to call
you plain 'Eunice.' My race would disrespect me if I didn't follow the
rule, you know."
"You wretched cur! You yap!" screamed Eunice.
"As this is your first day in the 'nigger' race I won't bother you for
calling me out of my name. But let me give you a piece of advice. We
white folks like a 'nigger' in his place only, and you find yours quick.
And remember that you 'nigger' women don't come in for all that stepping
back which we do for white women. We go so far as to burn your kind down
here sometimes. As for that brat there, bring him up as a 'nigger' and
teach him his place, if you don't want him to see trouble." So saying
the young white man turned and walked away, leaving Eunice enraged and
amazed at his effrontery.
The refined classes among the whites who would not under any
circumstance have wantonly wounded Eunice's sensibilities, had
nevertheless issued the decree of caste and the grosser ones among them
were to execute it, and Eunice was tasting the gall that the unrefined
pour out daily for a whole race to drink.
Typical of that class that enjoyed seeing the Negroes writhing under
their wounded sensibilities, this young man had craved the honor of
being the first to make Eunice taste the bitterness of her new lot in
life.
Eunice and her son now proceeded to the street car. A number of white
women boarded the car just in front of her and the conductor politely
helped them on. When her time came to step up, he caught hold of her
arm to assist her. When a glance at her face told him who she was, he
(having seen her picture in the newspapers, and learned the result of
the trial) quickly turned her loose so that she fell off the car, badly
spraining her ankle.
Eunice did not understand his action and looked up at him inquiringly.
The contemptuous look upon his face explained it all. With her sprained
ankle she hobbled on the car and took a seat near the rear door. A
number of half-grown white boys were on the rear platform and felt
inclined to contribute their share of discomfort to the newly discovered
Negro woman. They hummed over and over again the "rag time" song. "Coon,
coon, coon, I wish my color would fade!"
When Eunice and her son arrived at her hotel she alighted from the car
unaided, and painfully journeyed to her room, which was being thoroughly
overhauled by an employee.
"Where---- where---- is my room?" asked Eunice, haltingly, fearing that
she had somehow made a mistake.
"You haven't any in this hotel," was the gruff response.
"But I have; I am in the wrong room, perhaps," said Eunice.
"No, you have been in the wrong race. You are a 'nigger' and we don't
run a 'nigger' hotel. Your things are piled up in the alley, and you
will please get out of the building as quickly as you can."
Eunice's mind now ran back to the occasion of her first stay in that
hotel, recalled how royally she was treated then and contrasted it with
the treatment she was now receiving. Stepping to the mirror she gazed at
herself saying:
"What leprosy, what loathsome disease has befallen me that everybody now
spurns me. One cruel little word--Negro--has converted fawning into
frowning and a paradise into hell."
Taking her boy by the hand she started out of the building as hurriedly
as her sprained ankle would permit.
"Back doors for 'niggers,'" shouted the employee, as he saw that Eunice
had started toward the front entrance.
Rage mounted the throne in Eunice's heart and she turned towards her
tormentor. She parted her lips and the oaths of stern men were upon the
eve of bursting forth, but she repressed them and was soon out of the
hotel. The railroad station was not far away and she preferred walking
to submitting to the indignities that might attend riding on the cars.
Appearing at the railroad ticket office she applied for a berth in a
sleeper. Her face was known there, too, and she was told that all the
berths were taken. A white woman going on the same train was the next to
apply for a berth and was given her choice of a number. Eunice noticed
the discrimination and returned to the clerk.
"You must have been mistaken as to the train I am to travel on, for the
lady that has just left secured a berth on that train after I had
failed," said Eunice pleadingly, for she desired the seclusion of a
sleeping car for her mournful journey home.
"You belong to a voteless race and I can't give you a berth," said the
ticket agent.
"What has voting to do with my getting a suitable place to ride on a
train?" said Eunice, tears of vexation coming into her eyes.
"Everything," said the young man more sympathetically.
"You see it is this way," he continued. "The Governor of this state, who
sprang from a class of whites, who never had much love for the Negro,
happened to take a sleeper that was occupied by a few Negroes who did
not conduct themselves properly. Though the great body of Negroes who
were able and disposed to occupy berths were genteel and well-behaved,
this governor, to properly bolster his dignity resolved upon a course
that would work discomfort for thousands. He threatened to recommend to
the legislature that a law be passed demanding separate sleeping cars
for the two races unless Negroes were kept out of sleepers. We lose less
by keeping Negroes out than we would by being compelled to operate two
sets of cars. If you people had voting power and could stand by us we
could stand by you. It is a matter of business with us."
"You are discriminating against me without the warrant of law and are
subject to a suit," said Eunice.
"The case will be tried by a white jury and a verdict will be rendered
against us. We will be required to pay the cost of the court and to hand
over to you one cent!"
Taking her little boy by the hand, Eunice slowly turned and walked away
while the tears rolled down her cheeks. She did so much crave the
darkness and seclusion of a berth, where she could take an inventory of
the new world into which she had come, but there was no escape from the
lighted coach occupied by Negroes. Getting on the train she took a seat
in the section of the coach set apart for Negroes. The Negro porter
thinking she had made a mistake took her into a coach for whites.
"Take that woman back. She is no white woman," bawled out one of the
passengers, who had in his hands an afternoon paper containing a
likeness of Eunice and an account of the trial.
The puzzled porter turned to Eunice and said, "Are you a--are you a--"
He was afraid to ask the woman as to whether she was a Negro fearing she
might be a white woman and would have him killed for the insult; and he
was equally afraid to ask her as to whether she was a white woman,
fearing that if she was white she would resent a question that seemed to
imply any sort of resemblance to a Negro. It occurred to him to say:
"This coach is for whites and the one you came out of is for Negroes."
Saying this he left hurriedly, leaving her to select the coach in which
she was to ride. Eunice groped her way back to the section of the coach
set apart for Negroes.
Earl had heard by means of the long distance telephone of the outcome of
the trial, and desiring that the first meeting with Eunice after the sad
experience should be private, he had preferred sending to the railway
station for her, to going himself. He was now in his library when Eunice
and her son reached the house. As Eunice pushed open the library door
and stood facing her husband she stretched forth her hands and said in
tones that pierced Earl's heart:
"Doomed! Doomed! Assigned to membership in the Negro race! Made heir to
all the contempt of the world. Doomed! Doomed!"
Earl stood with folded arms and a heart whose emotions cannot be
portrayed, and looked at the picture of woe before him, his beautiful
wife frantic and despairing and his little son already feeling in his
youthful spirit the all pervading gloom that creeps through the Negro
world.
"Be not dismayed, Eunice, dear! I am not at the end of my resources. I
shall yet burst a bomb in this Southland," said Earl.
Eunice rushed to Earl clutched his arms and looked up wildly into his
eyes. "Earl, dear Earl! Tell me! Tell me quickly and tell the truth! Is
there, can there be any hope for the Negro here or elsewhere?"
Earl did not answer at once. He looked steadily into her eyes and
realized that he was in the immediate presence of a soul about to make a
final plunge into the dark, dark abyss of despair. It was to him a holy
presence and he could not lie!
"Eunice, dear, there is hope. Slowly, but surely the world is working
its way to a basis of justice for all," said Earl.
"My boy! Is there hope for him?"
"The hope of sublime battling, dear," said Earl.
"Is that all there is for my boy? No hope of reward. Only battle!
battle!" asked Eunice.
"Grant me a favor, Eunice. I know what that look in your face means. I
see that you are thinking of leaving me, and of taking my boy and your
boy with you. You are planning suicide," said Earl.
"Ha! ha!" laughed Eunice, in the uncanny tones of madness. "You guess
well. Come with us," she said, casting a look in the direction of a
drawer where she knew the pistol to be.
"Grant me this favor, Eunice. Don't die. Spare my boy. Live and let my
boy live a little while longer. I have several more lines of attack. If
they fail then we can all go."
Eunice whirled around the room gayly and said with childish glee, "You
will then die with us, will you? Ha! ha! ha!" A terrible fear stole over
Earl as he watched her peculiar behavior.
"Live! Ha! ha! ha! 'Nigger,' 'darkey,' 'coon'--live! Yes, I'll
live! I'll live! Whee--poo--poo--wheep!" screamed Eunice, now
dashing wildly about the room. She had gone mad.
* * * * *
At the earliest moment practicable Earl bore the raving Eunice out of
the Southland, carried her to a sanitarium in a northern city. Giving
the physician in charge a history of the case and allowing him time to
study it, Earl awaited the verdict as to Eunice's chances of recovery.
"Mr. Bluefield, to be absolutely frank with you, I am compelled to say
that, in my opinion, your wife's case is an incurable one. The one
specific cause of her mental breakdown is the Southern situation which
has borne tremendously upon her. That whole region of country is
affected by a sort of sociological hysteria and we physicians are
expecting more and more pathological manifestations as a result of the
strain upon the people.
"Only one thing could cure your wife and that is the reversal of the
conditions that have wrought upon her mind. She has lucid moments, but
whenever her mind forcibly recurs to the Southern situation she again
plunges into the gulf of despair. If in these lucid moments you could
place before her a ladder of hope, I am of the opinion that a cure would
be effected. That is equivalent to saying, I fear, that the case is
incurable, for I can see no way out of the Southern tangle."
Such were the awful words addressed to Earl Bluefield by the physician
in charge of the sanitarium when Earl called to learn of him his opinion
concerning Eunice's case.
Earl walked forth from the sanitarium and journeyed hurriedly to the
southern border of the city. When the houses of the city were well at
his back and he had an unobstructed view to the south, he paused and,
holding his right hand aloft, he said:
"Hear, O spirit world, if such there be, that, in the days to come, you
may witness how faithfully Earl Bluefield, Humanity's Ishmaelite, kept
his word. Non-existent was I until the whim of a Southern white man,
trampling upon the alleged sacred canons of his race, called me into
being and endowed me with the spirit of his kind. In the race into which
I was thrust, I sought to manifest my martial spirit, but met with no
adequate response from men grooved in the ways of peace. I found me a
wife with spirit akin to mine, and like myself a victim of the bloods.
The two of us withdrew from the active affairs of men, and from our own
heath looked out upon the land of our birth, in the very which we had
been made aliens. And now we have been dragged from our happy seclusion
and gibbeted.
"And thinkest thou, O Southland, that the last has been heard of me? Ha!
Ha! For fear that thou mayest deceive thyself thus, hear the oath of
Earl the Ishmaelite:
"By the wrenched chords of the heart of a boy spurned by a contemning
father; by the double shame of a mother wickedly wooed and despised in
the one breath; by the patience and optimism of the blood of my black
forbears; by the energy and persistence of my grant of blood from
Europe--by all these mighty tokens, I make oath that this nation shall
rest neither day nor night until this shadow is lifted from my soul. And
I further make oath, O despisers of the offerings of my higher self,
that I shall meet your every fresh wound with face the more uplifted
because thereof, and to better meet all that you have to hand out to me,
I shall keep company with the Spirit that makes nerve food of disasters
and ascension chariots of whirlwinds."