The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories by Paul Laurence Dunbar

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His constituent did not tell him that even if his pride would let him
go back home a disappointed applicant, he had not the means wherewith
to go. He did not tell him that he was trying to keep up appearances
and hide the truth from his wife, who, with their two children, waited
and hoped for him at home.

When he went home that night, Col. Mason saw instantly that things had
gone wrong with him. But here the tact and delicacy of the old
politician came uppermost and, without trying to draw his story from
him--for he already divined the situation too well--he sat for a long
time telling the younger man stories of the ups and downs of men whom
he had known in his long and active life.

They were stories of hardship, deprivation and discouragement. But the
old man told them ever with the touch of cheeriness and the note of
humor that took away the ghastly hopelessness of some of the pictures.
He told them with such feeling and sympathy that Johnson was moved to
frankness and told him his own pitiful tale.

Now that he had some one to whom he could open his heart, Johnson
himself was no less willing to look the matter in the face, and even
during the long summer days, when he had begun to live upon his
wardrobe, piece by piece, he still kept up; although some of his
pomposity went, along with the Prince Albert coat and the shiny hat.
He now wore a shiny coat, and less showy head-gear. For a couple of
weeks, too, he disappeared, and as he returned with some money, it was
fair to presume that he had been at work somewhere, but he could not
stay away from the city long.

It was nearing the middle of autumn when Col. Mason came home to their
rooms one day to find his colleague more disheartened and depressed
than he had ever seen him before. He was lying with his head upon his
folded arm, and when he looked up there were traces of tears upon his
face.

"Why, why, what's the matter now?" asked the old man. "No bad news, I
hope."

"Nothing worse than I should have expected," was the choking answer.
"It's a letter from my wife. She's sick and one of the babies is down,
but"--his voice broke--"she tells me to stay and fight it out. My God,
Mason, I could stand it if she whined or accused me or begged me to
come home, but her patient, long-suffering bravery breaks me all up."

Col. Mason stood up and folded his arms across his big chest. "She's a
brave little woman," he said, gravely. "I wish her husband was as
brave a man." Johnson raised his head and arms from the table where
they were sprawled, as the old man went on: "The hard conditions of
life in our race have taught our women a patience and fortitude which
the women of no other race have ever displayed. They have taught the
men less, and I am sorry, very sorry. The thing, that as much as
anything else, made the blacks such excellent soldiers in the civil
war was their patient endurance of hardship. The softer education of
more prosperous days seems to have weakened this quality. The man who
quails or weakens in this fight of ours against adverse circumstances
would have quailed before--no, he would have run from an enemy on the
field."

"Why, Mason, your mood inspires me. I feel as if I could go forth to
battle cheerfully." For the moment, Johnson's old pomposity had
returned to him, but in the next, a wave of despondency bore it down.
"But that's just it; a body feels as if he could fight if he only had
something to fight. But here you strike out and hit--nothing. It's
only a contest with time. It's waiting--waiting--waiting!"

"In this case, waiting is fighting."

"Well, even that granted, it matters not how grand his cause, the
soldier needs his rations."

"Forage," shot forth the answer like a command.

"Ah, Mason, that's well enough in good country; but the army of
office-seekers has devastated Washington. It has left a track as bare
as lay behind Sherman's troopers." Johnson rose more cheerfully. "I'm
going to the telegraph office," he said as he went out.

A few days after this, he was again in the best of spirits, for there
was money in his pocket.

"What have you been doing?" asked Mr. Toliver.

His friend laughed like a boy. "Something very imprudent, I'm sure you
will say. I've mortgaged my little place down home. It did not bring
much, but I had to have money for the wife and the children, and to
keep me until Congress assembles; then I believe that everything will
be all right."

Col. Mason's brow clouded and he sighed.

On the reassembling of the two Houses, Congressman Barker was one of
the first men in his seat. Mr. Cornelius Johnson went to see him soon.

"What, you here already, Cornelius?" asked the legislator.

"I haven't been away," was the answer.

"Well, you've got the hang-on, and that's what an officer-seeker
needs. Well, I'll attend to your matter among the very first. I'll
visit the President in a day or two."

The listener's heart throbbed hard. After all his waiting, triumph was
his at last.

He went home walking on air, and Col. Mason rejoiced with him. In a
few days came word from Barker: "Your appointment was sent in to-day.
I'll rush it through on the other side. Come up to-morrow afternoon."

Cornelius and Mr. Toliver hugged each other.

"It came just in time," said the younger man; "the last of my money
was about gone, and I should have had to begin paying off that
mortgage with no prospect of ever doing it."

The two had suffered together, and it was fitting that they should be
together to receive the news of the long-desired happiness; so arm in
arm they sauntered down to the Congressman's office about five
o'clock the next afternoon. In honor of the occasion, Mr. Johnson had
spent his last dollar in redeeming the grey Prince Albert and the
shiny hat. A smile flashed across Barker's face as he noted the
change.

"Well, Cornelius," he said, "I'm glad to see you still
prosperous-looking, for there were some alleged irregularities in your
methods down in Alabama, and the Senate has refused to confirm you. I
did all I could for you, but--"

The rest of the sentence was lost, as Col. Mason's arms received his
friend's fainting form.

"Poor devil!" said the Congressman. "I should have broken it more
gently."

Somehow Col. Mason got him home and to bed, where for nine weeks he
lay wasting under a complete nervous give-down. The little wife and
the children came up to nurse him, and the woman's ready industry
helped him to such creature comforts as his sickness demanded. Never
once did she murmur; never once did her faith in him waver. And when
he was well enough to be moved back, it was money that she had earned,
increased by what Col. Mason, in his generosity of spirit, took from
his own narrow means, that paid their second-class fare back to the
South.

During the fever-fits of his illness, the wasted politician first
begged piteously that they would not send him home unplaced, and then
he would break out in the most extravagant and pompous boasts about
his position, his Congressman and his influence. When he came to
himself, he was silent, morose, and bitter. Only once did he melt. It
was when he held Col. Mason's hand and bade him good-bye. Then the
tears came into his eyes, and what he would have said was lost among
his broken words.

As he stood upon the platform of the car as it moved out, and gazed at
the white dome and feathery spires of the city, growing into grey
indefiniteness, he ground his teeth, and raising his spent hand, shook
it at the receding view. "Damn you! damn you!" he cried. "Damn your
deceit, your fair cruelties; damn you, you hard, white liar!"

AN OLD-TIME CHRISTMAS

When the holidays came round the thoughts of 'Liza Ann Lewis always
turned to the good times that she used to have at home when, following
the precedent of anti-bellum days, Christmas lasted all the week and
good cheer held sway. She remembered with regret the gifts that were
given, the songs that were sung to the tinkling of the banjo and the
dances with which they beguiled the night hours. And the eating! Could
she forget it? The great turkey, with the fat literally bursting from
him; the yellow yam melting into deliciousness in the mouth; or in
some more fortunate season, even the juicy 'possum grinning in brown
and greasy death from the great platter.

In the ten years she had lived in New York, she had known no such
feast-day. Food was strangely dear in the Metropolis, and then there
was always the weekly rental of the poor room to be paid. But she had
kept the memory of the old times green in her heart, and ever turned
to it with the fondness of one for something irretrievably lost.

That is how Jimmy came to know about it. Jimmy was thirteen and small
for his age, and he could not remember any such times as his mother
told him about. Although he said with great pride to his partner and
rival, Blinky Scott, "Chee, Blink, you ought to hear my ol' lady talk
about de times dey have down w'ere we come from at Christmas; N'Yoick
ain't in it wid dem, you kin jist bet." And Blinky, who was a New
Yorker clear through with a New Yorker's contempt for anything outside
of the city, had promptly replied with a downward spreading of his
right hand, "Aw fu'git it!"

Jimmy felt a little crest-fallen for a minute, but he lifted himself
in his own estimation by threatening to "do" Blinky and the cloud
rolled by.

'Liza Ann knew that Jimmy couldn't ever understand what she meant by
an old-time Christmas unless she could show him by some faint approach
to its merrymaking, and it had been the dream of her life to do this.
But every year she had failed, until now she was a little ahead.

Her plan was too good to keep, and when Jimmy went out that Christmas
eve morning to sell his papers, she had disclosed it to him and bade
him hurry home as soon as he was done, for they were to have a real
old-time Christmas.

Jimmy exhibited as much pleasure as he deemed consistent with his
dignity and promised to be back early to add his earnings to the fund
for celebration.

When he was gone, 'Liza Ann counted over her savings lovingly and
dreamed of what she would buy her boy, and what she would have for
dinner on the next day. Then a voice, a colored man's voice, she knew,
floated up to her. Some one in the alley below her window was singing
"The Old Folks at Home."

"All up an' down the whole creation,
Sadly I roam,
Still longing for the old plantation,
An' for the old folks at home."

She leaned out of the window and listened and when the song had ceased
and she drew her head in again, there were tears in her eyes--the
tears of memory and longing. But she crushed them away, and laughed
tremulously to herself as she said, "What a reg'lar ol' fool I'm
a-gittin' to be." Then she went out into the cold, snow-covered
streets, for she had work to do that day that would add a mite to her
little Christmas store.

Down in the street, Jimmy was calling out the morning papers and
racing with Blinky Scott for prospective customers; these were only
transients, of course, for each had his regular buyers whose
preferences were scrupulously respected by both in agreement with a
strange silent compact.

The electric cars went clanging to and fro, the streets were full of
shoppers with bundles and bunches of holly, and all the sights and
sounds were pregnant with the message of the joyous time. People were
full of the holiday spirit. The papers were going fast, and the little
colored boy's pockets were filling with the desired coins. It would
have been all right with Jimmy if the policeman hadn't come up on him
just as he was about to toss the "bones," and when Blinky Scott had
him "faded" to the amount of five hard-earned pennies.

Well, they were trying to suppress youthful gambling in New York, and
the officer had to do his duty. The others scuttled away, but Jimmy
was so absorbed in the game that he didn't see the "cop" until he was
right on him, so he was "pinched." He blubbered a little and wiped his
grimy face with his grimier sleeve until it was one long, brown smear.
You know this was Jimmy's first time.

The big blue-coat looked a little bit ashamed as he marched him down
the street, followed at a distance by a few hooting boys. Some of the
holiday shoppers turned to look at them as they passed and murmured,
"Poor little chap; I wonder what he's been up to now." Others said
sarcastically, "It seems strange that 'copper' didn't call for help."
A few of his brother officers grinned at him as he passed, and he
blushed, but the dignity of the law must be upheld and the crime of
gambling among the newsboys was a growing evil.

Yes, the dignity of the law must be upheld, and though Jimmy was only
a small boy, it would be well to make an example of him. So his name
and age were put down on the blotter, and over against them the
offence with which he was charged. Then he was locked up to await
trial the next morning.

"It's shameful," the bearded sergeant said, "how the kids are carryin'
on these days. People are feelin' pretty generous, an' they'll toss
'em a nickel er a dime fur their paper an' tell 'em to keep the change
fur Christmas, an' foist thing you know the little beggars are
shootin' craps er pitchin' pennies. We've got to make an example of
some of 'em."

'Liza Ann Lewis was tearing through her work that day to get home and
do her Christmas shopping, and she was singing as she worked some such
old song as she used to sing in the good old days back home. She
reached her room late and tired, but happy. Visions of a "wakening up"
time for her and Jimmy were in her mind. But Jimmy wasn't there.

"I wunner whah that little scamp is," she said, smiling; "I tol' him
to hu'y home, but I reckon he's stayin' out latah wid de evenin'
papahs so's to bring home mo' money."

Hour after hour passed and he did not come; then she grew alarmed. At
two o'clock in the morning she could stand it no longer and she went
over and awakened Blinky Scott, much to that young gentleman's
disgust, who couldn't see why any woman need make such a fuss about a
kid. He told her laconically that "Chimmie was pinched fur t'rowin' de
bones."

She heard with a sinking heart and went home to her own room to walk
the floor all night and sob.

In the morning, with all her Christmas savings tied up in a
handkerchief, she hurried down to Jefferson Market court room. There
was a full blotter that morning, and the Judge was rushing through
with it. He wanted to get home to his Christmas dinner. But he paused
long enough when he got to Jimmy's case to deliver a brief but stern
lecture upon the evil of child-gambling in New York. He said that as
it was Christmas Day he would like to release the prisoner with a
reprimand, but he thought that this had been done too often and that
it was high time to make an example of one of the offenders.

Well, it was fine or imprisonment. 'Liza Ann struggled up through the
crowd of spectators and her Christmas treasure added to what Jimmy
had, paid his fine and they went out of the court room together.

When they were in their room again she put the boy to bed, for there
was no fire and no coal to make one. Then she wrapped herself in a
shabby shawl and sat huddled up over the empty stove.

Down in the alley she heard the voice of the day before singing:

"Oh, darkies, how my heart grows weary,
Far from the old folks at home."

And she burst into tears.

A MESS OF POTTAGE

It was because the Democratic candidate for Governor was such an
energetic man that he had been able to stir Little Africa, which was a
Republican stronghold, from centre to circumference. He was a man who
believed in carrying the war into the enemy's country. Instead of
giving them a chance to attack him, he went directly into their camp,
leaving discontent and disaffection among their allies. He believed in
his principles. He had faith in his policy for the government of the
State, and, more than all, he had a convincing way of making others
see as he saw.

No other Democrat had ever thought it necessary to assail the
stronghold of Little Africa. He had merely put it into his forecast as
"solidly against," sent a little money to be distributed desultorily
in the district, and then left it to go its way, never doubting what
that way would be. The opposing candidates never felt that the place
was worthy of consideration, for as the Chairman of the Central
Committee said, holding up his hand with the fingers close together:
"What's the use of wasting any speakers down there? We've got 'em just
like that."

It was all very different with Mr. Lane.

"Gentlemen," he said to the campaign managers, "that black district
must not be ignored. Those people go one way because they are never
invited to go another."

"Oh, I tell you now, Lane," said his closest friend, "it'll be a waste
of material to send anybody down there. They simply go like a flock of
sheep, and nothing is going to turn them."

"What's the matter with the bellwether?" said Lane sententiously.

"That's just exactly what _is_ the matter. Their bellwether is an old
deacon named Isham Swift, and you couldn't turn him with a
forty-horsepower crank."

"There's nothing like trying."

"There are many things very similar to failing, but none so bad."

"I'm willing to take the risk."

"Well, all right; but whom will you send? We can't waste a good man."

"I'll go myself."

"What, you?"

"Yes, I."

"Why, you'd be the laughing-stock of the State."

"All right; put me down for that office if I never reach the
gubernatorial chair."

"Say, Lane, what was the name of that Spanish fellow who went out to
fight windmills, and all that sort of thing?"

"Never mind, Widner; you may be a good political hustler, but you're
dead bad on your classics," said Lane laughingly.

So they put him down for a speech in Little Africa, because he himself
desired it.

Widner had not lied to him about Deacon Swift, as he found when he
tried to get the old man to preside at the meeting. The Deacon refused
with indignation at the very idea. But others were more acquiescent,
and Mount Moriah church was hired at a rental that made the Rev.
Ebenezer Clay and all his Trustees rub their hands with glee and think
well of the candidate. Also they looked at their shiny coats and
thought of new suits.

There was much indignation expressed that Mount Moriah should have
lent herself to such a cause, and there were murmurs even among the
congregation where the Rev. Ebenezer Clay was usually an unquestioned
autocrat. But, because Eve was the mother of all of us and the thing
was so new, there was a great crowd on the night of the meeting. The
Rev. Ebenezer Clay presided. Lane had said, "If I can't get the
bellwether to jump the way I want, I'll transfer the bell." This he
had tried to do. The effort was very like him.

The Rev. Mr. Clay, looking down into more frowning faces than he cared
to see, spoke more boldly than he felt. He told his people that though
they had their own opinions and ideas, it was well to hear both sides.
He said, "The brothah," meaning the candidate, "had a few thoughts to
pussent," and he hoped they'd listen to him quietly. Then he added
subtly: "Of co'se Brothah Lane knows we colo'ed folks 're goin' to
think our own way, anyhow."

The people laughed and applauded, and Lane went to his work. They were
quiet and attentive. Every now and then some old brother grunted and
shook his head. But in the main they merely listened.

Lane was pleasing, plausible and convincing, and the brass band which
he had brought with him was especially effective. The audience left
the church shaking their heads with a different meaning, and all the
way home there were remarks such as, "He sholy tol' de truth," "Dat
man was right," "They ain't no way to 'ny a word he said."

Just at that particular moment it looked very dark for the other
candidate, especially as the brass band lingered around an hour or so
and discoursed sweet music in the streets where the negroes most did
congregate.

Twenty years ago such a thing could not have happened, but the ties
which had bound the older generation irrevocably to one party were
being loosed upon the younger men. The old men said "We know;" the
young ones said "We have heard," and so there was hardly anything of
the blind allegiance which had made even free thought seem treason to
their fathers.

Now all of this was the reason of the great indignation that was rife
in the breasts of other Little Africans and which culminated in a mass
meeting called by Deacon Isham Swift and held at Bethel Chapel a few
nights later. For two or three days before this congregation of the
opposing elements there were ominous mutterings. On the streets
little knots of negroes stood and told of the terrible thing that had
taken place at Mount Moriah. Shoulders were grasped, heads were wagged
and awful things prophesied as the result of this compromise with the
general enemy. No one was louder in his denunciation of the
treacherous course of the Rev. Ebenezer Clay than the Republican
bellwether, Deacon Swift. He saw in it signs of the break-up of racial
integrity and he bemoaned the tendency loud and long. His son Tom did
not tell him that he had gone to the meeting himself and had been one
of those to come out shaking his head in acquiescent doubt at the
truths he had heard. But he went, as in duty bound, to his father's
meeting.

The church was one thronging mass of colored citizens. On the
platform, from which the pulpit had been removed, sat Deacon Swift and
his followers. On each side of him were banners bearing glowing
inscriptions. One of the banners which the schoolmistress had prepared
read:

"His temples are our forts and towers which frown upon a tyrant
foe."

The schoolmistress taught in a mixed school. They had mixed it by
giving her a room in a white school where she had only colored pupils.
Therefore she was loyal to her party, and was known as a woman of
public spirit.

* * * * *

The meeting was an enthusiastic one, but no such demonstration was
shown through it all as when old Deacon Swift himself arose to address
the assembly. He put Moses Jackson in the chair, and then as he walked
forward to the front of the platform a great, white-haired, rugged,
black figure, he was heroic in his very crudeness. He wore a long, old
Prince Albert coat, which swept carelessly about his thin legs. His
turndown collar was disputing territory with his tie and his
waistcoat. His head was down, and he glanced out of the lower part of
his eyes over the congregation, while his hands fumbled at the sides
of his trousers in an embarrassment which may have been pretended or
otherwise.

"Mistah Cheerman," he said, "fu' myse'f, I ain't no speakah. I ain't
nevah been riz up dat way. I has plowed an' I has sowed, an' latah on
I has laid cyahpets, an' I has whitewashed. But, ladies an' gent'men,
I is a man, an' as a man I want to speak to you ter-night. We is lak a
flock o' sheep, an' in de las' week de wolf has come among ouah
midst. On evah side we has hyeahd de shephe'd dogs a-ba'kin' a-wa'nin'
unto us. But, my f'en's, de cotton o' p'ospe'ity has been stuck in
ouah eahs. Fu' thirty yeahs er mo', ef I do not disremember, we has
walked de streets an' de by-ways o' dis country an' called ouahse'ves
f'eemen. Away back yander, in de days of old, lak de chillen of Is'ul
in Egypt, a deliv'ah came unto us, an Ab'aham Lincoln a-lifted de yoke
f'om ouah shouldahs." The audience waked up and began swaying, and
there was moaning heard from both Amen corners.

"But, my f'en's, I want to ax you, who was behind Ab'aham Lincoln? Who
was it helt up dat man's han's when dey sent bayonets an' buttons to
enfo'ce his word--umph? I want to--to know who was behin' him? Wasn'
it de 'Publican pa'ty?" There were cries of "Yes, yes! dat's so!" One
old sister rose and waved her sunbonnet.

"An' now I want to know in dis hyeah day o' comin' up ef we a-gwineter
'sert de ol' flag which waved ovah Lincoln, waved ovah Gin'r'l Butler,
an' led us up straight to f'eedom? Ladies an' gent'men, an' my f'en's,
I know dar have been suttain meetin's held lately in dis pa't o' de
town. I know dar have been suttain cannerdates which have come down
hyeah an' brung us de mixed wine o' Babylon. I know dar have been dem
o' ouah own people who have drunk an' become drunk--ah! But I want to
know, an' I want to ax you ter-night as my f'en's an' my brothahs, is
we all a-gwineter do it--huh? Is we all a-gwineter drink o' dat wine?
Is we all a-gwineter reel down de perlitical street, a-staggerin' to
an' fro?--hum!"

Cries of "No! No! No!" shook the whole church.

"Gent'men an' ladies," said the old man, lowering his voice, "de
pa'able has been 'peated, an' some o' us--I ain't mentionin' no names,
an' I ain't a-blamin' no chu'ch--but I say dar is some o' us dat has
sol' dere buthrights fu' a pot o' cabbage."

What more Deacon Swift said is hardly worth the telling, for the whole
church was in confusion and little more was heard. But he carried
everything with him, and Lane's work seemed all undone. On a back seat
of the church Tom Swift, the son of the presiding officer, sat and
smiled at his father unmoved, because he had gone as far as the sixth
grade in school, and thought he knew more.

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