For awhile Mrs. Harcourt was busy in preparing the supper, to which they
all did ample justice. In her white apron, faultless neck handkerchief
and nicely fitting, but plain dress, Mrs. Harcourt looked the
impersonation of contented happiness. Sorrow had left deep furrows upon
her kindly face, but for awhile the shadows seemed to have been lifted
from her life and she was the pleasant hostess, forgetting her own
sorrows in contributing to the enjoyment of others. Supper being over,
her guests resumed their conversation.
"You do not look upon the mixing of the schools as being necessarily
disadvantageous to our people," said the minister.
"That," said Mr. Thomas, "is just in accordance to the way we adapt
ourselves to the change. If we are to remain in this country as a
component part of the nation, I cannot fail to regard with interest any
step which tends toward our unification with all the other branches of
the human race in this Western Hemisphere."
"Although," said Mrs. Lasette, "I have been educating my daughter and
have felt very sorry when I have witnessed the disappointment of parents
who have fitted their children for teachers and have seen door after
door closed against them, I cannot help regarding the mixing of the
schools as at least one step in a right direction."
"But Mrs. Lasette," said the minister, "as we are educated by other
means than school books and blackboards, such as the stimulus of hope,
the incentives of self-respect and the consensus of public opinion, will
it not add to the depression of the race if our children are made to
feel that, however well educated they may be or exemplary as pupils, the
color of their skin must debar them from entering avenues which are
freely opened to the young girls of every other nationality."
Mr. Thomas replied, "In considering this question, which is so much
broader than a mere local question, I have tried to look beyond the life
of the individual to the life of the race, and I find that it is through
obstacles overcome, suffering endured and the tests of trial that
strength is obtained, courage manifested and character developed. We are
now passing through a crucial period in our race history and what we so
much need is moral earnestness, strength of character and purpose to
guide us through the rocks and shoals on which so many life barques have
been stranded and wrecked."
"Yes," said Mrs. Lasette, "I believe that we are capable of being more
than light-hearted children of the tropics and I want our young people
to gain more persistence in their characters, perseverance in their
efforts and that esprit de corps, which shall animate us with higher,
nobler and holier purpose in the future than we have ever known in the
past; and while I am sorry for the parents who, for their children's
sake, have fought against the entailed ignorance of the ages with such
humble weapons as the washboard, flat iron and scrubbing brush, and who
have gathered the crumbs from the humblest departments of labor, still I
feel with Mr. Thomas that the mixing of the schools is a stride in the
march of the nation, only we must learn how to keep step in the progress
of the centuries."
"I do not think that I fully comprehend you," Mr. Lomax replied.
"Let me explain. I live in the 19th Ward. In that Ward are not a half
dozen colored children. When my husband bought the land we were more
than a mile from the business part of the city, but we were poor and the
land was very cheap and my husband said that paying rent was like
putting money in a sinking fund; so he resolved, even if it put us to a
little disadvantage, that he would buy the tract of land where we now
live. Before he did so, he called together a number of his
acquaintances, pointed out to them the tract of land and told them how
they might join with him in planting a small hamlet for themselves; but
except the few colored neighbors we now have, no one else would join
with us. Some said it was too far from their work, others that they did
not wish to live among many colored people, and some suspected my
husband of trying either to take the advantage of them, or of
agrandising himself at their expense, and I have now dear friends who
might have been living comfortably in their own homes, who, to-day, are
crowded in tenement houses or renting in narrow alleys and little
streets."
"That's true," said Mrs. Larkins, "I am one of them. I wanted my husband
to take up with your husband's offer, but he was one of those men who
knew it all and he never seemed to think it possible that any colored
man could see any clearer than he did. I knew your husband's head was
level and I tried to persuade Mr. Larkins to take up with his offer, but
he would not hear to it; said he knew his own business best, and shut me
up by telling me that he was not going to let any woman rule over him;
and here I am to-day, Larkins gone and his poor old widow scuffing night
and day to keep soul and body together; but there are some men you
couldn't beat anything into their heads, not if you took a sledge
hammer. Poor fellow, he is gone now and I ought not to say anything agin
him, but if he had minded me, I would have had a home over my head and
some land under my feet; but it is no use to grieve over spilled milk.
When he was living if I said, yes, he was always sure to say, no. One
day I said to him when he was opposing me, the way we live is like the
old saying, 'Pull Dick and pull devil,' and what do you think he said?"
"I don't know, I'm sure, what was it?"
"Why, he just looked at me and smiled and said, 'I am Dick.' Of course
he meant that I was the other fellow."
"But," said Mrs. Lasette, "this is a digression from our subject. What
I meant to say is this, that in our Ward is an excellent school house
with a half score of well equipped and efficient teachers. The former
colored school house was a dingy looking building about a mile and a
half away with only one young school teacher, who had, it is true,
passed a creditable examination. Now, when my daughter saw that the
children of all other nationalities, it mattered not how low and
debasing might be their environments, could enter the school for which
her father paid taxes, and that she was forced either to stay at home or
to go through all weathers to an ungraded school, in a poorly ventilated
and unevenly heated room, would not such public inequality burn into her
soul the idea of race-inferiority? And this is why I look upon the mixed
school as a right step in the right direction."
"Taking this view of the matter I see the pertinence of your position on
this subject. Do you know," continued Mr. Lomax,[7] his face lighting up
with a fine enthusiasm, "that I am full of hope for the future of our
people?"
"That's more than I am," said Mrs. Larkins very coldly. "When you have
summered and wintered them as I have, you will change your tune."
"Oh, I hope not," he replied with an accent of distress in his voice.
"You may think me a dreamer and enthusiast, but with all our faults I
firmly believe that the Negro belongs to one of the best branches of the
human race, and that he has a high and holy mission in the great drama
of life. I do not think our God is a purposeless Being, but his ways are
not as our ways are, and his thoughts are not our thoughts, and I dare
not say 'Had I his wisdom or he my love,' the condition of humanity
would be better. I prefer thinking that in the crucible of pain and
apparent disaster, that we are held by the hand of a loving Father who
is doing for us all, the best he can to fit us for companionship with
him in the eternities, and with John G. Whittier, I feel:
Amid the maddening maze of things
When tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed stake my spirit clings
I know that God is good.
"I once questioned and doubted, but now I have learned to love and trust
in 'Him whom the heavens must receive till the time of the restitution
of all things.' By this trust I do not mean a lazy leaning on Providence
to do for us what we have ability to do for ourselves. I think that our
people need more to be taught how to live than to be constantly warned
to get ready to die. As Brother Thomas said, we are now passing through
a crucial period of our history and what we need is life--more abundant
life in every fibre of our souls; life which will manifest itself in
moral earnestness, vigor of purpose, strength of character and spiritual
progression."
"I do hope," said Mr. Thomas, "that as you are among us, you will impart
some of your earnestness and enthusiasm to our young people."
"As I am a new comer here, and it is said that the people of A.P., are
very sensitive to criticism, though very critical themselves and rather
set and conservative in their ways, I hope that I shall have the benefit
of your experience in aiding me to do all I can to help the people among
whom my lot is cast."
"You are perfectly welcome to any aid I can give you. Just now some of
us are interested in getting our people out of these wretched alleys and
crowded tenement houses into the larger, freer air of the country. We
want our young men to help us fight the battle against poverty,
ignorance, degradation, and the cold, proud scorn of society. Before our
public lands are all appropriated, I want our young men and women to get
homesteads, and to be willing to endure privations in order to place our
means of subsistence on a less precarious basis. The land is a basis of
power, and like Anteus in the myth, we will never have our full measure
of material strength till we touch the earth as owners of the soil. And
when we get the land we must have patience and perseverance enough to
hold it."
"In one of our Western States is a city which suggests the idea of
Aladdin's wonderful lamp. Where that city now stands was once the
homestead of a colored man who came from Virginia and obtained it under
the homestead law. That man has since been working as a servant for a
man who lives on 80 acres of his former section, and who has plotted the
rest for the city of C."
"How did he lose it?"
"When he came from the South the country was new and female labor in
great demand. His wife could earn $1.50 a day, and instead of moving on
his land, he remained about forty miles away, till he had forfeited his
claim, and it fell into the hands of the present proprietor. Since then
our foresight has been developing and some months since in travelling in
that same State, I met a woman whose husband had taken up a piece of
land and was bringing it under cultivation. She and her children
remained in town where they could all get work, and transmit him help
and in a few years, I expect, they will be comfortably situated in a
home owned by their united efforts."