Darkwater

franchisement of my people in society, politics, and industry and had studiously avoided the while her cold,

he asked. I disclaimed all guilty concupiscence. She

an't get decent servants. They won't try. They're lazy! They're unreliable! They're impudent and they l

, and unminded to strike a defenseless female of uncertain years,

dhood, sat poised on that thin edge between the farmer and the menial. The surrounding Irish had two chances, the factory and the kitchen, and most of them took the factory, with all its dirt and noise and low wage. The factory was closed to us. Our little lands were too small to feed most of us. A

lina instead of Massachusetts I should hardly have escaped the taint of "service." Its temptations in wage and comfort would soon h

ravel money and clothes and a bit to live on until the scholarship was due. Fortson was a fellow-student in winter and a waiter in summer. He proposed that the Glee Club Quartet of Fisk spend the summer at the hotel in Minnesota where he worked and that I go along as "Business Manager" to arrange for engagements on t

tily strewn with uneatable scraps. We novices were the only ones who came to eat, while the guests' dining-room, with its savors and sights, set our appetites on edge! After a while even the pretense of meals for us was dropped. We were sure we were going to starve when Dug, one of us, made a startling discovery: the waiters stole their food and they stole the best. We gulped and hesitated. T

n more than the guests. I saw that it paid to amuse and to cringe. One particular black man set me crazy. He was intelligent and deft, but one day I caught sight of his face as he served a crowd of men

aring and thinking, while the other boys hustled about. Then I noticed one fat hog, feeding at a heavily gilded trough, who could not find his waiter. He beckoned me. It was not his voice, for his mouth was too full. It was his way, his air, his assumption. Th

that summer in other respects rather astonished even him. He came to us much flurried one night and got us to help him with a memorial to the absentee proprietor, telling of the wild and gay doings of midnights i

forever, I felt as though, in a field of flowers, my nose had be

servants? Ergo! Upon such spiritual myths was the anachronism of American slavery built, and this was the degradation that once made menial servants the aristocrats among colored folk. House servants secured some decencies of food and cl

ith a harshness and indecency seldom paralleled in the civilized world white masters on the mainland sold their mulatto children, half-brothers and half-sisters, and their own wives in all but name, into life-slavery by the hundreds an

house servant still held advantages. He had whatever education the race possessed and his white father, no longer able to sell him, often helped him with land and protection. Notwithstanding this the lure of house service for the Negro was gon

ts then rose slightly and fell again until 21 per cent were in service in 1910 and, doubtless, much less than 20 per cent today. This is the measure

ite, could have called on the great labor movement to lift their work out of slavery, to standardize their hours, to define their duties, and to substitute a living, regular wage for personal largess in the shape of tips, old clothes, and cold leavings of food. But the labor movement turned their

ork is so great that any white man of decency would rather cut his daughter's throat than let her grow up to such a destiny. There is throughout the world and in all races no greater source of prostitution than this grade of menial service, and the Negro race in America has largely escaped this destiny simply because its innate decency leads black wo

nachronism,-the refuse of mediaeval barbarism. Whey, then, does it linger? Why are we silent about it? Why in the minds of so

se the Servant had transcended the Menial, the Service had been exalted above the Wage. Now to accomplish this permanently and universally, calls for the same revolution in household help as in factory help and public service. While organized industry has been slowly

vice, now pitifully fallen, yet gasping for breath; secondly, the present low estate of the

survived in those who made the First Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, the Keepers of the Robes, and the Knights of the Bath, the highest nobility that hedged an anointed king. Nor does it differ today in what the mother does for the child or the daughter for the mother, in all the personal attentions in the old-fashioned home; this is Service! Think of what Friend has meant, not simply i

our biscuits sodden, our homes dirty, and our baths unpoured. Let one suggest that the only cure for such deeds is in the uplift of the doer and our rage is even worse and less explicable. We will call them by their first names, thus blaspheming a holy intimacy; we will confi

with her, in the thrilling shadows, to an old village home I knew well; then as I turned to leave I learned that she was there alone in that house for a week-end with only one young white man to represent th

It is only slowly and by the utmost effort that some small foothold has been gained for the vacuum cleaner, the washing-machine, the power tool, and the chemical reagent. In our frantic effort to preserve

are designed, not simply to raise wages, but to guard against any likeness between artisan and servant. There is no essential d

t one panacea: Escape! Get yourselves and your sons and daughters out of the shadow of this awful thing! Hire servants, but never be one. Indeed, sub

We push below this mudsill the derelicts and half-men, whom we hate and despise, and seek to build above it-Democracy! On such foundations is reared a Theory of Exclusiveness, a feeling that the world progresses by a process of excluding from the benefits of c

aundry? Cannot machinery, in the hands of self-respecting and well-paid artisans, do our cleaning, sewing, moving, and decorating? Cannot the training of children become an even greater profession

e, rich and poor, look forward to a

. And only to be perform

hrist i

in Waco

the solemn twilight he got an impression of unusual height and soft, dark eyes. "Curious sort of acquaintance for the colonel," he tho

roke in; he was bending over his figures, sitting

r $125 apiece. Now if these fellows are driven, they can build this line within twelve months. It will be runni

t the lines of his countenance; the word millionaire sounded well to his ears. He thought-he thought a grea

might as wel

" answered

ll stranger in the

hing for them?" he s

elf. "What's this man doing here, anyway?" He looked at him, or rather l

can't harm them; t

ood, then," said t

his shoulders. "It wil

"Yes, it will do them good; or at any rate it won't make them any worse than they are." Then he started to say som

d, then," sai

he asked with the Southern courtesy of white men to white men in a country town. The st

head, thick, hanging lips, and bitter eyes. There was revolt written about his mouth despite the hang-dog expression. He stood bending over his pile of stones, pounding listl

oduced him. He had not exactly caught his name, but he mumbled someth

the stranger had taken the little girl into his lap an

of course, he must be a foreigner. The long, cloak-like coat told this. They rode in the twilight th

sk this man to stay. He seemed cultured and she supposed he was some acquaintance of the colonel's. It would be rather

nter and re

anger seemed about to refuse. He said he had some business for

. It was a curious conversation. Afterwards they did not remember exactly what was sa

the reluctant child and the

p of tea; you will

tarted in amazement and the colonel half rose in anger. Why, the man was a mulatto, surely; even if he did not own the Negro blood, their practised eyes knew it. H

He remembered many things, and his face grew drawn and white. Those eyes kept burning into him, even when they were turned half away toward the staircase, where the white figure of the child hovered with her nurse and wave

e, silver tray filled with a china tea service. The stranger rose slowly and stretched forth his hands as if to bless the viands. The ol

whispered; but the woman

orbell

down the stairs to see the stranger again, and the nurse above was calling in vain. The woman felt hysterical and scolded at the nurse, but the stranger had stretched out

d she hastened toward the door, which the loitering black maid was just opening. She did not notice the

uth, and gorgeously gowned. She came forward, smiling with extended hands, but when she was

hands cordially; she forgot to ask who the stranger was. The

the glory of youth, and daintily silked, beautiful in face and form, with diamonds around her

, white wings. It was but the light on the drapery. What a turn it gave me." And she smiled again. With her came a tall, handsome, young naval officer. Hear

well-clothed. He started to pass the stran

said. "I beg your pardon

ess nervously hurried the guests on. But

re," he said, putting his hand vaguely to h

k aside, and to the hostess' unspea

," he said in low

bout intruders, but the rector stood

sently. "It is a great pleasure to be here,-somehow I

se, lingering at the top of the staircase, flew down after him, c

with his hand and said:

ng. The stranger turned eastward into the night. As they parted a long, low howl ros

dhounds!"

answered

Really, they need severer measures." Then he stop

The girl glanced at the white drapery in the hall, but the young off

e stranger strode rapidly along the highway and out into the

and convicts' stripes upon him, and shackles on his legs. He ran and jumped, in little, short step

s hands in sullen impotence, and sank panting to the earth. A greyhound shot out of the woods behind him, howled, whined, and fawned before the st

ook the chains and irons from his feet. By and by the convict stood up. Day was dawning above the treet

e a nigger,

seemed anxious to

o chance," he

t steal," said

an br

steal a whole year's work, and then when I stole

to be stealing. I can't seem to keep from stealing. Seem

ut the stranger had taken off his long coat; he h

r stood watching him. There was a new glory in the day. The black man's face cleared up, and the farmer was g

the barn," he said

git a day?" ask

rmer s

l sign a contract for the season,

ontract," said the

, threateningly, "or I'll call t

tened. He could hear low voices on the porch. On the table lay a gold watch. He gazed at it, and in a moment he was beside it,-his hands were on it! Quickly he slipped out of the house and slouched toward the field. He saw his employer coming along the highway. He fled back in tenor and around to the front of the house, when suddenly he stoppe

hbor's. She was gone but a little while, and when she came back she started to see a dark figure on t

u give m

hite man, she answered quickl

cert

h buttermilk; then she came out and sat down beside him. She began, quite unconsciously, to tell him about herself,-the things she had done and had not done and the things she had wished for. She told him of her husband and this

her neighbors, how goo

e them all?" as

hesi

up into his face and putting her hand into

ne I hate; no

ding her hand in hi

ur neighbor

hesi

way he was looking; down under the hil

ggers," she

confusion came over her and s

ey are

shrieked in angry terror and rushed down the path, and just as she rushed down, the black convict came running up with hands outstretched. They met in mid-path, and

the earth and raised his voice to a yell. Down the highway came the convict guard, w

d-my wife,"

thing black man, while others lifted the dazed woman. Right and left, as she tottered to the house, sh

light; she saw the dead man writhe. He stretched his arms out like a cross, looking upward. She gasped and clung to the window sill. Behind the swaying body, and down where the little, half-ruined cabin lay, a single flame flashed up amid the far-off shout and cry of the mob. A fierce joy sobbed up through

n agony of tears, and dared not loo

and reject

eaven-tall, earth-wide, hung the stranger on the crimson cross, riven and blood-sta

rowful, were fastened on the writhing, twisting body of the

shalt be with m