Part 43 (2/2)

During her recital Hertha had been looking straight ahead at the pulpit with its reading-desk and red plush cus.h.i.+on on which rested a huge Bible. Now she turned in her seat and addressed herself directly to Tom.

”What do you know about him?” she asked.

”Nothin',” Tom replied, the smile that Hertha had felt in the background coming to the surface. ”It wouldn't be anything but natural if you had a dozen. But Bob told me you had one.”

”Bob! How did you have time enough to exchange confidences like that?”

”There weren't any exchange. Before he'd finished the car come. I reckon he was planning to have me give a wave of my hand and send the feller off the earth. What did you give him, Hertha? The kid thought I was a magician.”

”Oh, I just told him a story,” Hertha answered vaguely, ”and used your name. But what did Bob mean? Didn't he like d.i.c.k?”

”Jealous, I reckon.”

Hertha laughed. ”Well, I'll tell you about him,” she declared, ”I was coming to him when I spoke.”

Playing with her handkerchief, her mouth trembling sometimes as she talked, she seemed to Tom both nervous and tired. He had not thought she could so lose her old serenity. But he listened attentively as she told of her meetings with d.i.c.k in the library and at the park. As her story continued he grew to like the young southerner for his considerate and unselfish devotion. Looking at Hertha's too slender figure and at her restless hands he felt, as d.i.c.k so often felt, that she was not one who should be forced to battle with the world. And he knew, as d.i.c.k could not know, her utter loneliness. When he learned that the man was from Georgia he was not altogether unprepared for the close of Hertha's story, the quick breath and furious blush that came with the halting effort to tell of her lover's att.i.tude toward the colored race.

”Oh, I can guess,” he said tolerantly, coming to her rescue. ”I've heard that kind of man talk. Colored folks are all n.i.g.g.e.rs to him and he ain't got no use for 'em. But lawdy, that don't amount to much.”

”But I think it does, Tom,” Hertha said tremulously. ”When he talks like that, I hate him.”

”Have you told him about yourself, Sister?” Tom inquired.

He spoke low, almost in a whisper, looking about him.

”No,” was the answer.

”Wouldn't it be easier?”

”Perhaps.” And then with a touch of annoyance, ”You know how I hate to talk.”

”But I wouldn't marry him----”

”Of course!” Hertha stopped playing with her handkerchief and clasped her hands together. ”If I decide to marry him of course I'll tell. But I haven't decided, I can't seem to decide!”

Tom looked at her flushed face and said in his slowest, most comforting tone: ”What you got to hurry for? Can't a man wait for a girl to take her time? He ain't worth much if he can't.”

”But don't you see,” Hertha said excitedly, ”I can't wait and wait, I've got to decide what I'm going to do. If I have to support myself all the rest of my life I ought to know whether I'm going to be a secretary or not. And then it's easy enough to say to take your time about deciding whether you like a man, but d.i.c.k Brown keeps taking things so for granted. And then, just when he seems quite nice, he'll break out with something about the 'n.i.g.g.e.rs' that makes me so angry I can't bear to speak to him again.”

”That ain't the worst kind though.” Tom spoke with emphasis, a grim look settling about his big mouth. ”You can face the one that hates you. The worst is the skulking kind that looks sweet and friendly and acts the devil behind your back.”

Again Hertha heard him flay the man to whom she had so unreservedly given her love, and again she shrank from his bitter words. But sitting there in the church, with the homely symbols of religious life about her, with the sun streaming through the crude stained-gla.s.s windows, she saw clearly the danger and the sin from which she had escaped. And she saw too that Tom, her young but manly brother, would hate with an animal-like intensity the man who should dare to do her an injury. She listened with deepened respect to what he went on to say.

”You can't make a Georgia cracker like Negroes, Hertha, not if you was to work on him all your life. If you find you get to love him, tell him everything and then let it drop. There ain't no good in going over things. Up here in the North n.o.body thinks much about folks' past, they're too busy. If he's good to you, and works hard and plays square, there ain't no need for you to worry because he can't see like you do.

He ain't good enough for you, of course. No man is. But a husband ain't to be judged by his opinions on the race question.”

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