Mrs. Harcourt was a Southern woman by birth, who belonged to that class
of colored people whose freedom consisted chiefly in not being the
chattels of the dominant race--a class to whom little was given and from
whom much was required. She was naturally bright and intelligent, but
had come up in a day when the very book of the Christian's law was to
her a sealed volume; but if she had not been educated through the aid of
school books and blackboards, she had obtained that culture of manners
and behavior which comes through contact with well-bred people, close
observation and a sense of self-respect and self-reliance, and when
deprived of her husband's help by an untimely death, she took up the
burden of life bravely and always tried to keep up what she called "a
stiff upper lip." Feeling the cramping of Southern life, she became
restive under the privations and indignities which were heaped upon free
persons of color, and at length she and her husband broke up their home
and sold out at a pecuniary sacrifice to come North, where they could
breathe free air and have educational privileges for their children. But
while she was strong and healthy her husband, whose health was not very
firm, soon succumbed to the change of climate and new modes of living
and left Mrs. Harcourt a stranger and widow in a strange land with six
children dependent on her for bread and shelter: but during her short
sojourn in the North[3] she had enlisted the sympathy and respect of
kind friends, who came to her relief and helped her to help herself, the
very best assistance they could bestow upon her. Capable and efficient,
she found no difficulty in getting work for herself and older children,
who were able to add their quota to the support of the family by running
errands, doing odd jobs for the neighbors and helping their mother
between school hours. Nor did she lay all the household burdens on the
shoulders of the girls and leave her boys to the mercy of the pavement;
she tried to make her home happy and taught them all to have a share in
adding to its sunshine. "It makes boys selfish," she would say, "to have
their sisters do all the work and let the boys go scot-free. I don't
believe there would be so many trifling men if the boys were trained to
be more helpful at home and to feel more for their mothers and sisters."
All this was very well for the peace and sunshine of that home, but as
the children advanced in life the question came to her with painful
emphasis----"What can I do for the future of my boys and girls?" She was
not anxious to have them all professional men and school teachers and
government clerks, but she wanted each one to have some trade or calling
by which a respectable and comfortable living could be made; but first
she consulted their tastes and inclinations. Her youngest boy was very
fond of horses, but instead of keeping him in the city, where he was in
danger of getting too intimate with horse jockeys and stable boys, she
found a place for him with an excellent farmer, who, seeing the tastes
of the boy, took great interest in teaching him how to raise stock and
he became a skillful farmer. Her second son showed that he had some
mechanical skill and ingenuity and she succeeded in getting him a
situation with a first-class carpenter, and spared no pains to have him
well instructed in all the branches of carpentry, and would often say to
him, "John, don't do any sham work if you are going to be a carpenter;
be thorough in every thing you do and try to be the best carpenter in
A.P., and if you do your work better than others, you won't have to be
all the time going around advertising yourself; somebody will find out
what you can do and give you work." Her oldest son was passionately fond
of books and she helped him through school till he was able to become a
school teacher. But as the young man was high spirited and ambitious, he
resolved that he would make his school teaching a stepping stone to a
more congenial employment. He studied medicine and graduated with M.D.,
but as it takes a young doctor some time to gain the confidence of an
old community, he continued after his graduation to teach and obtained a
certificate to practice medicine. Without being forced to look to his
mother for assistance, while the confidence of his community was slowly
growing, he depended on the school for his living and looked to the
future for his success as a physician.
For the girls, because they were colored, there were but few avenues
open, but they all took in sewing and were excellent seamstresses,
except Lucy, who had gone from home to teach school in a distant city as
there were no openings of the kind for her at her own home.
Mrs. Harcourt was very proud of her children and had unbounded
confidence in them. She was high-spirited and self-respecting and it
never seemed to enter her mind that any evil might befall the children
that would bring sorrow and shame to her home; but nevertheless it came
and Lucy, her youngest child, the pet and pride of the household
returned home with a great sorrow tugging at her heart and a shadow on
her misguided life. It was the old story of woman's weakness and folly
and man's perfidy and desertion. Poor child, how wretched she was till
"peace bound up her bleeding heart," and even then the arrow had pierced
too deep for healing. Sorrow had wasted her strength and laid the
foundation of disease and an early death. Religion brought balm to the
wounded spirit, but no renewed vigor to the wasted frame and in a short
time she fell a victim to consumption, leaving Annette to the care of
her mother. It was so pitiful to see the sorrow on the dear old face as
she would nestle the wronged and disinherited child to her heart and
would say so mournfully, "Oh, I never, never expected this!"
Although Annette had come into the family an unbidden and unwelcome
guest, associated with the saddest experience of her grandmother's life,
yet somehow the baby fingers had wound themselves around the tendrils of
her heart and the child had found a shelter in the warm clasp of loving
arms. To her, Annette was a new charge, an increased burden; but burden
to be defended by her love and guarded by her care. All her other
children had married and left her, and in her lowly home this young
child with infantile sweetness, beguiled many a lonely hour. She loved
Lucy and that was Lucy's child.
But where was he who sullied
Her once unspotted name;
Who lured her from life's brightness
To agony and shame?
Did society, which closed its doors against Lucy and left her to
struggle as best she might out of the depth into which she had fallen,
pour any righteous wrath upon his guilty head? Did it demand that he
should at least bring forth some fruit meet for repentance by at least
helping Mrs. Harcourt to raise the unfortunate child? Not so. He left
that poor old grandmother to struggle with her failing strength, not
only to bear her own burden, but the one he had so wickedly imposed upon
her. He had left A.P. before Lucy's death and gone to the Pacific coast
where he became wealthy through liquor selling, speculation, gambling
and other disreputable means, and returned with gold enough to hide a
multitude of sins, and then fair women permitted and even courted his
society. Mothers with marriageable daughters condoned his offences
against morality and said, "oh, well, young men will sow their wild
oats; it is no use to be too straight laced." But there were a few
thoughtful mothers old fashioned enough to believe that the law of
purity is as binding upon the man as the woman, and who, under no
conditions, would invite him to associate with their daughters. Women
who tried to teach their sons to be worthy of the love and esteem of
good women by being as chaste in their conversation and as pure in their
lives as their young daughters who sat at their side sheltered in their
pleasant and peaceful homes. One of the first things that Frank Miller
did after he returned to A.P. was to open a large and elegantly
furnished saloon and restaurant. The license to keep such a place was
very high, and men said that to pay it he resorted to very questionable
means, that his place was a resort for gamblers, and that he employed a
young man to guard the entrance of his saloon from any sudden invasion
of the police by giving a signal without if he saw any of them
approaching, and other things were whispered of his saloon which showed
it to be a far more dangerous place for the tempted, unwary and
inexperienced feet of the young men of A.P., than any low groggery in
the whole city. Young men who would have scorned to enter the lowest
dens of vice, felt at home in his gilded palace of sin. Beautiful
pictures adorned the walls, light streamed into the room through finely
stained glass windows, women, not as God had made them, but as sin had
debased them, came there to spend the evening in the mazy dance, or to
sit with partners in sin and feast at luxurious tables. Politicians came
there to concoct their plans for coming campaigns, to fix their slates
and to devise means for grasping with eager hands the spoils of
government. Young men anxious for places in the gift of the government
found that winking at Frank Miller's vices and conforming to the
demoralizing customs of his place were passports to political favors,
and lacking moral stamina, hushed their consciences and became partakers
of his sins.[4] Men talked in private of his vices, and drank his
liquors and smoked his cigars in public. His place was a snare to their
souls. "The dead were there but they knew it not." He built a beautiful
home and furnished it magnificently, and some said that the woman who
married him would do well, as if it were possible for any woman to marry
well who linked her destinies to a wicked, selfish and base man, whose
business was a constant menace to the peace, the purity and progress of
society. I believe it was Milton who said that the purity of a man
should be more splendid than the purity of a woman, basing his idea upon
the declaration, "The head of the woman is the man, and the head of the
man is Jesus Christ." Surely if man occupies this high rank in the
creation of God he should ever be the true friend and helper of woman
and not, as he too often proves, her falsest friend and basest enemy.