Unfettered Part 16

"If," said Dorlan, rising, "consideration of this matter is to be postponed until my environments enable me to prove myself worthy of you, my doom is certain. For the most benign influences of earth have not produced the man that could claim your hand on the ground of merit."

"Mr. Warth.e.l.l, you misapprehend. A second thought would have told you not to place a construction on my remarks that causes them to savor of egotism on my part. It is far from me to suggest that anything is needed to make you worthy of any woman. To the contrary, your esteem is a tribute than which there is nothing higher, so I feel. Now, hear me calmly," said Morlene.

"Not until I have purged myself of contempt," said Dorlan, deferentially.

"I hold that egotism is inordinate self-esteem, esteem carried beyond what is deserved. Under this definition, show me, please, how you could manifest egotism. It is absolutely unthinkable from my point of view."

Morlene waved her hand deprecatingly, told Dorlan to be seated and began an explanation of the peculiar situation in which they found themselves.

Dorlan was calmer now; he realized an undercurrent of love in all that Morlene was saying and he knew, as all men know, that love will eventually a.s.sert itself. So he bore Morlene's attempt to tie cords about her affections, much in the spirit of one who might see a web woven across the sky for the feet of the sun.

Morlene said: "Mr. Warth.e.l.l, to my mind it is the function of the wife to idealize the aims of a husband, to quicken the energies that would flag, to be at once the incentive and perennial inspiration of his n.o.ble achievements, to point him to the stars and steady his hand as he carves his name upon the skies. In the South the Negro wife is robbed of this holy task. We are being taught in certain high quarters that self-repression is the Negro's chiefest virtue. Our bodies are free--they no longer wear the chains, but our spirits are yet in fetters. I have firmly resolved, Mr.

Warth.e.l.l, to accept no place by a husband's side until I can say to his spirit, 'Go forth to fill the earth with goodness and glory.'"

Morlene paused for an instant.

"Mr. Warth.e.l.l, in you may slumber the genius of a Pericles, but a wife in the South dare not urge upon you to become a town constable or a justice of the peace. Talk about slavery! Ah! the chains that fetter the body are but as ropes of down when compared to those that fetter the mind, the spirit of man. And think ye I would enter your home simply to inspire that great soul of yours to restlessness and fruitless tuggings at its chains! In the day when a Negro has a man's chance in the race of life, I will let my heart say to you, Mr. Warth.e.l.l, all that it wishes to say."

Morlene ceased speaking and the two sat long in silence. Dorlan was the first to speak.

"Morlene, I confess I am a slave. My neighbors, my white fellow citizens, have formed a pen, have drawn a zigzag line about me and told me that I must not step across on pain of death. Having a mind as other men, such arbitrary restrictions are galling. I am then a slave, limited not by my capacity to feel and do, but by the color of my skin. You do not wish to marry a slave; refuse him for his own good. All of that is clear to me, and I chide you not. Come! There are lands where a man's color places no restrictions on his aspirations for what is high and useful. Let us flee thither!"

"No, no, no, Mr. Warth.e.l.l! Let us not flee. At least, not yet. Our dignity as a people demands that the manhood rights of the race be recognized on every foot of soil on which the sun sees fit to cast his rays."

"Now, Morlene," said Dorlan, "you as good as tell me that you will never be my wife. Pray, tell me, why am I so rudely tossed about upon the bosom of life's heaving ocean?" These words were spoken in tones of utter despair.

"I have not said that I would not be your wife, Dorlan. I am trying every day I live to devise a solution for our Southern problem."

"She called me Dorlan, she called me Dorlan," said he to himself, rejoicing inwardly over this fresh burst of suns.h.i.+ne just as his gloom was deepening.

Suddenly his face showed the illumination of a great hope.

"Morlene! Morlene!" cried Dorlan, in a rush of enthusiasm, "Suppose I, Dorlan Warth.e.l.l, solve this problem; suppose I unfetter the mind of the Negro and allow it full scope for operation; suppose I offer to you a thoroughly substantial hope of racial regeneration, will you----" Here Dorlan paused and looked lovingly into the sweet face upturned to his. "If I do these things," he resumed in sober tone, "will you be my wife?"

"Mr. Warth.e.l.l, if you can open the way for me to really be your wife, there is nothing in my heart that bids me shrink from the love you offer."

Dorlan's mind entertained one great burst of hope, then fled at once to the great race problem that had hung pall-like over the heads of the American people for so many generations, and now stood between himself and Morlene.

A sense of the enormity of the task that he had undertaken now overwhelmed him. Dorlan bowed his head, the following thoughts coursing through his agitated mind: "I am to weld two heterogeneous elements into a h.o.m.ogeneous ent.i.ty. I am to make a successful blend of two races that differ so widely as do the whites and the Negroes. Each race has manifested its racial instincts, and has shown us all, that wise planning must take account of these. The problem is inherently a difficult one and of a highly complex nature. But with an incentive such as I have, surely it can be solved.

Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln said the problem was incapable of solution, that the two races could not live together on terms of equality.

They were great and wise, but not infallible. With Morlene as a prize, I shall prove them wrong." Morlene, taking advantage of his abstraction, bestowed on him an unreserved look of pitying love.

Dorlan looked up suddenly from his reverie, and their eyes met once more.

There was no reserve now and Dorlan's joy was so keen that it seemed to pain him. Arising to go, he said: "I go from you consecrating my whole power to the task before me. Fortunate it is, indeed, for the South that she has at least one man so surrounded that he cannot be happy himself until he makes this wilderness of woe blossom as a rose. Farewell."

Dorlan now left and walked slowly toward his home. He reflected, "I will have no business at her home now until this problem is solved. Suppose I do not solve it."

Dorlan's fears began to a.s.sert themselves. "I may never, never see that face again. Think of it!" he said. This thought was too much for Dorlan. He paused, leaned upon the fence, thrust his hat back from his fevered brow.

He turned and retraced his steps to Morlene's home. She met him at the door and was not surprised at his return. Her heart was craving for just another sight of its exiled lord. Re-entering the parlor, they stood facing each other.

"Morlene," said Dorlan, "I have come to ask a boon of you. I can labor so much better with a full a.s.surance of your love. From your eyes, from your words, I say humbly, I have come to feel that you have honored me with that love. But the testimony is incomplete. Will you grant unto me the one remaining a.s.surance? Will you seal our most holy compact with a kiss?"

Morlene's lips parted not, but she attempted an answer, nevertheless. Her queenlike head was shaking negatively, saying, "Please do not require that." But those telltale eyes were saying, "Why, young man the whole matter rests with you." Morlene was conscious that her eyes were contradicting the negative answer that her head was giving. To punish the two beautiful traitors she turned them away from Dorlan and made them look at the carpet. Morlene in this att.i.tude was so exquisitely beautiful that Dorlan was powerless to resist the impulse that made him take her into his arms.

One rapturous kiss, and Dorlan was gone!

CHAPTER XXV.

TONY MARSHALL.

Tony Marshall was one of the Negroes of the younger cla.s.s who had left the country district and had come to R---- as a result of the imbroglio between Lemuel Dalton and Harry Dalton. He had come to the city with the untried innocence of country life, sober, industrious and frugal, acceptable as a wholesome infusion into Negro life in the city, which, so far as the ma.s.ses were concerned, stood sadly in need thereof. Without much difficulty he had secured work as a porter in a hardware store. After a few years' sojourn in the city, he had fallen in love and married.

Among the Negroes of R---- Mrs. Tony Marshall was variously designated as "a good looking woman," "a fine looking woman," and among the older ones as "a likely gal;" and she richly deserved these encomiums pa.s.sed on her personal appearance. She was not a small woman, nor yet could you call her large. Her form, while not delicately chiseled, presented an appearance that seemed to be a satisfactory compromise between beauty and strength, each struggling to be noted in this one form. Her face was well featured, her hazle colored eyes making it very attractive. As to complexion, she was dark, quite dark, and of a hue so soft and attractive therewith that her complexion made her an object of envy.

Tony Marshall adored his wife, and it was his one ambition to see her happy. Everything that he did was with a view to her comfort and happiness.

On the meagre wages which he received he had not been able to provide for her as he had desired.

Noticing that young white men who had entered the employ of the hardware company after his coming and knew no more of the requirements of the business than he did--noticing that these had several times been promoted, Tony Marshall made an application for an increase in his wages. The head of the firm looked at him in astonishment. It was an unwritten and inexorable rule in that and in many other establishments that the wages of Negro employes were to remain the same forever, however efficient the labor and however long the term of service.

Failing of promotion where he was, and noting that the rate of one dollar per day prevailed almost universally, Tony Marshall saw no relief in changing employment, and decided to increase his own wages at his employers' expense. He made a comparison between the salary which he was receiving and that being received by the white employees who did work similar in character to his. He began, therefore, to purloin the wares of the company and dispose of them at various p.a.w.n shops. As a "sop" to his conscience he stole only so much as sufficed to bring his wages to the level of others who did work like his. His thefts were the more easily committed because he had won the unlimited confidence of his employers.

Tony has just rented a more commodious house for the pleasure of his wife, and as his rent is to be increased, he is pondering how to further increase his income. On this particular morning when our story finds him, he is debating this question as he walks to his work. At last he concluded to steal that day a very fine pistol from the stock under his care, which theft he hoped would net him such a nice sum that he could suspend pilfering for a while. When he returned home that evening he carried the pistol with him, and hid it under the front doorstep, it being his rule to not allow his wife to know anything of his misdoings; for he could not bear the thought of forfeiting her respect.

"I am going to my lodge meeting now; I may not return until very late,"

said Tony that night, as he kissed his wife good-bye. Instead of going to the lodge meeting, however, Tony Marshall went to the section of the city where were congregated practically all of the vicious Negroes of R----.

Entering a house, the front room of which was the abode of an aged couple, he pa.s.sed to the rear through a hall way. Giving the proper rap at a door, he was admitted. He was now in a long room well crowded with Negro men and many women, who sat at tables engaged in various kinds of gaming.

The occupants of the room gazed up at the newcomer, quickly, enquiringly, but seeing that it was the well known Tony, their attention returned to the matters before them. The flapping of cards, the rolling of dice, outbursts of profanity, the clinking of gla.s.ses as liquor drinking progressed, were the sounds that filled the room.

Tony found room at a dice table and was soon deeply engaged in the game. At a late hour the accustomed rap was heard at the door and it was opened.

Great was the consternation of all when the newcomers were discovered to be a half dozen policemen.

The inmates of the gambling house saw at once that some frequenter of the place had proven traitor and furnished the officers with information. They were all placed under arrest and formed into a line to be marched to the city jail. The Negroes had submitted with such good grace that the officers felt able to dispense with the patrol wagon, the jail being near.

Tony Marshall's thoughts were of his wife, Lula. She was of a highly respectable family and her mortification would be boundless should she know of his arrest in the gambling den and hear of his being in the chain gang working out his fine on the public highways.

Tony Marshall decided to escape at the risk of his life. The gambling fraternity had a code of signals that could give the cue to the proper course to be pursued under any given circ.u.mstances. The leader of the gang now gave three coughs, which meant, "Raise a row among yourselves." The idea was to get up a fight among the prisoners and while the officers were attempting to quell the fight, as many as could were to make their escape.

It was the rule that all who made their escape were to employ lawyers and raise money to help out those left behind.

A group began quarreling among themselves, and a fight soon followed. The officers interposed to quell the disturbance and prisoners broke and ran in all directions. The officers found that they had a larger number than they could well manage under the circ.u.mstances, and they gave their attention to corralling a few, letting the others escape in the hope of tracing them out and re-arresting them on the morrow.

Among those that escaped was Tony Marshall. Running by his home, he secured the stolen pistol from beneath the doorstep, got his bicycle from the woodhouse and was soon speeding out of the city. He chose the road that led to the settlement whence he had come to the city. It was his intention from that point to write to his wife, telling her that he had received a most urgent call to see his aged mother who was represented to him to be dying.

Throughout the night Tony rode at a rapid rate, putting many miles between himself and the city. About daybreak, as he was speeding along on his bicycle, he glanced up into a tree and saw therein a squirrel. "Good luck!"

said he, "there is my breakfast." Jumping from his bicycle, he got on the side of the road opposite to the tree that held the squirrel. Elevating his pistol, he took aim and was upon the eve of pulling the trigger when he heard the clatter of the hoofs of a horse galloping in his direction. He dropped the pistol to his side and peered around the bend of the road to catch sight of the newcomer on the scene. For a few minutes only we leave him standing thus that we may fully acquaint you with the newcomer, that the horror of the meeting between the two may not come as too great a shock to you.

"But how is the waiting, struggling, hoping Dorlan concerned in all of this?" the reader asks. That, too, in due time will be apparent.