Two years have elapsed since we left Annette recounting her school
grievances to Mrs. Lasette. She has begun to feel the social contempt
which society has heaped upon the colored people, but she has determined
not to succumb to it. There is force in the character of that fiery,
impetuous and impulsive girl, and her school experience is bringing it
out. She has been bending all her mental energies to compete for the
highest prize at the commencement of her school, from which she expects
to graduate in a few weeks. The treatment of the saloon-keeper's
daughter, and that of other girls of her ilk, has stung her into
strength. She feels that however despised her people may be, that a
monopoly of brains has not been given to the white race. Mr. Thomas has
encouraged her efforts, and taught her to believe that not only is her
own honor at stake as a student, but that as a representative of her
branch of the human race, she is on the eve of winning, or losing, not
only for herself, but for others. This view of the matter increases her
determination and rouses up all the latent energies of her nature, and
she labors day and night to be a living argument of the capability in
her race. For other girls who will graduate in that school, there will
be open doors, and unclosed avenues, while she knows that the color of
her skin will bar against her the doors of workshops, factories and
school rooms, and yet Mr. Thomas, knowing all the discouragements around
her path, has done what he could to keep her interest in her studies
from flagging. He knows that she has fine abilities, but that they must
be disciplined by trial and endeavor before her life can be rounded by
success and triumph. He has seen several of her early attempts at
versification; pleased and even delighted with them, he has shown them
to a few of his most intellectual friends. Eager and earnest for the
elevation of the colored people, he has been pained at the coldness with
which they have been received.
"I do not call that poetry," said one of the most intelligent women of
A.P.
"Neither do I see anything remarkable about her," said another.
"I did not," said Mr. Thomas, "bring you the effusions of an
acknowledged poet, but I think that the girl has fine ability, which
needs encouragement and recognition."
But his friends could not see it; they were very charry of their
admiration, lest their judgment should be found at fault, and then it
was so much easier to criticise than it was to heartily admire; and they
knew it seemed safer to show their superior intelligence by dwelling on
the defects, which would necessarily have an amount of crudeness in them
than to look beneath the defects for the suggestions of beauty, strength
and grace which Mr. Thomas saw in these unripe, but promising effusions.
It seemed perfectly absurd with the surroundings of Tennis Court to
expect anything grand or beautiful [to] develop in its midst; but with
Annette, poetry was a passion born in her soul, and it was as natural
for her to speak in tropes and figures as it was for others to talk in
plain, common prose. Mr. Thomas called her "our inveterate poet," and
encouraged her, but the literary aspirants took scarcely any interest in
the girl whom they left to struggle on as best she might. In her own
home she was doomed to meet with lack of encouragement and appreciation
from her relatives and grandmother's friends. One day her aunt, Eliza
Hanson, was spending the day with her mother, and Annette showed her
some of her verses and said to her, "that is one of my best pieces."
"Oh, you have a number of best pieces," said her aunt, carelessly. "Can
you cook a beefsteak?"
"I suppose I could if I tried."
"Well, you had better try than to be trying to string verses together.
You seem to think that there must be something very great about you. I
know where you want to get. You want to get among the upper tens, but
you haven't got style enough about you for that."
"That's just what I tell her," said her grandmother. "She's got too many
airs for a girl in her condition. She talks about writing a book, and
she is always trying to make up what she calls poetry. I expect that she
will go crazy some of these days. She is all the time talking to
herself, and I just think it is a sin for her to be so much taken up
with her poetry."
"You had better put her to work; had she not better go out to service?"
"No, I am going to let her graduate first."
"What's the use of it? When she's through, if she wants to teach, she
will have to go away."
"Yes, I know that, but Mrs. Lasette has persuaded me to let Annette
graduate, and I have promised that I would do so, and besides I think to
take Annette from school just now would almost break her heart."
"Well, mother, that is just like you; you will work yourself almost to
death to keep Annette in school, and when she is through what good will
it do her?"
"Maybe something will turn up that you don't see just now. When a good
thing turns up if a person ain't ready for it they can't take hold of
it."
"Well, I hope a good husband will turn up for my Alice."
"But maybe the good husband won't turn up for Annette."
"That is well said, for they tell me that Annette is not very popular,
and that some of the girls are all the time making fun of her."
"Well, they had better make fun of themselves and their own bad manners.
Annette is poor and has no father to stand by her, and I cannot
entertain like some of their parents can, but Annette, with all her
faults, is as good as any of them. Talk about the prejudice of the white
people, I think there is just as much prejudice among some colored as
there is among them, only we do not get the same chance to show it; we
are most too mixed up and dependent on one another for that." Just then
Mrs. Lasette entered the room and Mrs. Hanson, addressing her, said, "We
were just discussing Annette's prospects. Mother wants to keep Annette
at school till she graduates, but I think she knows enough now to teach
a country school and it is no use for mother to be working as she does
to keep Annette in school for the sake of letting her graduate. There
are lots of girls in A.P. better off than she who have never graduated,
and I don't see that mother can afford to keep Annette at school any
longer."
"But, Eliza, Annette is company for me and she does help about the
house."
"I don't think much of her help; always when I come home she has a book
stuck under her nose."
"Annette," said Mrs. Lasette, "is a favorite of mine; I have always a
warm place in my heart for her, and I really want to see the child do
well. In my judgment I do not think it advisable to take her from school
before she graduates. If Annette were indifferent about her lessons and
showed no aptitude for improvement I should say as she does not
appreciate education enough to study diligently and has not aspiration
enough to keep up with her class, find out what she is best fitted for
and let her be instructed in that calling for which she is best
adapted."
"I think," said Mrs. Hanson, "you all do wrong in puffing up Annette
with the idea that she is something extra. You think, Mrs. Lasette, that
there is something wonderful about Annette, but I can't see it, and I
hear a lot of people say she hasn't got good sense."
"They do not understand the child."
"They all say that she is very odd and queer and often goes out into the
street as if she never saw a looking glass. Why, Mrs. Miller's daughter
just laughed till she was tired at the way Annette was dressed when she
went to call on an acquaintance of hers. Why, Annette just makes herself
a perfect laughing stock."
"Well, I think Mary Miller might have found better employment than
laughing at her company."
"Now, let me tell you, Mary Miller don't take her for company, and that
very evening Annette was at my house, just next door, and when Mary
Miller went to church she never asked her to go along with her, although
she belongs to the same church."
"I am sorry to say it," said grandmother Harcourt, "but your Alice
hardly ever comes to see Annette, and never asks her to go anywhere with
her, but may be in the long run Annette will come out better than some
who now look down upon her. It is a long road that has no turn and
Annette is like a singed cat; she is better than she looks."
"I think," said Mrs. Lasette, "while Annette is very bright and
intelligent as a pupil, she has been rather slow in developing in some
other directions. She lacks tact, is straightforward to bluntness and
has not any style about her and little or no idea of company manners,
but she is never coarse nor rude. I never knew her to read a book whose
author I would blush to name, and I never heard her engage in any
conversation I would shrink to hear repeated. I don't think there is a
girl of purer lips in A.P. than Annette, and I do not think your set, as
you call it, has such a monopoly of either virtue or intelligence that
you can afford to ridicule and depress any young soul who does not
happen to come up to your social standard. Where dress and style are
passports Annette may be excluded, but where brain and character count
Annette will gain admittance. I fear," said Mrs. Lasette, rising to go,
"that many a young girl has gone down in the very depths who might have
been saved if motherly women, when they saw them unloved and lonely, had
reached out to them a helping hand and encouraged them to live useful
and good lives. We cry am I my sister's keeper? [I?] will not wipe the
blood off our hands if through pride and selfishness we have stabbed by
our neglect souls we should have helped by our kindness. I always feel
for young girls who are lonely and neglected in large cities and are in
danger of being ensnared by pretended sympathies and false friendship,
and, to-day, no girl is more welcome at any social gathering than
Annette."
"Mrs. Lasette," said Mrs. Hanson, "you are rich and you can do as you
choose in A.P. You can set the fashion."
"No; I am not rich, but I hope that I will always be able to lend a
hand to any lonely girl who is neglected, slighted and forgotten while
she is trying to do right, who comes within my reach while I live in
A.P. Good morning."
"Annette," said Mrs. Hanson,[12] "has a champion who will stand by her."
"Yes," said Mrs. Harcourt,[13] "Anna is true as steel; the kind of woman
you can tie to. When my great trouble came, she was good as gold, and
when my poor heart was almost breaking, she always had a kind word for
me. I wish we had ten thousand like her."
"Well, mother, I must go, but if Annette does graduate don't let her go
on the stage looking like a fright. General H's daughter has a beautiful
new silk dress and a lovely hat which she got just a few weeks before
her mother's death; as she has gone in black she wants to sell it, and
if you say so, and will pay for it on installments, I can get if for
Annette, and I think with a little alteration it would be splendid for
her graduation dress."
"No; Eliza, I can't afford it."
"Why, mother, Annette will need something nice for the occasion, and it
will not cost any more than what you intend to pay for her dress and
hat. Why not take them?"
"Because Annette is not able to wear them. Suppose she had that one fine
dress and hat, would she not want more to match with them? I don't want
her to learn to dress in a style that she cannot honestly afford. I
think this love of dress is the ruination of many a young girl. I think
this straining after fine things when you are not able to get them, is
perfectly ridiculous. I believe in cutting your coat according to your
cloth. I saw Mrs. Hempstead's daughter last Sunday dressed up in a
handsome light silk, and a beautiful spring hat, and if she or her
mother would get sick to-morrow, they would, I suppose, soon be objects
of public charity or dependent on her widowed sister, who is too proud
to see her go to the poor house; and this is just the trouble with a lot
of people; they not only have their own burdens to bear but somebody
else's. You may call me an old fogy, but I would rather live cheap and
dress plain than shirk my burdens because I had wasted when they had
saved. You and John Hanson are both young and have got your health and
strength, and instead of buying sealskins, and velvets and furbelows,
you had better be laying up for a rainy day. You have no more need for a
sealskin cloak than a cat has for a catechism. Now you do as you please,
I have had my say."