The Souls of Black Folk
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.
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 washbowl, 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 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.
Long they stood together, peering over the gray unresting water.
“John,” she said, “does it make every one—unhappy when they study and
learn lots of things?”
He paused and smiled. “I am afraid it does,” he said.
“And, John, are you glad you studied?”
“Yes,” came the answer, slowly but positively.
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.”
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.
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 hadn’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?”
“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.”
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.
“Heah that John is livenin’ things up at the darky school,” volunteered
the postmaster, after a pause.
“What now?” asked the Judge, sharply.
“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.”
“Have you heard him say anything out of the way?”
“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—”
“Who is this John?” interrupted the son.
“Why, it’s little black John, Peggy’s son,—your old playfellow.”
The young man’s face flushed angrily, and then he laughed.
“Oh,” said he, “it’s the darky that tried to force himself into a seat
beside the lady I was escorting—”
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.
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.
“Now, Mandy,” he said cheerfully, “that’s better; but you mustn’t chop
your words up so: ‘If—the-man—goes.’ Why, your little brother even
wouldn’t tell a story that way, now would he?”
“Naw, suh, he cain’t talk.”
“All right; now let’s try again: ‘If the man—’
“John!”
The whole school started in surprise, and the teacher half arose, as
the red, angry face of the Judge appeared in the open doorway.
“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.”
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
isn’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 isn’t
Jennie, the little brown kitchen-maid! Why, I never noticed before what
a trim little body she is. Hello, Jennie! Why, you haven’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.
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;