Mary White Ovington

“ Twelve times did the candles, for a brief space, shine out on the white icing and brighten the flowers. The cake was not moved from the table, but remained there day and night, and the kitten was kept rigidly indoors to frighten away any possible mouse. At length, when the candles had burned to their sockets, Granny cut through the icing and gave a slice to Hazel and one to herself.
Hazel ate and said nothing, but she was glad it had not been cut before. Staleness might seem to account in part for the very heavy character of the half-cooked dough. ”

“ Granny was surprised when, dinner over, Hazel failed to go to her house among the pines. The little girl had been as regular as if she were already a teacher in a real school, and this failure to keep her appointment boded something serious.
“She don’t keep colored people’s time,” Granny had said proudly to a neighbor; “she done never forget the clock on the meeting-house in Boston.” So when Hazel went to her spinning-wheel and worked hard and nervously, the old woman felt troubled but deemed it best to say nothing. ”

“ Hazel said, still a little tremulously, “would you go on the porch with the children for just a few minutes and shut the door and leave Scipio and me here?”
Granny went willingly enough. She was beginning to enter into the spirit of the game.
“Darken the room as much as you can, Scip. Well put it in the middle of the table, and the candles on it and around it, and the flowers about them. We must light them, quickly, quickly. Oh, Scip, Scip, see! It’s the beautifulest kind of a birthday cake when you have seventy candles.” ”

“ Hazel awoke one morning to find it spring. She had seen it beginning, but she had not fully recognized it until now. A mocking bird told her all about it. He sat on a rosebush and chattered so fast and so gaily and as it seemed to Hazel of such a number of happenings, that she hurried through breakfast to learn what it was all about. And then she saw that spring had come.
“Granny, look!” she cried excitedly. “Everything is growing. ”

“ Why not give Granny a birthday now?
“Scip,” Hazel called excitedly as he met her on the hillside that afternoon. “I’m going to give Granny a birthday party. Will you help?” And she explained Granny’s condition.
Scipio listened attentively, only half understanding, for birthdays had never been celebrated in the Lee household. But, of course, he promised to help if Hazel would show him the way; and before they went to their books ways and means were already devised by Hazel’s active mind.
That afternoon the little girl was a long time writing her home letter. ”

“ Granny gasped.
“It’s a birthday cake for you, Granny. I wanted you so to have a birthday cake. I’ve had five that I can remember, but they’re [137] prettiest when you’re seventy. I wanted you so to have a birthday that I chose one for you; and April is a nice time, don’t you think? You do like it, don’t you, Granny?” and Hazel ran to her grandmother’s side.
“Baby,” Granny said holding her tight. “It’s the most beautiful thing as ever was. It’s the prettiest sight these eyes has ever seen. Scip,” she called suddenly, “don’t you let those candles burn down. Everybody’s got to see my cake.” ”

“ If old man Lee above here should drink himself to death with whiskey, or old mammy Smith down below should burn up in her house, you city folks ’ud just inquire, polite-like, the next time you met one of the family, ‘I heard you-all met with an accident, I’m so sorry. I hope you-all is doing well now.’ But we hasn’t city manners down here. Nothing much happens except the hoeing of the corn and the picking of the cotton; and when a little girl with soft eyes and a pretty dress and sweet ways comes among us, we’s just naturally curious. ”

“ She entered the Pullman car with Miss Davis and held her hand tightly as the porter showed them their seats. All her safety from insult, she knew, lay in the presence of her white companion. They sat down together and at length the train drew out of the station, headed for the North and home.
The little girl looked up at her friend. “I’m trying to think all the time of Mother,” she said, “but I can’t forget Granny and Scip.”
“You’ll visit them again,” Miss Davis said [156] consolingly. “When people once begin to travel they never stop.” ”

“ Scip said resolutely. “I never had nothing to read before, but now I’ve got books and a dictionary.”
Hazel read to them for a long time that evening; it was easier than to talk. She read the favorite poem of each; for Granny, “The Hen with One Chicken,” who thought she was so much busier than the ducks and turkeys with their broods; for Scip, “The Night with a Wolf,” “The Captain’s Daughter,” and the one she, too, liked so much, of the little girl in the woods.
“Are you not often, little maid,
Beneath the sighing trees afraid?” ”

“ Early in the evening their train stopped to wait until an express overtook it and passed on ahead. Hazel saw the Pullman with its comfortable beds and its brightly-lighted dining car where colored waiters were serving delicious-looking food to white people.
“Why don’t we ride in a car like that?” she asked Mrs. Graham.
But she knew the answer before she heard it. “Colored people are not allowed to in the South.”
All things come to an end, however, even a wakeful night. ”

“ Hazel explained seriously, “and they were kind to me and gave me food and sent me home with Marty. But they hurt my feelings dreadfully. They said I was impertinent when I said ‘Miss Fairmount,’ instead of ‘Miss Jane,’ and at home, really truly, it would have been impertinent to have said Miss Jane; and,” the child hung her head, “they called me ‘nigger.’”
Granny’s strong, kindly face grew sad.
[112] “You’s a hard road to travel, dearie, as you goes through life with your pretty face and your gentle ways. I’s feared the stones will often bruise your feet and the briars tear your hands. ”

“ Hazel thought a moment, and then said, “Would you like me to teach you, Scip? I’m not busy. I don’t have anything that I have to do except make my bed, and of course I help Granny with the dishes and ironing. I can iron nicely now, and I can spin, too. But [86] I could teach you any time you would come. I have books.”
Scipio dug a stick in the ground and scattered the pine-cones. “I ain’t smart,” he muttered. “I’s feared you couldn’t learn me.”
“I’ll try,” Hazel answered. “I’m a young teacher, don’t you think, Scip?” She jumped up and laughed. “You must do everything I say. ”

“ Ever since Hazel had spun the cotton she had wanted to weave it, but her grandmother’s loom was too large for her to handle. Granny had solved the difficulty by saying they could do it together, Hazel throwing the shuttle while she pushed the frame. In this fashion they had woven their cloth. “It’s your work, honey,” Granny had insisted. “You’re doing the weaving, not me.”
“Isn’t it hot!” Hazel said, after they had worked for an hour. “April in the South is as warm as June at home. Is it hotter than this in the summer?” ”

“ One day Scipio brought her some early violets and she flew down to Granny’s [95] for a tin can which she filled with water. In this she placed the flowers, setting the can in a corner against the pines. After that the tin vase was often filled. When her pupil could not come she tidied her pine-needle carpet, or, armed with the two-pronged stick Scip had given her, walked bravely among the cows and the grunting pigs. Some days teacher and scholar found it too cold to sit still long and raced one another through the trees, or teased the turkeys whose “gobble, gobble” always amused Hazel. ”

“ Hazel was an only child, and she had had few serious calls upon her generosity. Pretty things had been given her, and she had been genuinely [146] grateful, but she had come imperceptibly to regard them as her right. Never in her life had she given away anything for which she deeply cared. And she cared deeply for this book of poems. But Scip cared for them, too, and knew some of them almost by heart. Such a book would help him in his reading very much.
She had told Granny about the Boston library, where you could get any book in the world. Of course, it would have Child Life. ”

“ You’s come over the sea and over the land clear to your granny. Put your head on my breast where your daddy rested when he was a baby.”
Hazel put her arms around the old woman’s neck and held her tight. Little warm pulses of feeling swept through her. The pines, the sunset, the bird’s note, and this loving welcome by the open fire, all made her heart beat fast [50] and her body shake. She was sobbing before she knew it.
Granny understood what to do. She put the little girl in her chair, and leaving her for a moment came back with a gray kitten, very small and warm and helpless. ”

“ Hazel went unwillingly, but the bright fire in the stove made her give a little cry of pleasure.
“Warm yourself, child,” Miss Jane said kindly. “Rest your hat and coat, and sit by the fire. How much might that coat cost now?” she asked, examining the garment that Hazel obediently took off.
[105] “I don’t know,” Hazel replied. “It was given to me.”
“Who might give you a coat like that?” the other sister queried.
“A friend of my father’s. You know my father is dead,” Hazel added.
“Yes, I know, honey,” Miss Jane said sympathetically. “He was a right nice boy. ”

“ Hazel had seen pigs in a pig-pen in Massachusetts, but here in Alabama they had the freedom of the road. She soon realized why the garden was fenced in. In the North you imprisoned your live stock; but in the South you let them loose and enclosed with picket-fence your house and garden. This was very nice for the animals but not so nice for timid little girls. Hens, turkeys, cows, pigs, all roamed at will. The few cows that Hazel met were thin and spiritless, and she did not fear them much ”

“ On Hammond Street colored people were different. But then, they were poor, [55] and did not have time for the niceties of life. But no one she had known in Jamaica Plains or in the South End was in the least like this grandmother.
The first thing Hazel noted was her strength. She had felt it the night before when she had snuggled up against the old woman’s breast, and she felt it this morning as she watched her move about the room lifting the full kettle as though it were made of tin, not of iron. ”

“ Don’t act like you thought you’d outen the fire. Hazel, pass that cornbread and give Scip a big plate for himself. Our guests always has big plates. And you, Scip, do your best by the bananas we boughten yesterday. Our Boston lady thinks they’s mighty fine, and the Lord certainly done do them up in pretty yellow husks. See me shell one, Scip.” And so Granny talked on until Scip, with his big plate on his lap, seated by the warm fire, felt at home.
When supper was over Granny made the shadows on the wall that Hazel loved, and after she was through Scip made still cleverer ones, Hazel thought. ”

“ The leaves are jumping out, just as fast, and the flowers are opening and the birds are singing, singing! Why that mocking bird”—she stopped for the highest praise she could command, “Why that mocking bird is lots jollier than any birds we have near Boston.”
“Well, sugar,” said Granny, “I’s glad to know once when the South come out on top.”
[115] “Why, Granny,” Hazel went on, disregarding the gentle sarcasm, “our teacher used to take us out in the spring to hear the bluebirds and song sparrows, and they just twitter, twitter like little birds, but that mocking bird!” ”

“ A Bible story. We can’t be Joseph and his Brethren,” Hazel went on musing, “there’re too many of them. I don’t like Jacob—”
“I’ll be King Solomon,” Charity exclaimed quite suddenly.
She sat in the arm chair and held herself erect. Taking her bandanna she wreathed it in a turban about her head.
[13] “That’s splendid, Charity,” Hazel said heartily. “That’s your crown and you’re sitting on your throne. Now who shall I be?”
“You? Why, of course, you’ll be the Queen of Sheba.” ”