The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories by Paul Laurence Dunbar

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"Spoken like a man," said McLean.

"Oh, you two are so hopelessly young," laughed Davis.

PART II

After the two weeks' rest which he thought he needed, and consequently
promised himself, Halliday began to look about him for some means of
making a start for that success in life which he felt so sure of
winning.

With this end in view he returned to the town where he was born. He
had settled upon the law as a profession, and had studied it for a
year or two while at college. He would go back to Broughton now to
pursue his studies, but of course, he needed money. No difficulty,
however, presented itself in the getting of this for he knew several
fellows who had been able to go into offices, and by collecting and
similar duties make something while they studied. Webb Davis would
have said, "but they were white," but Halliday knew what his own reply
would have been: "What a white man can do, I can do."

Even if he could not go to studying at once, he could go to work and
save enough money to go on with his course in a year or two. He had
lots of time before him, and he only needed a little start. What
better place then, to go to than Broughton, where he had first seen
the light? Broughton, that had known him, boy and man. Broughton that
had watched him through the common school and the high school, and had
seen him go off to college with some pride and a good deal of
curiosity. For even in middle west towns of such a size, that is,
between seventy and eighty thousand souls, a "smart negro" was still a
freak.

So Halliday went back home because the people knew him there and would
respect his struggles and encourage his ambitions.

He had been home two days, and the old town had begun to take on its
remembered aspect as he wandered through the streets and along the
river banks. On this second day he was going up Main street deep in a
brown study when he heard his name called by a young man who was
approaching him, and saw an outstretched hand.

"Why, how de do, Bert, how are you? Glad to see you back. I hear you
have been astonishing them up at college."

Halliday's reverie had been so suddenly broken into that for a moment,
the young fellow's identity wavered elusively before his mind and then
it materialized, and his consciousness took hold of it. He remembered
him, not as an intimate, but as an acquaintance whom he had often met
upon the football and baseball fields.

"How do you do? It's Bob Dickson," he said, shaking the proffered
hand, which at the mention of the name, had grown unaccountably cold
in his grasp.

"Yes, I'm Mr. Dickson," said the young man, patronizingly. "You seem
to have developed wonderfully, you hardly seem like the same Bert
Halliday I used to know."

"Yes, but I'm the same Mr. Halliday."

"Oh--ah--yes," said the young man, "well, I'm glad to have seen you.
Ah--good-bye, Bert."

"Good-bye, Bob."

"Presumptuous darky!" murmured Mr. Dickson.

"Insolent puppy!" said Mr. Halliday to himself.

But the incident made no impression on his mind as bearing upon his
status in the public eye. He only thought the fellow a cad, and went
hopefully on. He was rather amused than otherwise. In this frame of
mind, he turned into one of the large office-buildings that lined the
street and made his way to a business suite over whose door was the
inscription, "H.G. Featherton, Counsellor and Attorney-at-Law." Mr.
Featherton had shown considerable interest in Bert in his school days,
and he hoped much from him.

As he entered the public office, a man sitting at the large desk in
the centre of the room turned and faced him. He was a fair man of an
indeterminate age, for you could not tell whether those were streaks
of grey shining in his light hair, or only the glint which it took on
in the sun. His face was dry, lean and intellectual. He smiled now
and then, and his smile was like a flash of winter lightning, so cold
and quick it was. It went as suddenly as it came, leaving the face as
marbly cold and impassive as ever. He rose and extended his hand,
"Why--why--ah--Bert, how de do, how are you?"

"Very well, I thank you, Mr. Featherton."

"Hum, I'm glad to see you back, sit down. Going to stay with us, you
think?"

"I'm not sure, Mr. Featherton; it all depends upon my getting
something to do."

"You want to go to work, do you? Hum, well, that's right. It's work
makes the man. What do you propose to do, now since you've graduated?"

Bert warmed at the evident interest of his old friend. "Well, in the
first place, Mr. Featherton," he replied, "I must get to work and make
some money. I have heard of fellows studying and supporting themselves
at the same time, but I musn't expect too much. I'm going to study
law."

The attorney had schooled his face into hiding any emotion he might
feel, and it did not betray him now. He only flashed one of his quick
cold smiles and asked,

"Don't you think you've taken rather a hard profession to get on in?"

"No doubt. But anything I should take would be hard. It's just like
this, Mr. Featherton," he went on, "I am willing to work and to work
hard, and I am not looking for any snap."

Mr. Featherton was so unresponsive to this outburst that Bert was
ashamed of it the minute it left his lips. He wished this man would
not be so cold and polite and he wished he would stop putting the ends
of his white fingers together as carefully as if something depended
upon it.

"I say the law is a hard profession to get on in, and as a friend I
say that it will be harder for you. Your people have not the money to
spend in litigation of any kind."

"I should not cater for the patronage of my own people alone."

"Yes, but the time has not come when a white person will employ a
colored attorney."

"Do you mean to say that the prejudice here at home is such that if I
were as competent as a white lawyer a white person would not employ
me?"

"I say nothing about prejudice at all. It's nature. They have their
own lawyers; why should they go outside of their own to employ a
colored man?"

"But I am of their own. I am an American citizen, there should be no
thought of color about it."

"Oh, my boy, that theory is very nice, but State University democracy
doesn't obtain in real life."

"More's the pity, then, for real life."

"Perhaps, but we must take things as we find them, not as we think
they ought to be. You people are having and will have for the next ten
or a dozen years the hardest fight of your lives. The sentiment of
remorse and the desire for atoning which actuated so many white men to
help negroes right after the war has passed off without being replaced
by that sense of plain justice which gives a black man his due, not
because of, nor in spite of, but without consideration of his color."

"I wonder if it can be true, as my friend Davis says, that a colored
man must do twice as much and twice as well as a white man before he
can hope for even equal chances with him? That white mediocrity
demands black genius to cope with it?"

"I am afraid your friend has philosophized the situation about right."

"Well, we have dealt in generalities," said Bert, smiling, "let us
take up the particular and personal part of this matter. Is there any
way you could help me to a situation?"

"Well,--I should be glad to see you get on, Bert, but as you see, I
have nothing in my office that you could do. Now, if you don't mind
beginning at the bottom--"

"That's just what I expected to do."

"--Why I could speak to the head-waiter of the hotel where I stay.
He's a very nice colored man and I have some influence with him. No
doubt Charlie could give you a place."

"But that's a work I abhor."

"Yes, but you must begin at the bottom, you know. All young men must."

"To be sure, but would you have recommended the same thing to your
nephew on his leaving college?"

"Ah--ah--that's different."

"Yes," said Halliday, rising, "it is different. There's a different
bottom at which black and white young men should begin, and by a
logical sequence, a different top to which they should aspire.
However, Mr. Featherton, I'll ask you to hold your offer in abeyance.
If I can find nothing else, I'll ask you to speak to the head-waiter.
Good-morning."

"I'll do so with pleasure," said Mr. Featherton, "and good-morning."

As the young man went up the street, an announcement card in the
window of a publishing house caught his eye. It was the announcement
of the next Sunday's number in a series of addresses which the local
business men were giving before the Y.M.C.A. It read, "'How a
Christian young man can get on in the law'--an address by a Christian
lawyer--H.G. Featherton."

Bert laughed. "I should like to hear that address," he said. "I wonder
if he'll recommend them to his head-waiter. No, 'that's different.'
All the addresses and all the books written on how to get on, are
written for white men. We blacks must solve the question for
ourselves."

He had lost some of the ardor with which he had started out but he was
still full of hope. He refused to accept Mr. Featherton's point of
view as general or final. So he hailed a passing car that in the
course of a half hour set him down at the door of the great factory
which, with its improvements, its army of clerks and employees, had
built up one whole section of the town. He felt especially hopeful in
attacking this citadel, because they were constantly advertising for
clerks and their placards plainly stated that preference would be
given to graduates of the local high school. The owners were
philanthropists in their way. Well, what better chance could there be
before him? He had graduated there and stood well in his classes, and
besides, he knew that a number of his classmates were holding good
positions in the factory. So his voice was cheerful as he asked to see
Mr. Stockard, who had charge of the clerical department.

Mr. Stockard was a fat, wheezy young man, with a reputation for humor
based entirely upon his size and his rubicund face, for he had really
never said anything humorous in his life. He came panting into the
room now with a "Well, what can I do for you?"

"I wanted to see you about a situation"--began Halliday.

"Oh, no, no, you don't want to see me," broke in Stockard, "you want
to see the head janitor."

"But I don't want to see the head janitor. I want to see the head of
the clerical department."

"You want to see the head of the clerical department!"

"Yes, sir, I see you are advertising for clerks with preference given
to the high school boys. Well, I am an old high school boy, but have
been away for a few years at college."

Mr. Stockard opened his eyes to their widest extent, and his jaw
dropped. Evidently he had never come across such presumption before.

"We have nothing for you," he wheezed after awhile.

"Very well, I should be glad to drop in again and see you," said
Halliday, moving to the door. "I hope you will remember me if anything
opens."

Mr. Stockard did not reply to this or to Bert's good-bye. He stood in
the middle of the floor and stared at the door through which the
colored man had gone, then he dropped into a chair with a gasp.

"Well, I'm dumbed!" he said.

A doubt had begun to arise in Bertram Halliday's mind that turned him
cold and then hot with a burning indignation. He could try nothing
more that morning. It had brought him nothing but rebuffs. He
hastened home and threw himself down on the sofa to try and think out
his situation.

"Do they still require of us bricks without straw? I thought all that
was over. Well, I suspect that I will have to ask Mr. Featherton to
speak to his head-waiter in my behalf. I wonder if the head-waiter
will demand my diploma. Webb Davis, you were nearer right than I
thought."

He spent the day in the house thinking and planning.

PART III

Halliday was not a man to be discouraged easily, and for the next few
weeks he kept up an unflagging search for work. He found that there
were more Feathertons and Stockards than he had ever looked to find.
Everywhere that he turned his face, anything but the most menial work
was denied him. He thought once of going away from Broughton, but
would he find it any better anywhere else, he asked himself? He
determined to stay and fight it out there for two reasons. First,
because he held that it would be cowardice to run away, and secondly,
because he felt that he was not fighting a local disease, but was
bringing the force of his life to bear upon a national evil. Broughton
was as good a place to begin curative measures as elsewhere.

There was one refuge which was open to him, and which he fought
against with all his might. For years now, from as far back as he
could remember, the colored graduates had "gone South to teach." This
course was now recommended to him. Indeed, his own family quite
approved of it, and when he still stood out against the scheme, people
began to say that Bertram Halliday did not want work; he wanted to be
a gentleman.

But Halliday knew that the South had plenty of material, and year by
year was raising and training her own teachers. He knew that the time
would come, if it were not present when it would be impossible to go
South to teach, and he felt it to be essential that the North should
be trained in a manner looking to the employment of her own negroes.
So he stayed. But he was only human, and when the tide of talk anent
his indolence began to ebb and flow about him, he availed himself of
the only expedient that could arrest it.

When he went back to the great factory where he had seen and talked
with Mr. Stockard, he went around to another door and this time asked
for the head janitor. This individual, a genial Irishman, took stock
of Halliday at a glance.

"But what do ye want to be doin' sich wurruk for, whin ye've been
through school?" he asked.

"I am doing the only thing I can get to do," was the answer.

"Well," said the Irishman, "ye've got sinse, anyhow."

Bert found himself employed as an under janitor at the factory at a
wage of nine dollars a week. At this, he could pay his share to keep
the house going, and save a little for the period of study he still
looked forward to. The people who had accused him of laziness now made
a martyr of him, and said what a pity it was for a man with such an
education and with so much talent to be so employed menially.

He did not neglect his studies, but read at night, whenever the day's
work had not made both brain and body too weary for the task.

In this way his life went along for over a year when one morning a
note from Mr. Featherton summoned him to that gentleman's office. It
is true that Halliday read the note with some trepidation. His bitter
experience had not yet taught him how not to dream. He was not yet old
enough for that. "Maybe," he thought, "Mr. Featherton has relented,
and is going to give me a chance anyway. Or perhaps he wanted me to
prove my metal before he consented to take me up. Well, I've tried to
do it, and if that's what he wanted, I hope he's satisfied." The note
which seemed written all over with joyful tidings shook in his hand.

The genial manner with which Mr. Featherton met him reaffirmed in his
mind the belief that at last the lawyer had determined to give him a
chance. He was almost deferential as he asked Bert into his private
office, and shoved a chair forward for him.

"Well, you've been getting on, I see," he began.

"Oh, yes," replied Bert, "I have been getting on by hook and crook."

"Hum, done any studying lately?"

"Yes, but not as much as I wish to. Coke and Wharton aren't any
clearer to a head grown dizzy with bending over mops, brooms and
heavy trucks all day."

"No, I should think not. Ah--oh--well, Bert, how should you like to
come into my office and help around, do such errands as I need and
help copy my papers?"

"I should be delighted."

"It would only pay you five dollars a week, less than what you are
getting now, I suppose, but it will be more genteel."

"Oh, now, that I have had to do it, I don't care so much about the
lack of gentility of my present work, but I prefer what you offer
because I shall have a greater chance to study."

"Well, then, you may as well come in on Monday. The office will be
often in your charge, as I am going to be away a great deal in the
next few months. You know I am going to make the fight for nomination
to the seat on the bench which is vacant this fall."

"Indeed. I have not so far taken much interest in politics, but I will
do all in my power to help you with both nomination and election."

"Thank you," said Mr. Featherton, "I am sure you can be of great
service to me as the vote of your people is pretty heavy in Broughton.
I have always been a friend to them, and I believe I can depend upon
their support. I shall be glad of any good you can do me with them."

Bert laughed when he was out on the street again. "For value
received," he said. He thought less of Mr. Featherton's generosity
since he saw it was actuated by self-interest alone, but that in no
wise destroyed the real worth of the opportunity that was now given
into his hands. Featherton, he believed, would make an excellent
judge, and he was glad that in working for his nomination his
convictions so aptly fell in with his inclinations.

His work at the factory had put him in touch with a larger number of
his people than he could have possibly met had he gone into the office
at once. Over them, his naturally bright mind exerted some influence.
As a simple laborer he had fellowshipped with them but they
acknowledged and availed themselves of his leadership, because they
felt instinctively in him a power which they did not have. Among them
now he worked sedulously. He held that the greater part of the battle
would be in the primaries, and on the night when they convened, he had
his friends out in force in every ward which went to make up the
third judicial district. Men who had never seen the inside of a
primary meeting before were there actively engaged in this.

The _Diurnal_ said next morning that the active interest of the
hard-working, church-going colored voters, who wanted to see a
Christian judge on the bench had had much to do with the nomination of
Mr. Featherton.

The success at the primaries did not tempt Halliday to relinquish his
efforts on his employer's behalf. He was indefatigable in his cause.
On the west side where the colored population had largely colonized,
he made speeches and held meetings clear up to election day. The fight
had been between two factions of the party and after the nomination it
was feared that the defection of the part defeated in the primaries
might prevent the ratification of the nominee at the polls. But before
the contest was half over all fears for him were laid. What he had
lost in the districts where the skulking faction was strong, he made
up in the wards where the colored vote was large. He was
overwhelmingly elected.

Halliday smiled as he sat in the office and heard the congratulations
poured in upon Judge Featherton.

"Well, it's wonderful," said one of his visitors, "how the colored
boys stood by you."

"Yes, I have been a friend to the colored people, and they know it,"
said Featherton.

It would be some months before His Honor would take his seat on the
bench, and during that time, Halliday hoped to finish his office
course.

He was surprised when Featherton came to him a couple of weeks after
the election and said, "Well, Bert, I guess I can get along now. I'll
be shutting up this office pretty soon. Here are your wages and here
is a little gift I wish to add out of respect to you for your kindness
during my run for office."

Bert took the wages, but the added ten dollar note he waved aside.
"No, I thank you, Mr. Featherton," he said, "what I did, I did from a
belief in your fitness for the place, and out of loyalty to my
employer. I don't want any money for it."

"Then let us say that I have raised your wages to this amount."

"No, that would only be evasion. I want no more than you promised to
give me."

"Very well, then accept my thanks, anyway."

What things he had at the office Halliday took away that night. A
couple of days later he remembered a book which he had failed to get
and returned for it. The office was as usual. Mr. Featherton was a
little embarrassed and nervous. At Halliday's desk sat a young white
man about his own age. He was copying a deed for Mr. Featherton.

PARY IV

Bertram Halliday went home, burning with indignation at the treatment
he had received at the hands of the Christian judge.

"He has used me as a housemaid would use a lemon," he said, "squeezed
all out of me he could get, and then flung me into the street. Well,
Webb was nearer right than I thought."

He was now out of everything. His place at the factory had been
filled, and no new door opened to him. He knew what reward a search
for work brought a man of his color in Broughton so he did not bestir
himself to go over the old track again. He thanked his stars that he,
at least, had money enough to carry him away from the place and he
determined to go. His spirit was quelled, but not broken.

Just before leaving, he wrote to Davis.

"My dear Webb!" the letter ran, "you, after all, were right. We have
little or no show in the fight for life among these people. I have
struggled for two years here at Broughton, and now find myself back
where I was when I first stepped out of school with a foolish faith in
being equipped for something. One thing, my eyes have been opened
anyway, and I no longer judge so harshly the shiftless and unambitious
among my people. I hardly see how a people, who have so much to
contend with and so little to hope for, can go on striving and
aspiring. But the very fact that they do, breeds in me a respect for
them. I now see why so many promising young men, class orators,
valedictorians and the like fall by the wayside and are never heard
from after commencement day. I now see why the sleeping and dining-car
companies are supplied by men with better educations than half the
passengers whom they serve. They get tired of swimming always against
the tide, as who would not? and are content to drift.

"I know that a good many of my friends would say that I am whining.
Well, suppose I am, that's the business of a whipped cur. The dog on
top can bark, but the under dog must howl.

"Nothing so breaks a man's spirit as defeat, constant, unaltering,
hopeless defeat. That's what I've experienced. I am still studying law
in a half-hearted way for I don't know what I am going to do with it
when I have been admitted. Diplomas don't draw clients. We have been
taught that merit wins. But I have learned that the adages, as well as
the books and the formulas were made by and for others than us of the
black race.

"They say, too, that our brother Americans sympathize with us, and
will help us when we help ourselves. Bah! The only sympathy that I
have ever seen on the part of the white man was not for the negro
himself, but for some portion of white blood that the colored man had
got tangled up in his veins.

"But there, perhaps my disappointment has made me sour, so think no
more of what I have said. I am going now to do what I abhor. Going
South to try to find a school. It's awful. But I don't want any one to
pity me. There are several thousands of us in the same position.

"I am glad you are prospering. You were better equipped than I was
with a deal of materialism and a dearth of ideals. Give us a line when
you are in good heart.

"Yours, HALLIDAY.

"P.S.--Just as I finished writing I had a note from Judge Featherton
offering me the court messengership at five dollars a week. I am
twenty-five. The place was held before by a white boy of fifteen. I
declined. 'Southward Ho!'"

Davis was not without sympathy as he read his friend's letter in a
city some distance away. He had worked in a hotel, saved money enough
to start a barber-shop and was prospering. His white customers joked
with him and patted him on the back, and he was already known to have
political influence. Yes, he sympathized with Bert, but he laughed
over the letter and jingled the coins in his pockets.

"Thank heaven," he said, "that I have no ideals to be knocked into a
cocked hat. A colored man has no business with ideals--not in _this_
nineteenth century!"

JIM'S PROBATION

For so long a time had Jim been known as the hardest sinner on the
plantation that no one had tried to reach the heart under his outward
shell even in camp-meeting and revival times. Even good old Brother
Parker, who was ever looking after the lost and straying sheep, gave
him up as beyond recall.

"Dat Jim," he said, "Oomph, de debbil done got his stamp on dat boy,
an' dey ain' no use in tryin' to scratch hit off."

"But Parker," said his master, "that's the very sort of man you want
to save. Don't you know it's your business as a man of the gospel to
call sinners to repentance?"

"Lawd, Mas' Mordaunt," exclaimed the old man, "my v'ice done got
hoa'se callin' Jim, too long ergo to talk erbout. You jes' got to let
him go 'long, maybe some o' dese days he gwine slip up on de gospel
an' fall plum' inter salvation."

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