Part 17 (1/2)
There are few people who look always the same; we vary in our appearance with a headache or a drop in the thermometer; but perhaps nothing is so quick to change our aspect as a reversal in our fortunes. Hertha had worn a pretty suit before, she had been well-shod, but never previously had she stood with such a quiet air of self-confidence. She blushed at Ellen's greeting, her head drooped, and she was Hertha Williams again.
”Oh, it's great!” Ellen exclaimed. ”Don't droop your head. Think what a pity it would have been if Hertha Ogilvie had turned out to look like Minnie Barker!”
A picture of Minnie Barker, very freckled, with a snub nose, reddish hair and a s.h.i.+rtwaist that was always pulling up from her skirt at the back, came to Hertha and she laughed. Then sobering, she said, ”I'm not going to any one who'll care. If I had a relative or two!”
”There are relatives and relatives,” Ellen answered sagely. ”This world is such a raffle you might not have inherited the right kind.”
”It isn't likely,” Hertha added, ”that I'd have gotten another set as good as the first,” and she smiled at her former sister.
”Good morning, honey,” said Mammy, appearing with a plate of biscuit.
They joked a good deal during the meal to which Hertha had invited herself and which she had planned even to the guava jelly, slightly liquid, amorously sweet, which Miss Witherspoon a.s.sured her she would never get in the North. The meal over they went outside and the visitor stood with Mammy while she fed the sc.r.a.ps to the chickens, watching them peck and push at one another, each trying to get the best piece.
”Hertha,” Ellen said hesitatingly, ”there's something Mammy and I want to say.”
Hertha shrank within herself. She was fearful when Ellen started in this serious tone, dreading too careful an a.n.a.lysis of their emotions.
Understanding this the older woman spoke.
”Honey, dear,” she said looking at Hertha with moist eyes, ”you's gwine away alone, for we's alone ef we ain't wid some'un we lobes. I 'spects it gwine ter be mighty hard fer you, but ef eber you's discouraged jes'
'member dat here in dis lil' cabin dere's you' sister an' you' mammy, lobin' yer an' prayin' fer yer day an' night. You's close in our hearts, foreber and eber, an' we knows we's close in yours.
”But, honey, dar's anudder t'ing. Keep us in you' heart, but don' try ter lib in our worl', not at fust. It ain't gwine ter be so easy, allus ter remember as you's white. You can't fergit a lifetime in a day. An'
it's mighty mean ter be swingin' fust on one foot, den on de udder, not knowin' whar you stan'. When yer gits yer place firm in de white worl', den yer kin turn back ter look at de black. But not now, dearie, not now.”
Hertha could not speak, but she nodded her head in acceptance of her exile.
”We don't need to worry,” Ellen said with a laugh that had a sob in it.
”We sha'n't have to wait long. You'll soon stand on both your feet.”
”I ain't gwine ter de dock,” Mammy announced when Ellen in a moment said it was time for them to leave. ”I don't wan' no white folks starin' at me an' talkin'; I'se gwine to say good-by hyar in my home. Baby,”
turning to the child of her adoption, ”you's so pretty-like, allus be good.”
”Yes, Mammy,” Hertha promised.
”Lay you' head on my breas'. Dere! Lil lamb, you's gwine out inter de worl' alone. But you know de way ter safety. Lobe de Lord Jesus. Don'
never forgit Him fer a moment, but keep close ter His bosom.”
On the dock Miss Witherspoon was fidgeting among the hand-luggage. She looked annoyed when Hertha came up with Ellen. ”Oh, here you are,” she said. ”Don't you think you had better express this bag? No. Why not? But I thought I explained to you that you could express it on the train.
However, it doesn't much matter. How many pieces of hand-luggage have you? Two? And you have two other things to carry, your hand-bag and your umbrella. It's always well to count the number of pieces you have and then when you get up from your seat you can go over them--one, two, three, four. Do you see? I'm sorry though that you didn't pack so that you could express one of the bags through.”
Ellen looked on, feeling that she was only beginning to realize how much of tragedy there was in this good-by. Not even she had appreciated, until she stood there on the dock, how far removed was the world of white and black. There was something terrible and ridiculous in sending her little sister away with a stranger, and denying to her the right to know again the people among whom she had been reared and who had given her the training and the education that made it possible for her so easily to take her place in the white world. ”Well, I'm mighty glad I was ambitious,” she thought with a rush of pride as she looked at the well-bred, ladylike figure in its stylish traveling dress. ”Supposing she'd been handed over to poor white tras.h.!.+”
”Ellen,” Hertha whispered, ”I'm going to try to make something of myself but I'm more easily discouraged than you.”
”You must be courageous, Hertha. Go ahead and do things.”
”I don't know how to do that. But perhaps things will happen.”
Miss Patty had said good-by at the house, but now Pomona came hurrying down with a basket of j.a.panese persimmons for the journey. With the bunch of red roses these made two more things not to be forgotten when you left your seat, and Hertha felt Miss Witherspoon look disapprovingly at them. Then with the rising sun the boat came toward them around the bend seeming, to the young girl who stood there, like some sea monster that would drag her away from everything familiar and carry her to an alien land. She grew almost sick with fear, but a glance at Ellen made her rally. A step up the gangplank and she had left the world of friends, of mother and sister and brother, of lovely skies, of beautiful trees, of mockingbirds and whistling quail, the world of long walks with Tom and of evenings out under the stars; the world that had been a world of rest and peace until Tom left it on this same boat less than two months ago.