Treasure in a Tin Box (Wall of Silence Book 1)

by Dorey Whittaker

  “Honey, I have also made goodies for the train ride. I will be ready on time, I promise.”

  Tobias chuckled as he left the kitchen. “Ruth, you could feed the whole train with what you baked last night.”

  Confident that everything was packed and ready to go, Tobias made one last check of his list: Train tickets, his speech, a change of clothes, sleepwear, toothbrushes, travel funds, and a street map of Washington, D.C. He then closed the case and mused to himself, “That is everything except the most important things.” He smiled as he heard his wife in the kitchen, packing the bag to take on the fifteen-hour train ride from Atlanta to Washington. He had one last item to pack before heading out. Ever since the decision was made to accept this invitation to go to Washington, he had been gathering every important item he intended to take with him. A casual glance of his desk would create more questions than answers. Why would he take these things to honor his Great-Aunt Pearl?

  First, Tobias opened the tin box that had always held a place of honor in his life. It was the oldest and dearest possession ever owned by any member of the Bascom family; and its condition belied its age. As with all those that had gone before him, Tobias took great care of this beautiful tin box. He gently wiped it out with a clean, dry cloth. The tin itself dated back to about 1802, and a damp cloth on such an old tin would prove disastrous. Satisfied the tin was clean; he began filling it with his precious possessions. First, he picked up three buttons on his desk and placed them carefully in an envelope before putting them in the box. Next, he picked up the old whistle with a very old shoelace still attached to it and placed it in the box. He then picked up an old tattered page of the New York Times, dated June 1905. The article and photo were about an Italian woman shopping at the old neighborhood Italianna store on Lexington Ave. This item had obviously seen many years of handling, yet Tobias carefully wrapped it in tissue and placed it inside the tin box. With great tenderness, he picked up a mother-of-pearl lapel pin and slipped it in its own envelope and gently placed it next to the whistle. With a warm smile, Tobias picked up a stack of well-read letters wrapped with a faded red ribbon and six family photos wrapped in tissue paper and placed them on top of the newspaper article. Finally, he picked up the three books he had planned to take along. The first was Ms. Pearl’s 1859 copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, and he slipped his speech inside its pages. Not being a first edition and showing serious signs of use, the book held little monetary value; however, the care with which Tobias handled it spoke volumes. The second book was a well-worn 1910 copy of Treasure Island. The third book, which had only recently been published, had been written by an unknown author and was still wrapped in the printer’s tissue. He carefully placed these books in the tin box and secured the latch with a wedge of wood.

  With these precious items safely packed, Tobias decided to start loading the car. Checking his watch, he realized he had taken much too long packing the tin box. He and Ruth needed to get a move on.

  Ruth locked the door behind her and joined her husband at the car, “Tobias, did you remember to pack your speech and the invitation?”

  “Yes, Ruth. I put them with our train tickets after I sent the thank-you note accepting Rev. Wilcox’s generous invitation to let us stay at his home. His son, William, is meeting us at the station tonight and was kind enough to offer to show us around Washington tomorrow.”

  Tapping his suit-coat pocket, Tobias reassured her, “I have our tickets right here, but my speech is inside the book, and that is in my tin box. Ruth, I can’t believe it was fifty years ago when I passed through the Capitol, but I wasn’t able to stop and see anything back then. The truth is, at seven, I would not have been able to appreciate anything I would have seen.”

  Noticing the size of the goodie bag Ruth placed on the back seat, Tobias teased, “Sweetie, are you planning on feeding everyone at the nation’s Capital tomorrow?”

  With an uncharacteristic edge in her tone, Ruth responded, “Tobias, six months ago we celebrated the ninety-first anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation; this weekend we are celebrating the take down of ‘Separate but Equal.’ Yet here we are in 1954, and Negroes still cannot use the dining car on that train.”

  He knew the pressure of meeting and mixing with so many important people this weekend was beginning to show itself in Ruth’s response. In order to keep the situation light, he chose to ignore the irony of this sad truth. Instead of being drawn into the seeming injustice of the situation, he teased, “But Ruth, we couldn’t possibly eat all of that food. Ah, let me guess, you’re planning to feed every hungry Negro on that train, right?”

  “If I have the good fortune to do so, yes, Tobias,” Ruth teased right back. “You, and my daddy before you, preach sermons to reach people’s hearts for God. I, on the other hand, feed their hungry stomachs to reach their hearts. Jesus said, ‘Feed My sheep.’ We just do it differently, that’s all.” Ruth smiled and then quoted dear, sweet Great-Aunt Ruby, Pearl’s twin sister. “Toby Boy, not everything is right in this world; that doesn’t mean you don’t do what’s right anyway.”

  “So Tobias, I can either fuss about not being able to use the dining car or I can use the situation as an opportunity to love on some hungry people today.”

  Having been reared by Ms. Ruby, he had heard this saying many times throughout his life. Every time he tried to use some unfair injustice in the world as his excuse not to do right, he heard that quote. As a boy, he had resented its truth, but he never resented Great-Aunt Ruby.

  Tobias started the car, adjusted the rearview mirror, and then noticed something odd happening. All along the street, people were pouring out of their homes and lining the block. Most in this community would have loved to be in attendance when one of their own was being honored, but that simply was not possible. Therefore, they had all decided to show their respect for Ms. Pearl by standing at the curb and waiving as Tobias and Ruth drove off to catch the 6:05 to Washington. Men, women, and children stood tall and proud as Tobias slowly pulled away from the curb. As his car passed by, everyone held up books and waved them above their heads. Tobias and Ruth smiled all the way to the train station.

  They arrived at Peachtree Station a good twenty minutes before the train was to arrive. Tobias made sure everything from the car was safely inside the station before moving the car to the parking lot. Since they only had one suitcase, he decided to keep it with them rather than check it into the baggage car.

  The train was due into the station in about ten minutes, so he gathered up their belongings and they headed out to the platform where the other passengers were already standing in line. Neither spoke as they quietly walked over and stood in the line marked “Colored.”

  The conductor’s shrill whistle signaled that all passengers could now board the train. As Ruth reached the steps that would guide them into the “Colored Car,” Tobias took her goodie bag from her hand and warned, “Use both hands, Ruth. I will hand you the goodie bag as soon as you get up the steps. Be sure to turn to the right. I’ll be right behind you.”

  He quickly double-checked his suit-coat pocket for their tickets. As soon as Ruth cleared the gangway, he hoisted their suitcase up onto the landing, pushing it back far enough to have a place for his feet, and started to climb up the four steep steps. He quickly realized that even for him, he would need both hands. Reluctantly, he placed his beloved tin box beside the suitcase and hoisted himself up. That box had been with him his whole life. As a little boy living in Harlem, the box sat beside his bed and held all his trinkets.

  The conductor’s whistle reminded him of the day he was given that tin box. He was only three years old when his Grandpa Samuel brought home the shiny new whistle that still called his tin box home. Grandpa had tied an old shoe-string to the whistle and placed it around his neck. “Now, Toby Boy,” he warned, “don’t you ever blow this whistle in the apartment or Grandma will toss it out. But if you ever feel in danger, I want you to blow this whistle as loud as you can.”


  Remembering that warning, Tobias couldn’t help but smile. “Wow, was my grandpa right! Grandma CeCe would have tossed that whistle out the fifth-floor window and me right behind it, that’s for sure.” Looking at the tin box, Tobias thought about that special night his grandpa came into his bedroom and placed it on the wooden crate that sat next to his bed. He opened it and then explained, “You can never go to bed with that whistle around your neck. During the day, it is meant to keep you safe, but at night, it could choke you. So here is a tin box just for you. Toby Boy, I have had this tin box since I was a little boy, and now I am giving it to you. Every night I want you to put this whistle in your special tin box to keep it safe.”

  Since that night, his tin box had held all of his keepsakes. As a little boy, his cast iron cowboys and Indians had slept in it. Later on, marbles became his treasures. As a boy, all of the letters he had received from home had been protected by this box. As a young man, for three long years, he had stored the ring he had bought for Ruth in his box. But on this special trip, it held all of the precious mementoes of his family. This trip was in honor of Aunt Pearl, but for Tobias, it was about all of them, what they had endured, what they had overcome, and how everything had worked together to make Ms. Pearl the woman she was.

  Once on the landing, he gathered up their belongings and made his way into the car to find Ruth. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The window shades were still down because most of the passengers had been on the train all night and were still sleeping. Most had boarded the train in New Orleans the previous night and were not yet ready to welcome the morning sun.

  Ruth had found two seats about midway back. Tobias pushed one or two suitcases over to clear a place for their things, removed his suit coat, folded it neatly, placed it on top of their case and took his seat next to his beautiful wife. Ruth always dressed impeccably but never showy or arrogant. She carried herself with a humble confidence that came from years of focusing on others rather than on herself. They had been married for thirty-two years, but they had never run out of things to discuss. But this morning, their conversation would not have been appreciated by all of the sleeping passengers. Once the conductor had finished punching their tickets, they settled back and tried to relax.

  The train began to pick up speed, and the sound of the rhythmic clicking of the tracks carried Tobias back to his very first train ride in 1904. He was a scrawny, seven-year-old boy, afraid of his own shadow, leaving New York City for parts unknown—at least to him.

  Tobias had known this train ride would be a sentimental journey. The weeks of preparing his speech and the sound of the conductor’s loud whistle coupled with having handled all of the precious items he had packed into his tin box left him very nostalgic. Tobias allowed his feelings to carry him back to the day he had boarded that other train so long ago. He had shared these stories with friends for years, but today he simply wanted to reminisce in silence; reviewing all of the reasons he had for being so proud and thankful he could call himself a member of the Bascom family.

  SECTION TWO

  TOBIAS:

  My Life in Harlem

  1897-1904

  3. Two Train Rides

  4. Brother Jubilee Comes A Calling

  5. Grandpa’s Confession

  6. Why I Was Sent Away

  CHAPTER 3

  Two Train Rides

  MY FIRST TRAIN ride happened back in the year 1904. I was seven years old and all alone as I boarded that train car in New York City. The stench of people’s clothing that had gone way beyond their cleaning joined with the smells of food prepared with spices unfamiliar to me. These combinations made my already nervous stomach churn even more. I desperately wanted to climb off that train and run back to my grandmother, who was standing right outside the window, watching me take my seat. I wanted to beg her for a second chance. Even at seven, I knew my begging her for a second chance would be futile. She had waited seven long years to get rid of me. In her mind, I embodied every evil thing that had happened to her family. She thought I was cursed, and she was glad to be rid of me. I was being sent away from my home in Harlem, and that was that.

  Surprised by the vivid memory of feeling so rejected as a child, he leaned over and kissed Ruth on the cheek. “Honey, I am so glad you are on this train ride with me today.”

  Ruth smiled and whispered back, “Tobias, we have a long trip ahead of us; try to get some sleep.”

  He smiled at his wife. He knew he was no longer that lost little boy sitting on that train so many years ago, but this second train ride was beginning to conjure up a storehouse of old memories. These memories were causing his senses to be on the alert. The gentleman sitting right in front of him had obviously been on the train for many days. His hair was greasy, his scraggly gray beard held pieces of bread crumbs, and his yellowed shirt showed rings of body sweat around the tattered rim of his collar. Studying this forlorn man drew Tobias back to one of the loneliest days of his young life—the day he was sent away from his beloved grandfather.

  The image of his grandmother’s face that day had been etched in his memory. However, fifty years of life had given him the skills to understand and forgive her. Remembering how he felt that day, his mind could not help but think of those first seven years up in Harlem and how they had shaped his life. This train trip was all about family, reviewing what they had experienced, how they had endured, and how their example had taught him how to live a life worth living. Although not all of it was pleasant, he knew it was valuable. Tobias laid his head back against the seat and let his memories overtake him.

  Even though my family’s history began in Atlanta, Georgia, my story began in Harlem. Grandpa Samuel was twenty years old when he was emancipated in 1865. He struggled for the next twenty-one years, trying to make a living in Atlanta. Once he was sure his sisters, Pearl and Ruby, were safe and settled, he packed up his little family in the summer of 1886 and headed north with the promise of a better life. He was forty-one years old and not afraid of hard work. My mother, his firstborn, was only three years old when the family arrived in Harlem.

  The city had begun expanding from lower Manhattan north into Harlem, so plenty of work was available for day-laborers. Construction of the elevated railroad meant Grandpa was able to secure work almost immediately. He did everything from pit digging to form building. Pit digging paid more because it was so dangerous; determined to earn as much money as possible, he always volunteered whenever the need for pit diggers was posted. Many a digger had been buried and suffocated when one of the pits collapsed before the form builders could get in and reinforce the side walls. Because the Irish preferred to stay above ground, Grandpa knew he could always get work if he became the best pit digger in Harlem.

  By 1892 most of the pit-digging jobs were gone, and he had to develop other skills if he was going to support his family. Grandpa knew he had to overcome his fear of heights if he was going to have a chance competing for construction work on the Second Avenue Bridge. He had learned to weld in Atlanta, but the only welding jobs offered to blacks were the welding jobs no one else wanted. He was always the first laborer in line every day. Very few men volunteered for the high-rigging work, which required climbing out onto the most dangerous points of the construction and then welding for two to three hours without a break. High winds, rain or ice, Grandpa would be first in line. Years later, he would reminisce about how proud he was to work on one of Theodore Cooper’s famous bridges. Before coming to Harlem to begin his work on the Second Avenue Bridge over the Harlem River, Cooper was already famous for the Mississippi River steel arch bridge as well as the 1876 Allegheny River Bridge at Pittsburgh.

  During their first winter in Harlem, Grandpa’s boy, my Uncle Virgil, was only two years old when he caught the terrible influenza that hit the city that year. Everyone blamed the Irish for bringing it into the neighborhood, but the truth was it didn’t matter if you were white, black, Jewish, Irish, or Eastern European. If you caught i
t, there was no going to a hospital for help. Men with megaphones walked through the neighborhoods, warning people to stay home and ride it out. The elderly and the young were hit the hardest, and they were also the least likely to survive. So it was for Virgil. Grandma did not even go with Grandpa when he carried away his boy’s body that night. So many died during that influenza epidemic that the city decided to station body carts around the poor neighborhoods. Most of them could not afford to bury their dead, and the city feared the results of dead bodies stacking up. Although it was hard on Grandpa to let go of his boy, he never blamed himself for Virgil’s getting sick and dying. He always said, “Sickness comes to everyone. You just have to accept it.”

  My family lived on the top floor of a five-story tenement just off Lexington and 116th Street, and life was good for them until the mid-1890s. Our building had been a factory back in the day, but all that remained of the old factory was the large hand-cranked lift that had been used to haul large bales of raw material up to the top floor where workers Carded and spun raw cotton into thread. During the Civil War, the factory was closed and never reopened. Eventually, the property was sold at auction and converted into a tenement building. Grandpa said the owner was a fair man, allowing the tenants to use the lift when moving in or out of his building. Apart from these times, the lift remained padlocked, forcing everyone to use the stairs.

  In 1897, Harlem experienced its first of two serious market crashes, and the owner of our building felt the crash. He no longer invested in maintenance, and the neighborhood began to experience a flood of European immigrants. Owners, once careful to maintain a separation of ethnic groups, found themselves willing to rent to anyone with the money to pay their weekly rent. Work became scarce, and the once friendly building became a dangerous place to be. That was the year I came along.