Trial and Triumph Part 5

"But that don't hinder her from being Miss Joseph; If she is rude and coa.r.s.e, that is no reason why I should not have good manners."

"Oh, Mrs. Lasette you are too sweet for anything. I wish I was like you."

"Never mind my sweetness; that is not to the point. Will you listen to me, my dear?"

"Of course I will. I could listen to you all night."

"Well, if it were not for signs there's no mistaking I should think you had a lot of Irish blood in your veins, and had kissed the blarney stone."

"No I haven't and if I had I would try to let----"

"Hush, my child; how you do rattle on. Do you think because Miss Joseph is white that she is any better than you are."

"No, of course not."

"But don't you think that she can see and hear a little better than you can?"

"Why, no; what makes you ask such a funny question?"

"Never mind, just answer me a few more questions. Don't you think if you and she had got to fighting that she would have whipped you because she is white?"

"Why, of course not. Didn't she try to get the ruler out of my hand and didn't because I was stronger."

"But don't you think she is smarter than you are and gets her lessons better."

"Now you are shouting."

"Why, Annette, where in the world did you get that slang?"

"Why, Mrs. Lasette, I hear the boys saying it in the street, and the girls in Tennis Court all say it, too. Is there any harm in it?"

"It is slang, my child, and a young lady should never use slang. Don't use it in private and you will not be apt to use it in public. However humble or poor a person may be, there is no use in being coa.r.s.e and unrefined."

"But what harm is there in it?"

"I don't say that there is any, but I don't think it nice for young ladies to pick up all sorts of phrases in the street and bring them into the home. The words may be innocent in themselves, but they may not have the best a.s.sociations, and it is safer not to use them. But let us return to Miss Joseph. You do not think that she can see or hear any better than you can, learn her lessons any quicker than you can, and when it comes to a trial of strength that she is stronger than you are, now let me ask you one more question. Who made Miss Joseph?"

"Why, the Lord, of course."

"And who made you?"

"He made me, too."

"Are you sure that you did not make yourself?"

"Why, of course not," said Annette with an accent of wonder in her voice.

"Does G.o.d ever make any mistakes?"

"Why, no!"

"Then if any one calls you black, why should you get angry? You say it would not make Miss Joseph angry to say she looked white, or red and rosy."

"I don't know; I know I don't like it and it makes me mad."

"Now, let me explain the reason why it makes you angry to be called black. Suppose I were to burn my hand in that stove, what would I have on my hand?"

"A sore place."

"If it were your hand, what would you do?"

"I would put something on it, wrap it up to keep from getting cold into it and try to get it well as soon as I could."

"Well, that would be a very sensible way of dealing with it. In this country, Annette, color has been made a sore place; it has been a.s.sociated with slavery, poverty and ignorance. You cannot change your color, but you can try to change the a.s.sociation connected with our complexions. Did slavery force a man to be servile and submissive? Learn to hold up your head and respect yourself. Don't notice Mary Joseph's taunts; if she says things to tease you don't you let her see that she has succeeded. Learn to act as if you realized that you were born into this world the child of the Ruler of the universe, that this is his world and that you have as much right in it as she has. I think it was Gilbert Haven, a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a man for whose tombstone I do not think America has any marble too white or any laurel too green, who saw on his travels a statue of Cleopatra, which suggested to him this thought, 'I am black, but comely, the sun has looked down upon me, but I will make you who despise me feel that I am your superior,' and, Annette, I want you to be so n.o.ble, true and pure that if everybody should hate you, that no one could despise you. No, Annette, if Miss Joseph ever attempts to quarrel with you don't put yourself on the same level by quarreling with her. I knew her parents when they were very poor; when a half dozen of them slept in one room.

He has made money by selling liquor; he is now doing business in one of the most valuable pieces of property I see in East L street. He has been a curse, and his saloon a nuisance in that street. He has gone up in property and even political influence, but oh, how many poor souls have gone down, slain by strong drink and debauchery."

Chapter IX

True to his word, Mr. Thomas applied to Mr. Hastings, the merchant, of whom he had spoken to his young friend. He went to his counting-room and asked for a private interview, which was readily granted. They had kindred intellectual and literary tastes and this established between them a free masonry of mind which took no account of racial differences.

"I have a favor to ask," said Mr. Thomas, "can you spare me a few moments?"

"I am at your service," Mr. Hasting replied, "what can I do for you?"

"I have," he said, "a young friend who is honest and industrious and competent to fill the place of clerk or cas.h.i.+er in your store. He has been a cas.h.i.+er for Hazleton & Co., and while there gave entire satisfaction."

"Why did he leave?"

"I cannot say, because he was guilty of a skin not colored like your own, but because a report was brought to Mr. Hazleton that he had Negro blood in his veins."

"And what then?"

"He summarily dismissed him."

"What a shame!"

"Yes, it was a shame, but this pride of caste dwarfs men's moral perception so that it prepares them to do a number of contemptible things which, under other circ.u.mstances, they would scorn to do."

"Yes, it is so, and I am sorry to see it."

"There are men, Mr. Hastings, who would grow hotly indignant if you would say that they are not gentlemen who would treat a Negro in a manner which would not be recognized as fair, even by ruffians of the ring, for, I believe, it is their code of honor not to strike a man when he is down; but with respect to the colored man, it seems to be a settled policy with some not only to push him down, but to strike him when he is down. But I must go; I came to ask a favor and it is not right to trespa.s.s on your time."

"No; sit still. I have a little leisure I can give you. My fall trade has not opened yet and I am not busy. I see and deplore these things of which you complain, but what can be done to help it?"

"Mr. Hastings, you see them, and I feel them, and I fear that I am growing morbid over them, and not only myself, but other educated men of my race, and that, I think, is a thing to be deprecated. Between the white people and the colored people of this country there is a unanimity of interest and I know that our interests and duties all lie in one direction. Can men corrupt and intimidate voters in the South without a reflex influence being felt in the North? Is not the depression of labor in the South a matter of interest to the North? You may protect yourself from what you call the pauper of Europe, but you will not be equally able to defend yourself from the depressed laborer of the new South, and as an American citizen, I dread any turn of the screw which will lower the rate of wages here; and I like to feel as an American citizen that whatever concerns the nation concerns me. But I feel that this prejudice against my race compresses my soul, narrows my political horizon and makes me feel that I am an alien in the land of my birth. It meets me in the church, it confronts me in business and I feel its influence in almost every avenue of my life."