African-American Literature: African-American Literature: Chapter III

The Quest of the Silver Fleece (Chapter I)
by W.E.B. DuBois

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Chapter I)
by James Weldon Johnson.

The Wife of His Youth (Chapters I–II)
by Charles Waddell Chesnutt

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Chapter I)
by James Weldon Johnson.

The Wife of His Youth (Chapters I–II)
by Charles Waddell Chesnutt

Her Virginia Mammy
from The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays (1899)
by Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858–1932)

Silas Jackson
from The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories (1900)
by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906)

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF AN

EX-COLORED MAN

by James Weldon Johnson

I know that in writing the following pages I am

divulging the great secret of my life, the secret

which for some years I have guarded far more

carefully than any of my earthly possessions;

and it is a curious study to me to analyze the

motives which prompt me to do it. I feel that I

am led by the same impulse which forces the

un-found-out criminal to take somebody into his

confidence, although he knows that the act is

likely, even almost certain, to lead to his

undoing. I know that I am playing with fire, and

I feel the thrill which accompanies that most

fascinating pastime; and, back of it all, I think I

find a sort of savage and diabolical desire to

gather up all the little tragedies of my life, and

turn them into a practical joke on society.

And, too, I suffer a vague feeling of

unsatisfaction, of regret, of almost remorse,

from which I am seeking relief, and of which I

shall speak in the last paragraph of this

account.

I was born in a little town of Georgia a few

years after the close of the Civil War. I shall not

mention the name of the town, because there

are people still living there who could be

connected with this narrative. I have only a

faint recollection of the place of my birth. At

times I can close my eyes and call up in a

dreamlike way things that seem to have

happened ages ago in some other world. I can

see in this half vision a little house—I am quite

sure it was not a large one—I can remember

that flowers grew in the front yard, and that

around each bed of flowers was a hedge of varicolored

glass bottles stuck in the ground neck

down. I remember that once, while playing

around in the sand, I became curious to know

whether or not the bottles grew as the flowers

did, and I proceeded to dig them up to find out;

the investigation brought me a terrific

spanking, which indelibly fixed the incident in

my mind. I can remember, too, that behind the

house was a shed under which stood two or

three wooden wash-tubs. These tubs were the

earliest aversion of my life, for regularly on

certain evenings I was plunged into one of them

and scrubbed until my skin ached. I can

remember to this day the pain caused by the

strong, rank soap’s getting into my eyes.

Back from the house a vegetable garden ran,

perhaps seventy-five or one hundred feet; but to

my childish fancy it was an endless territory. I

can still recall the thrill of joy, excitement, and

wonder it gave me to go on an exploring

expedition through it, to find the blackberries,

both ripe and green, that grew along the edge of

the fence.

I remember with what pleasure I used to arrive

at, and stand before, a little enclosure in which

stood a patient cow chewing her cud, how I

would occasionally offer her through the bars a

piece of my bread and molasses, and how I

would jerk back my hand in half fright if she

made any motion to accept my offer.

I have a dim recollection of several people who

moved in and about this little house, but I have

a distinct mental image of only two: one, my

mother; and the other, a tall man with a small,

dark mustache. I remember that his shoes or

boots were always shiny, and that he wore a

gold chain and a great gold watch with which he

was always willing to let me play. My

admiration was almost equally divided between

the watch and chain and the shoes. He used to

come to the house evenings, perhaps two or

three times a week; and it became my

appointed duty whenever he came to bring him

a pair of slippers and to put the shiny shoes in

a particular corner; he often gave me in return

for this service a bright coin, which my mother

taught me to promptly drop in a little tin bank.

I remember distinctly the last time this tall

man came to the little house in Georgia; that

evening before I went to bed he took me up in

his arms and squeezed me very tightly; my

mother stood behind his chair wiping tears from

her eyes. I remember how I sat upon his knee

and watched him laboriously drill a hole

through a ten-dollar gold piece, and then tie the

coin around my neck with a string. I have worn

that gold piece around my neck the greater part

of my life, and still possess it, but more than

once I have wished that some other way had

been found of attaching it to me besides putting

a hole through it.

On the day after the coin was put around my

neck my mother and I started on what seemed

to me an endless journey. I knelt on the seat and

watched through the train window the corn and

cotton fields pass swiftly by until I fell asleep.

When I fully awoke, we were being driven

through the streets of a large city—Savannah. I

sat up and blinked at the bright lights. At

Savannah we boarded a steamer which finally

landed us in New York. From New York we went

to a town in Connecticut, which became the

home of my boyhood.

My mother and I lived together in a little

cottage which seemed to me to be fitted up

almost luxuriously; there were horse-haircovered

chairs in the parlor, and a little square

piano; there was a stairway with red carpet on

it leading to a half second story; there were

pictures on the walls, and a few books in a

glass-doored case. My mother dressed me very

neatly, and I developed that pride which welldressed

boys generally have. She was careful

about my associates, and I myself was quite

particular. As I look back now I can see that I

was a perfect little aristocrat. My mother rarely

went to anyone’s house, but she did sewing, and

there were a great many ladies coming to our

cottage. If I was around they would generally

call me, and ask me my name and age and tell

my mother what a pretty boy I was. Some of

them would pat me on the head and kiss me.

My mother was kept very busy with her sewing;

sometimes she would have another woman

helping her. I think she must have derived a

fair income from her work. I know, too, that at

least once each month she received a letter; I

used to watch for the postman, get the letter,

and run to her with it; whether she was busy or

not, she would take it and instantly thrust it

into her bosom. I never saw her read one of

these letters. I knew later that they contained

money and what was to her more than money.

As busy as she generally was, she found time,

however, to teach me my letters and figures and

how to spell a number of easy words. Always on

Sunday evenings she opened the little square

piano and picked out hymns. I can recall now

that whenever she played hymns from the book

her tempo was always decidedly largo.

Sometimes on other evenings, when she was

not sewing, she would play simple

accompaniments to some old Southern songs

which she sang. In these songs she was freer,

because she played them by ear. Those evenings

on which she opened the little piano were the

happiest hours of my childhood. Whenever she

started toward the instrument, I used to follow

her with all the interest and irrepressible joy

that a pampered pet dog shows when a package

is opened in which he knows there is a sweet bit

for him. I used to stand by her side and often

interrupt and annoy her by chiming in with

strange harmonies which I found on either the

high keys of the treble or the low keys of the

bass. I remember that I had a particular

fondness for the black keys. Always on such

evenings, when the music was over, my mother

would sit with me in her arms, often for a very

long time. She would hold me close, softly

crooning some old melody without words, all the

while gently stroking her face against my head;

many and many a night I thus fell asleep. I can

see her now, her great dark eyes looking into

the fire, to where? No one knew but her. The

memory of that picture has more than once kept

me from straying too far from the place of

purity and safety in which her arms held me.

At a very early age I began to thump on the piano

alone, and it was not long before I was able to

pick out a few tunes. When I was seven years old,

I could play by ear all of the hymns and songs

that my mother knew. I had also learned the

names of the notes in both clefs, but I preferred

not to be hampered by notes. About this time

several ladies for whom my mother sewed heard

me play and they persuaded her that I should at

once be put under a teacher; so arrangements

were made for me to study the piano with a lady

who was a fairly good musician; at the same time

arrangements were made for me to study my

books with this lady’s daughter. My music

teacher had no small difficulty at first in pinning

me down to the notes. If she played my lesson

over for me, I invariably attempted to reproduce

the required sounds without the slightest

recourse to the written characters. Her daughter,

my other teacher, also had her worries. She

found that, in reading, whenever I came to words

that were difficult or unfamiliar, I was prone to

bring my imagination to the rescue and read

from the picture. She has laughingly told me,

since then, that I would sometimes substitute

whole sentences and even paragraphs from what

meaning I thought the illustrations conveyed.

She said she not only was sometimes amused at

the fresh treatment I would give an author’s

subject, but, when I gave some new and sudden

turn to the plot of the story, often grew interested

and even excited in listening to hear what kind

of a denouement I would bring about. But I am

sure this was not due to dullness, for I made

rapid progress in both my music and my books.

And so for a couple of years my life was divided

between my music and my school books. Music

took up the greater part of my time. I had no

playmates, but amused myself with games—

some of them my own invention—which could

be played alone. I knew a few boys whom I had

met at the church which I attended with my

mother, but I had formed no close friendships

with any of them. Then, when I was nine years

old, my mother decided to enter me in the public

school, so all at once I found myself thrown

among a crowd of boys of all sizes and kinds;

some of them seemed to me like savages. I shall

never forget the bewilderment, the pain, the

heart-sickness, of that first day at school. I

seemed to be the only stranger in the place;

every other boy seemed to know every other boy.

I was fortunate enough, however, to be assigned

to a teacher who knew me; my mother made her

dresses. She was one of the ladies who used to

pat me on the head and kiss me. She had the

tact to address a few words directly to me; this

gave me a certain sort of standing in the class

and put me somewhat at ease.

Within a few days I had made one staunch

friend and was on fairly good terms with most

of the boys. I was shy of the girls, and remained

so; even now a word or look from a pretty

woman sets me all a-tremble. This friend I

bound to me with hooks of steel in a very simple

way. He was a big awkward boy with a face full

of freckles and a head full of very red hair. He

was perhaps fourteen years of age; that is, four

or five years older than any other boy in the

class. This seniority was due to the fact that he

had spent twice the required amount of time in

several of the preceding classes. I had not been

at school many hours before I felt that “Red

Head”—as I involuntarily called him—and I

were to be friends. I do not doubt that this

feeling was strengthened by the fact that I had

been quick enough to see that a big, strong boy

was a friend to be desired at a public school;

and, perhaps, in spite of his dullness, “Red

Head” had been able to discern that I could be

of service to him. At any rate there was a

simultaneous mutual attraction.

The teacher had strung the class promiscuously

around the walls of the room for a sort of trial

heat for places of rank; when the line was

straightened out, I found that by skillful

maneuvering I had placed myself third and had

piloted “Red Head” to the place next to me. The

teacher began by giving us to spell the words

corresponding to our order in the line. “Spell

first.” “Spell second.” “Spell third.”

I rattled off: “T-h-i-r-d, third,” in a way which

said: “Why don’t you give us something hard?”

As the words went down the line, I could see

how lucky I had been to get a good place

together with an easy word. As young as I was,

I felt impressed with the unfairness of the

whole proceeding when I saw the tailenders

going down before twelfth and twentieth, and I

felt sorry for those who had to spell such words

in order to hold a low position.

“Spell fourth.” “Red Head,” with his hands

clutched tightly behind his back, began bravely:

“F-o-r-t-h.”

Like a flash a score of hands went up, and the

teacher began saying: “No snapping of fingers,

no snapping of fingers.”

This was the first word missed, and it seemed to

me that some of the scholars were about to lose

their senses; some were dancing up and down

on one foot with a hand above their heads, the

fingers working furiously, and joy beaming all

over their faces; others stood still, their hands

raised not so high, their fingers working less

rapidly, and their faces expressing not quite so

much happiness; there were still others who did

not move or raise their hands, but stood with

great wrinkles on their foreheads, looking very

thoughtful.

The whole thing was new to me, and I did not

raise my hand, but slyly whispered the letter “u”

to “Red Head” several times.

“Second chance,” said the teacher. The hands

went down and the class became quiet.

“Red Head,” his face now red, after looking

beseechingly at the ceiling, then pitiably at the

floor, began very haltingly: “F-u—” Immediately

an impulse to raise hands went through the

class, but the teacher checked it, and poor “Red

Head,” though he knew that each letter he

added only took him farther out of the way, went

doggedly on and finished: “—r-t-h.”

The hand-raising was now repeated with more

hubbub and excitement than at first. Those who

before had not moved a finger were now waving

their hands above their heads. “Red Head” felt

that he was lost. He looked very big and foolish,

and some of the scholars began to snicker. His

helpless condition went straight to my heart,

and gripped my sympathies. I felt that if he

failed, it would in some way be my failure. I

raised my hand, and, under cover of the

excitement and the teacher’s attempts to regain

order, I hurriedly shot up into his ear twice,

quite distinctly: “F-o-u-r-t-h, f-o-u-r-t-h.”

The teacher tapped on her desk and said: “Third

and last chance.”

The hands came down, the silence became

oppressive. “Red Head” began: “F—” Since that

day I have waited anxiously for many a turn of

the wheel of fortune, but never under greater

tension than when I watched for the order in

which those letters would fall from “Red’s” lips—

“o-u-r-t-h.” A sigh of relief and disappointment

went up from the class.

Afterwards, through all our school days, “Red

Head” shared my wit and quickness and I

benefited by his strength and dogged

faithfulness.

There were some black and brown boys and

girls in the school, and several of them were in

my class. One of the boys strongly attracted my

attention from the first day I saw him. His face

was as black as night, but shone as though it

were polished; he had sparkling eyes, and when

he opened his mouth, he displayed glistening

white teeth. It struck me at once as appropriate

to call him “Shiny Face,” or “Shiny Eyes,” or

“Shiny Teeth,” and I spoke of him often by one

of these names to the other boys. These terms

were finally merged into “Shiny,” and to that

name he answered good-naturedly during the

balance of his public school days.

“Shiny” was considered without question to be

the best speller, the best reader, the best

penman—in a word, the best scholar, in the

class. He was very quick to catch anything, but,

nevertheless, studied hard; thus he possessed

two powers very rarely combined in one boy. I

saw him year after year, on up into the high

school, win the majority of the prizes for

punctuality, deportment, essay writing, and

declamation. Yet it did not take me long to

discover that, in spite of his standing as a

scholar, he was in some way looked down upon.

The other black boys and girls were still more

looked down upon. Some of the boys often spoke

of them as “niggers.” Sometimes on the way

home from school a crowd would walk behind

them repeating:

“Nigger, nigger, never die, Black face and shiny

eye.”

On one such afternoon one of the black boys

turned suddenly on his tormentors and hurled a

slate; it struck one of the white boys in the

mouth, cutting a slight gash in his lip. At sight

of the blood the boy who had thrown the slate

ran, and his companions quickly followed. We

ran after them pelting them with stones until

they separated in several directions. I was very

much wrought up over the affair, and went

home and told my mother how one of the

“niggers” had struck a boy with a slate. I shall

never forget how she turned on me. “Don’t you

ever use that word again,” she said, “and don’t

you ever bother the colored children at school.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” I did hang

my head in shame, not because she had

convinced me that I had done wrong, but

because I was hurt by the first sharp word she

had ever given me.

My school days ran along very pleasantly. I

stood well in my studies, not always so well

with regard to my behavior. I was never guilty

of any serious misconduct, but my love of fun

sometimes got me into trouble. I remember,

however, that my sense of humor was so sly

that most of the trouble usually fell on the head

of the other fellow. My ability to play on the

piano at school exercises was looked upon as

little short of marvelous in a boy of my age. I

was not chummy with many of my mates, but,

on the whole, was about as popular as it is good

for a boy to be.

One day near the end of my second term at

school the principal came into our room and,

after talking to the teacher, for some reason

said: “I wish all of the white scholars to stand

for a moment.”

I rose with the others. The teacher looked at me

and, calling my name, said: “You sit down for

the present, and rise with the others.”

I did not quite understand her, and questioned:

“Ma’m?”

She repeated, with a softer tone in her voice:

“You sit down now, and rise with the others.”

I sat down dazed. I saw and heard nothing.

When the others were asked to rise, I did not

know it. When school was dismissed, I went out

in a kind of stupor.

A few of the white boys jeered me, saying: “Oh,

you’re a nigger too.”

I heard some black children say: “We knew he

was colored.”

“Shiny” said to them: “Come along, don’t tease

him,” and thereby won my undying gratitude.

I hurried on as fast as I could, and had gone

some distance before I perceived that “Red

Head” was walking by my side. After a while he

said to me: “Le’ me carry your books.”

I gave him my strap without being able to

answer. When we got to my gate, he said as he

handed me my books: “Say, you know my big

red agate? I can’t shoot with it any more. I’m

going to bring it to school for you tomorrow.”

I took my books and ran into the house. As I

passed through the hallway, I saw that my

mother was busy with one of her customers; I

rushed up into my own little room, shut the

door, and went quickly to where my lookingglass

hung on the wall. For an instant I was

afraid to look, but when I did, I looked long and

earnestly. I had often heard people say to my

mother: “What a pretty boy you have!” I was

accustomed to hear remarks about my beauty;

but now, for the first time, I became conscious of

it and recognized it. I noticed the ivory

whiteness of my skin, the beauty of my mouth,

the size and liquid darkness of my eyes, and

how the long, black lashes that fringed and

shaded them produced an effect that was

strangely fascinating even to me. I noticed the

softness and glossiness of my dark hair that fell

in waves over my temples, making my forehead

appear whiter than it really was. How long I

stood there gazing at my image I do not know.

When I came out and reached the head of the

stairs, I heard the lady who had been with my

mother going out. I ran downstairs and rushed

to where my mother was sitting, with a piece of

work in her hands. I buried my head in her lap

and blurted out: “Mother, mother, tell me, am I

a nigger?”

I could not see her face, but I knew the piece of

work dropped to the floor and I felt her hands

on my head. I looked up into her face and

repeated: “Tell me, mother, am I a nigger?”

There were tears in her eyes and I could see

that she was suffering for me. And then it was

that I looked at her critically for the first time.

I had thought of her in a childish way only as

the most beautiful woman in the world; now I

looked at her searching for defects. I could see

that her skin was almost brown, that her hair

was not so soft as mine, and that she did differ

in some way from the other ladies who came to

the house; yet, even so, I could see that she was

very beautiful, more beautiful than any of

them.

She must have felt that I was examining her,

for she hid her face in my hair and said with

difficulty: “No, my darling, you are not a

nigger.” She went on: “You are as good as

anybody; if anyone calls you a nigger, don’t

notice them.”

But the more she talked, the less was I

reassured, and I stopped her by asking: “Well,

mother, am I white? Are you white?”

She answered tremblingly: “No, I am not white,

but you—your father is one of the greatest men

in the country—the best blood of the South is in

you—”

This suddenly opened up in my heart a fresh

chasm of misgiving and fear, and I almost

fiercely demanded: “Who is my father? Where is

he?”

She stroked my hair and said: “I’ll tell you

about him some day.”

I sobbed: “I want to know now.”

She answered: “No, not now.”

Perhaps it had to be done, but I have never

forgiven the woman who did it so cruelly. It may

be that she never knew that she gave me a

sword-thrust that day in school which was

years in healing.

1. The item given to the narrator when he was a little boy was a

a. bicycle.b. Bible.c. gold coin.d. silver whistle.

2. Read the sentence and select, from the choices below, the word closest in meaning to the

word in bold-faced type.

She said she not only was sometimes amused at the fresh treatment I would give an author’s

subject, but, when I gave some new and sudden turn to the plot of the story, often grew

interested and even excited in listening to hear what kind of a denouement I would bring

about.

a. conflictb. resolutionc. climaxd. calamity

3. Early in his school career, the narrator learns, unknowingly, about the ugly concept of

a. gluttony.b. dishonesty.c. selfishnessd. intolerance.

4. Describe the house the narrator remembers from his time in Georgia.

5. What can you deduce about the narrator’s childhood? Was it a happy one? Give examples

from the story to support your response.

6. What helped to spur the relationship between the narrator and “Red Head” at school? In

other words, how was it a mutually beneficial one?

7. Discuss the narrator’s statement:

Since that day I have waited anxiously for many a turn of the wheel of fortune, but never

under greater tension than when I watched for the order in which those letters would fall from

“Red’s” lips—“o-u-r-t-h.”

What sentiment or emotion was he feeling? What does this tell you about him?

8. What small message is the author trying to send when he has the narrator describe himself

as being “about as popular as it is good for a boy to be . . . ”?

9. At the end of the passage, the boy realizes that his mother is black and that he is the product

of a racially-mixed union. Suddenly, he is faced with issues and concerns he has never

entertained before. Why is this revelation so painful to him? Will it change the person he is?

Will it change the way others treat him? Is this fair?

THE WIFE OF

HIS YOUTH

by Charles Waddell Chesnutt

Mr. Ryder was going to give a ball. There were

several reasons why this was an opportune time

for such an event.

Mr. Ryder might aptly be called the dean of the

Blue Veins. The original Blue Veins were a little

society of colored persons organized in a certain

Northern city shortly after the war. Its purpose

was to establish and maintain correct social

standards among a people whose social

condition presented almost unlimited room for

improvement. By accident, combined perhaps

with some natural affinity, the society consisted

of individuals who were, generally speaking,

more white than black. Some envious outsider

made the suggestion that no one was eligible for

membership who was not white enough to show

blue veins. The suggestion was readily adopted

by those who were not of the favored few, and

since that time the society, though possessing a

longer and more pretentious name, had been

known far and wide as the “Blue Vein Society,”

and its members as the “Blue Veins.”

The Blue Veins did not allow that any such

requirement existed for admission to their

circle, but, on the contrary, declared that

character and culture were the only things

considered; and that if most of their members

were light-colored, it was because such persons,

as a rule, had had better opportunities to

qualify themselves for membership. Opinions

differed, too, as to the usefulness of the society.

There were those who had been known to assail

it violently as a glaring example of the very

prejudice from which the colored race had

suffered most; and later, when such critics had

succeeded in getting on the inside, they had

been heard to maintain with zeal and

earnestness that the society was a lifeboat, an

anchor, a bulwark and a shield,—a pillar of

cloud by day and of fire by night, to guide their

people through the social wilderness. Another

alleged prerequisite for Blue Vein membership

was that of free birth; and while there was

really no such requirement, it is doubtless true

that very few of the members would have been

unable to meet it if there had been. If there

were one or two of the older members who had

come up from the South and from slavery, their

history presented enough romantic

circumstances to rob their servile origin of its

grosser aspects.

While there were no such tests of eligibility, it is

true that the Blue Veins had their notions on

these subjects, and that not all of them were

equally liberal in regard to the things they

collectively disclaimed. Mr. Ryder was one of

the most conservative. Though he had not been

among the founders of the society, but had come

in some years later, his genius for social

leadership was such that he had speedily

become its recognized adviser and head, the

custodian of its standards, and the preserver of

its traditions. He shaped its social policy, was

active in providing for its entertainment, and

when the interest fell off, as it sometimes did,

he fanned the embers until they burst again

into a cheerful flame.

There were still other reasons for his

popularity. While he was not as white as some

of the Blue Veins, his appearance was such as to

confer distinction upon them. His features were

of a refined type, his hair was almost straight;

he was always neatly dressed; his manners

were irreproachable, and his morals above

suspicion. He had come to Groveland a young

man, and obtaining employment in the office of

a railroad company as messenger had in time

worked himself up to the position of stationery

clerk, having charge of the distribution of the

office supplies for the whole company. Although

the lack of early training had hindered the

orderly development of a naturally fine mind, it

had not prevented him from doing a great deal

of reading or from forming decidedly literary

tastes. Poetry was his passion. He could repeat

whole pages of the great English poets; and if

his pronunciation was sometimes faulty, his

eye, his voice, his gestures, would respond to

the changing sentiment with a precision that

revealed a poetic soul and disarmed criticism.

He was economical, and had saved money; he

owned and occupied a very comfortable house

on a respectable street. His residence was

handsomely furnished, containing among other

things a good library, especially rich in poetry, a

piano, and some choice engravings. He

generally shared his house with some young

couple, who looked after his wants and were

company for him; for Mr. Ryder was a single

man. In the early days of his connection with

the Blue Veins he had been regarded as quite a

catch, and young ladies and their mothers had

manoeuvred with much ingenuity to capture

him. Not, however, until Mrs. Molly Dixon

visited Groveland had any woman ever made

him wish to change his condition to that of a

married man.

Mrs. Dixon had come to Groveland from

Washington in the spring, and before the

summer was over she had won Mr. Ryder’s

heart. She possessed many attractive qualities.

She was much younger than he; in fact, he was

old enough to have been her father, though no

one knew exactly how old he was. She was

whiter than he, and better educated. She had

moved in the best colored society of the country,

at Washington, and had taught in the schools of

that city. Such a superior person had been

eagerly welcomed to the Blue Vein Society, and

had taken a leading part in its activities. Mr.

Ryder had at first been attracted by her charms

of person, for she was very good looking and not

over twenty-five; then by her refined manners

and the vivacity of her wit. Her husband had

been a government clerk, and at his death had

left a considerable life insurance. She was

visiting friends in Groveland, and, finding the

town and the people to her liking, had

prolonged her stay indefinitely. She had not

seemed displeased at Mr. Ryder’s attentions,

but on the contrary had given him every proper

encouragement; indeed, a younger and less

cautious man would long since have spoken.

But he had made up his mind, and had only to

determine the time when he would ask her to be

his wife. He decided to give a ball in her honor,

and at some time during the evening of the ball

to offer her his heart and hand. He had no

special fears about the outcome, but, with a

little touch of romance, he wanted the

surroundings to be in harmony with his own

feelings when he should have received the

answer he expected.

Mr. Ryder resolved that this ball should mark

an epoch in the social history of Groveland. He

knew, of course,—no one could know better,—

the entertainments that had taken place in past

years, and what must be done to surpass them.

His ball must be worthy of the lady in whose

honor it was to be given, and must, by the

quality of its guests, set an example for the

future. He had observed of late a growing

liberality, almost a laxity, in social matters,

even among members of his own set, and had

several times been forced to meet in a social

way persons whose complexions and callings in

life were hardly up to the standard which he

considered proper for the society to maintain.

He had a theory of his own.

“I have no race prejudice,” he would say, “but we

people of mixed blood are ground between the

upper and the nether millstone. Our fate lies

between absorption by the white race and

extinction in the black. The one doesn’t want us

yet, but may take us in time. The other would

welcome us, but it would be for us a backward

step. ‘With malice towards none, with charity

for all,’ we must do the best we can for ourselves

and those who are to follow us. Selfpreservation

is the first law of nature.”

His ball would serve by its exclusiveness to

counteract leveling tendencies, and his

marriage with Mrs. Dixon would help to further

the upward process of absorption he had been

wishing and waiting for.

The ball was to take place on Friday night. The

house had been put in order, the carpets covered

with canvas, the halls and stairs decorated with

palms and potted plants; and in the afternoon

Mr. Ryder sat on his front porch, which the shade

of a vine running up over a wire netting made a

cool and pleasant lounging place. He expected to

respond to the toast “The Ladies” at the supper,

and from a volume of Tennyson—his favorite

poet—was fortifying himself with apt quotations.

The volume was open at “A Dream of Fair

Women.” His eyes fell on these lines, and he read

them aloud to judge better of their effect:——

“At length I saw a lady within call

Stiller than chisell’d marble, standing

there;

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,

And most divinely fair.”

He marked the verse, and turning the page read

the stanza beginning,——

“O sweet pale Margaret,

O rare pale Margaret.”

He weighed the passage a moment, and decided

that it would not do. Mrs. Dixon was the palest

lady he expected at the ball, and she was of a

rather ruddy complexion, and of lively

disposition and buxom build. So he ran over the

leaves until his eye rested on the description of

Queen Guinevere:——

“She seem’d a part of joyous Spring;

A gown of grass-green silk she wore,

Buckled with golden clasps before;

A light-green tuft of plumes she bore

Closed in a golden ring.

* * * * *

“She look’d so lovely, as she sway’d The rein

with dainty finger-tips, A man had given all

other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this,

To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her

perfect lips.”

As Mr. Ryder murmured these words audibly,

with an appreciative thrill, he heard the latch of

his gate click, and a light footfall sounding on

the steps. He turned his head, and saw a

woman standing before his door.

She was a little woman, not five feet tall, and

proportioned to her height. Although she stood

erect, and looked around her with very bright

and restless eyes, she seemed quite old; for her

face was crossed and recrossed with a hundred

wrinkles, and around the edges of her bonnet

could be seen protruding here and there a tuft

of short gray wool. She wore a blue calico gown

of ancient cut, a little red shawl fastened

around her shoulders with an old-fashioned

brass brooch, and a large bonnet profusely

ornamented with faded red and yellow artificial

flowers. And she was very black,—so black that

her toothless gums, revealed when she opened

her mouth to speak, were not red, but blue. She

looked like a bit of the old plantation life,

summoned up from the past by the wave of a

magician’s wand, as the poet’s fancy had called

into being the gracious shapes of which Mr.

Ryder had just been reading.

He rose from his chair and came over to where

she stood.

“Good-afternoon, madam,” he said.

“Good-evenin’, suh,” she answered, ducking

suddenly with a quaint curtsy. Her voice was

shrill and piping, but softened somewhat by

age. “Is dis yere whar Mistuh Ryduh lib, suh?”

she asked, looking around her doubtfully, and

glancing into the open windows, through which

some of the preparations for the evening were

visible.

“Yes,” he replied, with an air of kindly

patronage, unconsciously flattered by her

manner, “I am Mr. Ryder. Did you want to see

me?”

“Yas, suh, ef I ain’t ‘sturbin’ of you too much.”

“Not at all. Have a seat over here behind the

vine, where it is cool. What can I do for you?”

“ ‘Scuse me, suh,” she continued, when she had

sat down on the edge of a chair, “ ‘scuse me, suh,

I ‘s lookin’ for my husban’. I heerd you wuz a big

man an’ had libbed heah a long time, an’ I

‘lowed you would n’t min’ ef I ‘d come roun’ an’

ax you ef you ‘d ever heerd of a merlatter man

by de name er Sam Taylor ‘quirin’ roun’ in de

chu’ches ermongs’ de people fer his wife ‘Liza

Jane?”

Mr. Ryder seemed to think for a moment.

“There used to be many such cases right after

the war,” he said, “but it has been so long that I

have forgotten them. There are very few now.

But tell me your story, and it may refresh my

memory.”

She sat back farther in her chair so as to be

more comfortable, and folded her withered

hands in her lap.

“My name ‘s ‘Liza,” she began, “ ‘Liza Jane.

W’en I wuz young I us’ter b’long ter Marse Bob

Smif, down in ole Missoura. I wuz bawn down

dere. Wen I wuz a gal I wuz married ter a man

named Jim. But Jim died, an’ after dat I

married a merlatter man named Sam Taylor.

Sam wuz free-bawn, but his mammy and daddy

died, an’ de w’ite folks ‘prenticed him ter my

marster fer ter work fer ‘im ‘tel he wuz growed

up. Sam worked in de fiel’, an’ I wuz de cook.

One day Ma’y Ann, ole miss’s maid, came

rushin’ out ter de kitchen, an’ says she, ‘’Liza

Jane, ole marse gwine sell yo’ Sam down de

ribber.’

“ ‘Go way f’m yere,’ says I; ‘my husban’ ‘s free!’

“ ‘Don’ make no diff’ence. I heerd ole marse tell

ole miss he wuz gwine take yo’ Sam ‘way wid ‘im

ter-morrow, fer he needed money, an’ he knowed

whar he could git a t’ousan’ dollars fer Sam an’

no questions axed.’

“W’en Sam come home f’m de fiel’ dat night, I

tole him ‘bout ole marse gwine steal ‘im, an’

Sam run erway. His time wuz mos’ up, an’ he

swo’ dat w’en he wuz twenty-one he would come

back an’ he’p me run erway, er else save up de

money ter buy my freedom. An’ I know he ‘d ‘a’

done it, fer he thought a heap er me, Sam did.

But w’en he come back he didn’ fin’ me, fer I

wuzn’ dere. Ole marse had heerd dat I warned

Sam, so he had me whip’ an’ sol’ down de ribber.

“Den de wah broke out, an’ w’en it wuz ober de

cullud folks wuz scattered. I went back ter de

ole home; but Sam wuzn’ dere, an’ I could n’

l’arn nuffin’ ‘bout ‘im. But I knowed he ‘d be’n

dere to look fer me an’ had n’ foun’ me, an’ had

gone erway ter hunt fer me.

“I ‘s be’n lookin’ fer ‘im eber sence,” she added

simply, as though twenty-five years were but a

couple of weeks, “an’ I knows he ‘s be’n lookin’

fer me. Fer he sot a heap er sto’ by me, Sam did,

an’ I know he ‘s be’n huntin’ fer me all dese

years,—’less’n he ‘s be’n sick er sump’n, so he

could n’ work, er out’n his head, so he could n’

‘member his promise. I went back down de

ribber, fer I ‘lowed he ‘d gone down dere lookin’

fer me. I ‘s be’n ter Noo Orleens, an’ Atlanty, an’

Charleston, an’ Richmon’; an’ w’en I ‘d be’n all

ober de Souf I come ter de Norf. Fer I knows I ‘ll

fin’ ‘im some er dese days,” she added softly, “er

he ‘ll fin’ me, an’ den we ‘ll bofe be as happy in

freedom as we wuz in de ole days befo’ de wah.”

A smile stole over her withered countenance as

she paused a moment, and her bright eyes

softened into a far-away look.

This was the substance of the old woman’s

story. She had wandered a little here and there.

Mr. Ryder was looking at her curiously when

she finished.

“How have you lived all these years?” he asked.

“Cookin’, suh. I ‘s a good cook. Does you know

anybody w’at needs a good cook, suh? I ‘s

stoppin’ wid a cullud fam’ly roun’ de corner

yonder ‘tel I kin git a place.”

“Do you really expect to find your husband? He

may be dead long ago.”

She shook her head emphatically. “Oh no, he

ain’ dead. De signs an’ de tokens tells me. I

dremp three nights runnin’ on’y dis las’ week

dat I foun’ him.”

“He may have married another woman. Your

slave marriage would not have prevented him,

for you never lived with him after the war, and

without that your marriage does n’t count.”

“Would n’ make no diff’ence wid Sam. He would

n’ marry no yuther ‘ooman ‘tel he foun’ out ‘bout

me. I knows it,” she added. “Sump’n ‘s be’n

tellin’ me all dese years dat I ‘s gwine fin’ Sam

‘fo’ I dies.”

“Perhaps he ’s outgrown you, and climbed up in

the world where he would n’t care to have you

find him.”

“No, indeed, suh,” she replied, “Sam ain’ dat kin’

er man. He wuz good ter me, Sam wuz, but he

wuz n’ much good ter nobody e’se, fer he wuz

one er de triflin’es’ han’s on de plantation. I

‘spec’s ter haf ter suppo’t ‘im w’en I fin’ ‘im, fer

he nebber would work ‘less’n he had ter. But

den he wuz free, an’ he did n’ git no pay fer his

work, an’ I don’ blame ‘im much. Mebbe he ‘s

done better sence he run erway, but I ain’

‘spectin’ much.”

“You may have passed him on the street a

hundred times during the twenty-five years,

and not have known him; time works great

changes.”

She smiled incredulously. “I ‘d know ‘im ‘mongs’

a hund’ed men. Fer dey wuz n’ no yuther

merlatter man like my man Sam, an’ I could n’

be mistook. I ‘s toted his picture roun’ wid me

twenty-five years.”

“May I see it?” asked Mr. Ryder. “It might help

me to remember whether I have seen the

original.”

As she drew a small parcel from her bosom he

saw that it was fastened to a string that went

around her neck. Removing several wrappers,

she brought to light an old-fashioned

daguerreotype in a black case. He looked long

and intently at the portrait. It was faded with

time, but the features were still distinct, and it

was easy to see what manner of man it had

represented.

He closed the case, and with a slow movement

handed it back to her.

“I don’t know of any man in town who goes by

that name,” he said, “nor have I heard of any

one making such inquiries. But if you will leave

me your address, I will give the matter some

attention, and if I find out anything I will let

you know.”

She gave him the number of a house in the

neighborhood, and went away, after thanking

him warmly.

He wrote the address on the fly-leaf of the

volume of Tennyson, and, when she had gone,

rose to his feet and stood looking after her

curiously. As she walked down the street with

mincing step, he saw several persons whom she

passed turn and look back at her with a smile of

kindly amusement. When she had turned the

corner, he went upstairs to his bedroom, and

stood for a long time before the mirror of his

dressing-case, gazing thoughtfully at the

reflection of his own face.

1. The purpose of the group known as the Blue Veins was to

a. promote the segregation of blacks and whites in public education.b. establish and maintain correct social standards among a group whose social conditioncould only improve.c. ensure gender and racial equality nationwide.d. establish and maintain legal rights among the black population.

2. According to the members of the society, what were the only two requirements for

membership?

a. character and cultureb. character and intelligencec. culture and civic involvementd. royal heritage and ambition

3. Explain why Mr. Ryder was such a popular adviser of the Blue Veins. Make certain to

mention at least three definite attributes.

4. Who is Molly Dixon? How does she become a part of Mr. Ryder’s life?

5. Discuss Mr. Ryder’s own personal theory of society.

6. Describe the woman who comes to visit Mr. Ryder. What is the purpose of her visit?

Summarize her story.

7. Mr. Ryder says to Liza, “Perhaps he ’s outgrown you, and climbed up in the world where he

would n’t care to have you find him.” Why does he say this? What might you infer from his

comment? Consider the title of the story when responding to this question.

Her Virginia Mammy from The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and Selected Essays (1899) by Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858–1932)

The pianist had struck up a lively twostep, and soon the floor was covered with couples, each turning on its own axis, and all revolving around a common centre, in obedience perhaps to the same law of motion that governs the planetary systems. The dancing-hall was a long room, with a waxed floor that glistened with the reflection of the lights from the chandeliers. The walls were hung in paper of blue and white, above a varnished hard wood wainscoting; the monotony of surface being broken by numerous windows draped with curtains of dotted muslin, and by occasional engravings and colored pictures representing the dances of various nations, judiciously selected. The rows of chairs along the two sides of the room were left unoccupied by the time the music was well under way, for the pianist, a tall colored woman with long fingers and a muscular wrist, played with a verve and a swing that set the feet of the listeners involuntarily in motion. The dance was sure to occupy the class for a quarter of an hour at least, and the little dancing-mistress took the opportunity to slip away to her own sitting-room, which was on the same floor of the block, for a few minutes of rest. Her day had been a hard one. There had been a matinee at two o’clock, a children’s class at four, and at eight o’clock the class now on the floor had assembled. When she reached the sitting-room she gave a start of pleasure. A young man rose at her entrance, and advanced with both hands extended—a tall, broad-shouldered, fair-haired young man, with a frank and kindly countenance, now lit up with the animation of pleasure. He seemed about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. His face was of the type one instinctively associates with intellect and character, and it gave the impression, besides, of that intangible something which we call race. He was neatly and carefully dressed, though his clothing was not without indications that he found it necessary or expedient to practice economy. “Good-evening, Clara,” he said, taking her hands in his; “I’ve been waiting for you five minutes. I supposed you would be in, but if you had been a moment later I was going to the hall to look you up. You seem tired to-night,” he added, drawing her nearer to him and scanning her features at short range. “This work is too hard; you are not fitted for it. When are you going to give it up?” “The season is almost over,” she answered, “and then I shall stop for the summer.” He drew her closer still and kissed her lovingly. “Tell me, Clara,” he said, looking down into her face,—he was at least a foot taller than she,—“when I am to have my answer.” “Will you take the answer you can get tonight?” she asked with a wan smile. “I will take but one answer, Clara. But do not make me wait too long for that. Why, just think of it! I have known you for six months.” “That is an extremely long time,” said Clara, as they sat down side by side. “It has been an age,” he rejoined. “For a fortnight of it, too, which seems longer than all the rest, I have been waiting for my 149 © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. answer. I am turning gray under the suspense. Seriously, Clara dear, what shall it be? or rather, when shall it be? for to the other question there is but one answer possible.” He looked into her eyes, which slowly filled with tears. She repulsed him gently as he bent over to kiss them away. “You know I love you, John, and why I do not say what you wish. You must give me a little more time to make up my mind before I can consent to burden you with a nameless wife, one who does not know who her mother was”—— “She was a good woman, and beautiful, if you are at all like her.” “Or her father”—— “He was a gentleman and a scholar, if you inherited from him your mind or your manners.” “It is good of you to say that, and I try to believe it. But it is a serious matter; it is a dreadful thing to have no name.” “You are known by a worthy one, which was freely given you, and is legally yours.” “I know—and I am grateful for it. After all, though, it is not my real name; and since I have learned that it was not, it seems like a garment—something external, accessory, and not a part of myself. It does not mean what one’s own name would signify.” “Take mine, Clara, and make it yours; I lay it at your feet. Some honored men have borne it.” “Ah yes, and that is what makes my position the harder. Your great-grandfather was governor of Connecticut.” “I have heard my mother say so.” “And one of your ancestors came over in the Mayflower.” “In some capacity—I have never been quite clear whether as ship’s cook or before the mast.” “Now you are insincere, John; but you cannot deceive me. You never spoke in that way about your ancestors until you learned that I had none. I know you are proud of them, and that the memory of the governor and the judge and the Harvard professor and the Mayflower pilgrim makes you strive to excel, in order to prove yourself worthy of them.” “It did until I met you, Clara. Now the one inspiration of my life is the hope to make you mine.” “And your profession?” “It will furnish me the means to take you out of this; you are not fit for toil.” “And your book—your treatise that is to make you famous?” “I have worked twice as hard on it and accomplished twice as much since I have hoped that you might share my success.” “Oh! if I but knew the truth!” she sighed, “or could find it out! I realize that I am absurd, that I ought to be happy. I love my parents—my foster-parents—dearly. I owe them everything. Mother—poor, dear mother!—could not have loved me better or cared for me more faithfully had I been her own child. Yet—I am ashamed to say it—I always felt that I was not like them, that there was a subtle difference between us. They were contented in prosperity, resigned in misfortune; I was ever restless, and filled with vague ambitions. They were good, but dull. They loved me, but they never said so. I feel that there is warmer, richer blood coursing in my veins than the placid stream that crept through theirs.” “There will never be any such people to me as they were,” said her lover, “for they took you and brought you up for me.” © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 150 151 © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. “Sometimes,” she went on dreamily, “I feel sure that I am of good family, and the blood of my ancestors seems to call to me in clear and certain tones. Then again when my mood changes, I am all at sea—I feel that even if I had but simply to turn my hand to learn who I am and whence I came, I should shrink from taking the step, for fear that what I might learn would leave me forever unhappy.” “Dearest,” he said, taking her in his arms, while from the hall and down the corridor came the softened strains of music, “put aside these unwholesome fancies. Your past is shrouded in mystery. Take my name, as you have taken my love, and I ‘ll make your future so happy that you won’t have time to think of the past. What are a lot of musty, mouldy old grandfathers, compared with life and love and happiness? It’s hardly good form to mention one’s ancestors nowadays, and what’s the use of them at all if one can’t boast of them?” “It’s all very well of you to talk that way,” she rejoined. “But suppose you should marry me, and when you become famous and rich, and patients flock to your office, and fashionable people to your home, and every one wants to know who you are and whence you came, you’ll be obliged to bring out the governor, and the judge, and the rest of them. If you should refrain, in order to forestall embarrassing inquiries about my ancestry, I should have deprived you of something you are entitled to, something which has a real social value. And when people found out all about you, as they eventually would from some source, they would want to know—we Americans are a curious people—who your wife was, and you could only say”—— “The best and sweetest woman on earth, whom I love unspeakably.” “You know that is not what I mean. You could only say—a Miss Nobody, from Nowhere.” “A Miss Hohlfelder, from Cincinnati, the only child of worthy German parents, who fled from their own country in ‘49 to escape political persecution—an ancestry that one surely need not be ashamed of.” “No; but the consciousness that it was not true would be always with me, poisoning my mind, and darkening my life and yours.” “Your views of life are entirely too tragic, Clara,” the young man argued soothingly. “We are all worms of the dust, and if we go back far enough, each of us has had millions of ancestors; peasants and serfs, most of them; thieves, murderers, and vagabonds, many of them, no doubt; and therefore the best of us have but little to boast of. Yet we are all made after God’s own image, and formed by his hand, for his ends; and therefore not to be lightly despised, even the humblest of us, least of all by ourselves. For the past we can claim no credit, for those who made it died with it. Our destiny lies in the future.” “Yes,” she sighed, “I know all that. But I am not like you. A woman is not like a man; she cannot lose herself in theories and generalizations. And there are tests that even all your philosophy could not endure. Suppose you should marry me, and then some time, by the merest accident, you should learn that my origin was the worst it could be—that I not only had no name, but was not entitled to one.” “I cannot believe it,” he said, “and from what we do know of your history it is hardly possible. If I learned it, I should forget it, unless, perchance, it should enhance your value in my eyes, by stamping you as a rare work of nature, an exception to the law of heredity, a triumph of pure beauty and goodness over the grosser limitations of matter. I cannot imagine, now that I know you, anything that could make me love you less. I would marry you just the same—even if you were one of your dancing-class tonight.” “I must go back to them,” said Clara, as the music ceased. “My answer,” he urged, “give me my answer!” “Not to-night, John,” she pleaded. “Grant me a little longer time to make up my mind—for your sake.” “Not for my sake, Clara, no.” “Well—for mine.” She let him take her in his arms and kiss her again. “I have a patient yet to see to-night,” he said as he went out. “If I am not detained too long, I may come back this way—if I see the lights in the hall still burning. Do not wonder if I ask you again for my answer, for I shall be unhappy until I get it.” II A stranger entering the hall with Miss Hohlfelder would have seen, at first glance, only a company of well-dressed people, with nothing to specially distinguish them from ordinary humanity in temperate climates. After the eye had rested for a moment and begun to separate the mass into its component parts, one or two dark faces would have arrested its attention; and with the suggestion thus offered, a closer inspection would have revealed that they were nearly all a little less than white. With most of them this fact would not have been noticed, while they were alone or in company with one another, though if a fair white person had gone among them it would perhaps have been more apparent. From the few who were undistinguishable from pure white, the colors ran down the scale by minute gradations to the two or three brown faces at the other extremity. It was Miss Hohlfelder’s first colored class. She had been somewhat startled when first asked to take it. No person of color had ever applied to her for lessons; and while a woman of that race had played the piano for her for several months, she had never thought of colored people as possible pupils. So when she was asked if she would take a class of twenty or thirty, she had hesitated, and begged for time to consider the application. She knew that several of the more fashionable dancingschools tabooed all pupils, singly or in classes, who labored under social disabilities—and this included the people of at least one other race who were vastly farther along in the world than the colored people of the community where Miss Hohlfelder lived. Personally she had no such prejudice, except perhaps a little shrinking at the thought of personal contact with the dark faces of whom Americans always think when “colored people” are spoken of. Again, a class of forty pupils was not to be despised, for she taught for money, which was equally current and desirable, regardless of its color. She had consulted her foster-parents, and after them her lover. Her foster-parents, who were German-born, and had never become thoroughly Americanized, saw no objection. As for her lover, he was indifferent. “Do as you please,” he said. “It may drive away some other pupils. If it should break up the business entirely, perhaps you might be willing to give me a chance so much the sooner.” She mentioned the matter to one or two other friends, who expressed conflicting opinions. She decided at length to take the class, and take the consequences. “I don’t think it would be either right or kind to refuse them for any such reason, and I don’t believe I shall lose anything by it.” She was somewhat surprised, and pleasantly so, when her class came together for their first lesson, at not finding them darker and more uncouth. Her pupils were © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 152 mostly people whom she would have passed on the street without a second glance, and among them were several whom she had known by sight for years, but had never dreamed of as being colored people. Their manners were good, they dressed quietly and as a rule with good taste, avoiding rather than choosing bright colors and striking combinations—whether from natural preference, or because of a slightly morbid shrinking from criticism, of course she could not say. Among them, the dancingmistress soon learned, there were lawyers and doctors, teachers, telegraph operators, clerks, milliners and dressmakers, students of the local college and scientific school, and, somewhat to her awe at the first meeting, even a member of the legislature. They were mostly young, although a few light-hearted older people joined the class, as much for company as for the dancing. “Of course, Miss Hohlfelder,” explained Mr. Solomon Sadler, to whom the teacher had paid a compliment on the quality of the class, “the more advanced of us are not numerous enough to make the fine distinctions that are possible among white people; and of course as we rise in life we can’t get entirely away from our brothers and our sisters and our cousins, who don’t always keep abreast of us. We do, however, draw certain lines of character and manners and occupation. You see the sort of people we are. Of course we have no prejudice against color, and we regard all labor as honorable, provided a man does the best he can. But we must have standards that will give our people something to aspire to.” The class was not a difficult one, as many of the members were already fairly good dancers. Indeed the class had been formed as much for pleasure as for instruction. Music and hall rent and a knowledge of the latest dances could be obtained cheaper in this way than in any other. The pupils had made rapid progress, displaying in fact a natural aptitude for rhythmic motion, and a keen susceptibility to musical sounds. As their race had never been criticized for these characteristics, they gave them full play, and soon developed, most of them, into graceful and indefatigable dancers. They were now almost at the end of their course, and this was the evening of the last lesson but one. Miss Hohlfelder had remarked to her lover more than once that it was a pleasure to teach them. “They enter into the spirit of it so thoroughly, and they seem to enjoy themselves so much.” “One would think,” he suggested, “that the whitest of them would find their position painful and more or less pathetic; to be so white and yet to be classed as black—so near and yet so far.” “They don’t accept our classification blindly. They do not acknowledge any inferiority; they think they are a great deal better than any but the best white people,” replied Miss Hohlfelder. “And since they have been coming here, do you know,” she went on, “I hardly think of them as any different from other people. I feel perfectly at home among them.” “It is a great thing to have faith in one’s self,” he replied. “It is a fine thing, too, to be able to enjoy the passing moment. One of your greatest charms in my eyes, Clara, is that in your lighter moods you have this faculty. You sing because you love to sing. You find pleasure in dancing, even by way of work. You feel the joie de vivre—the joy of living. You are not always so, but when you are so I think you most delightful.” Miss Hohlfelder, upon entering the hall, spoke to the pianist and then exchanged a few words with various members of the class. The pianist began to play a dreamy Strauss waltz. When the dance was well under way Miss Hohlfelder left the hall 153 © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. again and stepped into the ladies’ dressingroom. There was a woman seated quietly on a couch in a corner, her hands folded on her lap. “Good-evening, Miss Hohlfelder. You do not seem as bright as usual to-night.” Miss Hohlfelder felt a sudden yearning for sympathy. Perhaps it was the gentle tones of the greeting; perhaps the kindly expression of the soft though faded eyes that were scanning Miss Hohlfelder’s features. The woman was of the indefinite age between forty and fifty. There were lines on her face which, if due to years, might have carried her even past the half-century mark, but if caused by trouble or ill health might leave her somewhat below it. She was quietly dressed in black, and wore her slightly wavy hair low over her ears, where it lay naturally in the ripples which some others of her sex so sedulously seek by art. A little woman, of clear olive complexion and regular features, her face was almost a perfect oval, except as time had marred its outline. She had been in the habit of coming to the class with some young women of the family she lived with, part boarder, part seamstress and friend of the family. Sometimes, while waiting for her young charges, the music would jar her nerves, and she would seek the comparative quiet of the dressing-room. “Oh, I ‘m all right, Mrs. Harper,” replied the dancing-mistress, with a brave attempt at cheerfulness,—“just a little tired, after a hard day’s work.” She sat down on the couch by the elder woman’s side. Mrs. Harper took her hand and stroked it gently, and Clara felt soothed and quieted by her touch. “There are tears in your eyes and trouble in your face. I know it, for I have shed the one and known the other. Tell me, child, what ails you? I am older than you, and perhaps I have learned some things in the hard school of life that may be of comfort or service to you.” Such a request, coming from a comparative stranger, might very properly have been resented or lightly parried. But Clara was not what would be called selfcontained. Her griefs seemed lighter when they were shared with others, even in spirit. There was in her nature a childish strain that craved sympathy and comforting. She had never known—or if so it was only in a dim and dreamlike past—the tender, brooding care that was her conception of a mother’s love. Mrs. Hohlfelder had been fond of her in a placid way, and had given her every comfort and luxury her means permitted. Clara’s ideal of maternal love had been of another and more romantic type; she had thought of a fond, impulsive mother, to whose bosom she could fly when in trouble or distress, and to whom she could communicate her sorrows and trials; who would dry her tears and soothe her with caresses. Now, when even her kind foster-mother was gone, she felt still more the need of sympathy and companionship with her own sex; and when this little Mrs. Harper spoke to her so gently, she felt her heart respond instinctively. “Yes, Mrs. Harper,” replied Clara with a sigh, “I am in trouble, but it is trouble that you nor any one else can heal.” “You do not know, child. A simple remedy can sometimes cure a very grave complaint. Tell me your trouble, if it is something you are at liberty to tell.” “I have a story,” said Clara, “and it is a strange one,—a story I have told to but one other person, one very dear to me.” “He must be dear to you indeed, from the tone in which you speak of him. Your very accents breathe love.” “Yes, I love him, and if you saw him— perhaps you have seen him, for he has © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 154 looked in here once or twice during the dancing-lessons—you would know why I love him. He is handsome, he is learned, he is ambitious, he is brave, he is good; he is poor, but he will not always be so; and he loves me, oh, so much!” The other woman smiled. “It is not so strange to love, nor yet to be loved. And all lovers are handsome and brave and fond.” “That is not all of my story. He wants to marry me.” Clara paused, as if to let this statement impress itself upon the other. “True lovers always do,” said the elder woman. “But sometimes, you know, there are circumstances which prevent them.” “Ah yes,” murmured the other reflectively, and looking at the girl with deeper interest, “circumstances which prevent them. I have known of such a case.” “The circumstance which prevents us from marrying is my story.” “Tell me your story, child, and perhaps, if I cannot help you otherwise, I can tell you one that will make yours seem less sad.” “You know me,” said the young woman, “as Miss Hohlfelder; but that is not actually my name. In fact I do not know my real name, for I am not the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hohlfelder, but only an adopted child. While Mrs. Hohlfelder lived, I never knew that I was not her child. I knew I was very different from her and father,—I mean Mr. Hohlfelder. I knew they were fair and I was dark; they were stout and I was slender; they were slow and I was quick. But of course I never dreamed of the true reason of this difference. When mother—Mrs. Hohlfelder—died, I found among her things one day a little packet, carefully wrapped up, containing a child’s slip and some trinkets. The paper wrapper of the packet bore an inscription that awakened my curiosity. I asked father Hohlfelder whose the things had been, and then for the first time I learned my real story. “I was not their own daughter, he stated, but an adopted child. Twenty-three years ago, when he had lived in St. Louis, a steamboat explosion had occurred up the river, and on a piece of wreckage floating down stream, a girl baby had been found. There was nothing on the child to give a hint of its home or parentage; and no one came to claim it, though the fact that a child had been found was advertised all along the river. It was believed that the infant’s parents must have perished in the wreck, and certainly no one of those who were saved could identify the child. There had been a passenger list on board the steamer, but the list, with the officer who kept it, had been lost in the accident. The child was turned over to an orphan asylum, from which within a year it was adopted by the two kind-hearted and childless German people who brought it up as their own. I was that child.” The woman seated by Clara’s side had listened with strained attention. “Did you learn the name of the steamboat?” she asked quietly, but quickly, when Clara paused. “The Pride of St. Louis,” answered Clara. She did not look at Mrs. Harper, but was gazing dreamily toward the front, and therefore did not see the expression that sprang into the other’s face,—a look in which hope struggled with fear, and yearning love with both,—nor the strong effort with which Mrs. Harper controlled herself and moved not one muscle while the other went on. “I was never sought,” Clara continued, “and the good people who brought me up gave me every care. Father and mother—I can never train my tongue to call them anything else—were very good to me. When 155 © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. they adopted me they were poor; he was a pharmacist with a small shop. Later on he moved to Cincinnati, where he made and sold a popular ‘patent’ medicine and amassed a fortune. Then I went to a fashionable school, was taught French, and deportment, and dancing. Father Hohlfelder made some bad investments, and lost most of his money. The patent medicine fell off in popularity. A year or two ago we came to this city to live. Father bought this block and opened the little drug store below. We moved into the rooms upstairs. The business was poor, and I felt that I ought to do something to earn money and help support the family. I could dance; we had this hall, and it was not rented all the time, so I opened a dancing-school.” “Tell me, child,” said the other woman, with restrained eagerness, “what were the things found upon you when you were taken from the river?” “Yes,” answered the girl, “I will. But I have not told you all my story, for this is but the prelude. About a year ago a young doctor rented an office in our block. We met each other, at first only now and then, and afterwards oftener; and six months ago he told me that he loved me.” She paused, and sat with half opened lips and dreamy eyes, looking back into the past six months. “And the things found upon you”—— “Yes, I will show them to you when you have heard all my story. He wanted to marry me, and has asked me every week since. I have told him that I love him, but I have not said I would marry him. I don’t think it would be right for me to do so, unless I could clear up this mystery. I believe he is going to be great and rich and famous, and there might come a time when he would be ashamed of me. I don’t say that I shall never marry him; for I have hoped— I have a presentiment that in some strange way I shall find out who I am, and who my parents were. It may be mere imagination on my part, but somehow I believe it is more than that.” “Are you sure there was no mark on the things that were found upon you?” said the elder woman. “Ah yes,” sighed Clara, “I am sure, for I have looked at them a hundred times. They tell me nothing, and yet they suggest to me many things. Come,” she said, taking the other by the hand, “and I will show them to you.” She led the way along the hall to her sitting-room, and to her bedchamber beyond. It was a small room hung with paper showing a pattern of morning-glories on a light ground, with dotted muslin curtains, a white iron bedstead, a few prints on the wall, a rocking-chair—a very dainty room. She went to the maple dressing-case, and opened one of the drawers. As they stood for a moment, the mirror reflecting and framing their image, more than one point of resemblance between them was emphasized. There was something of the same oval face, and in Clara’s hair a faint suggestion of the wave in the older woman’s; and though Clara was fairer of complexion, and her eyes were gray and the other’s black, there was visible, under the influence of the momentary excitement, one of those indefinable likenesses which are at times encountered,—sometimes marking blood relationship, sometimes the impress of a common training; in one case perhaps a mere earmark of temperament, and in another the index of a type. Except for the difference in color, one might imagine that if the younger woman were twenty years older the resemblance would be still more apparent. Clara reached her hand into the drawer and drew out a folded packet, which she unwrapped, Mrs. Harper following her movements meanwhile with a suppressed intensity of interest which Clara, had she not been absorbed in her own thoughts, could not have failed to observe. When the last fold of paper was removed there lay revealed a child’s muslin slip. Clara lifted it and shook it gently until it was unfolded before their eyes. The lower half was delicately worked in a lacelike pattern, revealing an immense amount of patient labor. The elder woman seized the slip with hands which could not disguise their trembling. Scanning the garment carefully, she seemed to be noting the pattern of the needlework, and then, pointing to a certain spot, exclaimed:—— “I thought so! I was sure of it! Do you not see the letters—M.S.?” “Oh, how wonderful!” Clara seized the slip in turn and scanned the monogram. “How strange that you should see that at once and that I should not have discovered it, who have looked at it a hundred times! And here,” she added, opening a small package which had been inclosed in the other, “is my coral necklace. Perhaps your keen eyes can find something in that.” It was a simple trinket, at which the older woman gave but a glance—a glance that added to her emotion. “Listen, child,” she said, laying her trembling hand on the other’s arm. “It is all very strange and wonderful, for that slip and necklace, and, now that I have seen them, your face and your voice and your ways, all tell me who you are. Your eyes are your father’s eyes, your voice is your father’s voice. The slip was worked by your mother’s hand.” “Oh!” cried Clara, and for a moment the whole world swam before her eyes. “I was on the Pride of St. Louis, and I knew your father—and your mother.” Clara, pale with excitement, burst into tears, and would have fallen had not the other woman caught her in her arms. Mrs. Harper placed her on the couch, and, seated by her side, supported her head on her shoulder. Her hands seemed to caress the young woman with every touch. “Tell me, oh, tell me all!” Clara demanded, when the first wave of emotion had subsided. “Who were my father and my mother, and who am I?” The elder woman restrained her emotion with an effort, and answered as composedly as she could,—— “There were several hundred passengers on the Pride of St. Louis when she left Cincinnati on that fateful day, on her regular trip to New Orleans. Your father and mother were on the boat—and I was on the boat. We were going down the river, to take ship at New Orleans for France, a country which your father loved.” “Who was my father?” asked Clara. The woman’s words fell upon her ear like water on a thirsty soil. “Your father was a Virginia gentleman, and belonged to one of the first families, the Staffords, of Melton County.” Clara drew herself up unconsciously, and into her face there came a frank expression of pride which became it wonderfully, setting off a beauty that needed only this to make it all but perfect of its type. “I knew it must be so,” she murmured. “I have often felt it. Blood will always tell. And my mother?” “Your mother—also belonged to one of the first families of Virginia, and in her veins flowed some of the best blood of the Old Dominion.” “What was her maiden name?”

“Mary Fairfax. As I was saying, your father was a Virginia gentleman. He was as handsome a man as ever lived, and proud, oh, so proud!—and good, and kind. He was a graduate of the University and had studied abroad.” “My mother—was she beautiful?” “She was much admired, and your father loved her from the moment he first saw her. Your father came back from Europe, upon his father’s sudden death, and entered upon his inheritance. But he had been away from Virginia so long, and had read so many books, that he had outgrown his home. He did not believe that slavery was right, and one of the first things he did was to free his slaves. His views were not popular, and he sold out his lands a year before the war, with the intention of moving to Europe.” “In the mean time he had met and loved and married my mother?” “In the mean time he had met and loved your mother.” “My mother was a Virginia belle, was she not?” “The Fairfaxes,” answered Mrs. Harper, “were the first of the first families, the bluest of the blue-bloods. The Miss Fairfaxes were all beautiful and all social favorites.” “What did my father do then, when he had sold out in Virginia?” “He went with your mother and you— you were then just a year old—to Cincinnati, to settle up some business connected with his estate. When he had completed his business, he embarked on the Pride of St. Louis with you and your mother and a colored nurse.” “And how did you know about them?” asked Clara. “I was one of the party. I was”—— “You were the colored nurse?—my ‘mammy,’ they would have called you in my old Virginia home?” “Yes, child, I was—your mammy. Upon my bosom you have rested; my breasts once gave you nourishment; my hands once ministered to you; my arms sheltered you, and my heart loved you and mourned you like a mother loves and mourns her firstborn.” “Oh, how strange, how delightful!” exclaimed Clara. “Now I understand why you clasped me so tightly, and were so agitated when I told you my story. It is too good for me to believe. I am of good blood, of an old and aristocratic family. My presentiment has come true. I can marry my lover, and I shall owe all my happiness to you. How can I ever repay you?” “You can kiss me, child, kiss your mammy.” Their lips met, and they were clasped in each other’s arms. One put into the embrace all of her new-found joy, the other all the suppressed feeling of the last half hour, which in turn embodied the unsatisfied yearning of many years. The music had ceased and the pupils had left the hall. Mrs. Harper’s charges had supposed her gone, and had left for home without her. But the two women, sitting in Clara’s chamber, hand in hand, were oblivious to external things and noticed neither the hour nor the cessation of the music. “Why, dear mammy,” said the young woman musingly, “did you not find me, and restore me to my people?” “Alas, child! I was not white, and when I was picked up from the water, after floating miles down the river, the man who found me kept me prisoner for a time, and, there being no inquiry for me, pretended not to believe that I was free, and took me down to © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 158 New Orleans and sold me as a slave. A few years later the war set me free. I went to St. Louis but could find no trace of you. I had hardly dared to hope that a child had been saved, when so many grown men and women had lost their lives. I made such inquiries as I could, but all in vain.” “Did you go to the orphan asylum?” “The orphan asylum had been burned and with it all the records. The war had scattered the people so that I could find no one who knew about a lost child saved from a river wreck. There were many orphans in those days, and one more or less was not likely to dwell in the public mind.” “Did you tell my people in Virginia?” “They, too, were scattered by the war. Your uncles lost their lives on the battlefield. The family mansion was burned to the ground. Your father’s remaining relatives were reduced to poverty, and moved away from Virginia.” “What of my mother’s people?” “They are all dead. God punished them. They did not love your father, and did not wish him to marry your mother. They helped to drive him to his death.” “I am alone in the world, then, without kith or kin,” murmured Clara, “and yet, strange to say, I am happy. If I had known my people and lost them, I should be sad. They are gone, but they have left me their name and their blood. I would weep for my poor father and mother if I were not so glad.” Just then some one struck a chord upon the piano in the hall, and the sudden breaking of the stillness recalled Clara’s attention to the lateness of the hour. “I had forgotten about the class,” she exclaimed. “I must go and attend to them.” They walked along the corridor and entered the hall. Dr. Winthrop was seated at the piano, drumming idly on the keys. “I did not know where you had gone,” he said. “I knew you would be around, of course, since the lights were not out, and so I came in here to wait for you.” “Listen, John, I have a wonderful story to tell you.” Then she told him Mrs. Harper’s story. He listened attentively and sympathetically, at certain points taking his eyes from Clara’s face and glancing keenly at Mrs. Harper, who was listening intently. As he looked from one to the other he noticed the resemblance between them, and something in his expression caused Mrs. Harper’s eyes to fall, and then glance up appealingly. “And now,” said Clara, “I am happy. I know my name. I am a Virginia Stafford. I belong to one, yes, to two of what were the first families of Virginia. John, my family is as good as yours. If I remember my history correctly, the Cavaliers looked down upon the Roundheads.” “I admit my inferiority,” he replied. “If you are happy I am glad.” “Clara Stafford,” mused the girl. “It is a pretty name.” “You will never have to use it,” her lover declared, “for now you will take mine.” “Then I shall have nothing left of all that I have found”—— “Except your husband,” asserted Dr. Winthrop, putting his arm around her, with an air of assured possession. Mrs. Harper was looking at them with moistened eyes in which joy and sorrow, love and gratitude, were strangely blended. Clara put out her hand to her impulsively. “And my mammy,” she cried, “my dear Virginia mammy.”

1. Read the following sentence and select, from the choices below, the word closest in meaning to the word in bold-faced type: “The walls were hung in paper of blue and white, above a varnished hard wood wainscoting; the monotony of surface being broken by numerous windows draped with curtains of dotted muslin, and by occasional engravings and colored pictures representing the dances of various nations, judiciously selected.” a. greedily b. wisely c. foolishly d. hastily

“He was neatly and carefully dressed, though his clothing was not without indications that he found it necessary or expedient to practice economy.” 2. From the quote above, what can you infer about this man? a. He was a practical man. b. He must have an inordinate amount of money. c. His priorities were not in line with his finances. d. He believed in the importance of dressing well.

3. Which literary technique is used to describe the intensity with which Clara was listening to Mrs. Harper in the following quote? “The woman’s words fell upon her ear like water on a thirsty soil.” a. hyperbole b. metaphor c. simile d. alliteration

4. What does the following quote mean as it relates to elements of the story such as theme, character, or plot? “One would think,” he suggested, “that the whitest of them would find their position painful and more or less pathetic; to be so white and yet to be classed as black—so near and yet so far.”

5. Analyze the author’s use of vocabulary in this quote: “I feel that there is warmer, richer blood coursing in my veins than the placid stream that crept through theirs.” Explain the difference between the words “coursing” and “creeping.” What is the significance of the author’s selection?

6. Explain the difference between the opinions of Clara and John with regard to the importance of ancestry. With whom do you agree and why?

7. What is the true relationship between Mrs. Harper and Clara? How do you know? Why doesn’t Mrs. Harper tell Clara the truth?

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Silas Jackson from The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories (1900) by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906)

I

Silas Jackson was a young man to whom many opportunities had come. Had he been a less fortunate boy, as his little world looked at it, he might have spent all his days on the little farm where he was born, much as many of his fellows did. But no, Fortune had marked him for her own, and it was destined that he should be known to fame. He was to know a broader field than the few acres which he and his father worked together, and where he and several brothers and sisters had spent their youth. Mr. Harold Marston was the instrument of Fate in giving Silas his first introduction to the world. Marston, who prided himself on being, besides a man of leisure, something of a sportsman, was shooting over the fields in the vicinity of the Jackson farm. During the week he spent in the region, needing the services of a likely boy, he came to know and like Silas. Upon leaving, he said, “It’s a pity for a boy as bright as you are to be tied down in this God-forsaken place. How’d you like to go up to the Springs, Si, and work in a hotel?” The very thought of going to such a place, and to such work, fired the boy’s imagination, although the idea of it daunted him. “I’d like it powahful well, Mistah Ma’ston,” he replied. “Well, I’m going up there, and the proprietor of one of the best hotels, the Fountain House, is a very good friend of mine, and I’ll get him to speak to his head waiter in your behalf. You want to get out of here, and see something of the world, and not stay cooped up with nothing livelier than rabbits, squirrels, and quail.” And so the work was done. The black boy’s ambitions that had only needed an encouraging word had awakened into buoyant life. He looked his destiny squarely in the face, and saw that the great world outside beckoned to him. From that time his dreams were eagle-winged. The farm looked narrower to him, the cabin meaner, and the clods were harder to his feet. He learned to hate the plough that he had followed before in dumb content, and there was no longer joy in the woods he knew and loved. Once, out of pure joy of living, he had gone singing about his work; but now, when he sang, it was because his heart was longing for the city of his dreams, and hope inspired the song. However, after Mr. Marston had been gone for over two weeks, and nothing had been heard from the Springs, the hope died in Silas’s heart, and he came to believe that his benefactor had forgotten him. And yet he could not return to the old contentment with his mode of life. Mr. Marston was right, and he was “cooped up there with nothing better than rabbits, squirrels, and quail.” The idea had never occurred to him before, but now it struck him with disconcerting force that there was something in him above his surroundings and the labor at which he toiled day by day. He began to see that the cabin was not over clean, and for the first time recognized that his brothers and sisters were positively dirty. He had always looked on it with unconscious eyes before, but now he suddenly developed the capacity for disgust. When young ‘Lishy, noticing his brother’s moroseness, attributed it to his strong feeling for a certain damsel, Silas turned on him in a fury. Ambition had even driven out all other feelings, and Dely Manly seemed poor and commonplace to the dark swain, who a month before would have © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 164 gone any length to gain a smile from her. He compared everything and everybody to the glory of what he dreamed the Springs and its inhabitants to be, and all seemed cheap beside. Then on a day when his spirits were at their lowest ebb, a passing neighbor handed him a letter which he had found at the little village post office. It was addressed to Mr. Si Jackson, and bore the Springs postmark. Silas was immediately converted from a raw backwoods boy to a man of the world. Save the little notes that had been passed back and forth from boy to girl at the little log schoolhouse where he had gone four fitful sessions, this was his first letter, and it was the first time he had ever been addressed as “Mr.” He swelled with a pride that he could not conceal, as with trembling hands he tore the missive open. He read it through with glowing eyes and a growing sense of his own importance. It was from the head waiter whom Mr. Marston had mentioned, and was couched in the most elegant and high-sounding language. It said that Mr. Marston had spoken for Silas, and that if he came to the Springs, and was quick to learn, “to acquire knowledge,” was the head waiter’s phrase, a situation would be provided for him. The family gathered around the fortunate son, and gazed on him with awe when he imparted the good news. He became, on the instant, a new being to them. It was as if he had only been loaned to them, and was now being lifted bodily out of their world. The elder Jackson was a bit doubtful about the matter. “Of co’se ef you wants to go, Silas, I ain’t a-gwine to gainsay you, an’ I hope it’s all right, but sence freedom dis hyeah piece o’ groun’s been good enough fu’ me, an’ I reckon you mought a’ got erlong on it.” “But pap, you see it’s diff’ent now. It’s diff’ent, all I wanted was a chanst.” “Well, I reckon you got it, Si, I reckon you got it.” The younger children whispered long after they had gone to bed that night, wondering and guessing what the great place to which brother Si was going could be like, and they could only picture it as like the great white-domed city whose picture they had seen in the gaudy Bible foisted upon them by a passing agent. As for Silas, he read and reread the letter by the light of a tallow dip until he was too sleepy to see, and every word was graven on his memory; then he went to bed with the precious paper under his pillow. In spite of his drowsiness, he lay awake for some time, gazing with heavy eyes into the darkness, where he saw the great city and his future; then he went to sleep to dream of it. From then on, great were the preparations for the boy’s departure. So little happened in that vicinity that the matter became a neighborhood event, and the black folk for three miles up and down the road manifested their interest in Silas’s good fortune. “I hyeah you gwine up to de Springs,” said old Hiram Jones, when he met the boy on the road a day or two before his departure. “Yes, suh, I’s gwine up thaih to wo’k in a hotel. Mistah Ma’ston, he got me the job.” The old man reined in his horse slowly, and deposited the liquid increase of a quid of tobacco before he said; “I hyeah tell it’s powahful wicked up in dem big cities.” “Oh, I reckon I ain’t a-goin’ to do nuffin wrong. I’s goin’ thaih to wo’k.” “Well, you has been riz right,” commented the old man doubtfully, “but den, boys will be boys.” He drove on, and the prospect of a near view of wickedness did not make the Springs less desirable in the boy’s eyes. Raised as he had been, almost away from civilization, he hardly knew the meaning of what the world called wickedness. Not that he was strong or good. There had been no occasion for either quality to develop; but that he was simple and primitive, and had been close to what was natural and elemental. His faults and sins were those of the gentle barbarian. He had not yet learned the subtler vices of a higher civilization. Silas, however, was not without the pride of his kind, and although his father protested that it was a useless extravagance, he insisted upon going to the nearest village and investing part of his small savings in a new suit of clothes. It was quaint and peculiar apparel, but it was the boy’s first “store suit,” and it filled him with unspeakable joy. His brothers and sisters regarded his new magnificence with envying admiration. It would be a long while before they got away from bagging, homespun, and copperas-colored cotton, whacked out into some semblance of garments by their “mammy.” And so, armed with a light bundle, in which were his few other belongings, and fearfully and wonderfully arrayed, Silas Jackson set out for the Springs. His father’s parting injunctions were ringing in his ears, and the memory of his mammy’s wet eyes and sad face lingered in his memory. She had wanted him to take the gaudy Bible away, but it was too heavy to carry, especially as he was to walk the whole thirty miles to the land of promise. At the last, his feeling of exaltation gave way to one of sorrow, and as he went down the road, he turned often to look at the cabin, until it faded from sight around the bend. Then a lump rose in his throat, and he felt like turning and running back to it. He had never thought the old place could seem so dear. But he kept his face steadily forward and trudged on toward his destiny. The Springs was the fashionable resort of Virginia, where the aristocrats who thought they were ill went to recover their health and to dance. Compared with large cities of the North, it was but a small town, even including the transient population, but in the eyes of the rural blacks and the poor whites of the region, it was a place of large importance. Hither, on the morning after his departure from the home gate, came Silas Jackson, a little foot-sore and weary, but hopeful withal. In spite of the pains that he had put upon his dressing, he was a quaint figure on the city streets. Many an amused smile greeted him as he went his way, but he saw them not. Inquiring the direction, he kept on, until the many windows and broad veranda of the great hotel broke on his view, and he gasped in amazement and awe at the sight of it, and a sudden faintness seized him. He was reluctant to go on, but the broad grins with which some colored men who were working about the place regarded him, drove him forward, in spite of his embarrassment. He found his way to the kitchen, and asked in trembling tones for the head waiter. Breakfast being over, that individual had leisure to come to the kitchen. There, with the grinning waiters about him, he stopped and calmly surveyed Silas. He was a very pompous head waiter. Silas had never been self-conscious before, but now he became distressfully aware of himself—of his awkwardness, of his clumsy feet and dangling hands, of the difference between his clothes and the clothes of the men about him. After a survey, which seemed to the boy of endless duration, the head waiter spoke, and his tone was the undisputed child of his looks. “I pussoom,” said Mr. Buckner, “that you are the pusson Mistah Ma’ston spoke to the p’op’ietor about?”

“Yes, suh, I reckon I is. He p’omised to git me a job up hyeah, an’ I got yo’ lettah—” here Silas, who had set his bundle on the floor in coming into the Presence, began to fumble in his pockets for the letter. He searched long in vain, because his hands trembled, and he was nervous under the eyes of this great personage who stood unmoved and looked calmly at him. Finally the missive was found and produced, though not before the perspiration was standing thick on Silas’s brow. The head waiter took the sheet. “Ve’y well, suh, ve’y well. You are evidently the p’oper pusson, as I reco’nize this as my own chirography.” The up-country boy stood in awed silence. He thought he had never heard such fine language before. “I ca’culate that you have nevah had no experience in hotel work,” pursued Mr. Buckner somewhat more graciously. “I’s nevah done nuffin’ but wo’k on a farm; but evahbody ‘lows I’s right handy.” The fear that he would be sent back home without employment gave him boldness. “I see, I see,” said the head waiter. “Well, we’ll endeavor to try an’ see how soon you can learn. Mistah Smith, will you take this young man in charge, an’ show him how to get about things until we are ready to try him in the dinin’-room?” A rather pleasant-faced yellow boy came over to Silas and showed him where to put his things and what to do. “I guess it’ll be a little strange at first, if you’ve never been a hotel man, but you’ll ketch on. Just you keep your eye on me.” All that day as Silas blundered about slowly and awkwardly, he looked with wonder and admiration at the ease and facility with which his teacher and the other men did their work. They were so calm, so precise, and so self-sufficient. He wondered if he would ever be like them, and felt very hopeless as the question presented itself to him. They were a little prone to laugh at him, but he was so humble and so sensible that he thought he must be laughable; so he laughed a little shamefacedly at himself, and only tried the harder to imitate his companions. Once when he dropped a dish upon the floor, he held his breath in consternation, but when he found that no one paid any attention to it, he picked it up and went his way. He was tired that night, more tired than ploughing had ever made him, and was thankful when Smith proposed to show him at once to the rooms apportioned to the servants. Here he sank down and fell into a doze as soon as his companion left him with the remark that he had some studying to do. He found afterward that Smith was only a temporary employee at the Springs, coming there during the vacations of the school which he attended, in order to eke out the amount which it cost him for his education. Silas thought this a very wonderful thing at first, but when he grew wiser, as he did finally, he took the point of view of most of his fellows and thought that Smith was wasting both time and opportunities. It took a very short time for Silas’s unfamiliarity with his surroundings to wear off, and for him to become acquainted with the duties of his position. He grew at ease with his work, and became a favorite both in dining-room and kitchen. Then began his acquaintance with other things, and there were many other things at the Springs which an unsophisticated young man might learn. Silas’s social attainments were lamentably sparse, but being an apt youngster, he began to acquire them, quite as he acquired his new duties, and different 167 © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. forms of speech. He learned to dance— almost a natural gift of the negro—and he was introduced into the subtleties of flirtation. At first he was a bit timid with the nurse-girls and maids whom the wealthy travelers brought with them, but after a few lessons from very able teachers, he learned the manly art of ogling to his own satisfaction, and soon became as proficient as any of the other black coxcombs. If he ever thought of Dely Manly any more, it was with a smile that he had been able at one time to consider her seriously. The people at home, be it said to his credit, he did not forget. A part of his wages went back every month to help better the condition of the cabin. But Silas himself had no desire to return, and at the end of a year he shuddered at the thought of it. He was quite willing to help his father, whom he had now learned to call the “old man,” but he was not willing to go back to him. II Early in his second year at the Springs Marston came for a stay at the hotel. When he saw his protege, he exclaimed: “Why, that isn’t Si, is it?” “Yes, suh,” smiled Silas. “Well, well, well, what a change. Why, boy, you’ve developed into a regular fashionplate. I hope you’re not advertising for any of the Richmond tailors. They’re terrible Jews, you know.” “You see, a man has to be neat aroun’ the hotel, Mistah Ma’ston.” “Whew, and you’ve developed dignity, too. By the Lord Harry, if I’d have made that remark to you about a year and a half ago, there at the cabin, you’d have just grinned. Ah, Silas, I’m afraid for you. You’ve grown too fast. You’ve gained a certain poise and ease at the expense of—of—I don’t know what, but something that I liked better. Down there at home you were just a plain darky. Up here you are trying to be like me, and you are colored.” “Of co’se, Mistah Ma’ston,” said Silas politely, but deprecatingly, “the worl’ don’t stan’ still.” “Platitudes—the last straw!” exclaimed Mr. Marston tragically. “There’s an old darky preacher up at Richmond who says it does, and I’m sure I think more of his old fog-horn blasts than I do of your parrot tones. Ah! Si, this is the last time that I shall ever fool with good raw material. However, don’t let this bother you. As I remember, you used to sing well. I’m going to have some of my friends up at my rooms to-night; get some of the boys together, and come and sing for us. And remember, nothing hifalutin; just the same old darky songs you used to sing.” “All right, suh, we’ll be up.” Silas was very glad to be rid of his old friend, and he thought when Marston had gone that he was, after all, not such a great man as he had believed. But the decline in his estimation of Mr. Marston’s importance did not deter him from going that night with three of his fellow-waiters to sing for that gentleman. Two of the quartet insisted upon singing fine music, in order to show their capabilities, but Silas had received his cue, and held out for the old songs. Silas Jackson’s tenor voice rang out in the old plantation melodies with the force and feeling that old memories give. The concert was a great success, and when Marston pressed a generous-sized bank-note into his hand that night, he whispered, “Well, I’m glad there’s one thing you haven’t lost, and that’s your voice.” That was the beginning of Silas’s supremacy as manager and first tenor of the Fountain Hotel Quartet, and he flourished © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. 168 in that capacity for two years longer; then came Mr. J. Robinson Frye, looking for talent, and Silas, by reason of his prominence, fell in this way. Mr. J. Robinson Frye was an educated and enthusiastic young mulatto gentleman, who, having studied music abroad, had made art his mistress. As well as he was able, he wore the shock of hair which was the sign manual of his profession. He was a plausible young man of large ideas, and had composed some things of which the critics had spoken well. But the chief trouble with his work was that his one aim was money. He did not love the people among whom American custom had placed him, but he had respect for their musical ability. “Why,” he used to exclaim in the sudden bursts of enthusiasm to which he was subject, “why, these people are the greatest singers on earth. They’ve got more emotion and more passion than any other people, and they learn easier. I could take a chorus of forty of them, and with two months’ training make them sing the roof off the Metropolitan Opera house.” When Mr. Frye was in New York, he might be seen almost any day at the piano of one or the other of the negro clubs, either working at some new inspiration, or playing one of his own compositions, and all black clubdom looked on him as a genius. His latest scheme was the training of a colored company which should do a year’s general singing throughout the country, and then having acquired poise and a reputation, produce his own opera. It was for this he wanted Silas, and in spite of the warning and protests of friends, Silas went with him to New York, for he saw his future loom large before him. The great city frightened him at first, but he found there some, like himself, drawn from the smaller towns of the South. Others in the company were the relics of the old days of negro minstrelsy, and still others recruited from the church choirs in the large cities. Silas was an adaptable fellow, but it seemed a little hard to fall in with the ways of his new associates. Most of them seemed as far away from him in their knowledge of worldly things as had the waiters at the Springs a few years before. He was half afraid of the chorus girls, because they seemed such different beings from the nurse girls down home. However, there was little time for moping or regrets. Mr. Frye was, it must be said, an indefatigable worker. They were rehearsing every day. Silas felt himself learning to sing. Meanwhile, he knew that he was learning other things—a few more elegancies and vices. He looked upon the “rounders” with admiration and determined to be one. So, after rehearsals were over other occupations held him. He came to be known at the clubs and was quite proud of it, and he grew bolder with the chorus girls, because he was to be a star. After three weeks of training, the company opened, and Silas, who had never sung anything heavier than “Bright Sparkles in the Churchyard,” was dressed in a Fauntleroy suit, and put on to sing in a scene from “Rigoletto.” Every night he was applauded to the echo by “the unskilful,” until he came to believe himself a great singer. This belief was strengthened when the girl who performed the Spanish dance bestowed her affections upon him. He was very happy and very vain, and for the first time he forgot the people down in a little old Virginia cabin. In fact, he had other uses for his money. For the rest of the season, either on the road or in and about New York, he sang steadily. Most of the things for which he had longed and had striven had come to him. He was known as a rounder, his highest 169 © 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. ambition. His waistcoats were the loudest to be had. He was possessed of a factitious ease and self-possession that was almost aggression. The hot breath of the city had touched and scorched him, and had dried up within him whatever was good and fresh. The pity of it was that he was proud of himself, and utterly unconscious of his own degradation. He looked upon himself as a man of the world, a fine product of the large opportunities of a great city. Once in those days he heard of Smith, his old-time companion at the Springs. He was teaching at some small place in the South. Silas laughed contemptuously when he heard how his old friend was employed. “Poor fellow,” he said, “what a pity he didn’t come up here, and make something out of himself, instead of starving down there on little or nothing,” and he mused on how much better his fate had been. The season ended. After a brief period of rest, the rehearsals for Frye’s opera were begun. Silas confessed to himself that he was tired; he had a cough, too, but Mr. Frye was still enthusiastic, and this was to be the great triumph, both for the composer and the tenor. “Why, I tell you, man,” said Frye, “it’s going to be the greatest success of the year. I am the only man who has ever put grandopera effects into comic opera with success. Just listen to the chords of this opening chorus.” And so he inspired the singer with some of his own spirit. They went to work with a will. Silas might have been reluctant as he felt the strain upon him grow, but that he had spent all his money, and Frye, as he expressed it, was “putting up for him,” until the opening of the season. Then one day he was taken sick, and although Frye fumed, the rehearsals had to go on without him. For awhile his companions came to see him, and then they gradually ceased to come. So he lay for two months. Even Sadie, his dancing sweetheart, seemed to have forgotten him. One day he sent for her, but the messenger returned to say she could not come, she was busy. She had married the man with whom she did a turn at the roof-garden. The news came, too, that the opera had been abandoned, and that Mr. Frye had taken out a company with a new tenor, whom he pronounced far superior to the former one. Silas gazed blankly at the wall. The hollowness of his life all came suddenly before him. All his false ideals crumbled, and he lay there with nothing to hope for. Then came back the yearnings for home, for the cabin and the fields, and there was no disgust in his memory of them. When his strength partly returned, he sold some of the few things that remained to him from his prosperous days, and with the money purchased a ticket for home; then spent, broken, hopeless, all contentment and simplicity gone, he turned his face toward his native fields.

1. Read the following sentence and select, from the choices below, the word closest in meaning to the word in bold-faced type: “The very thought of going to such a place, and to such work, fired the boy’s imagination, although the idea of it daunted him.” a. intimidated b. invigorated c. frightened d. discouraged

2. Read the following sentence and select, from the choices below, the word closest in meaning to the word in bold-faced type: “I see, I see,” said the head waiter. “Well, we’ll endeavor to try an’ see how soon you can learn. a. fail b. strive c. embrace d. deny

3. Read the following sentence and select, from the choices below, the word closest in meaning to the word in bold-faced type: “Once when he dropped a dish upon the floor, he held his breath in consternation, but when he found that no one paid any attention to it, he picked it up and went his way.” a. agony b. anguish c. dismay d. agitation

. 4. As soon as the idea of working in a hotel was suggested, Silas began to see his own surroundings in a different light. Explain how his opinion of his home changed. Why do you think this happened? Was this a predictable change in attitude?

5. When Silas sees his original benefactor again for the first time since beginning the new job, the man is dismayed. He says, “You’ve gained a certain poise and ease at the expense of—of—I don’t know what, but something that I liked better.” What does his comment suggest to you?

6. What message does the following quote convey? “The hot breath of the city had touched and scorched him, and had dried up within him whatever was good and fresh. The pity of it was that he was proud of himself, and utterly unconscious of his own degradation. He looked upon himself as a man of the world, a fine product of the large opportunities of a great city.” Does the author believe that Silas’s experience has been a positive influence on him? Does he believe him to be an improved man? Explain.

7. How did you feel at the end of this story? Is it realistic to believe that things would work out this way, or do you think Silas would have forged a different path? Explain your ideas.

© 2007 Queue, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate.

African-American Literature

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

African-American Literature: Chapter III - 1865-1923

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