NO BEFITTING NAME.
Happy Belton now began to give serious thought to the question of
getting married. He desired to lead Antoinette to the altar as soon as
possible and then he would be sure of possessing the richest treasure
known to earth. And when he would speak of an early marriage she would
look happy and say nothing in discouragement of the idea. She was
Belton's, and she did not care how soon he claimed her as his own.
His poverty was his only barrier. His salary was small, being only
fifty dollars a month. He had not held his position long enough to
save up very much money. He decided to start up an enterprise that
would enable him to make money a great deal faster.
The colored people of Richmond at that time had no newspaper or
printing office. Belton organized a joint stock company and started a
weekly journal and conducted a job printing establishment. This paper
took well and was fast forging to the front as a decided success.
It began to lift up its voice against frauds at the polls and to
champion the cause of honest elections. It contended that practicing
frauds was debauching the young men, the flower of the Anglo-Saxon
race. One particularly meritorious article was copied in _The Temps_
and commented upon editorially. This article created a great stir in
political circles.
A search was instituted as to the authorship. It was traced to Belton,
and the politicians gave the school board orders to dump Belton
forthwith, on the ground that they could not afford to feed and clothe
a man who would so vigorously "attack Southern Institutions," meaning
by this phrase the universal practice of thievery and fraud at the
ballot box. Belton was summarily dismissed.
His marriage was of necessity indefinitely postponed. The other
teachers were warned to give no further support to Belton's paper on
pain of losing their positions. They withdrew their influence from
Belton and he was, by this means, forced to give up the enterprise.
He was now completely without an occupation, and began to look around
for employment. He decided to make a trial of politics. A campaign
came on and he vigorously espoused the cause of the Republicans. A
congressional and presidential campaign was being conducted at the
same time, and Belton did yeoman service.
Owing to frauds in the elections the Democrats carried the district
in which Belton labored, but the vote was closer than was ever known
before. The Republicans, however, carried the nation and the
President appointed a white republican as post-master of Richmond. In
recognition of his great service to his party, Belton was appointed
stamping clerk in the Post Office at a salary of sixty dollars per
month.
As a rule, the most prominent and lucrative places went to those who
were most influential with the voters. Measured by this standard and
by the standard of real ability, Belton was entitled to the best place
in the district in the gift of the government; but the color of his
skin was against him, and he had to content himself with a clerkship.
At the expiration of one year, Belton proudly led the charming
Antoinette Nermal to the marriage altar, where they became man and
wife. Their marriage was the most notable social event that had ever
been known among the colored people of Richmond. All of the colored
people and many of the white people of prominence were at the wedding
reception, and costly presents poured in upon them. This brilliant
couple were predicted to have a glorious future before them. So all
hearts hoped and felt.
About two years from Belton's appointment as stamping clerk and one
year from the date of his marriage, a congressional convention was
held for the purpose of nominating a candidate for Congress. Belton's
chief, the postmaster, desired a personal friend to have the honor.
This personal friend was known to be prejudiced against colored people
and Belton could not, therefore, see his way clear to support him for
the nomination. He supported another candidate and won for him the
nomination; but the postmaster dismissed him from his position as
clerk. Crushed in spirit, Belton came home to tell his wife of their
misfortune.
Although he was entitled to the postmastership, according to the
ethics of the existing political condition, he had been given a
commonplace clerkship. And now, because he would not play the puppet,
he was summarily dismissed from that humble position. His wife cheered
him up and bade him to not be despondent, telling him that a man of
his talents would beyond all question be sure to succeed in life.
Belton began to cast around for another occupation, but, in whatever
direction he looked, he saw no hope. He possessed a first class
college education, but that was all. He knew no trade nor was he
equipped to enter any of the professions. It is true that there were
positions around by the thousands which he could fill, but his color
debarred him. He would have made an excellent drummer, salesman,
clerk, cashier, government official (county, city, state, or national)
telegraph operator, conductor, or any thing of such a nature. But the
color of his skin shut the doors so tight that he could not even peep
in.
The white people would not employ him in these positions, and the
colored people did not have any enterprises in which they could employ
him. It is true that such positions as street laborer, hod-carrier,
cart driver, factory hand, railroad hand, were open to him; but such
menial tasks were uncongenial to a man of his education and polish.
And, again, society positively forbade him doing such labor. If a man
of education among the colored people did such manual labor, he was
looked upon as an eternal disgrace to the race. He was looked upon as
throwing his education away and lowering its value in the eyes of the
children who were to come after him.
So, here was proud, brilliant Belton, the husband of a woman whom he
fairly worshipped, surrounded in a manner that precluded his earning
a livelihood for her. This set Belton to studying the labor situation
and the race question from this point of view. He found scores of
young men just in his predicament. The schools were all supplied with
teachers. All other doors were effectually barred. Society's stern
edict forbade these young men resorting to lower forms of labor. And
instead of the matter growing better, it was growing worse, year by
year. Colleges were rushing class after class forth with just his kind
of education, and there was no employment for them.
These young men, having no employment, would get together in groups
and discuss their respective conditions. Some were in love and desired
to marry. Others were married and desired to support their wives in a
creditable way. Others desired to acquire a competence. Some had aged
parents who had toiled hard to educate them and were looking to them
for support. They were willing to work but the opportunity was denied
them. And the sole charge against them was the color of their skins.
They grew to hate a flag that would float in an undisturbed manner
over such a condition of affairs. They began to abuse and execrate
a national government that would not protect them against color
prejudice, but on the contrary actually practiced it itself.
Beginning with passively hating the flag, they began to think of
rebelling against it and would wish for some foreign power to come
in and bury it in the dirt. They signified their willingness to
participate in such a proceeding.
It is true that it was only a class that had thought and spoke of
this, but it was an educated class, turned loose with an idle brain
and plenty of time to devise mischief. The toiling, unthinking masses
went quietly to their labors, day by day, but the educated malcontents
moved in and out among them, convincing them that they could not
afford to see their men of brains ignored because of color.
Belton viewed this state of affairs with alarm and asked himself,
whither was the nation drifting. He might have joined this army of
malcontents and insurrection breeders, but that a very remarkable and
novel idea occurred to him. He decided to endeavor to find out
just what view the white people were taking of the Negro and of the
existing conditions. He saw that the nation was drifting toward a
terrible cataract and he wished to find out what precautionary steps
the white people were going to take.
So he left Richmond, giving the people to understand that he was gone
to get a place to labor to support his wife. The people thought it
strange that he did not tell where he was going and what he was to do.
Speculation was rife. Many thought that it was an attempt at deserting
his wife, whom he seemed unable to support. He arranged to visit his
wife twice a month.
He went to New York and completely disguised himself. He bought a wig
representing the hair on the head of a colored woman. He had this
wig made especially to his order. He bought an outfit of well
fitting dresses and other garments worn by women. He clad himself and
reappeared in Richmond. His wife and most intimate friends failed to
recognize him. He of course revealed his identity to his wife but to
no one else.
He now had the appearance of a healthy, handsome, robust colored girl,
with features rather large for a woman but attractive just the
same. In this guise Belton applied for a position as nurse and was
successful in securing a place in the family of a leading white man.
He loitered near the family circle as much as he could. His ear was
constantly at the key holes, listening. Sometimes he would engage in
conversation for the purpose of drawing them out on the question of
the Negro.
He found out that the white man was utterly ignorant of the nature of
the Negro of to-day with whom he has to deal. And more than that, he
was not bothering his brain thinking about the Negro. He felt that the
Negro was easily ruled and was not an object for serious thought. The
barbers, the nurses, cooks and washerwomen, the police column of the
newspapers, comic stories and minstrels were the sources through which
the white people gained their conception of the Negro. But the real
controling power of the race that was shaping its life and thought
and preparing the race for action, was unnoticed and in fact unseen by
them.
The element most bitterly antagonistic to the whites avoided them,
through intense hatred; and the whites never dreamed of this powerful
inner circle that was gradually but persistently working its way in
every direction, solidifying the race for the momentous conflict
of securing all the rights due them according to the will of their
heavenly Father.
Belton also stumbled upon another misconception, which caused him
eventually to lose his job as nurse. The young men in the families
in which Belton worked seemed to have a poor opinion of the virtue of
colored women. Time and again they tried to kiss Belton, and he would
sometimes have to exert his full strength to keep them at a distance.
He thought that while he was a nurse, he would do what he could to
exalt the character of the colored women. So, at every chance he got,
he talked to the men who approached him, of virtue and integrity.
He soon got the name of being a "virtuous prude" and the white men
decided to corrupt him at all hazards.
Midnight carriage rides were offered and refused. Trips to distant
cities were proposed but declined. Money was offered freely and
lavishly but to no avail. Belton did not yield to them. He became the
cynosure of all eyes. He seemed so hard to reach, that they began to
doubt his sex. A number of them decided to satisfy themselves at all
hazards. They resorted to the bold and daring plan of kidnapping and
overpowering Belton.
After that eventful night Belton did no more nursing. But fortunately
they did not recognize who he was. He secretly left, had it announced
that Belton Piedmont would in a short time return to Richmond, and
throwing off his disguise, he appeared in Richmond as Belton Piedmont
of old. The town was agog with excitement over the male nurse, but
none suspected him. He was now again without employment, and another
most grievous burden was about to be put on his shoulders. May God
enable him to bear it.
During all the period of their poverty stricken condition, Antoinette
bore her deprivations like a heroine. Though accustomed from her
childhood to plenty, she bore her poverty smilingly and cheerfully.
Not one sigh of regret, not one word of complaint escaped her lips.
She taught Belton to hope and have faith in himself. But everything
seemed to grow darker and darker for him. In the whole of his school
life, he had never encountered a student who could surpass him in
intellectual ability; and yet, here he was with all his conceded
worth, unable to find a fit place to earn his daily bread, all because
of the color of his skin. And now the Lord was about to bless him with
an offspring. He hardly knew whether to be thankful or sorrowful over
this prospective gift from heaven.
On the one hand, an infant in the home would be a source of unbounded
joy; but over against this pleasing picture there stood cruel want
pointing its wicked, mocking finger at him, anxious for another
victim. As the time for the expected gift drew near, Belton grew more
moody and despondent. Day by day he grew more and more nervous. One
evening the nurse called him into his wife's room, bidding him come
and look at his son. The nurse stood in the door and looked hard at
Belton as he drew near to the side of his wife's bed. He lifted the
lamp from the dresser and approached. Antoinette turned toward the
wall and hid her head under the cover. Eagerly, tremblingly, Belton
pulled the cover from the little child's face, the nurse all the while
watching him as though her eyes would pop out of her head.
Belton bent forward to look at his infant son. A terrible shriek broke
from his lips. He dropped the lamp upon the floor and fled out of the
house and rushed madly through the city. The color of Antoinette was
brown. The color of Belton was dark. But the child was white!
What pen can describe the tumult that raged in Belton's bosom for
months and months! Sadly, disconsolately, broken in spirit,
thoroughly dejected, Belton dragged himself to his mother's cottage at
Winchester. Like a ship that had started on a voyage, on a bright day,
with fair winds, but had been overtaken and overwhelmed in an ocean
storm, and had been put back to shore, so Belton now brought his
battered bark into harbor again.
His brothers and sisters had all married and had left the maternal
roof. Belton would sleep in the loft from which in his childhood he
tumbled down, when disturbed about the disappearing biscuits. How he
longed and sighed for childhood's happy days to come again. He felt
that life was too awful for him to bear.
His feelings toward his wife were more of pity than reproach. Like the
multitude, he supposed that his failure to properly support her had
tempted her to ruin. He loved her still if anything, more passionately
than ever. But ah! what were his feelings in those days toward the
flag which he had loved so dearly, which had floated proudly and
undisturbed, while color prejudice, upheld by it, sent, as he thought,
cruel want with drawn sword to stab his family honor to death. Belton
had now lost all hope of personal happiness in this life, and as he
grew more and more composed he found himself better prepared than ever
to give his life wholly to the righting of the wrongs of his people.
Tenderly he laid the image of Antoinette to rest in a grave in the
very center of his heart. He covered her grave with fragrant flowers;
and though he acknowledged the presence of a corpse in his heart,
'twas the corpse of one he loved.
We must leave our beautiful heroine under a cloud just here, but God
is with her and will bring her forth conqueror in the sight of men and
angels.