The Forged Note Part 34

"Oh, please don't tell me so many nice things. I can't believe it; I have never seen myself in the way you speak of, and if you persist, dear," and her smile upon Constance was the softest, "you might make me vain--and I would almost rather be anything than vain--and spoil it all.

Here!" She kissed her a long lingering kiss, and then flew to her room.

"Wilson," said his sister, when they were alone again, "when I think of the young man and his experiences in the story, and his make-up and point of view, I find myself connecting Mildred. She fills my dreams in that story as the One Woman. How successful and how happy that man could have been, had he had a treasure like her, for his own."

"Well, yes, possibly. No doubt; but if, taking the story as it is, if he had her now, after what has come to pa.s.s, I judge he could appreciate her real worth to a greater degree. Don't you agree with me?"

She was thoughtful a moment before replying. "Yes, I think I do. It _would_ be different now." She was reflective for some time before she went on again. "The other day I said to her: 'If you had been in the girl's place in the story, how would you have accepted this father?' I shall not soon forget how strange she looked. Her entire being seemed to undergo a change. From the way I recall it, her mind seemed to go back into the past, and she was so odd for a few seconds, that I was sorry I said it. Then, after a moment, during which she seemed to struggle with something, she said: 'I would not, you may be sure, have been like the girl.' That was all, and I said no more; nor do I think I will again.

She acted--ah, I can't hardly frame it; but, frankly, too peculiar."

"I'm going to bed, Sis'," said her brother now. His eyes were evidence that he should go. He was awake now for a moment. "I've been much interested in what has pa.s.sed tonight, Sis'. I'll be glad to talk on the same subject again." He was silent a moment, and then, rising, he said, "Good night."

"Good night, Wilson."

Then she heard his door close, after watching him until he reached his door; after that, she fell into deep and serious thinking. It concerned him. He was all she had--this brother--and his future was in her thoughts now, a grave concern of hers. Yes, and Wilson Jacobs was now one and thirty.... He had no wife--not even did he see women in that sense. Constance didn't think of herself now--nor at any other time, apparently. And yet she was twenty-eight; but she felt, if her brother was to be a happy man, he should consider his life more seriously. He was lost in his purpose. Mildred Latham was a girl, the kind of girl she would like to see him take notice of.

And then she was jerked back into a sudden reminder.... Wilson _had_ been acting different lately. How could she, for one moment, have forgotten it. Yes, he had been acting _very_ differently.... He was all attention when Mildred was saying anything. He was careful never to disturb her. And only tonight, when they had spoken of her together, he had almost called her by her first name.

Constance Jacobs was now oblivious to what was about her. She continued to think. Mildred was kind, she was intelligent; she was--and here Constance forgot the words Mildred had said not an hour before, 'I cannot stand vanity'--beautiful.

She retired presently, but it was sometime before she went to sleep.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"_It All Falls Right Back on Society_"

"Two Negroes killed yesterday in the city, is the homicide record for this town, which makes thirteen killed in the last week," said Wilson Jacobs the following morning, as he laid the paper down to take up his knife at breakfast. "Every day, at least, it is almost every day, there is a murder of each other by our people in this town. Sat.u.r.day night or Sunday usually sees four or five such crimes."

"Isn't it deplorable?" breathed Mildred, seating herself at the other side. "What accounts, Mr. Reverend"--she somehow found it awkward to call him Reverend--"Jacobs, for such acts, that is, such is to be expected; but why does there happen to be so much of it here?"

"Ignorance--lack of intelligence in our people. This city has a preponderance of ignorant, polluted people among the Negroes. They flock into this town from all around, and represent the low, polluted, and depraved element of our race. They settle about the levee district, spend their earnings for the worst whiskey, give the remainder of their time to gambling and all forms of vice, and murder is the natural consequence."

"Is there no way, there are so many churches, it would seem that so many places of wors.h.i.+p would have a good effect upon these people?" said the other anxiously.

"More than a hundred Negro churches in this town; but they are, for the most part, churches only. Seventy of these are Baptist, and they are building more right along."

"I meet it every day in my work," she said. "Always so many apparently good women, mothers and daughters, sisters, who say: 'I sho would lak t'

have that book, but y' see, it's lak this. We's building a new chu'ch; or, a rally is on next Sunday, 'n' all the women is axed t' give five dollars 'n' the men ten,' etc. and etc. But that is not the most I hear; it is: 'Lawd, Lawd, honey, yu' sweet li'l chile. I sho is sorry to disappint you. I sho is. You walkin' way up heh 'n' bringin' tha' book; but don' you know, honey, that low down n.i.g.g.a man a mine went off Sat'dy night un got drunk, got t' fightin' and was 'rested. I did'n' pay no 'tention when 'e did'n' show up a-Sat'dy night; nor was I wo'ied Sunday; but when Monday mawnin' come 'n' no n.i.g.g.a, den I knowed de p'lice done got dat n.i.g.g.a. And dey had, Sat'dy night fo' fightin' 'n' 'sturbin de peace. So I done took yo' money, honey, 'n' got dat n.i.g.g.a out. 'n' now, honey, I jes' cain' say when I'll be ready, 'cause 'e done lost his job, too, so that means I gotta take ceh' a both uv us.'"

"If we allow our minds to dwell too long on it, frankly, Miss Latham,"

said he, "we will become discouraged. Where ignorance is bliss, it may be folly to be wise; but it is unprofitable, from a moral point of view.

So, as long as we have a preponderance of ignorance, just so long are we going to have a dreadful homicide record in this, and other towns."

"I read an editorial in the paper recently, with regard to murder and the record per city," said Miss Latham. "I see that the south leads. And this town and Effingham seem to struggle for the lead of them all. It was not decided as to which had the most, but it stated that more people were murdered in either one of them than in any other city in the world, regardless of population."

"And that is not all. In both of these cities, no data is kept of the number the police kill. I know policemen personally, and see them on duty, who have killed as many as half a dozen Negroes."

"Oh, be merciful!" she cried. "Can this really be so?"

"It _is_ so," he maintained. "Why last week I stopped a few days in Effingham on the way from Attalia, and read on the front page of one of the leading papers, and which was accompanied by a cut, that an old policeman, who had seen twenty-five years on the force, and who had recently been made a captain, had never killed a man. It was this fact, obviously, that was the most extraordinary."

"Cannot the city government do more toward the suppression of so much crime?" she asked, forgetting to eat her breakfast.

"They cannot to any great extent, because it is the task of society. The very foundation upon which this crime rests, is due to ignorance on the part of the ma.s.ses. You cannot reason with a mind that has no training.

Have you ever seen it that way?" he asked, more serious now than she had ever seen him before, notwithstanding he was a serious person.

She nodded.

"No one can, the law of the land cannot. It all falls right back on society." He was too serious now for a time to say anything, and he ate his meal with his face contracted in serious thought. Presently he said: "I am a minister of the gospel, and have the highest regard for the Presbyterian faith; but, honestly, when I see the Baptists with their loose system, keeping the black population that make up their body, and with little, almost no effort whatever toward the education of the children, and when I see still further, the Methodists with their better system, in that they are not held back so much by 'splitters,' I sometimes regret that the world took Martin Luther seriously. For, say what they will, the conduct of the Catholics in regard to the children, marriage and divorce, has an encouraging result in our civic life."

"I believe that if there were a Christian movement here as there is in the northern cities, Y.M.C.A. and libraries, and if those who are leaders of the race would encourage the patronage of these places, eventually, it would result to the public's good," she said, after some thought.

"Only one place in the south, as yet, seems to be making any effort along such Christian lines. And you would not believe it, but the greatest barrier to this has been the preachers. In their church effort, they have the people fairly well under control, but to their own end.

In Attalia, they have almost come to appreciate the fact, that a more intelligent and cleaner populace reacts to the welfare of the church.

Everything seems favorable toward getting one."

"I am sure that would make a great difference in time," said she, heartily. "In Cincinnati, they expect to begin one soon. They have almost all the subscriptions in now." She was silent for a time, and then pursued: "Do you not think such a movement could be stimulated here?"

"Not at the present, I think, regardless of the great need of one, and of the great good it could do. It will be some time before the preachers would come to lend their support--in fact, I do not think it could be expected until they have been shown, in a majority, that such would react for the good of all."

"Oh, my!" cried Constance, entering at this moment, "you two appear to have worked yourself into a frenzy of excitement." She surveyed both, questioningly.

"We have," her brother replied.

CHAPTER EIGHT

"_Where Are You From?_"

Mildred worked hard that day. As she went from the rear of one house to another, she studied the people she met, more seriously than she had done before. By this time, her work had become automatic, and she did not find it hard or monotonous, to say the same thing over and over again. She had, moreover, become accustomed to the cla.s.s of people among whom she worked. She liked it now, and for more than one reason; but perhaps the greatest reason, was because it brought her into the closest contact with humanity, without regard to conventionality. The people she met daily, with few exceptions, made no attempt to be conventional. They were human, almost all of them. She met them in their vocations; she studied their environment. Some she saw, grown people with families, but themselves like children. They gave their word with apparent sincerity, and did not make any more effort to keep it than the merest babe. Why did they not? She asked this question, and then studied them carefully for the answer. It was ignorance. It amused her to find so many who were positive they did not want it, did not even read, so how could they use it? "But you can read?" she would inquire. "Sho!" would invariably come the answer. Then came argument. Force of reason on her part, and sometimes, she guiltily felt, it was by force of argument they were induced to buy. She now paid little attention when they remarked that they did not want the book. Obviously, since the most stubborn ones were, very often after argument, the most appreciative buyers, she found it reasonable to ignore their words of objection.

Mildred's life was a diversion that was much to her liking. She was learning the greatest lesson a woman could learn--the study of human nature.

On Sunday, when she met others (Wilson Jacobs' church had for its members the more thoughtful and respectable Negro element), she was the recipient of many surprised expressions. They were, she invariably found, surprised that she canva.s.sed among the servant cla.s.s. She did not appraise them of the practical side of it; in fact, of the ma.s.ses, these were more able to buy. She saw, as the Sundays went by, that much of the display was a pretense. Many of those who expressed such surprise were themselves unwilling to buy a book. Always she found (and especially among the teachers, whom she thought the most pretentious) some artful excuse. Most of them had a library which contained many books, but few by their own race. They had the works of a poet who had died some years ago; they also had a copy of a book or so by the princ.i.p.al of Tuskegee.

And then, one day she learned, from a most reliable and unbiased source: "That those people bought the works of the now dead poet, because his name had become a fetish. The white people had accepted these men's work and called them great. Therefore, the Negroes had accordingly followed suit. So the Negro author must first get a white audience, which will laud the greatness of his pen, and then the Negroes will buy, calling the book great also."

Miss Latham found conditions thus, and governed her work accordingly.

But, as time went on, she met surprises. They did not buy _The Tempest_, but they read it. She found it borrowed among them all. They never offered to buy it, but they read it nevertheless.

She did not understand this at first.

So she found the ma.s.ses, often amusing, to say the least, but often with more active race regard. They had the many faults of ignorance; easy to influence into giving an order, they were still more ready to back out, lie out of taking it. Some of those who took orders, and even the books, did not read, she learned. While others could read, but did not; but when she told them all the story, the story of her hero, for now she held him thus, they were all thrilled, and inspired. Thus it happened that many bought the book because it was by a Negro, and said as much.