The Quest of the Silver Fleece by W. E. B. Du Bois

W >> W. E. B. Du Bois >> The Quest of the Silver Fleece

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

Mr. Easterly half expected this and he determined to deliver his last
shot on the run. He arose with a disappointed air.

"Of course, Mrs. Vanderpool, I see how it is: you have plenty and one
can't expect your services or influence for nothing. It had occurred to
me that your husband might like something political; but I presume not."

"Something political?"

"Yes. You see, it's barely possible, for instance, that there will be a
change in the French ambassadorship. The present ambassador is old
and--well, I don't know, but as I say, it's possible. Of course though,
that may not appeal to you, and I can only beg your good offices in
charity if--if you see your way to help us. Well, I must be going."

"What is--I thought the President appointed ambassadors."

"To be sure, but we appoint Presidents," laughed Mr. Easterly.
"Good-day. I shall hope to see you in Washington."

"Good-day," Mrs. Vanderpool returned absently.

After he had gone she walked slowly to Zora's room and opened the door.
For a long time she stood quietly looking in. Zora was curled in a chair
with a book. She was in dreamland; in a world of books builded
thoughtfully for her by Mrs. Vanderpool, and before that by Miss Smith.
Her work took but little of her time and left hours for reading and
thinking. In that thought-life, more and more her real living centred.

Hour after hour, day after day, she lay buried, deaf and dumb to all
else. Her heart cried, up on the World's four corners of the Way, and to
it came the Vision Splendid. She gossiped with old Herodotus across the
earth to the black and blameless Ethiopians; she saw the sculptured
glories of Phidias marbled amid the splendor of the swamp; she listened
to Demosthenes and walked the Appian Way with Cornelia--while all New
York streamed beneath her window.

She saw the drunken Goths reel upon Rome and heard the careless Negroes
yodle as they galloped to Toomsville. Paris, she knew,--wonderful,
haunting Paris: the Paris of Clovis, and St. Louis; of Louis the Great,
and Napoleon III; of Balzac, and her own Dumas. She tasted the mud and
comfort of thick old London, and the while wept with Jeremiah and sang
with Deborah, Semiramis, and Atala. Mary of Scotland and Joan of Arc
held her dark hands in theirs, and Kings lifted up their sceptres.

She walked on worlds, and worlds of worlds, and heard there in her
little room the tread of armies, the paeans of victory, the breaking of
hearts, and the music of the spheres.

Mrs. Vanderpool watched her a while.

"Zora," she presently broke into the girl's absorption, "how would you
like to be Ambassador to France?"

_Twenty-four_

THE EDUCATION OF ALWYN

Miss Caroline Wynn of Washington had little faith in the world and its
people. Nor was this wholly her fault. The world had dealt cruelly with
the young dreams and youthful ambitions of the girl; partly with its
usual heartlessness, partly with that cynical and deadening reserve fund
which it has today for its darker peoples. The girl had bitterly
resented her experiences at first: she was brilliant and well-trained;
she had a real talent for sculpture, and had studied considerably; she
was sprung from at least three generations of respectable mulattoes, who
had left a little competence which yielded her three or four hundred
dollars a year. Furthermore, while not precisely pretty, she was
good-looking and interesting, and she had acquired the marks and
insignia of good breeding. Perhaps she wore her manners just a trifle
consciously; perhaps she was a little morbid that she would fail of
recognition as a lady. Nor was this unnatural: her brown skin invited a
different assumption. Despite this almost unconscious mental
aggressiveness, she was unusually presentable and always well-groomed
and pleasant of speech. Yet she found nearly all careers closed to her.
At first it seemed accidental, the luck of life. Then she attributed it
to her sex; but at last she was sure that, beyond chance and womanhood,
it was the colorline that was hemming her in. Once convinced of this,
she let her imagination play and saw the line even where it did not
exist.

With her bit of property and brilliant parts she had had many suitors
but they had been refused one after another for reasons she could hardly
have explained. For years now Tom Teerswell had been her escort. Whether
or not Caroline Wynn would every marry him was a perennial subject of
speculation among their friends and it usually ended in the verdict that
she could not afford it--that it was financially impossible.

Nevertheless, the two were usually seen in public together, and although
she often showed her quiet mastery of the situation, seldom had she
snubbed him so openly as at the Treble Clef concert.

Teerswell was furious and began to plot vengeance; but Miss Wynn was
attracted by the personality of Bles Alwyn. Southern country Negroes
were rare in her set, but here was a man of intelligence and keenness
coupled with an amazing frankness and modesty, and perceptibly shadowed
by sorrow. The combination was, so far as she had observed, both rare
and temporary and she was disposed to watch it in this case purely as a
matter of intellectual curiosity. At the door of her home, therefore,
after a walk of unusual interest, she said:

"I'm going to have a few friends in next Tuesday night; won't you come,
Mr. Alwyn?" And Mr. Alwyn said that he would.

Next morning Miss Wynn rather repented her hasty invitation, but of
course nothing could be done now. Nothing? Well, there was one thing;
and she went to the telephone. A suggestion to Bles that he might
profitably extend his acquaintance sent him to a certain tailor shop
kept by a friend of hers; a word to the tailor guarded against the least
suspicion of intrigue entering Bles's head.

It turned out quite as Miss Wynn had designed; Mr. Grey, the tailor,
gave Bles some points on dressing, and made him, Southern fashion, a
frock-coat for dress wear that set off his fine figure. On the night of
the gathering at Miss Wynn's Bles dressed with care, hesitating long
over a necktie, but at last choosing one which he had recently purchased
and which pleased him particularly. He was prompt to the minute and was
consequently the first guest; but Miss Wynn's greeting was so quietly
cordial that his embarrassment soon fled. She looked him over at leisure
and sighed at his tie; otherwise he was thoroughly presentable according
to the strictest Washington standard.

They sat down and talked of generalities. Then an idea occurring to her,
she conducted the conversation by devious paths to ties and asked Alwyn
if he had heard of the fad of collecting ties. He had not, and she
showed him a sofa pillow.

"Your tie quite attracted me," she said; "it would make just the dash of
color I need in my new pillow."

"You may have it and welcome. I'll send--"

"Oh, no! A bird in the hand, you know. I'll trade with you now for
another I have."

"Done!"

The exchange was soon made, Miss Wynn tying the new one herself and
sticking a small carved pin in it. Bles slowly sat down again, and after
a pause said, "Thank you."

She looked up quickly, but he seemed quite serious and good-natured.

"You see," he explained, "in the country we don't know much about ties."

The well-balanced Miss Wynn for a moment lost her aplomb, but only for a
moment.

"We must all learn," she replied with penetration, and so their
friendship was established.

The company now began to gather, and soon the double parlor held an
assemblage of twenty-five or thirty persons. They formed a picturesque
group: conventional but graceful in dress; animated in movement; full of
good-natured laughter, but quite un-American in the beautiful modulation
of their speaking tones; chiefly noticeable, however, to a stranger, in
the vast variety of color in skin, which imparted to the throng a
piquant and unusual interest. Every color was here; from the dark brown
of Alwyn, who was customarily accounted black, to the pale pink-white of
Miss Jones, who could "pass for white" when she would, and found her
greatest difficulties when she was trying to "pass" for black. Midway
between these two extremes lay the sallow pastor of the church, the
creamy Miss Williams, the golden yellow of Mr. Teerswell, the golden
brown of Miss Johnson, and the velvet brown of Mr. Grey. The guest
themselves did not notice this; they were used to asking one's color as
one asks of height and weight; it was simply an extra dimension in their
world whereby to classify men.

Beyond this and their hair, there was little to distinguish them from a
modern group of men and women. The speech was a softened English, purely
and, on the whole, correctly spoken--so much so that it seemed at first
almost unfamiliar to Bles, and he experienced again the uncomfortable
feeling of being among strangers. Then, too, he missed the loud but
hearty good-nature of what he had always called "his people." To be
sure, a more experienced observer might have noted a lively, excitable
tropical temperament set and cast in a cold Northern mould, and yet
flashing fire now and then in a sudden anomalous out-bursting. But Bles
missed this; he seemed to have slipped and lost his bearings, and the
characteristics of his simple world were rolling curiously about. Here
stood a black man with a white man's voice, and yonder a white woman
with a Negro's musical cadences; and yet again, a brown girl with
exactly Miss Cresswell's air, and yonder, Miss Williams, with Zora's
wistful willfulness.

Bles was bewildered and silent, and his great undying sorrow sank on his
heart with sickening hopeless weight. His hands got in the way and he
found no natural nook in all those wide and tastefully furnished rooms.
Once he discovered himself standing by a marble statue of a nude woman,
and he edged away; then he stumbled over a rug and saved himself only to
step on Miss Jones's silken train. Miss Jones's smile of pardon was
wintry. When he did approach a group and listen, they seemed speaking of
things foreign to him--usually of people he did not know, their homes,
their doings, their daughters and their fathers. They seemed to know
people intimately who lived far away.

"You mean the Smiths of Boston?" asked Miss Jones.

"No, of Cleveland. They're not related."

"I heard that McGhee of St. Paul will be in the city next week with his
daughter."

"Yes, and the Bentleys of Chicago."

Bles passed on. He was disappointed. He was full of things to say, of
mighty matters to discuss; he felt like stopping these people and
crying: "Ho! What of the morning? How goes the great battle for black
men's rights? I have came with messages from the host, to you who guard
the mountain tops."

Apparently they were not discussing or caring about "the Problem." He
grew disgusted and was edging toward the door when he encountered his
hostess.

"Is all well with you, Mr. Alwyn?" she asked lightly.

"No, I'm not enjoying myself," said Bles, truthfully.

"Delicious! And why not?"

He regarded her earnestly.

"There are so many things to talk about," he said; "earnest things;
things of importance. I--I think when our people--" he hesitated.
Our?--was _our_ right? But he went on: "When our people meet we ought
to talk of our situation, and what to do and--"

Miss Wynn continued to smile.

"We're all talking of it all the time," she said.

He looked incredulous.

"Yes, we are," she insisted. "We veil it a little, and laugh as lightly
as we can; but there is only one thought in this room, and that's grave
and serious enough to suit even you, and quite your daily topic."

"But I don't understand."

"Ah, there's the rub. You haven't learned our language yet. We don't
just blurt into the Negro Problem; that's voted bad form. We leave that
to our white friends. We saunter to it sideways, touch it delicately
because"--her face became a little graver--"because, you see, it hurts."

Bles stood thoughtful and abashed.

"I--I think I understand," he gravely said at last.

"Come here," she said with a sudden turn, and they joined an absorbed
group in the midst of a conversation.

"--Thinking of sending Jessie to Bryn Mawr," Bles heard Miss Jones
saying.

"Could she pass?"

"Oh, they might think her Spanish."

"But it's a snobbish place and she would have to give up all her
friends."

"Yes, Freddie could scarcely visit--" the rest was lost.

"Which, being interpreted," whispered Miss Wynn, "means that Bryn Mawr
draws the color line while we at times surmount it."

They moved on to another group.

"--Splendid draughtsman," a man was saying, "and passed at the head of
the crowd; but, of course, he has no chance."

"Why, it's civil-service, isn't it?"

"It is. But what of that? There was Watson--"

Miss Wynn did not pause. She whispered: "This is the tale of Civil
Service Reform, and how this mighty government gets rid of black men
who know too much."

"But--" Bles tried to protest.

"Hush," Miss Wynn commanded and they joined the group about the piano.
Teerswell, who was speaking, affected not to notice them, and continued:

"--I tell you, it's got to come. We must act independently and not be
bought by a few offices."

"That's all well enough for you to talk, Teerswell; you have no wife and
babies dependant on you. Why should we who have sacrifice the substance
for the shadow?"

"You see, the Judge has got the substance," laughed Teerswell. "Still I
insist: divide and conquer."

"Nonsense! Unite, and keep."

Bles was puzzled.

"They're talking of the coming campaign," said Miss Wynn.

"What!" exclaimed Bles aloud. "You don't mean that any one can advise a
black man to vote the Democratic ticket?"

An elderly man turned to them.

"Thank you, sir," he said; "that is just my attitude; I fought for my
freedom. I know what slavery is; may I forget God when I vote for
traitors and slave-holders."

The discussion waxed warm and Miss Wynn turned away and sought Miss
Jones.

"Come, my dear," she said, "it's 'The Problem' again." They sauntered
away toward a ring of laughter.

The discussion thus begun at Miss Wynn's did not end there. It was on
the eve of the great party conventions, and the next night Sam Stillings
came around to get some crumbs from this assembly of the inner circle,
into which Alwyn had been so unaccountably snatched, and outside of
which, despite his endeavors, Stillings lingered and seemed destined to
linger. But Stillings was a patient, resolute man beneath his
deferential exterior, and he saw in Bles a stepping stone. So he began
to drop in at his lodgings and tonight invited him to the Bethel
Literary.

"What's that?" asked Bles.

"A debating club--oldest in the city; the best people all attend."

Bles hesitated. He had half made up his mind that this was the proper
time to call on Miss Wynn. He told Stillings so, and told him also of
the evening and the discussion.

"Why, that's the subject up tonight," Stillings declared, "and Miss Wynn
will be sure to be there. You can make your call later. Perhaps you
wouldn't mind taking me when you call." Alwyn reached for his hat.

When they arrived, the basement of the great church was filling with a
throng of men and women. Soon the officers and the speaker of the
evening appeared. The president was a brown woman who spoke easily and
well, and introduced the main speaker. He was a tall, thin,
hatchet-faced black man, clean shaven and well dressed, a lawyer by
profession. His theme was "The Democratic Party and the Negro." His
argument was cool, carefully reasoned, and plausible. He was evidently
feeling for the sympathy of his audience, and while they were not
enthusiastic, they warmed to him gradually and he certainly was strongly
impressing them.

Bles was thinking. He sat in the back of the hall, tense, alert,
nervous. As the speaker progressed a white man came in and sat down
beside him. He was spectacled, with bushy eyebrows and a sleepy look.
But he did not sleep. He was very observant.

"Who's speaking?" he asked Bles, and Bles told him. Then he inquired
about one or two other persons. Bles could not inform him, but Stillings
could and did. Stillings seemed willing to devote considerable time to
him.

Bles forgot the man. He was almost crouching for a spring, and no sooner
had the speaker, with a really fine apostrophe to independence and
reason in voting, sat down, than Bles was on his feet, walking forward.
His form was commanding, his voice deep and musical, and his
earnestness terribly evident. He hardly waited for recognition from the
slightly astonished president, but fairly burst into speech.

"I am from Alabama," he began earnestly, "and I know the Democratic
Party." Then he told of government and conditions in the Black Belt, of
the lying, oppression, and helplessness of the sodden black masses;
then, turning, he reminded them of the history of slavery. Finally, he
pointed to Lincoln's picture and to Sumner's and mentioned other white
friends.

"And, my brothers, they are not all dead yet. The gentleman spoke of
Senator Smith and blamed and ridiculed him. I know Senator Smith but
slightly, but I do know his sister well."

Dropping to simple narrative, he told of Miss Smith and of his coming to
school; and if his audience felt that great depth of emotion that welled
beneath his quiet, almost hesitating, address, it was not simply because
of what he did say, but because, too, of the unspoken story that lay too
deep for words. He spoke for nearly an hour, and when he stopped, for a
moment his hearers sighed and then sprang into a whirlwind of applause.
They shouted, clapped, and waved while he sat in blank amazement, and
was with difficulty forced to the rostrum to bow again and again. The
spectacled white man leaned over to Stillings.

"Who is he?" he asked. Stillings told him. The man noted the name and
went quietly out.

Miss Wynn sat lost in thought, and Teerswell beside her fumed. She was
not easily moved, but that speech had moved her. If he could thus stir
men and not be himself swayed, she mused, he would be--invincible. But
tonight he was moved as greatly as his hearers had been, and that was
dangerous. If his intense belief happened to be popular, all right; but
if not? She frowned. He was worth watching, she concluded; quite worth
watching, and perhaps worth guiding.

When Alwyn accompanied her home that night, Miss Wynn set herself to
know him better for she suspected that he might be a coming man. The
best preliminary to her purpose was, she knew, to speak frankly of
herself, and that she did. She told him of her youth and training, her
ambitions, her disappointments. Quite unconsciously her cynicism crept
to the fore, until in word and tone she had almost scoffed at many
things that Alwyn held true and dear. The touch was too light, the
meaning too elusive, for Alwyn to grasp always the point of attack; but
somehow he got the distant impression that Miss Wynn had little faith in
Truth and Goodness and Love. Vaguely shocked he grew so silent that she
noticed it and concluded she had said too much. But he pursued the
subject.

"Surely there must be many friends of our race willing to stand for the
right and sacrifice for it?"

She laughed unpleasantly, almost mockingly.

"Where?"

"Well--there's Miss Smith."

"She gets a salary, doesn't she?"

"A very small one."

"About as large as she could earn. North, I don't doubt."

"But the unselfish work she does--the utter sacrifice?"

"Oh, well, we'll omit Alabama, and admit the exception."

"Well, here, in Washington--there's your friend, the Judge, who has
befriended you so, as you admit."

She laughed again.

"You remember our visit to Senator Smith?"

"Yes."

"Well, it got the Judge his reappointment to the school board."

"He deserved it, didn't he?"

"I deserved it," she said luxuriously, hugging her knee and smiling;
"you see, his appointment meant mine."

"Well, what of it--didn't--"

"Listen," she cut in a little sharply. "Once a young brown girl, with
boundless faith in white folks, went to a Judge's office to ask for an
appointment which she deserved. There was no one there. The benign old
Judge with his saintly face and white hair suggested that she lay aside
her wraps and spend the afternoon."

Bles arose to his feet.

"What--what did you do?" he asked.

"Sit down--there's a good boy." I said: "'Judge, a friend is expecting
me at two,' it was then half-past one, 'would I not best telephone?'"

"'Step right into the booth,' said the Judge, quite indulgently." Miss
Wynn leaned back, and Bles felt his heart sinking; but he said nothing.
"And then," she continued, "I telephoned the Judge's wife that he was
anxious to see her on a matter of urgent business; namely, my
appointment." She gazed reflectively out of the window. "You should have
seen his face when I told him," she concluded. "I was appointed."

But Bles asked coldly:

"Why didn't you have him arrested?"

"For what? And suppose I had?"

Bles threw out his arms helplessly.

"Oh! it isn't as bad as that all over the world, is it?"

"It's worse," affirmed Miss Wynn, quietly positive.

"And you are still friendly with him?"

"What would you have? I use the world; I did not make it; I did not
choose it. He is the world. Through him I earn my bread and butter. I
have shown him his place. Shall I try in addition to reform? Shall I
make him an enemy? I have neither time nor inclination. Shall I resign
and beg, or go tilting at windmills? If he were the only one it would be
different; but they're all alike." Her face grew hard. "Have I shocked
you?" she said as they went toward the door.

"No," he answered slowly. "But I still--believe in the world."

"You are young yet, my friend," she lightly replied. "And besides, that
good Miss Smith has gone and grafted a New England conscience on a
tropical heart, and--dear me!--but it's a gorgeous misfit.
Good-bye--come again." She bowed him graciously out, and paused to take
the mail from the box. There was, among many others, a letter from
Senator Smith.

_Twenty-five_

THE CAMPAIGN

Mr. Easterly sat in Mrs. Vanderpool's apartments in the New Willard,
Washington, drinking tea. His hostess was saying rather carelessly:

"Do you know, Mr. Vanderpool has developed a quite unaccountable liking
for the idea of being Ambassador to France?"

"Dear me!" mildly exclaimed Mr. Easterly, helping himself liberally to
cakes. "I do hope the thing can be managed, but--"

"What are the difficulties?" Mrs. Vanderpool interrupted.

"Well, first and foremost, the difficulty of electing our man."

"I thought that a foregone conclusion."

"It was. But do you know that we're encountering opposition from the
most unexpected source?"

The lady was receptive, and the speaker concluded:

"The Negroes."

"The Negroes!"

"Yes. There are five hundred thousand or more black voters in pivotal
Northern States, you know, and they're in revolt. In a close election
the Negroes of New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois choose the
President."

"What's the matter?"

"Well, business interests have driven our party to make friends with the
South. The South has disfranchised Negroes and lynched a few. The
darkies say we've deserted them."

Mrs. Vanderpool laughed.

"What extraordinary penetration," she cried.

"At any rate," said Mr. Easterly, drily, "Mr. Vanderpool's first step
toward Paris lies in getting the Northern Negroes to vote the Republican
ticket. After that the way is clear."

Mrs. Vanderpool mused.

"I don't suppose you know any one who is acquainted with any number of
these Northern darkies?" continued Mr. Easterly.

"Not on my calling-list," said Mrs. Vanderpool, and then she added more
thoughtfully:

"There's a young clerk in the Treasury Department named Alwyn who has
brains. He's just from the South, and I happened to read of him this
morning--see here."

Mr. Easterly read an account of the speech at the Bethel Literary.

"We'll look this young man up," he decided; "he may help. Of course,
Mrs. Vanderpool, we'll probably win; we can buy these Negroes off with a
little money and a few small offices; then if you will use your
influence for the part with the Southerners, I can confidently predict
from four to eight years' sojourn in Paris."

Mrs. Vanderpool smiled and called her maid as Mr. Easterly went.

"Zora!" She had to call twice, for Zora, with widened eyes, was reading
the Washington Post.

Meantime in the office of Senator Smith, toward which Mr. Easterly was
making his way, several members of the National Republican campaign
committee had been closeted the day before.

"Now, about the niggers," the chairman had asked; "how much more boodle
do they want?"

"That's what's bothering us," announced a member; "it isn't the boodle
crowd that's hollering, but a new set, and I don't understand them; I
don't know what they represent, nor just how influential they are."

"What can I do to help you?" asked Senator Smith.

"This. You are here at Washington with these Negro office-holders at
your back. Find out for us just what this revolt is, how far it goes,
and what good men we can get to swing the darkies into line--see?"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25