"What a fool he is to refuse my offer," thought the saloon-keeper.
"What a pity it is," said Mr. Thomas to himself, "that a man of his
education and ability should be engaged in such accursed business."
After refusing the saloonkeeper's offer Mr. Thomas found a job of
work. It was not a job congenial to his feelings, but his motto was,
"If I do not see an opening I will make one." After he had turned
from Mr. Englishman's workshop, burning with a sense of wrong which
he felt powerless to overcome, he went on the levee and looked around
to see if any work might be picked up by him as a day laborer. He saw
a number of men singing, joking and plying their tasks with nimble
feet and apparently no other care upon their minds than meeting the
demands of the present hour, and for a moment he almost envied their
lightheartedness, and he thought within himself, where all men are born
blind, no man misses the light. These men are contented with privileges,
and I who have fitted myself for a different sphere in life, am chaffing
because I am denied rights. The right to sell my labor in any workshop
in this city same as the men of other nationalities, and to receive with
them a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. But he was strong and
healthy and he was too high spirited to sit moping at home depending
upon his mother to divide with him her scanty means till something
should turn up. The first thing that presented itself to him was the job
of helping unload a boat which had landed at the wharf, and a hand was
needed to assist in unloading her. Mr. Thomas accepted the position and
went to work and labored manfully at the unaccustomed task. That being
finished the merchant for whom he had done the work, hired him to labor
in his warehouse. He showed himself very handy in making slight repairs
when needed and being ready to turn his hand to any service out of his
routine of work, hammering a nail, adjusting a disordered lock and
showing a general concern in his employer's interests. One day his
employer had engaged a carpenter to make him a counter, but the man
instead of attending to his work had been off on a drunken spree, and
neglected to do the job. The merchant, vexed at the unnecessary delay,
said to Mr. Thomas in a bantering manner, "I believe you can do almost
anything, couldn't you make this counter?"
Mr. Thomas answered quite modestly, "I believe I could if I had my
tools."
"Tools! What do you mean by tools?"
Mr. Thomas told him how he learned to be a carpenter in the South and
how he had tried so unsuccessfully in the North to get an opportunity to
work at his trade until discouraged with the attempt, he had made up his
mind to take whatever work came to hand till he could see farther.
The merchant immediately procured the materials and set Mr. Thomas to
work, who in a short time finished the counter, and showed by his
workmanship that he was an excellent carpenter. The merchant pleased
with his work and satisfied with his ability, entrusted him with the
erection of a warehouse and, strange as it may appear, some of those men
who were too proud or foolish to work with him as a fellow laborer, were
humble enough to work under him as journeymen. When he was down they
were ready to kick him down. When he was up they were ready to receive
his helping hand. Mr. Thomas soon reached that "tide in his affairs
which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." Against the odds which
were against him his pluck and perseverance prevailed, and he was
enabled not only to build up a good business for himself, but also to
help others, and to teach them by his own experience not to be too
easily discouraged, but to trust to pluck more than luck, and learn in
whatever capacity they were employed to do their work heartily as unto
the Lord and not unto men.
Anxious to do what she could to benefit the community in which she
lived, Mrs. Lasette threw open her parlors for the gathering together
of the best thinkers and workers of the race, who choose to avail
themselves of the privilege of meeting to discuss any question of vital
importance to the welfare of the colored people of the nation. Knowing
the entail of ignorance which slavery had left them, she could not be
content by shutting up herself to mere social enjoyments within the
shadow of her home. And often the words would seem to ring within her
soul, "my people is destroyed for lack of knowledge," and with those
words would come the question, am I doing what I can to dispel the
darkness which has hung for centuries around our path? I have been
blessed with privileges which were denied others; I sat 'mid the light
of knowledge when some of my ill-fated sisters did not know what it was
to see daylight in their cabins from one week's end to the other.
Sometimes when she met with coldness and indifference where she least
expected it, she would grow sad but would not yield to discouragement.
Her heart was in the right place. "Freely she had received and freely
she would give." It was at one of Mrs. Lasette's gatherings that Mr.
Thomas met Rev. Mr. Lomax on whose church he had been refused a place,
and Mr. Thurman, a tradesman who also had been ousted from his position
through pride of caste and who had gone into another avocation, and
also Charley Cooper, of whom we have lost sight for a number of years.
He is now a steady and prosperous young man, a constant visitor at
Mrs. Lasette's. Rumor says that Mrs. Lasette's bright-eyed and lovely
daughter is the magnet which attracts him to their pleasant home. Rev.
Lomax has also been absent for several years on other charges, but when
he meets Mr. Thomas, the past flows back and the incidents of their
latest interviews naturally take their place in the conversation. "It
has been some time since we met," said Mr. Thomas, heartily shaking the
minister's hand.
"How has life used you since last we met?" said Rev. Lomax to Mr.
Thomas. "Are you well?"
"Perfectly well, I have had a varied experience since I met you, but
I have no reason to complain, and I think my experience has been
invaluable to me, and with this larger experience and closer
observation, I feel that I am more able to help others, and that, I
feel, has been one of my most valued acquirements. I sometimes think
of members of our people in some directions as sheep without a
shepherd, and I do wish from the bottom of my heart that I knew the
best way to help them."
"You do not," said the minister, somewhat anxiously, "ignore the power
of the pulpit."
"No, I do not; I only wish it had tenfold force. I wish we had ten
thousand ministers like Oberlin who was not ashamed to take the lead
in opening a road from Bande Roche to Strasburgh, a distance of several
miles to bring his parishioners in contact with the trade and business
of a neighboring village. I hope the time will come when every minister
in building a church which he consecrates to the worship of God will
build alongside of it or under the same roof, parish buildings or rooms
to be dedicated to the special wants of our people in their peculiar
condition."
"I do wish, Brother Lomax, those costly buildings which you erect will
cover more needs and wants of our people than some of them do now."
"What would you have in them?"
"I would have a parish building to every church, and I would have in
them an evening home for boys. I would have some persons come in and
teach them different handicrafts, so as at least to give them an
opportunity to be more expert in learning how to use their hands. I
would have that building a well warmed and well lighted room in winter,
where all should be welcome to come and get a sandwich and a warm cup
of tea or coffee and a hot bowl of soup, and if the grogshops were
selling liquor for five cents, I would sell the soup for three or four
cents, with a roll. I would have a room reserved for such ladies as Mrs.
Lasette, who are so willing to help, for the purpose of holding mother's
meetings. I would try to have the church the great centre of moral,
spiritual and intellectual life for the young, and try to present
counter attractions to the debasing influence of the low grogshops,
gambling dens and houses of ill fame."
"Part of our city (ought I confine myself to saying part of the city)
has not the whole city been cursed by rum? But I now refer to a special
part. I have seen church after church move out of that part of the city
where the nuisance and curse were so rife, but I never, to my knowledge,
heard of one of those churches offering to build a reading room and
evening home for boys, or to send out paid and sustained by their
efforts, a single woman to go into rum-cursed homes and teach their
inmates a more excellent way. I would have in that parish building the
most earnest men and women to come together and consult and counsel
with each other on the best means to open for ourselves, doors which
are still closed against us."
"I am sure," said the minister, "I am willing to do what I can for the
temporal and spiritual welfare of our people, and in this I have the
example of the great Physician who did not consider it beneath him to
attend to physical maladies as well as spiritual needs, and who did not
consider the synagogue too holy, nor the Sabbath day too sacred to
administer to the destitute and suffering."
"I was very sorry when I found out, Brother Thomas, that I could not
have you employed on my church, but I do not see what else I could have
done except submit."
"That was all you could have done in that stage of the work when I
applied, and I do not wish to bestow the slightest censure on you or the
trustees of your church, but I think, if when you were about to build
had you advertised for competent master-builders in the South, that you
could have gotten enough to have built the church without having
employed Mr. Hoog the master-builder. Had you been able to have gone to
him and said, 'we are about to build a church and it is more convenient
for us to have it done by our citizens than to send abroad for laborers.
We are in communication with a colored master builder in Kentucky, who
is known as an efficient workman and who would be glad to get the job,
and if your men refuse to work with a colored man our only alternative
will be to send for colored carpenters and put the building in their
hands.' Do you think he would have refused a thirty thousand dollar job
just because some of his men refused to work with colored men? I think
the greater portion of his workmen would have held their prejudices in
abeyance rather than let a thirty thousand dollar job slip out of their
hands. Now here is another thing in which I think united effort could
have effected something. Now, here is my friend Mr. Thurman; he was a
saddler versed in both branches of harness making. For awhile he got
steady work in a saddler's shop, but the prejudice against him was so
great that his employer was forced to dismiss him. He took work home,
but that did not heal the dissatisfaction, and at last he gave it up
and went to well-digging. Now, there were colored men in that place
who could have, as I think, invested some money in buying material
and helped him, not as a charity, but as a mere business operation
to set up a place for himself; he had the skill; they had the money,
and had they united both perhaps to-day there would be a flourishing
business carried on by the man who is now digging wells for a living.
I do hope that some time there will be some better modes of
communication between us than we now possess; that a labor bureau
will be established not as a charity among us, but as a business
with capable and efficient men who will try to find out the different
industries that will employ men irrespective of color and advertise
and find steady and reliable colored men to fill them. Colored men
in the South are largely employed in raising cotton and other produce;
why should there not be more openings in the South for colored men
to handle the merchandize and profit by it?"
"What hinders?" said Rev. Lomax.
"I will not say what hinders, but I will say what I think you can try
to do to help. Teach our young to dedicate their young lives to the
noble service of devoting them to the service of our common cause; to
throw away their cigars, dash down the foaming beer and sparkling wine
and strive to be more like those of whom it was said, 'I write unto you,
young men, because you are strong.'"