“Yes, Mrs. Ellsworth,” said Oceola, genuinely sorry that the end had come. Why did white folks think you could live on nothing but art? Strange! Too strange! Too strange!
V
The Persian vases in the music room were filled with long-stemmed lilies that night when Oceola Jones came down from Harlem for the last time to play for Mrs. Dora Ellsworth. Mrs. Ellsworth had on a gown of black velvet, and a collar of pearls about her neck. She was very kind and gentle to Oceola, as one would be to a child who has done a great wrong but doesn’t know any better. But to the black girl from Harlem, she looked very cold and white, and her grand piano seemed like the biggest and heaviest in the world—as Oceola sat down to play it with the technique for which Mrs. Ellsworth had paid.
As the rich and aging white woman listened to the great roll of Beethoven sonatas and to the sea and moonlight of the Chopin nocturnes, as she watched the swaying dark strong shoulders of Oceola Jones, she began to reproach the girl aloud for running away from art and music, for burying herself in Atlanta and love—love for a man unworthy of lacing up her boot straps, as Mrs. Ellsworth put it.
“You could shake the stars with your music, Oceola. Depression or no depression, I could make you great. And yet you propose to dig a grave for yourself. Art is bigger than love.”
“I believe you, Mrs. Ellsworth,” said Oceola, not turning away from the piano. “But being married won’t keep me from making tours, or being an artist.”
“Yes, it will,” said Mrs. Ellsworth. “He’ll take all the music out of you.”
“No, he won’t,” said Oceola.
“You don’t know, child,” said Mrs. Ellsworth, “what men are like.”
“Yes, I do,” said Oceola simply. And her fingers began to wander slowly up and down the keyboard, flowing into the soft and lazy syncopation of a Negro blues, a blues that deepened and grew into rollicking jazz, then into an earth-throbbing rhythm that shook the lilies in the Persian vases of Mrs. Ellsworth’s music room. Louder than the voice of the white woman who cried that Oceola was deserting beauty, deserting her real self, deserting her hope in life, the flood of wild syncopation filled the house, then sank into the slow and singing blues with which it had begun.
The girl at the piano heard the white woman saying, “Is this what I spent thousands of dollars to teach you?”
“No,” said Oceola simply. “This is mine.… Listen!… How sad and gay it is. Blue and happy—laughing and crying.… How white like you and black like me.… How much like a man.… And how like a woman.… Warm as Pete’s mouth.… These are the blues.… I’m playing.”
Mrs. Ellsworth sat very still in her chair looking at the lilies trembling delicately in the priceless Persian vases, while Oceola made the bass notes throb like tomtoms deep in the earth.
O, if I could holler
sang the blues,
Like a mountain jack,
I’d go up on de mountain
sang the blues,
And call my baby back.
“And I,” said Mrs. Ellsworth rising from her chair, “would stand looking at the stars.”
8
——
RED-HEADED BABY
“DEAD, DEAD AS HELL, these little burgs on the Florida coast. Lot of half-built skeleton houses left over from the boom. Never finished. Never will be finished. Mosquitoes, sand, niggers. Christ, I ought to break away from it. Stuck five years on same boat and still nothin’ but a third mate puttin’ in at dumps like this on a damned coast-wise tramp. Not even a good time to be had. Norfolk, Savannah, Jacksonville, ain’t bad. Ain’t bad. But what the hell kind of port’s this? What the hell is there to do except get drunk and go out and sleep with niggers? Hell!”
Feet in the sand. Head under palms, magnolias, stars. Lights and the kid-cries of a sleepy town. Mosquitoes to slap at with hairy freckled hands and a dead hot breeze, when there is any breeze.
“What the hell am I walkin’ way out here for? She wasn’t nothin’ to get excited over—last time I saw her. And that must a been a full three years ago. She acted like she was a virgin then. Name was Betsy. Sure ain’t a virgin now, I know that. Not after we’d been anchored here damn near a month, the old man mixed up in some kind of law suit over some rich guy’s yacht we rammed in a midnight squall off the bar. Damn good thing I wasn’t on the bridge then. And this damn yellow gal, said she never had nothing to do with a seaman before. Lyin’ I guess. Three years ago. She’s probably on the crib-line now. Hell, how far was that house?”
Crossing the railroad track at the edge of town. Green lights. Sand in the road, seeping into oxfords and the cuffs of dungarees. Surf sounds, mosquito sounds, nigger-cries in the night. No street lights out here. There never is where niggers live. Rickety run-down huts, under palm trees. Flowers and vines all over. Always growing, always climbing. Never finished. Never will be finished climbing, growing. Hell of a lot of stars these Florida nights.
“Say, this ought to be the house. No light in it. Well, I remember this half-fallin’-down gate. Still fallin’ down. Hell, why don’t it go on and fall? Two or three years, and ain’t fell yet. Guess she’s fell a hell of a lot, though. It don’t take them yellow janes long to get old and ugly. Said she was seventeen then. A wonder her old woman let me come in the house that night. They acted like it was the first time a white man had ever come in the house. They acted scared. But she was worth the money that time all right. She played like a kid. Said she liked my red hair. Said she’d never had a white man before.… Holy Jesus, the yellow wenches I’ve had, though.… Well, it’s the same old gate. Be funny if she had another mule in my stall, now wouldn’t it?… Say, anybody home there?”
“Yes, suh! Yes, suh! Come right in!”
“Hell, I know they can’t recognize my voice.… It’s the old woman, sure as a yard arm’s long.… Hello! Where’s Betsy?”
“Yes, suh, right here, suh. In de kitchen. Wait till I lights de light. Come in. Come in, young gentleman.”
“Hell, I can’t see to come in.”
Little flare of oil light.
“Howdy! Howdy do, suh! Howdy, if ’tain’t Mister Clarence, now, ’pon my word! Howdy, Mister Clarence, howdy! Howdy! After sich a long time.”
“You must-a knowed my voice.”
“No, suh, ain’t recollected, suh. No, suh, but I knowed you was some white man comin’ up de walk. Yes, indeedy! Set down, set down. Betsy be here directly. Set right down. Lemme call her. She’s in de kitchen.… You Betsy!”
“Same old woman, wrinkled as hell, and still don’t care where the money comes from. Still talkin’ loud.… She knew it was some white man comin’ up the walk, heh? There must be plenty of ’em, then, comin’ here now. She knew it was some white man, heh!… What yuh sayin’, Betsy, old gal? Damn if yuh ain’t just as plump as ever. Them same damn moles on your cheek! Com’ere, lemme feel ’em.”
Young yellow girl in a white house dress. Oiled hair. Skin like an autumn moon. Gold-ripe young yellow girl with a white house dress to her knees. Soft plump bare legs, color of the moon. Barefooted.
“Say, Betsy, here is Mister Clarence come back.”
“Sure is! Claren—Mister Clarence! Ma, give him a drink.”
“Keepin’ licker in the house, now, heh? Yes? I thought you was church members last time I saw yuh? You always had to send out and get licker then.”
“Well, we’s expectin’ company some of the times these days,” smiling teeth like bright-white rays of moon, Betsy, nearly twenty, and still pretty.
“You usin’ rouge, too, ain’t yuh?”
“Sweet rouge.”
“Yal?”
“Yeah, man, sweet and red like your hair.”
“Yal?”
No such wise cracking three years ago. Too young and dumb for flirtation then: Betsy. Never like the old woman, talkative, “This here rum come right off de boats from Bermudy. Taste it, Mister Clarence. Strong enough to knock a mule down. Have a glass.”
“Here’s to you,
Mister Clarence.”
“Drinkin’ licker, too, heh? Hell of a baby, ain’t yuh? Yuh wouldn’t even do that last time I saw yuh.”
“Sure wouldn’t, Mister Clarence, but three years a long time.”
“Don’t Mister Clarence me so much. Yuh know I christened yuh.… Auntie, yuh right about this bein’ good licker.”
“Yes, suh, I knowed you’d like it. It’s strong.”
“Sit on my lap, kid.”
“Sure.…”
Soft heavy hips. Hot and browner than the moon—good licker. Drinking it down in little nigger house Florida coast palm fronds scratching roof hum mosquitoes night bugs flies ain’t loud enough to keep a man named Clarence girl named Betsy old woman named Auntie from talking and drinking in a little nigger house on Florida coast dead warm night with the licker browner and more fiery than the moon. Yeah, man! A blanket of stars in the Florida sky—outside. In oil-lamp house you don’t see no stars. Only a white man with red hair—third mate on a lousy tramp, a nigger girl, and Auntie wrinkled as an alligator bringing the fourth bottle of licker and everybody drinking—when the door … slowly … opens.
“Say, what the hell? Who’s openin’ that room door, peepin’ in here? It can’t be openin’ itself?”
The white man stares intently, looking across the table, past the lamp, the licker bottles, the glasses and the old woman, way past the girl. Standing in the door from the kitchen—Look! a damn redheaded baby. Standing not saying a damn word, a damn runt of a red-headed baby.
“What the hell?”
“You Clar—- … Mister Clarence, ’cuse me!
… You hatian, you, get back to you’ bed this minute—fo’ I tan you in a inch o’ yo’ life!”
“Ma, let him stay.”
Betsy’s red-headed child stands in the door looking like one of those goggly-eyed dolls you hit with a ball at the County Fair. The child’s face got no change in it. Never changes. Looks like never will change. Just staring—blue-eyed. Hell! God damn! A red-headed blue-eyed yellow-skinned baby!
“You Clarence!… ’Cuse me, Mister Clarence. I ain’t talkin’ to you suh.… You, Clarence, go to bed.… That chile near ’bout worries de soul-case out o’ me. Betsy spiles him, that’s why. De po’ little thing can’t hear, nohow. Just deaf as a post. And over two years old and can’t even say, ‘Da!’ No, suh, can’t say, ‘Da!’ ”
“Anyhow, Ma, my child ain’t blind.”
“Might just as well be blind fo’ all de good his eyesight do him. I show him a switch and he don’t pay it no mind—’less’n I hit him.”
“He’s mighty damn white for a nigger child.”
“Yes, suh, Mister Clarence. He really ain’t got much colored blood in him, a-tall. Betsy’s papa, Mister Clarence, now he were a white man, too.… Here, lemme pour you some licker. Drink, Mister Clarence, drink.”
Damn little red-headed stupid-faced runt of a child, named Clarence. Bow-legged as hell, too. Three shots for a quarter like a loaded doll in a County Fair. Anybody take a chance. For Christ’s sake, stop him from walking across the floor! Will yuh?
“Hey! Take your hands off my legs, you lousy little bastard!”
“He can’t hear you, Mister Clarence.”
“Tell him to stop crawlin’ around then under the table before I knock his block off.”
“You varmint.…”
“Hey! Take him up from there, will you?”
“Yes, suh, Mister Clarence.”
“Hey!”
“You little …”
“Hurry! Go on! Get him out then! What’s he doin’ crawlin’ round dumb as hell lookin’ at me up at me. I said, me. Get him the hell out of here! Hey, Betsy, get him out!”
A red-headed baby. Moonlight-gone baby. No kind of yellow-white bow-legged goggled-eyed County Fair baseball baby. Get him the hell out of here pulling at my legs looking like me at me like me at myself like me red-headed as me.
“Christ!”
“Christ!”
Knocking over glasses by the oil lamp on the table where the night flies flutter Florida where skeleton houses left over from boom sand in the road and no lights in the nigger section across the railroad’s knocking over glasses at edge of town where a moon-colored girl’s got a red-headed baby deaf as a post like the dolls you wham at three shots for a quarter in the County Fair half full of licker and can’t hit nothing.
“Lemme pay for those drinks, will yuh? How much is it?”
“Ain’t you gonna stay, Mister Clarence?”
“Lemme pay for my licker, I said.”
“Ain’t you gonna stay all night?”
“Lemme pay for that licker.”
“Why, Mister Clarence? You stayed before.”
“How much is the licker?”
“Two dollars, Mister Clarence.”
“Here.”
“Thank you, Mister Clarence.”
“Go’bye!”
“Go’bye.”
9
——
POOR LITTLE BLACK FELLOW
AMANDA LEE HAD BEEN A PERFECT SERVANT. And her husband Arnold likewise. That the Lord had taken them both so soon was a little beyond understanding. But then, of course, the Lord was just. And He had left the Pembertons poor little black Arnie as their Christian duty. There was no other way to consider the little colored boy whom they were raising as their own, their very own, except as a Christian duty. After all, they were white. It was no easy thing to raise a white child, even when it belonged to one, whereas this child was black, and had belonged to their servants, Amanda and Arnold.
But the Pembertons were never known to shirk a duty. They were one of New England’s oldest families, one of the finest. They were wealthy. They had a family tree. They had a house in a charming maple-shaded town a few hours from Boston, a cottage at the beach, and four servants. On Tuesdays and Fridays Mr. Pemberton went to town. He had an office of some sort there. But the ladies, Grace Pemberton and her sister, sat on the wide porch at home and crocheted. Or maybe they let James take them for a drive in the car. One of them sang in the choir.
Sometimes they spoke about the two beautiful Negro servants they once had, Amanda and Arnold. They liked to tell poor little Arnie how faithful and lovely his parents had been in life. It would encourage the boy. At present, of course, all their servants were white. Negroes were getting so unsteady. You couldn’t keep them in the villages any more. In fact, there were none in Mapleton now. They all went running off to Boston or New York, sporting their money away in the towns. Well, Amanda and Arnold were never like that. They had been simple, true, honest, hard-working. Their qualities had caused the Pembertons to give, over a space of time, more than ten thousand dollars to a school for Negroes at Hampton, Va. Because they thought they saw in Amanda and Arnold the real qualities of an humble and gentle race. That, too, was why they had decided to keep Arnie, poor little black fellow.
The Pembertons had lost nobody in the war except Arnold, their black stable man, but it had been almost like a personal loss. Indeed, after his death, they had kept horses no longer. And the stable had been turned into a garage.
Amanda, his wife, had grieved terribly, too. She had been all wrapped up in Arnold, and in her work with the Pembertons (she was their housekeeper) and in her little dark baby, Arnold, Junior. The child was five when his father went to war; and six when Amanda died of pneumonia a few weeks after they learned Arnold had been killed in the Argonne. The Pembertons were proud of him. A Negro who died for his country. But when that awful Winter of 1919 ended (the Pembertons judged it must have been awful from what they read), when that Winter ended the family was minus two perfect servants who could never come back. And they had on their hands an orphan.
“Poor little black fellow,” said Grace Pemberton to her husband and her sister. “In memory of Arnold and Amanda, I think it is our Christian duty to keep it, and raise it up in the way it should go.” Somehow, for a long time she called Arnie “it”.
“We can rais
e it, without keeping it,” said her husband. “Why not send it to Hampton?”
“Too young for that,” said Emily, Mrs. Pemberton’s sister. “I have been to Hampton, and they don’t take them under twelve there.”
So it was decided to keep the little black boy right in Mapleton, to send him to the village school, and to raise him up a good Christian and a good worker. And, it must be admitted, things went pretty well for some years. The white servants were kind to Arnie. The new housekeeper, a big-bosomed Irish woman who came after Amanda’s death, treated him as though he were her very own, washed him and fed him. Indeed, they all treated him as if he were their very own.
II
Mr. Pemberton took Arnie to Boston once a season and bought him clothes. On his birthday, they gave him a party—on the lawn—because, after all, his birthday came in the Spring, and there was no need of filling the living-room with children. There was much more room on the lawn. In Summer Arnie went to the sea-shore with the rest of the family.
And Arnie, dark as he was, thrived. He grew up. He did well in his classes. He did well at home, helped with the chores about the house, raked the yard in the Fall, and shoveled snow when the long Winters set in. On Sundays he went to church with the family, listened to a dry and intelligent sermon, chanted the long hymns, and loved the anthems in which Miss Emily sang the solo parts.
Arnie, in church, a little black spot in a forest of white heads above stiff pews. Arnie, out of church, a symbol of how Christian charity should really be administered in the true spirit of the human brotherhood.
The church and the Pembertons were really a little proud of Arnie. Did they not all accept him as their own? And did they not go out of their way to be nice to him—a poor little black fellow whom they, through Christ, had taken in? Throughout the years the whole of Mapleton began to preen itself on its charity and kindness to Arnie. One would think that nobody in the town need ever again do a good deed: that this acceptance of a black boy was quite enough.
The Ways of White Folks Page 9