Trial and Triumph Part 7

"Well, I think Mary Miller might have found better employment than laughing at her company."

"Now, let me tell you, Mary Miller don't take her for company, and that very evening Annette was at my house, just next door, and when Mary Miller went to church she never asked her to go along with her, although she belongs to the same church."

"I am sorry to say it," said grandmother Harcourt, "but your Alice hardly ever comes to see Annette, and never asks her to go anywhere with her, but may be in the long run Annette will come out better than some who now look down upon her. It is a long road that has no turn and Annette is like a singed cat; she is better than she looks."

"I think," said Mrs. Lasette, "while Annette is very bright and intelligent as a pupil, she has been rather slow in developing in some other directions. She lacks tact, is straightforward to bluntness and has not any style about her and little or no idea of company manners, but she is never coa.r.s.e nor rude. I never knew her to read a book whose author I would blush to name, and I never heard her engage in any conversation I would shrink to hear repeated. I don't think there is a girl of purer lips in A.P. than Annette, and I do not think your set, as you call it, has such a monopoly of either virtue or intelligence that you can afford to ridicule and depress any young soul who does not happen to come up to your social standard. Where dress and style are pa.s.sports Annette may be excluded, but where brain and character count Annette will gain admittance. I fear," said Mrs. Lasette, rising to go, "that many a young girl has gone down in the very depths who might have been saved if motherly women, when they saw them unloved and lonely, had reached out to them a helping hand and encouraged them to live useful and good lives. We cry am I my sister's keeper? [I?] will not wipe the blood off our hands if through pride and selfishness we have stabbed by our neglect souls we should have helped by our kindness. I always feel for young girls who are lonely and neglected in large cities and are in danger of being ensnared by pretended sympathies and false friendship, and, to-day, no girl is more welcome at any social gathering than Annette."

"Mrs. Lasette," said Mrs. Hanson, "you are rich and you can do as you choose in A.P. You can set the fashion."

"No; I am not rich, but I hope that I will always be able to lend a hand to any lonely girl who is neglected, slighted and forgotten while she is trying to do right, who comes within my reach while I live in A.P. Good morning."

"Annette," said Mrs. Hanson,[12] "has a champion who will stand by her."

"Yes," said Mrs. Harcourt,[13] "Anna is true as steel; the kind of woman you can tie to. When my great trouble came, she was good as gold, and when my poor heart was almost breaking, she always had a kind word for me. I wish we had ten thousand like her."

"Well, mother, I must go, but if Annette does graduate don't let her go on the stage looking like a fright. General H's daughter has a beautiful new silk dress and a lovely hat which she got just a few weeks before her mother's death; as she has gone in black she wants to sell it, and if you say so, and will pay for it on installments, I can get if for Annette, and I think with a little alteration it would be splendid for her graduation dress."

"No; Eliza, I can't afford it."

"Why, mother, Annette will need something nice for the occasion, and it will not cost any more than what you intend to pay for her dress and hat. Why not take them?"

"Because Annette is not able to wear them. Suppose she had that one fine dress and hat, would she not want more to match with them? I don't want her to learn to dress in a style that she cannot honestly afford. I think this love of dress is the ruination of many a young girl. I think this straining after fine things when you are not able to get them, is perfectly ridiculous. I believe in cutting your coat according to your cloth. I saw Mrs. Hempstead's daughter last Sunday dressed up in a handsome light silk, and a beautiful spring hat, and if she or her mother would get sick to-morrow, they would, I suppose, soon be objects of public charity or dependent on her widowed sister, who is too proud to see her go to the poor house; and this is just the trouble with a lot of people; they not only have their own burdens to bear but somebody else's. You may call me an old fogy, but I would rather live cheap and dress plain than shirk my burdens because I had wasted when they had saved. You and John Hanson are both young and have got your health and strength, and instead of buying sealskins, and velvets and furbelows, you had better be laying up for a rainy day. You have no more need for a sealskin cloak than a cat has for a catechism. Now you do as you please, I have had my say."

Chapter XI

It has been quite a length of time since we left Mr. Thomas and his young friend facing an uncertain future. Since then he has not only been successful in building up a good business for himself, but in opening the gates to others. His success has not inflated him with pride.

Neither has he become self-abashed and isolated from others less fortunate, who need his counsel and sympathy. Generous and n.o.ble in his character, he was conservative enough to cling to the good of the past and radical enough to give hospitality to every new idea which was calculated to benefit and make life n.o.ble and better. Mr. Thomas, in laying the foundation of his education, was thoughtful enough to enter a manual labor school, where he had the double advantage of getting an education and learning a trade, through which he was enabled to rely on himself without asking aid from any one, which in itself was an education in manliness, self-respect and self-reliance, that he could not have obtained had he been the protege of the wealthiest philanthropist in the land. As he had fine mechanical skill and ingenuity, he became an excellent carpenter. But it is one thing to have a trade and another thing to have an opportunity to exercise that trade.

It was a time when a number of colored churches were being erected. To build large and even magnificent churches seemed to be a ruling pa.s.sion with the colored people. Their homes might be very humble, their walls bare of pictured grace, but by united efforts they could erect large and handsome churches in which they had a common possession and it was one of the grand satisfactions of freedom that they were enabled to build their own churches and carry on their own business without being interfered with, and overlooked by a cla.s.s of white ecclesiastics whose presence was a reminder of their implied inferiority. The church of which Mr. Thomas was a member was about to erect a costly edifice. The trustees would probably have willingly put the work in the hands of a colored man, had there been a sufficient number to have done the work, but they did not seem to remember that white prejudice had barred the Northern workshops against the colored man, that slavery, by degrading and monopolizing labor had been the means of educating colored men in the South to be good mechanics, and that a little pains and search on their part might have brought to light colored carpenters in the South who would have done the work as efficiently as those whom they employed, but as the trustees were not very farsighted men, they did the most available thing that came to hand; they employed a white man. Mr.

Thomas' pastor applied to the master builder for a place for his parishioner.

"Can you give employment to one of my members, on our church?" Rev.

Mr. Lomax asked the master builder.

"I would willingly do so, but I can not."

"Why not?"

"Because my men would all rise up against it. Now, for my part, I have no prejudice against your parishioner, but my men will not work with a colored man. I would let them all go if I could get enough colored men to suit me just as well, but such is the condition of the labor market, that a man must either submit to a number of unpalatable things or run the risk of a strike and being boycotted. I think some of these men who want so much liberty for themselves have very little idea of it for other people."

After this conversation the minister told Mr. Thomas the result of his interview with the master builder, and said,

"I am very sorry; but it is as it is, and it can't be any better."

"Do you mean by that that things are always going to remain as they are?"

"I do not see any quick way out of it. This prejudice is the outgrowth of ages; it did not come in a day, nor do I expect that it will vanish in an hour."

"Nor do I; but I do not think the best way for a people to mend their pastures is to sit down and bewail their fate."

"No; we must be up and going for ourselves. White people will----"

"White people," exclaimed Mr. Thomas somewhat impatiently. "Is there not a great deal of bosh in the estimate some of us have formed of white people. We share a common human feeling, from which the same cause produces the same effect. Why am I today a social Pariah, begging for work, and refused situation after situation? My father is a wealthy Southerner; he has several other sons who are inheritors of his name and heirs of his wealth. They are educated, cultured and occupy high social positions. Had I not as good a right to be well born as any of them? And yet, through my father's crime, I was doomed to the status of a slave with its heritage of ignorance, poverty and social debas.e.m.e.nt. Talk of the heathenism of Africa, of hostile tribes warring upon each other and selling the conquered foes into the hands of white men, but how much higher in the scale of moral progression was the white man who doomed his own child, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, to a life of slavery? The heathen could plead in his defence the fortunes of war, and the hostility of an opposing tribe, but the white man who enslaved his child warred upon his hapless offspring and wrote chattel upon his condition when his hand was too feeble to hurl aside the accursed hand and recognize no other ownership but G.o.d. I once felt bitterly on this subject, and although it is impossible for my father to make full reparation for the personal wrong inflicted on me, I owe him no grudge.

Hating is poor employment for any rational being, but I am not prepared to glorify him at the expense of my mother's race. She was faithful to me when he deserted me to a life of ignorance and poverty, and although three-fourths of the blood in my veins belongs to my father's face, I feel a kinship with my mother's people that I do not with his, and I will defend that race from the aspersions of the meanest Negro hater in the land. Heathenism and civilization live side by side on American soil, but all the heathenism is not on the side of the Negro. Look at slavery and kukluxism with their meanness and crimes, mormonism with its vile abominations, lynch law with its burnings and hangings, our national policy in regard to the Indians and Chinese."

"I do not think," said the minister, "that there is another civilized country in the world where men are lynched for real or supposed crimes outside of America."

"The Negro need not bow his head like a bulrush in the presence of a race whose records are as stained by crime and dishonor as theirs. Let others decry the Negro, and say hard things about him, I am not prepared to join in the chorus of depreciation."

After parting with the minister, Mr. Thomas resolved, if pluck and energy were of any avail, that he would leave no stone unturned in seeking employment. He searched the papers carefully for advertis.e.m.e.nts, walked from one workshop to the other looking for work, and was eventually met with a refusal which meant, no negro need apply. At last one day when he had tried almost every workshop in the place, he entered the establishment of Wm. C. Nell, an Englishman who had not been long enough in America to be fully saturated by its Christless and inhuman prejudices. He was willing to give Mr. Thomas work, and put tools in his hands, and while watching how deftly he handled them, he did not notice the indignant scowls on the faces of his workmen, and their murmurs of disapprobation as they uttered their dissatisfaction one to the other.

At length they took off their ap.r.o.ns, laid down their tools and asked to be discharged from work.

"Why, what does this mean?" asked the astounded Englishman.

"It means that we will not work with a n.i.g.g.e.r."

"Why, I don't understand? what is the matter with him?"

"Why, there's nothing the matter, only he's a n.i.g.g.e.r, and we never put n.i.g.g.e.rs on an equality with us, and we never will."

"But I am a stranger in this country, and I don't understand you."

"Well, he's a n.i.g.g.e.r, and we don't want n.i.g.g.e.rs for nothing; would you have your daughter marry a n.i.g.g.e.r?"

"Oh, go back to your work; I never thought of such a thing. I think the Negro must be an unfortunate man, and I do not wish my daughter to marry any unfortunate man, but if you do not want to work with him I will put him by himself; there is room enough on the premises; will that suit you any better?"

"No; we won't work for a man who employs a n.i.g.g.e.r."

The builder bit his lip; he had come to America hearing that it was a land of liberty but he had found an undreamed of tyranny which had entered his workshop and controlled his choice of workmen, and as much as he deprecated the injustice, it was the dictum of a vitiated public opinion that his field of occupation should be closed against the Negro, and he felt that he was forced, either to give up his business or submit to the decree.

Mr. Thomas then thought, "my money is vanishing, school rooms and workshops are closed against me. I will not beg, and I can not resort to any questionable means for bread. I will now take any position or do any work by which I can make an honest living." Just as he was looking gloomily at the future an old school mate laid his hand upon his shoulder and said, "how do you do, old fellow? I have not seen you for a week of Sundays. What are you driving at now?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. I am looking for work."

"Well, now this is just the ticket. I have just returned from the Pacific coast and while I was there I did splendidly; everything I touched turned to gold, and now I have a good job on hand if you are not too squeamish to take it. I have just set up a tiptop restaurant and saloon, and I have some of the best merchants of the city as my customers, and I want a first rate clerk. You were always good at figures and if you will accept the place come with me right away. Since high license went into operation, I am making money hand over fist. It is just like the big fish eating up the little fish. I am doing a rushing business and I want you to do my clerking."

The first thought which rushed into Mr. Thomas' mind was, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" but he restrained his indignation and said,

"No, Frank, I cannot accept your offer; I am a temperance man and a prohibitionist, and I would rather have my hands clean than to have them foul."

"You are a greater milksop than I gave you credit for. Here you are hunting work, and find door after door closed against you, not because you are not but because you are colored, and here am I offering you easy employment and good wages and you refuse them."

"Frank," said Mr. Thomas, "I am a poor man, but I would rather rise up early, and sit up late and eat the bread of carelessness, than to roll in wealth by keeping a liquor saloon, and I am determined that no drunkard shall ever charge me with having helped drag him down to misery, shame and death. No drunkard's wife shall ever lay the wreck of her home at my door."

"My business," said Frank Miller, "is a legitimate one; there is money in it, and I am after that. If people will drink too much and make fools of themselves I can't help it; it is none of my business, and if I don't sell to them other people will. I don't think much of a man who does not know how to govern himself, but it is no use arguing with you when you are once set in your ways; good morning."