Nonfiction > W.E.B. Du Bois > The
Souls of Black Folk
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CONTENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963). The Souls of Black
Folk. 1903.
Chapter XIII.
Of the Coming of John
What bring they ’neath the midnight,
Beside the River-sea?
They bring the human heart wherein
No nightly calm can be;
That droppeth never with the wind,
Nor drieth with the dew;
O calm it, God; thy calm is broad
To cover spirits too.
The river floweth on.
MRS. BROWNING.
CARLISLE Street runs westward from the centre of Johnstown,
across a great black bridge, down a hill and up again, by little
shops and meat-markets, past single-storied homes, until suddenly
it stops against a wide green lawn. It is a broad, restful place,
with two large buildings outlined against the west. When at evening
the winds come swelling from the east, and the great pall of the
city’s smoke hangs wearily above the valley, then the red west
glows like a dreamland down Carlisle Street, and, at the tolling of
the supper-bell, throws the passing forms of students in dark
silhouette against the sky. Tall and black, they move slowly by,
and seem in the sinister light to flit before the city like dim
warning ghosts. Perhaps they are; for this is Wells Institute, and
these black students have few dealings with the white city
below. 1
And if you will notice, night after night,
there is one dark form that ever hurries last and late toward the
twinkling lights of Swain Hall,—for Jones is never on time. A long,
straggling fellow he is, brown and hard-haired, who seems to be
growing straight out of his clothes, and walks with a
half-apologetic roll. He used perpetually to set the quiet
dining-room into waves of merriment, as he stole to his place after
the bell had tapped for prayers; he seemed so perfectly awkward.
And yet one glance at his face made one forgive him much,—that
broad, good-natured smile in which lay no bit of art or artifice,
but seemed just bubbling good-nature and genuine satisfaction with
the world.
2
He came to us from Altamaha, away down there
beneath the gnarled oaks of Southeastern Georgia, where the sea
croons to the sands and the sands listen till they sink half
drowned beneath the waters, rising only here and there in long, low
islands. The white folk of Altamaha voted John a good boy,—fine
plough-hand, good in the rice-fields, handy everywhere, and always
good-natured and respectful. But they shook their heads when his
mother wanted to send him off to school. “It’ll spoil him,—ruin
him,” they said; and they talked as though they knew. But full half
the black folk followed him proudly to the station, and carried his
queer little trunk and many bundles. And there they shook and shook
hands, and the girls kissed him shyly and the boys clapped him on
the back. So the train came, and he pinched his little sister
lovingly, and put his great arms about his mother’s neck, and then
was away with a puff and a roar into the great yellow world that
flamed and flared about the doubtful pilgrim. Up the coast they
hurried, past the squares and palmettos of Savannah, through the
cotton-fields and through the weary night, to Millville, and came
with the morning to the noise and bustle of
Johnstown.
3
And they that stood behind, that morning in
Altamaha, and watched the train as it noisily bore playmate and
brother and son away to the world, had thereafter one
ever-recurring word,—“When John comes.” Then what parties were to
be, and what speakings in the churches; what new furniture in the
front room,—perhaps even a new front room; and there would be a new
schoolhouse, with John as teacher; and then perhaps a big wedding;
all this and more—when John comes. But the white people shook their
heads. 4
At first he was coming at Christmas-time,—but
the vacation proved too short; and then, the next summer,—but times
were hard and schooling costly, and so, instead, he worked in
Johnstown. And so it drifted to the next summer, and the next,—till
playmates scattered, and mother grew gray, and sister went up to
the Judge’s kitchen to work. And still the legend lingered,—“When
John comes.”
5
Up at the Judge’s they rather liked this
refrain; for they too had a John—a fair-haired, smooth-faced boy,
who had played many a long summer’s day to its close with his
darker namesake. “Yes, sir! John is at Princeton, sir,” said the
broad-shouldered gray-haired Judge every morning as he marched down
to the post-office. “Showing the Yankees what a Southern gentleman
can do,” he added; and strode home again with his letters and
papers. Up at the great pillared house they lingered long over the
Princeton letter,—the Judge and his frail wife, his sister and
growing daughters. “It ’ll make a man of him,” said the Judge,
“college is the place.” And then he asked the shy little waitress,
“Well, Jennie, how ’s your John?” and added reflectively, “Too bad,
too bad your mother sent him off,—it will spoil him.” And the
waitress
wondered.
6
Thus in the far-away Southern village the
world lay waiting, half consciously, the coming of two young men,
and dreamed in an inarticulate way of new things that would be done
and new thoughts that all would think. And yet it was singular that
few thought of two Johns,—for the black folk thought of one John,
and he was black; and the white folk thought of another John, and
he was white. And neither world thought the other world’s thought,
save with a vague
unrest. 7
Up in Johnstown, at the Institute, we were
long puzzled at the case of John Jones. For a long time the clay
seemed unfit for any sort of moulding. He was loud and boisterous,
always laughing and singing, and never able to work consecutively
at anything. He did not know how to study; he had no idea of
thoroughness; and with his tardiness, carelessness, and appalling
good-humor, we were sore perplexed. One night we sat in
faculty-meeting, worried and serious; for Jones was in trouble
again. This last escapade was too much, and so we solemnly voted
“that Jones, on account of repeated disorder and inattention to
work, be suspended for the rest of the
term.” 8
It seemed to us that the first time life ever
struck Jones as a really serious thing was when the Dean told him
he must leave school. He stared at the gray-haired man blankly,
with great eyes. “Why,—why,” he faltered, “but—I have n’t
graduated!” Then the Dean slowly and clearly explained, reminding
him of the tardiness and the carelessness, of the poor lessons and
neglected work, of the noise and disorder, until the fellow hung
his head in confusion. Then he said quickly, “But you won’t tell
mammy and sister,—you won’t write mammy, now will you? For if you
won’t I ’ll go out into the city and work, and come back next term
and show you something.” So the Dean promised faithfully, and John
shouldered his little trunk, giving neither word nor look to the
giggling boys, and walked down Carlisle Street to the great city,
with sober eyes and a set and serious
face. 9
Perhaps we imagined it, but someway it seemed
to us that the serious look that crept over his boyish face that
afternoon never left it again. When he came back to us he went to
work with all his rugged strength. It was a hard struggle, for
things did not come easily to him,—few crowding memories of early
life and teaching came to help him on his new way; but all the
world toward which he strove was of his own building, and he
builded slow and hard. As the light dawned lingeringly on his new
creations, he sat rapt and silent before the vision, or wandered
alone over the green campus peering through and beyond the world of
men into a world of thought. And the thoughts at times puzzled him
sorely; he could not see just why the circle was not square, and
carried it out fifty-six decimal places one midnight,—would have
gone further, indeed, had not the matron rapped for lights out. He
caught terrible colds lying on his back in the meadows of nights,
trying to think out the solar system; he had grave doubts as to the
ethics of the Fall of Rome, and strongly suspected the Germans of
being thieves and rascals, despite his text-books; he pondered long
over every new Greek word, and wondered why this meant that and why
it could n’t mean something else, and how it must have felt to
think all things in Greek. So he thought and puzzled along for
himself,—pausing perplexed where others skipped merrily, and
walking steadily through the difficulties where the rest stopped
and surrendered. 10
Thus he grew in body and soul, and with him
his clothes seemed to grow and arrange themselves; coat sleeves got
longer, cuffs appeared, and collars got less soiled. Now and then
his boots shone, and a new dignity crept into his walk. And we who
saw daily a new thoughtfulness growing in his eyes began to expect
something of this plodding boy. Thus he passed out of the
preparatory school into college, and we who watched him felt four
more years of change, which almost transformed the tall, grave man
who bowed to us commencement morning. He had left his queer
thought-world and come back to a world of motion and of men. He
looked now for the first time sharply about him, and wondered he
had seen so little before. He grew slowly to feel almost for the
first time the Veil that lay between him and the white world; he
first noticed now the oppression that had not seemed oppression
before, differences that erstwhile seemed natural, restraints and
slights that in his boyhood days had gone unnoticed or been greeted
with a laugh. He felt angry now when men did not call him “Mister,”
he clenched his hands at the “Jim Crow” cars, and chafed at the
color-line that hemmed in him and his. A tinge of sarcasm crept
into his speech, and a vague bitterness into his life; and he sat
long hours wondering and planning a way around these crooked
things. Daily he found himself shrinking from the choked and narrow
life of his native town. And yet he always planned to go back to
Altamaha,—always planned to work there. Still, more and more as the
day approached he hesitated with a nameless dread; and even the day
after graduation he seized with eagerness the offer of the Dean to
send him North with the quartette during the summer vacation, to
sing for the Institute. A breath of air before the plunge, he said
to himself in half apology.
11
It was a bright September afternoon, and the
streets of New York were brilliant with moving men. They reminded
John of the sea, as he sat in the square and watched them, so
changelessly changing, so bright and dark, so grave and gay. He
scanned their rich and faultless clothes, the way they carried
their hands, the shape of their hats; he peered into the hurrying
carriages. Then, leaning back with a sigh, he said, “This is the
World.” The notion suddenly seized him to see where the world was
going; since many of the richer and brighter seemed hurrying all
one way. So when a tall, light-haired young man and a little
talkative lady came by, he rose half hesitatingly and followed
them. Up the street they went, past stores and gay shops, across a
broad square, until with a hundred others they entered the high
portal of a great building.
12
He was pushed toward the ticket-office with
the others, and felt in his pocket for the new five-dollar bill he
had hoarded. There seemed really no time for hesitation, so he drew
it bravely out, passed it to the busy clerk, and received simply a
ticket but no change. When at last he realized that he had paid
five dollars to enter he knew not what, he stood stock-still
amazed. “Be careful,” said a low voice behind him; “you must not
lynch the colored gentleman simply because he ’s in your way,” and
a girl looked up roguishly into the eyes of her fair-haired escort.
A shade of annoyance passed over the escort’s face. “You will not
understand us at the South,” he said half impatiently, as if
continuing an argument. “With all your professions, one never sees
in the North so cordial and intimate relations between white and
black as are everyday occurrences with us. Why, I remember my
closest playfellow in boyhood was a little Negro named after me,
and surely no two,—well!” The man stopped short and flushed to the
roots of his hair, for there directly beside his reserved orchestra
chairs sat the Negro he had stumbled over in the hallway. He
hesitated and grew pale with anger, called the usher and gave him
his card, with a few peremptory words, and slowly sat down. The
lady deftly changed the
subject. 13
All this John did not see, for he sat in a
half-maze minding the scene about him; the delicate beauty of the
hall, the faint perfume, the moving myriad of men, the rich
clothing and low hum of talking seemed all a part of a world so
different from his, so strangely more beautiful than anything he
had known, that he sat in dreamland, and started when, after a
hush, rose high and clear the music of Lohengrin’s swan. The
infinite beauty of the wail lingered and swept through every muscle
of his frame, and put it all a-tune. He closed his eyes and grasped
the elbows of the chair, touching unwittingly the lady’s arm. And
the lady drew away. A deep longing swelled in all his heart to rise
with that clear music out of the dirt and dust of that low life
that held him prisoned and befouled. If he could only live up in
the free air where birds sang and setting suns had no touch of
blood! Who had called him to be the slave and butt of all? And if
he had called, what right had he to call when a world like this lay
open before men? 14
Then the movement changed, and fuller,
mightier harmony swelled away. He looked thoughtfully across the
hall, and wondered why the beautiful gray-haired woman looked so
listless, and what the little man could be whispering about. He
would not like to be listless and idle, he thought, for he felt
with the music the movement of power within him. If he but had some
master-work, some life-service, hard,—aye, bitter hard, but without
the cringing and sickening servility, without the cruel hurt that
hardened his heart and soul. When at last a soft sorrow crept
across the violins, there came to him the vision of a far-off
home,—the great eyes of his sister, and the dark drawn face of his
mother. And his heart sank below the waters, even as the sea-sand
sinks by the shores of Altamaha, only to be lifted aloft again with
that last ethereal wail of the swan that quivered and faded away
into the sky. 15
It left John sitting so silent and rapt that
he did not for some time notice the usher tapping him lightly on
the shoulder and saying politely, “Will you step this way, please,
sir?” A little surprised, he arose quickly at the last tap, and,
turning to leave his seat, looked full into the face of the
fair-haired young man. For the first time the young man recognized
his dark boyhood playmate, and John knew that it was the Judge’s
son. The white John started, lifted his hand, and then froze into
his chair; the black John smiled lightly, then grimly, and followed
the usher down the aisle. The manager was sorry, very, very
sorry,—but he explained that some mistake had been made in selling
the gentleman a seat already disposed of; he would refund the
money, of course,—and indeed felt the matter keenly, and so forth,
and—before he had finished John was gone, walking hurriedly across
the square and down the broad streets, and as he passed the park he
buttoned his coat and said, “John Jones, you ’re a natural-born
fool.” Then he went to his lodgings and wrote a letter, and tore it
up; he wrote another, and threw it in the fire. Then he seized a
scrap of paper and wrote: “Dear Mother and Sister—I am
coming—John.” 16
“Perhaps,” said John, as he settled himself
on the train, “perhaps I am to blame myself in struggling against
my manifest destiny simply because it looks hard and unpleasant.
Here is my duty to Altamaha plain before me; perhaps they ’ll let
me help settle the Negro problems there,—perhaps they won’t. ‘I
will go in to the King, which is not according to the law; and if I
perish, I perish.’” And then he mused and dreamed, and planned a
life-work; and the train flew
south. 17
Down in Altamaha, after seven long years, all
the world knew John was coming. The homes were scrubbed and
scoured,—above all, one; the gardens and yards had an unwonted
trimness, and Jennie bought a new gingham. With some finesse and
negotiation, all the dark Methodists and Presbyterians were induced
to join in a monster welcome at the Baptist Church; and as the day
drew near, warm discussions arose on every corner as to the exact
extent and nature of John’s accomplishments. It was noontide on a
gray and cloudy day when he came. The black town flocked to the
depot, with a little of the white at the edges,—a happy throng,
with “Good-mawnings” and “Howdys” and laughing and joking and
jostling. Mother sat yonder in the window watching; but sister
Jennie stood on the platform, nervously fingering her dress,—tall
and lithe, with soft brown skin and loving eyes peering from out a
tangled wilderness of hair. John rose gloomily as the train
stopped, for he was thinking of the “Jim Crow” car; he stepped to
the platform, and paused: a little dingy station, a black crowd
gaudy and dirty, a half-mile of dilapidated shanties along a
straggling ditch of mud. An overwhelming sense of the sordidness
and narrowness of it all seized him; he looked in vain for his
mother, kissed coldly the tall, strange girl who called him
brother, spoke a short, dry word here and there; then, lingering
neither for hand-shaking nor gossip, started silently up the
street, raising his hat merely to the last eager old aunty, to her
open-mouthed astonishment. The people were distinctly bewildered.
This silent, cold man,—was this John? Where was his smile and
hearty hand-grasp? “’Peared kind o’ down in the mouf,” said the
Methodist preacher thoughtfully. “Seemed monstus stuck up,”
complained a Baptist sister. But the white postmaster from the edge
of the crowd expressed the opinion of his folks plainly. “That damn
Nigger,” said he, as he shouldered the mail and arranged his
tobacco, “has gone North and got plum full o’ fool notions; but
they won’t work in Altamaha.” And the crowd melted
away. 18
The meeting of welcome at the Baptist Church
was a failure. Rain spoiled the barbecue, and thunder turned the
milk in the ice-cream. When the speaking came at night, the house
was crowded to overflowing. The three preachers had especially
prepared themselves, but somehow John’s manner seemed to throw a
blanket over everything,—he seemed so cold and preoccupied, and had
so strange an air of restraint that the Methodist brother could not
warm up to his theme and elicited not a single “Amen”; the
Presbyterian prayer was but feebly responded to, and even the
Baptist preacher, though he wakened faint enthusiasm, got so mixed
up in his favorite sentence that he had to close it by stopping
fully fifteen minutes sooner than he meant. The people moved
uneasily in their seats as John rose to reply. He spoke slowly and
methodically. The age, he said, demanded new ideas; we were far
different from those men of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries,—with broader ideas of human brotherhood and destiny.
Then he spoke of the rise of charity and popular education, and
particularly of the spread of wealth and work. The question was,
then, he added reflectively, looking at the low discolored ceiling,
what part the Negroes of this land would take in the striving of
the new century. He sketched in vague outline the new Industrial
School that might rise among these pines, he spoke in detail of the
charitable and philanthropic work that might be organized, of money
that might be saved for banks and business. Finally he urged unity,
and deprecated especially religious and denominational bickering.
“To-day,” he said, with a smile, “the world cares little whether a
man be Baptist or Methodist, or indeed a churchman at all, so long
as he is good and true. What difference does it make whether a man
be baptized in river or wash-bowl, or not at all? Let ’s leave all
that littleness, and look higher.” Then, thinking of nothing else,
he slowly sat down. A painful hush seized that crowded mass. Little
had they understood of what he said, for he spoke an unknown
tongue, save the last word about baptism; that they knew, and they
sat very still while the clock ticked. Then at last a low
suppressed snarl came from the Amen corner, and an old bent man
arose, walked over the seats, and climbed straight up into the
pulpit. He was wrinkled and black, with scant gray and tufted hair;
his voice and hands shook as with palsy; but on his face lay the
intense rapt look of the religious fanatic. He seized the Bible
with his rough, huge hands; twice he raised it inarticulate, and
then fairly burst into the words, with rude and awful eloquence. He
quivered, swayed, and bent; then rose aloft in perfect majesty,
till the people moaned and wept, wailed and shouted, and a wild
shrieking arose from the corners where all the pent-up feeling of
the hour gathered itself and rushed into the air. John never knew
clearly what the old man said; he only felt himself held up to
scorn and scathing denunciation for trampling on the true Religion,
and he realized with amazement that all unknowingly he had put
rough, rude hands on something this little world held sacred. He
arose silently, and passed out into the night. Down toward the sea
he went, in the fitful starlight, half conscious of the girl who
followed timidly after him. When at last he stood upon the bluff,
he turned to his little sister and looked upon her sorrowfully,
remembering with sudden pain how little thought he had given her.
He put his arm about her and let her passion of tears spend itself
on his shoulder. 19
Long they stood together, peering over the
gray unresting water. 20
“John,” she said, “does it make every
one—unhappy when they study and learn lots of
things?” 21
He paused and smiled. “I am afraid it does,”
he said. 22
“And, John, are you glad you
studied?” 23
“Yes,” came the answer, slowly but
positively. 24
She watched the flickering lights upon the
sea, and said thoughtfully, “I wish I was unhappy,—and—and,”
putting both arms about his neck, “I think I am, a little,
John.” 25
It was several days later that John walked up
to the Judge’s house to ask for the privilege of teaching the Negro
school. The Judge himself met him at the front door, stared a
little hard at him, and said brusquely, “Go ’round to the kitchen
door, John, and wait.” Sitting on the kitchen steps, John stared at
the corn, thoroughly perplexed. What on earth had come over him?
Every step he made offended some one. He had come to save his
people, and before he left the depot he had hurt them. He sought to
teach them at the church, and had outraged their deepest feelings.
He had schooled himself to be respectful to the Judge, and then
blundered into his front door. And all the time he had meant
right,—and yet, and yet, somehow he found it so hard and strange to
fit his old surroundings again, to find his place in the world
about him. He could not remember that he used to have any
difficulty in the past, when life was glad and gay. The world
seemed smooth and easy then. Perhaps,—but his sister came to the
kitchen door just then and said the Judge awaited
him. 26
The Judge sat in the dining-room amid his
morning’s mail, and he did not ask John to sit down. He plunged
squarely into the business. “You ’ve come for the school, I
suppose. Well, John, I want to speak to you plainly. You know I ’m
a friend to your people. I ’ve helped you and your family, and
would have done more if you had n’t got the notion of going off.
Now I like the colored people, and sympathize with all their
reasonable aspirations; but you and I both know, John, that in this
country the Negro must remain subordinate, and can never expect to
be the equal of white men. In their place, your people can be
honest and respectful; and God knows, I ’ll do what I can to help
them. But when they want to reverse nature, and rule white men, and
marry white women, and sit in my parlor, then, by God! we ’ll hold
them under if we have to lynch every Nigger in the land. Now, John,
the question is, are you, with your education and Northern notions,
going to accept the situation and teach the darkies to be faithful
servants and laborers as your fathers were,—I knew your father,
John, he belonged to my brother, and he was a good Nigger.
Well—well, are you going to be like him, or are you going to try to
put fool ideas of rising and equality into these folks’ heads, and
make them discontented and
unhappy?” 27
“I am going to accept the situation, Judge
Henderson,” answered John, with a brevity that did not escape the
keen old man. He hesitated a moment, and then said shortly, “Very
well,—we ’ll try you awhile.
Good-morning.” 28
It was a full month after the opening of the
Negro school that the other John came home, tall, gay, and
headstrong. The mother wept, the sisters sang. The whole white town
was glad. A proud man was the Judge, and it was a goodly sight to
see the two swinging down Main Street together. And yet all did not
go smoothly between them, for the younger man could not and did not
veil his contempt for the little town, and plainly had his heart
set on New York. Now the one cherished ambition of the Judge was to
see his son mayor of Altamaha, representative to the legislature,
and—who could say?—governor of Georgia. So the argument often waxed
hot between them. “Good heavens, father,” the younger man would say
after dinner, as he lighted a cigar and stood by the fireplace,
“you surely don’t expect a young fellow like me to settle down
permanently in this—this God-forgotten town with nothing but mud
and Negroes?” “I did,” the Judge would answer laconically; and on
this particular day it seemed from the gathering scowl that he was
about to add something more emphatic, but neighbors had already
begun to drop in to admire his son, and the conversation
drifted. 29
“Heah that John is livenin’ things up at the
darky school,” volunteered the postmaster, after a
pause. 30
“What now?” asked the Judge,
sharply. 31
“Oh, nothin’ in particulah,—just his almighty
air and uppish ways. B’lieve I did heah somethin’ about his givin’
talks on the French Revolution, equality, and such like. He ’s what
I call a dangerous Nigger.”
32
“Have you heard him say anything out of the
way?” 33
“Why, no,—but Sally, our girl, told my wife a
lot of rot. Then, too, I don’t need to heah: a Nigger what won’t
say ‘sir’ to a white man, or—”
34
“Who is this John?” interrupted the
son. 35
“Why, it’s little black John, Peggy’s
son,—your old playfellow.”
36
The young man’s face flushed angrily, and
then he laughed. 37
“Oh,” said he, “it’s the darky that tried to
force himself into a seat beside the lady I was
escorting—” 38
But Judge Henderson waited to hear no more.
He had been nettled all day, and now at this he rose with a
half-smothered oath, took his hat and cane, and walked straight to
the schoolhouse. 39
For John, it had been a long, hard pull to
get things started in the rickety old shanty that sheltered his
school. The Negroes were rent into factions for and against him,
the parents were careless, the children irregular and dirty, and
books, pencils, and slates largely missing. Nevertheless, he
struggled hopefully on, and seemed to see at last some glimmering
of dawn. The attendance was larger and the children were a shade
cleaner this week. Even the booby class in reading showed a little
comforting progress. So John settled himself with renewed patience
this afternoon. 40
“Now, Mandy,” he said cheerfully, “that ’s
better; but you must n’t chop your words up so: ‘If—the—man—goes.’
Why, your little brother even would n’t tell a story that way, now
would he?” 41
“Naw, suh, he cain’t
talk.” 42
“All right; now let ’s try again: ‘If the
man—’” 43
“John!”
44
The whole school started in surprise, and the
teacher half arose, as the red, angry face of the Judge appeared in
the open doorway. 45
“John, this school is closed. You children
can go home and get to work. The white people of Altamaha are not
spending their money on black folks to have their heads crammed
with impudence and lies. Clear out! I ’ll lock the door
myself.” 46
Up at the great pillared house the tall young
son wandered aimlessly about after his father’s abrupt departure.
In the house there was little to interest him; the books were old
and stale, the local newspaper flat, and the women had retired with
headaches and sewing. He tried a nap, but it was too warm. So he
sauntered out into the fields, complaining disconsolately, “Good
Lord! how long will this imprisonment last!” He was not a bad
fellow,—just a little spoiled and self-indulgent, and as headstrong
as his proud father. He seemed a young man pleasant to look upon,
as he sat on the great black stump at the edge of the pines idly
swinging his legs and smoking. “Why, there is n’t even a girl worth
getting up a respectable flirtation with,” he growled. Just then
his eye caught a tall, willowy figure hurrying toward him on the
narrow path. He looked with interest at first, and then burst into
a laugh as he said, “Well, I declare, if it is n’t Jennie, the
little brown kitchen-maid! Why, I never noticed before what a trim
little body she is. Hello, Jennie! Why, you have n’t kissed me
since I came home,” he said gaily. The young girl stared at him in
surprise and confusion,—faltered something inarticulate, and
attempted to pass. But a wilful mood had seized the young idler,
and he caught at her arm. Frightened, she slipped by; and half
mischievously he turned and ran after her through the tall
pines. 47
Yonder, toward the sea, at the end of the
path, came John slowly, with his head down. He had turned wearily
homeward from the schoolhouse; then, thinking to shield his mother
from the blow, started to meet his sister as she came from work and
break the news of his dismissal to her. “I ’ll go away,” he said
slowly; “I ’ll go away and find work, and send for them. I cannot
live here longer.” And then the fierce, buried anger surged up into
his throat. He waved his arms and hurried wildly up the
path. 48
The great brown sea lay silent. The air
scarce breathed. The dying day bathed the twisted oaks and mighty
pines in black and gold. There came from the wind no warning, not a
whisper from the cloudless sky. There was only a black man hurrying
on with an ache in his heart, seeing neither sun nor sea, but
starting as from a dream at the frightened cry that woke the pines,
to see his dark sister struggling in the arms of a tall and
fair-haired man. 49
He said not a word, but, seizing a fallen
limb, struck him with all the pent-up hatred of his great black
arm; and the body lay white and still beneath the pines, all bathed
in sunshine and in blood. John looked at it dreamily, then walked
back to the house briskly, and said in a soft voice, “Mammy, I ’m
going away,—I ’m going to be
free.” 50
She gazed at him dimly and faltered, “No’th,
honey, is yo’ gwine No’th
agin?” 51
He looked out where the North Star glistened
pale above the waters, and said, “Yes, mammy, I ’m
going—North.” 52
Then, without another word, he went out into
the narrow lane, up by the straight pines, to the same winding
path, and seated himself on the great black stump, looking at the
blood where the body had lain. Yonder in the gray past he had
played with that dead boy, romping together under the solemn trees.
The night deepened; he thought of the boys at Johnstown. He
wondered how Brown had turned out, and Carey? And Jones,—Jones?
Why, he was Jones, and he wondered what they would all say when
they knew, when they knew, in that great long dining-room with its
hundreds of merry eyes. Then as the sheen of the starlight stole
over him, he thought of the gilded ceiling of that vast concert
hall, and heard stealing toward him the faint sweet music of the
swan. Hark! was it music, or the hurry and shouting of men? Yes,
surely! Clear and high the faint sweet melody rose and fluttered
like a living thing, so that the very earth trembled as with the
tramp of horses and murmur of angry
men. 53
He leaned back and smiled toward the sea,
whence rose the strange melody, away from the dark shadows where
lay the noise of horses galloping, galloping on. With an effort he
roused himself, bent forward, and looked steadily down the pathway,
softly humming the “Song of the Bride,”—
“Freudig geführt, ziehet dahin.”
Amid the trees in the dim morning twilight he watched their
shadows dancing and heard their horses thundering toward him, until
at last they came sweeping like a storm, and he saw in front that
haggard white-haired man, whose eyes flashed red with fury. Oh, how
he pitied him,—pitied him,—and wondered if he had the coiling
twisted rope. Then, as the storm burst round him, he rose slowly to
his feet and turned his closed eyes toward the
Sea. 54
And the world whistled in his ears.
| W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963). The
Souls of Black Folk. 1903. |
Chapter XIII.
Of the Coming of John |
| |
What
bring they ’neath the midnight,
Beside
the River-sea?
They
bring the human heart wherein
No
nightly calm can be;
That
droppeth never with the wind,
Nor
drieth with the dew;
O
calm it, God; thy calm is broad
To
cover spirits too.
The
river floweth on.
MRS.
BROWNING. |
| |
| CARLISLE Street runs westward from the
centre of Johnstown, across a great black bridge, down a hill and
up again, by little shops and meat-markets, past single-storied
homes, until suddenly it stops against a wide green lawn. It is a
broad, restful place, with two large buildings outlined against the
west. When at evening the winds come swelling from the east, and
the great pall of the city’s smoke hangs wearily above the valley,
then the red west glows like a dreamland down Carlisle Street, and,
at the tolling of the supper-bell, throws the passing forms of
students in dark silhouette against the sky. Tall and black, they
move slowly by, and seem in the sinister light to flit before the
city like dim warning ghosts. Perhaps they are; for this is Wells
Institute, and these black students have few dealings with the
white city below. |
1 |
| And if you will notice,
night after night, there is one dark form that ever hurries last
and late toward the twinkling lights of Swain Hall,—for Jones is
never on time. A long, straggling fellow he is, brown and
hard-haired, who seems to be growing straight out of his clothes,
and walks with a half-apologetic roll. He used perpetually to set
the quiet dining-room into waves of merriment, as he stole to his
place after the bell had tapped for prayers; he seemed so perfectly
awkward. And yet one glance at his face made one forgive him
much,—that broad, good-natured smile in which lay no bit of art or
artifice, but seemed just bubbling good-nature and genuine
satisfaction with the world. |
2 |
| He came to us from
Altamaha, away down there beneath the gnarled oaks of Southeastern
Georgia, where the sea croons to the sands and the sands listen
till they sink half drowned beneath the waters, rising only here
and there in long, low islands. The white folk of Altamaha voted
John a good boy,—fine plough-hand, good in the rice-fields, handy
everywhere, and always good-natured and respectful. But they shook
their heads when his mother wanted to send him off to school.
“It’ll spoil him,—ruin him,” they said; and they talked as though
they knew. But full half the black folk followed him proudly to the
station, and carried his queer little trunk and many bundles. And
there they shook and shook hands, and the girls kissed him shyly
and the boys clapped him on the back. So the train came, and he
pinched his little sister lovingly, and put his great arms about
his mother’s neck, and then was away with a puff and a roar into
the great yellow world that flamed and flared about the doubtful
pilgrim. Up the coast they hurried, past the squares and palmettos
of Savannah, through the cotton-fields and through the weary night,
to Millville, and came with the morning to the noise and bustle of
Johnstown. |
3 |
| And they that stood behind,
that morning in Altamaha, and watched the train as it noisily bore
playmate and brother and son away to the world, had thereafter one
ever-recurring word,—“When John comes.” Then what parties were to
be, and what speakings in the churches; what new furniture in the
front room,—perhaps even a new front room; and there would be a new
schoolhouse, with John as teacher; and then perhaps a big wedding;
all this and more—when John comes. But the white people shook their
heads. |
4 |
| At first he was coming at
Christmas-time,—but the vacation proved too short; and then, the
next summer,—but times were hard and schooling costly, and so,
instead, he worked in Johnstown. And so it drifted to the next
summer, and the next,—till playmates scattered, and mother grew
gray, and sister went up to the Judge’s kitchen to work. And still
the legend lingered,—“When John comes.” |
5 |
| Up at the Judge’s they
rather liked this refrain; for they too had a John—a fair-haired,
smooth-faced boy, who had played many a long summer’s day to its
close with his darker namesake. “Yes, sir! John is at Princeton,
sir,” said the broad-shouldered gray-haired Judge every morning as
he marched down to the post-office. “Showing the Yankees what a
Southern gentleman can do,” he added; and strode home again with
his letters and papers. Up at the great pillared house they
lingered long over the Princeton letter,—the Judge and his frail
wife, his sister and growing daughters. “It ’ll make a man of him,”
said the Judge, “college is the place.” And then he asked the shy
little waitress, “Well, Jennie, how ’s your John?” and added
reflectively, “Too bad, too bad your mother sent him off,—it will
spoil him.” And the waitress wondered. |
6 |
| Thus in the far-away
Southern village the world lay waiting, half consciously, the
coming of two young men, and dreamed in an inarticulate way of new
things that would be done and new thoughts that all would think.
And yet it was singular that few thought of two Johns,—for the
black folk thought of one John, and he was black; and the white
folk thought of another John, and he was white. And neither world
thought the other world’s thought, save with a vague unrest. |
7 |
| Up in Johnstown, at the
Institute, we were long puzzled at the case of John Jones. For a
long time the clay seemed unfit for any sort of moulding. He was
loud and boisterous, always laughing and singing, and never able to
work consecutively at anything. He did not know how to study; he
had no idea of thoroughness; and with his tardiness, carelessness,
and appalling good-humor, we were sore perplexed. One night we sat
in faculty-meeting, worried and serious; for Jones was in trouble
again. This last escapade was too much, and so we solemnly voted
“that Jones, on account of repeated disorder and inattention to
work, be suspended for the rest of the term.” |
8 |
| It seemed to us that the
first time life ever struck Jones as a really serious thing was
when the Dean told him he must leave school. He stared at the
gray-haired man blankly, with great eyes. “Why,—why,” he faltered,
“but—I have n’t graduated!” Then the Dean slowly and clearly
explained, reminding him of the tardiness and the carelessness, of
the poor lessons and neglected work, of the noise and disorder,
until the fellow hung his head in confusion. Then he said quickly,
“But you won’t tell mammy and sister,—you won’t write mammy, now
will you? For if you won’t I ’ll go out into the city and work, and
come back next term and show you something.” So the Dean promised
faithfully, and John shouldered his little trunk, giving neither
word nor look to the giggling boys, and walked down Carlisle Street
to the great city, with sober eyes and a set and serious face. |
9 |
| Perhaps we imagined it, but
someway it seemed to us that the serious look that crept over his
boyish face that afternoon never left it again. When he came back
to us he went to work with all his rugged strength. It was a hard
struggle, for things did not come easily to him,—few crowding
memories of early life and teaching came to help him on his new
way; but all the world toward which he strove was of his own
building, and he builded slow and hard. As the light dawned
lingeringly on his new creations, he sat rapt and silent before the
vision, or wandered alone over the green campus peering through and
beyond the world of men into a world of thought. And the thoughts
at times puzzled him sorely; he could not see just why the circle
was not square, and carried it out fifty-six decimal places one
midnight,—would have gone further, indeed, had not the matron
rapped for lights out. He caught terrible colds lying on his back
in the meadows of nights, trying to think out the solar system; he
had grave doubts as to the ethics of the Fall of Rome, and strongly
suspected the Germans of being thieves and rascals, despite his
text-books; he pondered long over every new Greek word, and
wondered why this meant that and why it could n’t mean something
else, and how it must have felt to think all things in Greek. So he
thought and puzzled along for himself,—pausing perplexed where
others skipped merrily, and walking steadily through the
difficulties where the rest stopped and surrendered. |
10 |
| Thus he grew in body and
soul, and with him his clothes seemed to grow and arrange
themselves; coat sleeves got longer, cuffs appeared, and collars
got less soiled. Now and then his boots shone, and a new dignity
crept into his walk. And we who saw daily a new thoughtfulness
growing in his eyes began to expect something of this plodding boy.
Thus he passed out of the preparatory school into college, and we
who watched him felt four more years of change, which almost
transformed the tall, grave man who bowed to us commencement
morning. He had left his queer thought-world and come back to a
world of motion and of men. He looked now for the first time
sharply about him, and wondered he had seen so little before. He
grew slowly to feel almost for the first time the Veil that lay
between him and the white world; he first noticed now the
oppression that had not seemed oppression before, differences that
erstwhile seemed natural, restraints and slights that in his
boyhood days had gone unnoticed or been greeted with a laugh. He
felt angry now when men did not call him “Mister,” he clenched his
hands at the “Jim Crow” cars, and chafed at the color-line that
hemmed in him and his. A tinge of sarcasm crept into his speech,
and a vague bitterness into his life; and he sat long hours
wondering and planning a way around these crooked things. Daily he
found himself shrinking from the choked and narrow life of his
native town. And yet he always planned to go back to
Altamaha,—always planned to work there. Still, more and more as the
day approached he hesitated with a nameless dread; and even the day
after graduation he seized with eagerness the offer of the Dean to
send him North with the quartette during the summer vacation, to
sing for the Institute. A breath of air before the plunge, he said
to himself in half apology. |
11 |
| It was a bright September
afternoon, and the streets of New York were brilliant with moving
men. They reminded John of the sea, as he sat in the square and
watched them, so changelessly changing, so bright and dark, so
grave and gay. He scanned their rich and faultless clothes, the way
they carried their hands, the shape of their hats; he peered into
the hurrying carriages. Then, leaning back with a sigh, he said,
“This is the World.” The notion suddenly seized him to see where
the world was going; since many of the richer and brighter seemed
hurrying all one way. So when a tall, light-haired young man and a
little talkative lady came by, he rose half hesitatingly and
followed them. Up the street they went, past stores and gay shops,
across a broad square, until with a hundred others they entered the
high portal of a great building. |
12 |
| He was pushed toward the
ticket-office with the others, and felt in his pocket for the new
five-dollar bill he had hoarded. There seemed really no time for
hesitation, so he drew it bravely out, passed it to the busy clerk,
and received simply a ticket but no change. When at last he
realized that he had paid five dollars to enter he knew not what,
he stood stock-still amazed. “Be careful,” said a low voice behind
him; “you must not lynch the colored gentleman simply because he ’s
in your way,” and a girl looked up roguishly into the eyes of her
fair-haired escort. A shade of annoyance passed over the escort’s
face. “You will not understand us at the South,” he said
half impatiently, as if continuing an argument. “With all your
professions, one never sees in the North so cordial and intimate
relations between white and black as are everyday occurrences with
us. Why, I remember my closest playfellow in boyhood was a little
Negro named after me, and surely no two,—well!” The man
stopped short and flushed to the roots of his hair, for there
directly beside his reserved orchestra chairs sat the Negro he had
stumbled over in the hallway. He hesitated and grew pale with
anger, called the usher and gave him his card, with a few
peremptory words, and slowly sat down. The lady deftly changed the
subject. |
13 |
| All this John did not see,
for he sat in a half-maze minding the scene about him; the delicate
beauty of the hall, the faint perfume, the moving myriad of men,
the rich clothing and low hum of talking seemed all a part of a
world so different from his, so strangely more beautiful than
anything he had known, that he sat in dreamland, and started when,
after a hush, rose high and clear the music of Lohengrin’s swan.
The infinite beauty of the wail lingered and swept through every
muscle of his frame, and put it all a-tune. He closed his eyes and
grasped the elbows of the chair, touching unwittingly the lady’s
arm. And the lady drew away. A deep longing swelled in all his
heart to rise with that clear music out of the dirt and dust of
that low life that held him prisoned and befouled. If he could only
live up in the free air where birds sang and setting suns had no
touch of blood! Who had called him to be the slave and butt of all?
And if he had called, what right had he to call when a world like
this lay open before men? |
14 |
| Then the movement changed,
and fuller, mightier harmony swelled away. He looked thoughtfully
across the hall, and wondered why the beautiful gray-haired woman
looked so listless, and what the little man could be whispering
about. He would not like to be listless and idle, he thought, for
he felt with the music the movement of power within him. If he but
had some master-work, some life-service, hard,—aye, bitter hard,
but without the cringing and sickening servility, without the cruel
hurt that hardened his heart and soul. When at last a soft sorrow
crept across the violins, there came to him the vision of a far-off
home,—the great eyes of his sister, and the dark drawn face of his
mother. And his heart sank below the waters, even as the sea-sand
sinks by the shores of Altamaha, only to be lifted aloft again with
that last ethereal wail of the swan that quivered and faded away
into the sky. |
15 |
| It left John sitting so
silent and rapt that he did not for some time notice the usher
tapping him lightly on the shoulder and saying politely, “Will you
step this way, please, sir?” A little surprised, he arose quickly
at the last tap, and, turning to leave his seat, looked full into
the face of the fair-haired young man. For the first time the young
man recognized his dark boyhood playmate, and John knew that it was
the Judge’s son. The white John started, lifted his hand, and then
froze into his chair; the black John smiled lightly, then grimly,
and followed the usher down the aisle. The manager was sorry, very,
very sorry,—but he explained that some mistake had been made in
selling the gentleman a seat already disposed of; he would refund
the money, of course,—and indeed felt the matter keenly, and so
forth, and—before he had finished John was gone, walking hurriedly
across the square and down the broad streets, and as he passed the
park he buttoned his coat and said, “John Jones, you ’re a
natural-born fool.” Then he went to his lodgings and wrote a
letter, and tore it up; he wrote another, and threw it in the fire.
Then he seized a scrap of paper and wrote: “Dear Mother and
Sister—I am coming—John.” |
16 |
| “Perhaps,” said John, as he
settled himself on the train, “perhaps I am to blame myself in
struggling against my manifest destiny simply because it looks hard
and unpleasant. Here is my duty to Altamaha plain before me;
perhaps they ’ll let me help settle the Negro problems
there,—perhaps they won’t. ‘I will go in to the King, which is not
according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.’” And then he
mused and dreamed, and planned a life-work; and the train flew
south. |
17 |
| Down in Altamaha, after
seven long years, all the world knew John was coming. The homes
were scrubbed and scoured,—above all, one; the gardens and yards
had an unwonted trimness, and Jennie bought a new gingham. With
some finesse and negotiation, all the dark Methodists and
Presbyterians were induced to join in a monster welcome at the
Baptist Church; and as the day drew near, warm discussions arose on
every corner as to the exact extent and nature of John’s
accomplishments. It was noontide on a gray and cloudy day when he
came. The black town flocked to the depot, with a little of the
white at the edges,—a happy throng, with “Good-mawnings” and
“Howdys” and laughing and joking and jostling. Mother sat yonder in
the window watching; but sister Jennie stood on the platform,
nervously fingering her dress,—tall and lithe, with soft brown skin
and loving eyes peering from out a tangled wilderness of hair. John
rose gloomily as the train stopped, for he was thinking of the “Jim
Crow” car; he stepped to the platform, and paused: a little dingy
station, a black crowd gaudy and dirty, a half-mile of dilapidated
shanties along a straggling ditch of mud. An overwhelming sense of
the sordidness and narrowness of it all seized him; he looked in
vain for his mother, kissed coldly the tall, strange girl who
called him brother, spoke a short, dry word here and there; then,
lingering neither for hand-shaking nor gossip, started silently up
the street, raising his hat merely to the last eager old aunty, to
her open-mouthed astonishment. The people were distinctly
bewildered. This silent, cold man,—was this John? Where was his
smile and hearty hand-grasp? “’Peared kind o’ down in the mouf,”
said the Methodist preacher thoughtfully. “Seemed monstus stuck
up,” complained a Baptist sister. But the white postmaster from the
edge of the crowd expressed the opinion of his folks plainly. “That
damn Nigger,” said he, as he shouldered the mail and arranged his
tobacco, “has gone North and got plum full o’ fool notions; but
they won’t work in Altamaha.” And the crowd melted away. |
18 |
| The meeting of welcome at
the Baptist Church was a failure. Rain spoiled the barbecue, and
thunder turned the milk in the ice-cream. When the speaking came at
night, the house was crowded to overflowing. The three preachers
had especially prepared themselves, but somehow John’s manner
seemed to throw a blanket over everything,—he seemed so cold and
preoccupied, and had so strange an air of restraint that the
Methodist brother could not warm up to his theme and elicited not a
single “Amen”; the Presbyterian prayer was but feebly responded to,
and even the Baptist preacher, though he wakened faint enthusiasm,
got so mixed up in his favorite sentence that he had to close it by
stopping fully fifteen minutes sooner than he meant. The people
moved uneasily in their seats as John rose to reply. He spoke
slowly and methodically. The age, he said, demanded new ideas; we
were far different from those men of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries,—with broader ideas of human brotherhood and destiny.
Then he spoke of the rise of charity and popular education, and
particularly of the spread of wealth and work. The question was,
then, he added reflectively, looking at the low discolored ceiling,
what part the Negroes of this land would take in the striving of
the new century. He sketched in vague outline the new Industrial
School that might rise among these pines, he spoke in detail of the
charitable and philanthropic work that might be organized, of money
that might be saved for banks and business. Finally he urged unity,
and deprecated especially religious and denominational bickering.
“To-day,” he said, with a smile, “the world cares little whether a
man be Baptist or Methodist, or indeed a churchman at all, so long
as he is good and true. What difference does it make whether a man
be baptized in river or wash-bowl, or not at all? Let ’s leave all
that littleness, and look higher.” Then, thinking of nothing else,
he slowly sat down. A painful hush seized that crowded mass. Little
had they understood of what he said, for he spoke an unknown
tongue, save the last word about baptism; that they knew, and they
sat very still while the clock ticked. Then at last a low
suppressed snarl came from the Amen corner, and an old bent man
arose, walked over the seats, and climbed straight up into the
pulpit. He was wrinkled and black, with scant gray and tufted hair;
his voice and hands shook as with palsy; but on his face lay the
intense rapt look of the religious fanatic. He seized the Bible
with his rough, huge hands; twice he raised it inarticulate, and
then fairly burst into the words, with rude and awful eloquence. He
quivered, swayed, and bent; then rose aloft in perfect majesty,
till the people moaned and wept, wailed and shouted, and a wild
shrieking arose from the corners where all the pent-up feeling of
the hour gathered itself and rushed into the air. John never knew
clearly what the old man said; he only felt himself held up to
scorn and scathing denunciation for trampling on the true Religion,
and he realized with amazement that all unknowingly he had put
rough, rude hands on something this little world held sacred. He
arose silently, and passed out into the night. Down toward the sea
he went, in the fitful starlight, half conscious of the girl who
followed timidly after him. When at last he stood upon the bluff,
he turned to his little sister and looked upon her sorrowfully,
remembering with sudden pain how little thought he had given her.
He put his arm about her and let her passion of tears spend itself
on his shoulder. |
19 |
| Long they stood together,
peering over the gray unresting water. |
20 |
| “John,” she said, “does it
make every one—unhappy when they study and learn lots of
things?” |
21 |
| He paused and smiled. “I am
afraid it does,” he said. |
22 |
| “And, John, are you glad
you studied?” |
23 |
| “Yes,” came the answer,
slowly but positively. |
24 |
| She watched the flickering
lights upon the sea, and said thoughtfully, “I wish I was
unhappy,—and—and,” putting both arms about his neck, “I think I am,
a little, John.” |
25 |
| It was several days later
that John walked up to the Judge’s house to ask for the privilege
of teaching the Negro school. The Judge himself met him at the
front door, stared a little hard at him, and said brusquely, “Go
’round to the kitchen door, John, and wait.” Sitting on the kitchen
steps, John stared at the corn, thoroughly perplexed. What on earth
had come over him? Every step he made offended some one. He had
come to save his people, and before he left the depot he had hurt
them. He sought to teach them at the church, and had outraged their
deepest feelings. He had schooled himself to be respectful to the
Judge, and then blundered into his front door. And all the time he
had meant right,—and yet, and yet, somehow he found it so hard and
strange to fit his old surroundings again, to find his place in the
world about him. He could not remember that he used to have any
difficulty in the past, when life was glad and gay. The world
seemed smooth and easy then. Perhaps,—but his sister came to the
kitchen door just then and said the Judge awaited him. |
26 |
| The Judge sat in the
dining-room amid his morning’s mail, and he did not ask John to sit
down. He plunged squarely into the business. “You ’ve come for the
school, I suppose. Well, John, I want to speak to you plainly. You
know I ’m a friend to your people. I ’ve helped you and your
family, and would have done more if you had n’t got the notion of
going off. Now I like the colored people, and sympathize with all
their reasonable aspirations; but you and I both know, John, that
in this country the Negro must remain subordinate, and can never
expect to be the equal of white men. In their place, your people
can be honest and respectful; and God knows, I ’ll do what I can to
help them. But when they want to reverse nature, and rule white
men, and marry white women, and sit in my parlor, then, by God! we
’ll hold them under if we have to lynch every Nigger in the land.
Now, John, the question is, are you, with your education and
Northern notions, going to accept the situation and teach the
darkies to be faithful servants and laborers as your fathers
were,—I knew your father, John, he belonged to my brother, and he
was a good Nigger. Well—well, are you going to be like him, or are
you going to try to put fool ideas of rising and equality into
these folks’ heads, and make them discontented and unhappy?” |
27 |
| “I am going to accept the
situation, Judge Henderson,” answered John, with a brevity that did
not escape the keen old man. He hesitated a moment, and then said
shortly, “Very well,—we ’ll try you awhile. Good-morning.” |
28 |
| It was a full month after
the opening of the Negro school that the other John came home,
tall, gay, and headstrong. The mother wept, the sisters sang. The
whole white town was glad. A proud man was the Judge, and it was a
goodly sight to see the two swinging down Main Street together. And
yet all did not go smoothly between them, for the younger man could
not and did not veil his contempt for the little town, and plainly
had his heart set on New York. Now the one cherished ambition of
the Judge was to see his son mayor of Altamaha, representative to
the legislature, and—who could say?—governor of Georgia. So the
argument often waxed hot between them. “Good heavens, father,” the
younger man would say after dinner, as he lighted a cigar and stood
by the fireplace, “you surely don’t expect a young fellow like me
to settle down permanently in this—this God-forgotten town with
nothing but mud and Negroes?” “I did,” the Judge would
answer laconically; and on this particular day it seemed from the
gathering scowl that he was about to add something more emphatic,
but neighbors had already begun to drop in to admire his son, and
the conversation drifted. |
29 |
| “Heah that John is livenin’
things up at the darky school,” volunteered the postmaster, after a
pause. |
30 |
| “What now?” asked the
Judge, sharply. |
31 |
| “Oh, nothin’ in
particulah,—just his almighty air and uppish ways. B’lieve I did
heah somethin’ about his givin’ talks on the French Revolution,
equality, and such like. He ’s what I call a dangerous
Nigger.” |
32 |
| “Have you heard him say
anything out of the way?” |
33 |
| “Why, no,—but Sally, our
girl, told my wife a lot of rot. Then, too, I don’t need to heah: a
Nigger what won’t say ‘sir’ to a white man, or—” |
34 |
| “Who is this John?”
interrupted the son. |
35 |
| “Why, it’s little black
John, Peggy’s son,—your old playfellow.” |
36 |
| The young man’s face
flushed angrily, and then he laughed. |
37 |
| “Oh,” said he, “it’s the
darky that tried to force himself into a seat beside the lady I was
escorting—” |
38 |
| But Judge Henderson waited
to hear no more. He had been nettled all day, and now at this he
rose with a half-smothered oath, took his hat and cane, and walked
straight to the schoolhouse. |
39 |
| For John, it had been a
long, hard pull to get things started in the rickety old shanty
that sheltered his school. The Negroes were rent into factions for
and against him, the parents were careless, the children irregular
and dirty, and books, pencils, and slates largely missing.
Nevertheless, he struggled hopefully on, and seemed to see at last
some glimmering of dawn. The attendance was larger and the children
were a shade cleaner this week. Even the booby class in reading
showed a little comforting progress. So John settled himself with
renewed patience this afternoon. |
40 |
| “Now, Mandy,” he said
cheerfully, “that ’s better; but you must n’t chop your words up
so: ‘If—the—man—goes.’ Why, your little brother even would n’t tell
a story that way, now would he?” |
41 |
| “Naw, suh, he cain’t
talk.” |
42 |
| “All right; now let ’s try
again: ‘If the man—’” |
43 |
| “John!” |
44 |
| The whole school started in
surprise, and the teacher half arose, as the red, angry face of the
Judge appeared in the open doorway. |
45 |
| “John, this school is
closed. You children can go home and get to work. The white people
of Altamaha are not spending their money on black folks to have
their heads crammed with impudence and lies. Clear out! I ’ll lock
the door myself.” |
46 |
| Up at the great pillared
house the tall young son wandered aimlessly about after his
father’s abrupt departure. In the house there was little to
interest him; the books were old and stale, the local newspaper
flat, and the women had retired with headaches and sewing. He tried
a nap, but it was too warm. So he sauntered out into the fields,
complaining disconsolately, “Good Lord! how long will this
imprisonment last!” He was not a bad fellow,—just a little spoiled
and self-indulgent, and as headstrong as his proud father. He
seemed a young man pleasant to look upon, as he sat on the great
black stump at the edge of the pines idly swinging his legs and
smoking. “Why, there is n’t even a girl worth getting up a
respectable flirtation with,” he growled. Just then his eye caught
a tall, willowy figure hurrying toward him on the narrow path. He
looked with interest at first, and then burst into a laugh as he
said, “Well, I declare, if it is n’t Jennie, the little brown
kitchen-maid! Why, I never noticed before what a trim little body
she is. Hello, Jennie! Why, you have n’t kissed me since I came
home,” he said gaily. The young girl stared at him in surprise and
confusion,—faltered something inarticulate, and attempted to pass.
But a wilful mood had seized the young idler, and he caught at her
arm. Frightened, she slipped by; and half mischievously he turned
and ran after her through the tall pines. |
47 |
| Yonder, toward the sea, at
the end of the path, came John slowly, with his head down. He had
turned wearily homeward from the schoolhouse; then, thinking to
shield his mother from the blow, started to meet his sister as she
came from work and break the news of his dismissal to her. “I ’ll
go away,” he said slowly; “I ’ll go away and find work, and send
for them. I cannot live here longer.” And then the fierce, buried
anger surged up into his throat. He waved his arms and hurried
wildly up the path. |
48 |
| The great brown sea lay
silent. The air scarce breathed. The dying day bathed the twisted
oaks and mighty pines in black and gold. There came from the wind
no warning, not a whisper from the cloudless sky. There was only a
black man hurrying on with an ache in his heart, seeing neither sun
nor sea, but starting as from a dream at the frightened cry that
woke the pines, to see his dark sister struggling in the arms of a
tall and fair-haired man. |
49 |
| He said not a word, but,
seizing a fallen limb, struck him with all the pent-up hatred of
his great black arm; and the body lay white and still beneath the
pines, all bathed in sunshine and in blood. John looked at it
dreamily, then walked back to the house briskly, and said in a soft
voice, “Mammy, I ’m going away,—I ’m going to be free.” |
50 |
| She gazed at him dimly and
faltered, “No’th, honey, is yo’ gwine No’th agin?” |
51 |
| He looked out where the
North Star glistened pale above the waters, and said, “Yes, mammy,
I ’m going—North.” |
52 |
| Then, without another word,
he went out into the narrow lane, up by the straight pines, to the
same winding path, and seated himself on the great black stump,
looking at the blood where the body had lain. Yonder in the gray
past he had played with that dead boy, romping together under the
solemn trees. The night deepened; he thought of the boys at
Johnstown. He wondered how Brown had turned out, and Carey? And
Jones,—Jones? Why, he was Jones, and he wondered what they
would all say when they knew, when they knew, in that great long
dining-room with its hundreds of merry eyes. Then as the sheen of
the starlight stole over him, he thought of the gilded ceiling of
that vast concert hall, and heard stealing toward him the faint
sweet music of the swan. Hark! was it music, or the hurry and
shouting of men? Yes, surely! Clear and high the faint sweet melody
rose and fluttered like a living thing, so that the very earth
trembled as with the tramp of horses and murmur of angry men. |
53 |
He leaned back and smiled
toward the sea, whence rose the strange melody, away from the dark
shadows where lay the noise of horses galloping, galloping on. With
an effort he roused himself, bent forward, and looked steadily down
the pathway, softly humming the “Song of the Bride,”—
“Freudig geführt, ziehet dahin.”
Amid the trees in the dim morning twilight he watched their shadows
dancing and heard their horses thundering toward him, until at last
they came sweeping like a storm, and he saw in front that haggard
white-haired man, whose eyes flashed red with fury. Oh, how he
pitied him,—pitied him,—and wondered if he had the coiling twisted
rope. Then, as the storm burst round him, he rose slowly to his
feet and turned his closed eyes toward the Sea. |
54 |
| And the world whistled in
his ears. |
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