Part 49 (2/2)
”Wait till you see the parlor with the piano!” Kathleen's raillery could not conceal her pride. ”We have music every night from half-past eight to half-past nine precisely. It's his daily practising. But we go by the clock these days!”
”You like it,” Hertha declared, ”I know you do,” and she received no denial.
Tucked in bed in the room that was once Kathleen's, her hair lying, a braid on either side of her face, she looked younger and more childlike than when she had lived here, months before. But only for a minute. Away from the brightness of the kitchen the hara.s.sed, frightened look returned. Her sorrow rushed back and clutching her friend's hand she held her to her side.
”I must be up early, Kathleen, to go to the hospital. Will you lend me a hat?”
”That I will.”
”And an old coat? I'll send it back to you.”
”Anything I have.”
”Oh, Kathleen, do you think I'll get there in time? Shall I be too late?”
”There's the best of chances. Old folks have more strength than we give them credit for. Probably she'll be better again.”
Hertha still clutched her friend's hand. ”Do you remember the old Major, Kathleen, when he told me to keep out of the conflict?”
”Indeed I do. Wasn't he cross that evening!”
”I tried to follow his advice. I wanted not to fight, just to let things go the easiest way, but I couldn't.”
Her friend, looking at her, thinking of the past and of the days to come, of the loneliness of a life among the whites and the tragic circ.u.mscription of a life among the colored, could find no comforting answer. She was face to face with a harder problem than any she had tried to solve. The machine, sucking the vitality of the child; the long day of toiling men and women; fierce, relentless compet.i.tion; there were tools with which to battle against these; she had used them and in the end she and her comrades would conquer with them. But where were the tools with which to fight the base cruelty, the cheap conceit that left a boy on a hospital bed to-night bruised in body and spirit, and sent this gentle girl to her half-crazed with grief and pain? In the church?
The persecutors of the black man were the pillars of the church. In the state? When the Negro was beaten or shot or lynched the state winked slyly at the white offender. In the working cla.s.s? They were brothers of the blacks when they were hungry. An advantage won and they, too, persecuted the weak. Where then were the tools? Where, unless with the black men and women themselves; but if they took them up how unequal must be the battle!
”I couldn't keep out of it,” Hertha said again, a quizzical look coming for a moment to her face. ”I wouldn't picket, you remember, but that wasn't my conflict. It wasn't mine until it came to Tom.”
Kathleen kissed her. ”You'll get a little sleep now.”
”I'll try, but I don't mind lying awake with you and Billy near.”
She said the name shyly, looking with questioning glance as if to ask whether her welcome would be a cordial one when her friend's husband knew her story.
”He'll be glad to see you! He's been blaming me in his heart for staying away from you, though he'd never say a word of blame aloud. His welcome is right here. And you'll admire the flowers. I don't half appreciate them. Indeed, I've reason to be jealous of you, that I have.”
”You are so good, Kathleen!”
It was two o'clock when Kathleen closed the bedroom door, leaving her charge at length asleep. But she did not herself seek rest. Filling the washtub, she plunged Hertha's white dress in the water and worked furiously to obliterate the dark stains. When it was cleansed and pressed, the torn places mended with her irregular st.i.tches, the first light of day had entered the windows and the flowers were turning to the light. Tired, but with no desire to sleep, she set the table for breakfast and then at last went into her room. There on the bed lay her husband, resting quietly, utterly oblivious of all that had happened beyond his bedroom wall. As she looked upon him a beautiful smile came over her face. It was well, she thought, that some could sleep while the eternal battle waged. Without them the world would be bare, ugly, bereft of the fragrance of the flowers. Taking off her dress she lay down for a few minutes beside him, not sleeping, thinking of plans for the day before them, vigilant at her post in the darkness and in the light.
IV
THE LIVE-OAKS
CHAPTER x.x.xV
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