Part 2

On the fourth night of Anner ’Lizer’s mourning, the congregation gathered as usual at the church. For the first half-hour all went on as usual, and the fact that Anner ’Lizer was absent caused no remark, for every one thought she would come in later. But time passed and she did not come. “Eldah Johnsing’s” flock became agitated. Of course there were other mourners, but the one particular one was absent; hence the dissatisfaction. Every head in the house was turned toward the door, whenever it was opened by some late comer; and around flew the whisper, “I wunner ef she’s quit mou’nin’; you ain’t heerd of her gittin’ ’ligion, have you?” No one had.

Meanwhile the object of their solicitude was praying just the same, but in a far different place. Grasping, as she was, at everything that seemed to give her promise of relief, somehow Uncle Eben’s words had had a deep effect upon her. So, when night fell and her work was over, she had gone up into the woods to pray. She had prayed long without success, and now she was crying aloud from the very fulness of her heart, “O Lawd, sen’ de light—sen’ de light!” Suddenly, as if in answer to her prayer, a light appeared before her some distance away.

The sudden attainment of one’s desires often shocks one; so with our mourner. For a moment her heart stood still and the thought came to her to flee; but her mind flashed back over the words of one of the hymns she had heard down at church, “Let us walk in de light;” and she knew that before she walked in the light she must walk toward it. So she rose and started in the direction of the light. How it flickered and flared, disappeared and reappeared, rose and fell, even as her spirits, as she stumbled and groped her way over fallen logs and through briers. Her limbs were bruised and her dress torn by the thorns. But she heeded it not, she had fixed her eye—physical and spiritual—on the light before her. It drew her with an irresistible fascination. Suddenly she stopped. An idea had occurred to her! Maybe this light was a Jack-o’-lantern! For a moment she hesitated, then promptly turned her pocket wrong side out, murmuring, “De Lawd’ll tek keer o’ me.” On she started; but, lo! the light had disappeared! What! had the turning of the pocket indeed worked so potent a charm?

But no! it reappeared as she got beyond the intervention of a brush pile which had obscured it. The light grew brighter as she grew fainter; but she clasped her hands and raised her eyes in unwavering faith, for she found that the beacon did not recede, but glowed with a steady and stationary flame.

As she drew near, the sound of sharp strokes came to her ears, and she wondered. Then, as she slipped into the narrow circle of light, she saw that it was made by a taper which was set on a log. The strokes came from a man who was chopping down a tree in which a ’coon seemed to have taken refuge. It needed no second glance at the stalwart shoulders to tell her that the man was—Sam. Her step attracted his attention, and he turned.

“Sam!”

“Anner ’Lizer!”

And then they both stood still, too amazed to speak. Finally she walked across to where he was standing, and said: “Sam, I didn’t come out heah to fin’ you, but de Lawd has ’p’inted it so, ’ca’se he knowed I orter speak to you.” Sam leaned hopelessly on his axe; he thought she was going to exhort him.

Anner ’Lizer went on: “Sam, you’s my stumblin’ block in de highroad to salvation; I’s be’n tryin’ to git ’ligion fu’ fou’ nights, an’ I cain’t do it jes’ on yo’ ’count; I prays an’ I prays, an’ jes’ as I’s a’mos’ got it, jes’ as I begin to heah de cha’iot wheels a-rollin’, yo’ face comes right in ’tween an’ drives it all away. Tell me, now, Sam, so’s to put me out ov my ’spense, does you want to ma’y me, er is you goin’ to ma’y Phiny? I jes’ wants you to tell me, not dat I keers pussonally, but so’s my min’ kin be at res’ spi’tu’lly, an’ I kin git ’ligion. Jes’ say yes er no; I wants to be settled one way er ’t other.”

“Anner ’Lizer,” said Sam, reproachfully, “you know I wants to ma’y you jes’ ez soon ez Mas’ Rob’ll let me.”

“Dere now,” said Anner ’Lizer, “bless de Lawd!” And, somehow, Sam had dropped the axe and was holding her in his arms.

It boots not whether the ’coon was caught that night or not; but it is a fact that Anner ’Lizer set the whole place afire by getting religion at home early the next morning. And the same night the minister announced “dat de Lawd had foun’ out de sistah’s stumblin’ block an’ removed it f’om de path.”

THE ORDEAL AT MT. HOPE

THE ORDEAL AT MT. HOPE

“And this is Mt. Hope,” said the Rev. Howard Dokesbury to himself as he descended, bag in hand, from the smoky, dingy coach, or part of a coach, which was assigned to his people, and stepped upon the rotten planks of the station platform. The car he had just left was not a palace, nor had his reception by his fellow-passengers or his intercourse with them been of such cordial nature as to endear them to him. But he watched the choky little engine with its three black cars wind out of sight with a look as regretful as if he were witnessing the departure of his dearest friend. Then he turned his attention again to his surroundings, and a sigh welled up from his heart. “And this is Mt. Hope,” he repeated. A note in his voice indicated that he fully appreciated the spirit of keen irony in which the place had been named.

The colour scheme of the picture that met his eyes was in dingy blacks and grays. The building that held the ticket, telegraph, and train despatchers’ offices was a miserably old ramshackle affair, standing well in the foreground of this scene of gloom and desolation. Its windows were so coated with smoke and grime that they seemed to have been painted over in order to secure secrecy within. Here and there a lazy cur lay drowsily snapping at the flies, and at the end of the station, perched on boxes or leaning against the wall, making a living picture of equal laziness, stood a group of idle Negroes exchanging rude badinage with their white counterparts across the street.

After a while this bantering interchange would grow more keen and personal, a free-for-all friendly fight would follow, and the newspaper correspondent in that section would write it up as a “race war.” But this had not happened yet that day.

“This is Mt. Hope,” repeated the new-comer; “this is the field of my labours.”

Rev. Howard Dokesbury, as may already have been inferred, was a Negro,—there could be no mistake about that. The deep dark brown of his skin, the rich over-fulness of his lips, and the close curl of his short black hair were evidences that admitted of no argument. He was a finely proportioned, stalwart-looking man, with a general air of self-possession and self-sufficiency in his manner. There was firmness in the set of his lips. A reader of character would have said of him, “Here is a man of solid judgment, careful in deliberation, prompt in execution, and decisive.”

It was the perception in him of these very qualities which had prompted the authorities of the little college where he had taken his degree and received his theological training, to urge him to go among his people at the South, and there to exert his powers for good where the field was broad and the labourers few.

Born of Southern parents from whom he had learned many of the superstitions and traditions of the South, Howard Dokesbury himself had never before been below Mason and Dixon’s line. But with a confidence born of youth and a consciousness of personal power, he had started South with the idea that he knew the people with whom he had to deal, and was equipped with the proper weapons to cope with their shortcomings.

But as he looked around upon the scene which now met his eye, a doubt arose in his mind. He picked up his bag with a sigh, and approached a man who had been standing apart from the rest of the loungers and regarding him with indolent intentness.

“Could you direct me to the house of Stephen Gray?” asked the minister.

The interrogated took time to change his position from left foot to right and to shift his quid, before he drawled forth, “I reckon you’s de new Mefdis preachah, huh?”

“Yes,” replied Howard, in the most conciliatory tone he could command, “and I hope I find in you one of my flock.”

“No, suh, I’s a Babtist myse’f. I wa’n’t raised up no place erroun’ Mt. Hope; I’m nachelly f’om way up in Adams County. Dey jes’ sont me down hyeah to fin’ you an’ to tek you up to Steve’s. Steve, he’s workin’ to-day an’ couldn’t come down.”

He laid particular stress upon the “to-day,” as if Steve’s spell of activity were not an everyday occurrence.

“Is it far from here?” asked Dokesbury.

“’Tain’t mo’ ’n a mile an’ a ha’f by de shawt cut.”

“Well, then, let’s take the short cut, by all means,” said the preacher.

They trudged along for a while in silence, and then the young man asked, “What do you men about here do mostly for a living?”

“Oh, well, we does odd jobs, we saws an’ splits wood an’ totes bundles, an’ some of ’em raises gyahden, but mos’ of us, we fishes. De fish bites an’ we ketches ’em. Sometimes we eats ’em an’ sometimes we sells ’em; a string o’ fish’ll bring a peck o’ co’n any time.”

“And is that all you do?”

“’Bout.”

“Why, I don’t see how you live that way.”

“Oh, we lives all right,” answered the man; “we has plenty to eat an’ drink, an’ clothes to wear, an’ some place to stay. I reckon folks ain’t got much use fu’ nuffin’ mo’.”

Dokesbury sighed. Here indeed was virgin soil for his ministerial labours. His spirits were not materially raised when, some time later, he came in sight of the house which was to be his abode. To be sure, it was better than most of the houses which he had seen in the Negro part of Mt. Hope; but even at that it was far from being good or comfortable-looking. It was small and mean in appearance. The weather boarding was broken, and in some places entirely fallen away, showing the great unhewn logs beneath; while off the boards that remained the whitewash had peeled in scrofulous spots.

The minister’s guide went up to the closed door, and rapped loudly with a heavy stick.

“G’ ’way f’om dah, an’ quit you’ foolin’,” came in a large voice from within.

The guide grinned, and rapped again. There was a sound of shuffling feet and the pushing back of a chair, and then the same voice saying: “I bet I’ll mek you git away f’om dat do’.”

“Dat’s A’nt Ca’line,” the guide said, and laughed.

The door was flung back as quickly as its worn hinges and sagging bottom would allow, and a large body surmounted by a face like a big round full moon presented itself in the opening. A broomstick showed itself aggressively in one fat shiny hand.

“It’s you, Tom Scott, is it—you trif’nin’—” and then, catching sight of the stranger, her whole manner changed, and she dropped the broomstick with an embarrassed “’Scuse me, suh.”

Tom chuckled all over as he said, “A’nt Ca’line, dis is yo’ new preachah.”

The big black face lighted up with a broad smile as the old woman extended her hand and enveloped that of the young minister’s.

“Come in,” she said. “I’s mighty glad to see you—that no-’count Tom come put’ nigh mekin’ me ’spose myse’f.” Then turning to Tom, she exclaimed with good-natured severity, “An’ you go ’long, you scoun’ll you!”

The preacher entered the cabin—it was hardly more—and seated himself in the rush-bottomed chair which A’nt Ca’line had been industriously polishing with her apron.

“An’ now, Brothah—”

“Dokesbury,” supplemented the young man.

“Brothah Dokesbury, I jes’ want you to mek yo’se’f at home right erway. I know you ain’t use to ouah ways down hyeah; but you jes’ got to set in an’ git ust to ’em. You mus’n’t feel bad ef things don’t go yo’ way f’om de ve’y fust. Have you got a mammy?”

The question was very abrupt, and a lump suddenly jumped up in Dokesbury’s throat and pushed the water into his eyes. He did have a mother away back there at home. She was all alone, and he was her heart and the hope of her life.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve got a little mother up there in Ohio.”

“Well, I’s gwine to be yo’ mothah down hyeah; dat is, ef I ain’t too rough an’ common fu’ you.”

“Hush!” exclaimed the preacher, and he got up and took the old lady’s hand in both of his own. “You shall be my mother down here; you shall help me, as you have done to-day. I feel better already.”

“I knowed you would;” and the old face beamed on the young one. “An’ now jes’ go out de do’ dah an’ wash yo’ face. Dey’s a pan an’ soap an’ watah right dah, an’ hyeah’s a towel; den you kin go right into yo’ room, fu’ I knows you want to be erlone fu’ a while. I’ll fix yo’ suppah while you rests.”

He did as he was bidden. On a rough bench outside the door, he found a basin and a bucket of water with a tin dipper in it. To one side, in a broken saucer, lay a piece of coarse soap. The facilities for copious ablutions were not abundant, but one thing the minister noted with pleasure: the towel, which was rough and hurt his skin, was, nevertheless, scrupulously clean. He went to his room feeling fresher and better, and although he found the place little and dark and warm, it too was clean, and a sense of its homeness began to take possession of him.

The room was off the main living-room into which he had been first ushered. It had one small window that opened out on a fairly neat yard. A table with a chair before it stood beside the window, and across the room—if the three feet of space which intervened could be called “across”—stood the little bed with its dark calico quilt and white pillows. There was no carpet on the floor, and the absence of a washstand indicated very plainly that the occupant was expected to wash outside. The young minister knelt for a few minutes beside the bed, and then rising cast himself into the chair to rest.

It was possibly half an hour later when his partial nap was broken in upon by the sound of a gruff voice from without saying, “He’s hyeah, is he—oomph! Well, what’s he ac’ lak? Want us to git down on ouah knees an’ crawl to him? If he do, I reckon he’ll fin’ dat Mt. Hope ain’t de place fo’ him.”

The minister did not hear the answer, which was in a low voice and came, he conjectured, from Aunt ‘Ca’line’; but the gruff voice subsided, and there was the sound of footsteps going out of the room. A tap came on the preacher’s door, and he opened it to the old woman. She smiled reassuringly.

“Dat ’uz my ol’ man,” she said. “I sont him out to git some wood, so ’s I’d have time to post you. Don’t you mind him; he’s lots mo’ ba’k dan bite. He’s one o’ dese little yaller men, an’ you know dey kin be powahful contra’y when dey sets dey hai’d to it. But jes’ you treat him nice an’ don’t let on, an’ I’ll be boun’ you’ll bring him erroun’ in little er no time.”

The Rev. Mr. Dokesbury received this advice with some misgiving. Albeit he had assumed his pleasantest manner when, after his return to the living-room, the little “yaller” man came through the door with his bundle of wood.

He responded cordially to Aunt Caroline’s, “Dis is my husband, Brothah Dokesbury,” and heartily shook his host’s reluctant hand.

“I hope I find you well, Brother Gray,” he said.

“Moder’t, jes’ moder’t,” was the answer.

“Come to suppah now, bofe o’ you,” said the old lady, and they all sat down to the evening meal, of crisp bacon, well-fried potatoes, egg-pone, and coffee.

The young man did his best to be agreeable, but it was rather discouraging to receive only gruff monosyllabic rejoinders to his most interesting observations. But the cheery old wife came bravely to the rescue, and the minister was continually floated into safety on the flow of her conversation. Now and then, as he talked, he could catch a stealthy upflashing of Stephen Gray’s eye, as suddenly lowered again, that told him that the old man was listening. But, as an indication that they would get on together, the supper, taken as a whole, was not a success. The evening that followed proved hardly more fortunate. About the only remarks that could be elicited from the “little yaller man” were a reluctant “oomph” or “oomph-uh.”

It was just before going to bed that, after a period of reflection, Aunt Caroline began slowly: “We got a son”—her husband immediately bristled up and his eyes flashed, but the old woman went on; “he named ’Lias, an’ we thinks a heap o’ ’Lias, we does; but—” the old man had subsided, but he bristled up again at the word—“he ain’t jes’ whut we want him to be.” Her husband opened his mouth as if to speak in defence of his son, but was silent in satisfaction at his wife’s explanation: “’Lias ain’t bad; he jes’ ca’less. Sometimes he stays at home, but right sma’t o’ de time he stays down at”—she looked at her husband and hesitated—“at de colo’ed s’loon. We don’t lak dat. It ain’t no fitten place fu’ him. But ’Lias ain’t bad, he jes’ ca’less, an’ me an’ de ol’ man we ’membahs him in ouah pra’ahs, an’ I jes’ t’ought I’d ax you to ’membah him too, Brothah Dokesbury.”

The minister felt the old woman’s pleading look and the husband’s intense gaze upon his face, and suddenly there came to him an intimate sympathy in their trouble and with it an unexpected strength.

“There is no better time than now,” he said, “to take his case to the Almighty Power; let us pray.”

Perhaps it was the same prayer he had prayed many times before; perhaps the words of supplication and the plea for light and guidance were the same; but somehow to the young man kneeling there amid those humble surroundings, with the sorrow of these poor ignorant people weighing upon his heart, it seemed very different. It came more fervently from his lips, and the words had a deeper meaning. When he arose, there was a warmth at his heart just the like of which he had never before experienced.

Aunt Caroline blundered up from her knees, saying, as she wiped her eyes, “Blessed is dey dat mou’n, fu’ dey shall be comfo’ted.” The old man, as he turned to go to bed, shook the young man’s hand warmly and in silence; but there was a moisture in the old eyes that told the minister that his plummet of prayer had sounded the depths.

Alone in his own room Howard Dokesbury sat down to study the situation in which he had been placed. Had his thorough college training anticipated specifically any such circumstance as this? After all, did he know his own people? Was it possible that they could be so different from what he had seen and known? He had always been such a loyal Negro, so proud of his honest brown; but had he been mistaken? Was he, after all, different from the majority of the people with whom he was supposed to have all thoughts, feelings, and emotions in common?

These and other questions he asked himself without being able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. He did not go to sleep soon after retiring, and the night brought many thoughts. The next day would be Saturday. The ordeal had already begun,—now there were twenty-four hours between him and the supreme trial. What would be its outcome? There were moments when he felt, as every man, howsoever brave, must feel at times, that he would like to shift all his responsibilities and go away from the place that seemed destined to tax his powers beyond their capability of endurance. What could he do for the inhabitants of Mt. Hope? What was required of him to do? Ever through his mind ran that world-old question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” He had never asked, “Are these people my brothers?”

He was up early the next morning, and as soon as breakfast was done, he sat down to add a few touches to the sermon he had prepared as his introduction. It was not the first time that he had retouched it and polished it up here and there. Indeed, he had taken some pride in it. But as he read it over that day, it did not sound to him as it had sounded before. It appeared flat and without substance. After a while he laid it aside, telling himself that he was nervous and it was on this account that he could not see matters as he did in his calmer moments. He told himself, too, that he must not again take up the offending discourse until time to use it, lest the discovery of more imaginary flaws should so weaken his confidence that he would not be able to deliver it with effect.

In order better to keep his resolve, he put on his hat and went out for a walk through the streets of Mt. Hope. He did not find an encouraging prospect as he went along. The Negroes whom he met viewed him with ill-favour, and the whites who passed looked on him with unconcealed distrust and contempt. He began to feel lost, alone, and helpless. The squalor and shiftlessness which were plainly in evidence about the houses which he saw filled him with disgust and a dreary hopelessness.

He passed vacant lots which lay open and inviting children to healthful play; but instead of marbles or leap-frog or ball, he found little boys in ragged knickerbockers huddled together on the ground, “shooting craps” with precocious avidity and quarrelling over the pennies that made the pitiful wagers. He heard glib profanity rolling from the lips of children who should have been stumbling through baby catechisms; and his heart ached for them.