Tramping on Life Part 81

And just for a joke, he took "Barrel" Way, the two hundred pound fullback, aside, and "Rock-crusher" Morton ... he whispered them, I afterward learned, to give me rough stuff, go through me with a bang....

"Rock-crusher" took the ball, with "Barrel" for interference ... they came flashing my way.

I was so frenzied with joy over the prospect of getting my poems through to Vanna, even if it was in another man's behalf, that I flung myself forward and brought both stars down with only a yard gained.

Shaughnessy gave a whoop of joyous amazement and the other boys shouted, and kidded "Barrel" and "Rock-crusher," the latter of whom won his nickname from the gentle way he had of hitting his antagonists with his hard knees as he ran into them, and bowling them over ... he was a recruit from the hurdles, who ran "high."

Shaughnessy came over to me.

"Gregory, I want to say right here, I wish you took enough studies, and you could make sub on the big team right off. You're skinny, but you've got the mettle I wish all my boys had."

No sooner was I out of my football clothes than I hurried to Kuhlman's, drank three coco-colas to stimulate me, and went to my room, to write my first poem for Vanna....

Nearly every day Billy received a poem from me. Henceforth, when I pa.s.sed Vanna, I received a gentle, appreciative smile ... but I was too timid even to speak to her ... and too self-conscious of my clothes, which were worn and frayed....

There were a few negro students at Laurel. One of them, a girl named Matty Smith, approached me in the library one day, introduced herself as one of the chairmen of the entertainment committee of the First African Methodist Church, and asked me if I would come and give them a talk the following Sat.u.r.day night....

The night came ... I found myself on the platform with the preacher by my side. They had seated me in the chair of honour.

First the congregation prayed and sang ... such singing, so clear and soaring and melodious. It rocked the very church, burst out through the windows in great surges of melody.

I was introduced as their friend, as the coloured man's friend.

I spoke. I read my poems simply and unaffectedly.

Afterward I shook hands all round.

Matty Smith, the negro girl, as black as soot, and thoroughly African, stood by me as introducer. If I had shut my eyes, her manner of speech might not have been told from that of any cultured white woman's. She was as refined and sensitive a human being as I have ever met.

As I walked back to my attic over the plumber shop, it was with head erect and heaving chest. I deemed myself a champion of the negro race. I was almost putting myself alongside of Lincoln and John Brown.

Their reason for inviting me was that I had had a scathing poem printed, in the New York _Independent_, on the lynching of a negro in Lincoln's home State of Illinois.

Within two days of my talk at the First Methodist African Church, I met simultaneously in front of the library, two women, each going in opposite directions....

"Good afternoon, Mr. Gregory!"

It was Matty Smith. She was hesitating for a cue from me. She wished to stop and thank me again for my speaking.

But from the other side Vanna Andrews was pa.s.sing.

I ignored Matty with a face like a stone wall.

"Good afternoon!" I bowed to Vanna ... who ignored me ... perhaps not seeing me.

The fearful, hurt look in the negro girl's eyes made me so ashamed of myself that I wanted to run away and hide forever somewhere.

That night I was so covered with shame over what I had done to another human soul, a soul perhaps as proud and fine as any in Laurel, that it was not till dawn that sleep visited me....

So I was just as rotten, just as sn.o.bbish, just as fearful of the herd, as were these other human beings whom I made fun of as the bourgeoisie.

Speaking with Riley, one of the English professors, about the mixture of colours on the hill....

"I must confess," he admitted sincerely, "that I feel awkward indeed when a negro student walks by my side ... even for a few steps...."

Coach Shaughnessy declared himself boldly--

"I'll admit frankly to you, Gregory, but don't, of course, repeat what I say--that I'll never let a n.i.g.g.e.r play on the football team ... when they sweat they stink too badly ... no, sir, John Brown's State or not, the negro was never meant to mix with the white on terms of equality."

It was mainly out of consideration for Langworth, and desire to please him, that I now joined the Unitarian Church, of which all the old settlers of Laurel were members. This included a testy old gentleman named Colonel Saunders, who had been one of John Brown's company, had quarrelled with him,--and who now, every year, maintained, at the annual meeting of old settlers, that Brown had been a rogue and murderer ... a mad man, going about cutting up whole families with corn knives....

At this juncture in his speech, which was made undeviatingly every year, a sentimental woman would rise and cry out--

"John Brown, G.o.d bless him, whatever you say, Colonel Saunders, his soul still goes marching on--"

"I grant that, madam--that his soul still goes marching on--I _never_ contested that--but _where_ does it go marching on!"

Then the yearly riot of protests and angry disputation would wake.

And every spring, in antic.i.p.ation of this melee, reporters from the Kansas City papers were sent to cover the story of the proceedings of the Old Settlers' Society.

Bob Fitzsimmons stopped off at our town, with his show. Though I couldn't afford to attend the performance, I did race down to the station, go up to him, and ask the privilege of a handshake.

His huge, freckled ham of a hand closed over mine in a friendly manner ... which disappeared up to the wrist. He exchanged a few, simple, shy words with me from a mouth smashed to shapelessness by many blows. He smiled gently, with kind eyes.

I was prouder of this greeting than of all my growing a.s.sociations with well-known literary figures. And I boasted to the boys of meeting "Bob"

... inventing what I said to "Bob" and what "Bob" said to me, _ad infinitum_.

Though the great athlete shared my admiration with the great writer, yet my staying awake at night writing, my but one meal a day, usually,--except when I was invited out to a fraternity house or the house of a professor--and my incessant drinking of coffee and coco-cola to keep my ideas whipped up--all these things incapacitated me from attaining any high place in athletic endeavour. I was fair at boxing and could play a good scrub game of football. But my running, on which I prided myself most--I entered for the two-mile, one field day, and won only third place. I had gone back in form since Hebron days.

Dr. Gunning, head of our physical instruction, informed me that, exercise as I might, I could never hope to be stronger or put on more weight ... "you had too many hardships and privations in your growing years ... and you are of too nervous a temperament."

But my love for Vanna had regularised me somewhat. I discarded my sandals and bought Oxford ties. And I preserved a crease in my trousers by laying them, folded carefully, under my mattress every night. And I took to wearing shirts with white linen collars....