Mrs. Black

“ Such strong, primitive types of Negro womanhood in America seem to some to exhaust its capabilities. They know less of a not more worthy, but a finer type of black woman wherein trembles all of that delicate sense of beauty and striving for self-realization, which is as characteristic of the Negro soul as is its quaint strength and sweet laughter. ”

“ Indeed, for my own part, though I have been repeatedly told by persons for whom I have the greatest respect, that Miss Brown is an insignificant chit, and Mrs. White has nothing but her petit minois chiffonne, and Mrs. Black has not a word to say for herself; yet I know that I have had the most delightful conversations with Mrs. Black (of course, my dear Madam, they are inviolable) : I see all the men in a cluster round Mrs. White's chair: all the young fellows battling to dance with Miss Brown; and so I am tempted to think that to be despised by her sex is a very great compliment to a woman. ”

“ It was Jane Ray’s astonished, all but shuddering thought. “You!—and not—me! Oh, how can it be? You, who I thought would stay outside with me—and the like of me—forever, before you would bind yourself like this. Do you believe the things that he does? You could never be a hypocrite, Redfield Burns. Are you doing it for love of Robert Black? No, you wouldn’t do it, even for that, any more than I would. Then—what is it?”
She sat with a white face and watching eyes which burned darkly beneath her close-drawn, sheltering hat-brim, while Red took upon himself the vows which Black administered. ”

“ No other women on earth could have emerged from the hell of force and temptation which once engulfed and still surrounds black women in America with half the modesty and womanliness that they retain. I have always felt like bowing myself before them in all abasement, searching to bring some tribute to these long-suffering victims, these burdened sisters of mine, whom the world, the wise, white world, loves to affront and ridicule and wantonly to insult. ”

“ Black thought he had never seen a woman take a thing like this with so much sense and courage. How could Red have left her behind, he wondered, just now, when she could do so much for him? Or—couldn’t she? Could any woman, no matter how finely understanding, do for him quite what another man could—a man who would know better than any woman just what it must mean to have the foundations suddenly knocked out from under him like that? ”

“ Her countenance becomes dejected—she seldom smiles—clothes herself in rags, and with disheveled hair and spots of black paint on her cheeks, wanders about in a pensive mood, seldom shedding tears, except when alone in the woods. ”

“ Far away the wide black land that belts the South, where Miss Smith worked and Miss Taylor drudged and Bles and Zora dreamed, the dense black land sensed the cry and heard the bound of answering life within the vast dark breast. All that dark earth heaved in mighty travail with the bursting bolls of the cotton while black attendant earth spirits swarmed above, sweating and crooning to its birth pains. ”

“ Well—was this acting, too? Can a woman weep at will? And if she were as unhappy as she seemed, what was he to do about it? It was an extremely uncomfortable and disquieting situation, and Black wondered for a moment if he could possibly see it through without blundering. He was wishing ardently that he had a mother or a sister at hand. There was only Mrs. Hodder whom he could call in, and she was assuredly not the person to act as duenna to this young woman. ”

“ The people moaned and fluttered, and then the gaunt-cheeked brown woman beside me suddenly leaped straight into the air and shrieked like a lost soul, while round about came wail and groan and outcry, and a scene of human passion such as I had never conceived before. ”

“ Again and in more concrete ways the Negro woman has influenced America and that is by her personal contact with the family—its men, women and children. As housekeeper, maid and nurse—as confidante, adviser and friend, she was often an integral part of the white family life of the South, and transmitted her dialect, her mannerisms, her quaint philosophy and her boundless sympathy. ”

“ Black isn't a nice color. Do you like it?"
He shook his head.
"It is the inside of me that aches now and then, when I think I shall never see him come sailing back, that I must be a long while without him until I go to their land. But he must be very happy with mother, and that is what I think of when I feel how hard it is;" and the tears stole softly down her cheeks. "I have Rachel and you, and he said you would always love me and care for me. But I try not to feel sorry, and if I had on a black frock I couldn't help but think of it all the time. ”

“ My mistress has always been very cruel to all her black people.
"I remained in this situation until about eleven o'clock, when one of my young mistresses came to me and gave me a piece of jonny-cake about the size of my hand, perhaps larger than my hand, telling me at the same time, that my fellow-slaves had been permitted to re-boil the mutton that I had left in the kettle, and make their breakfast of it, but that her mother would not allow her to give me any part of it. ”

“ Then with another glance at her dress, which had studiously been kept cheerful, she remarked, with deep reproach: “My sister is dead; why am I not in black?”
The nurse, realising her responsibility (she said afterwards that it was the most serious moment of her life) , subdued her own astonishment at this proof of her young patient’s knowledge of a crime of which she was universally supposed to be entirely ignorant, and, bestowing a reassuring smile on the agitated girl, observed softly:
“You wore too ill to be burdened with black. You are better now and may assume it if you will. ”

“ In America the work of Negro women has not only pre-figured this development but it has had a direct influence upon it. The Negro woman as laborer, as seamstress, as servant and cook, has come into competition with the white male laborer and with the white woman worker. The fact that she could and did replace the white man as laborer, artisan and servant, showed the possibility of the white woman doing the same thing, and led to it. Moreover, the usual sentimental arguments against women at work were not brought forward in the case of Negro "womanhood. ”

“ The glittering eyes of the actress looked out over the audience, then lowered suddenly, to rest for one instant on Robert Black. It was an error, and a fatal one, if to nobody but him. Up to that moment she had had him—at that moment she lost him as an enthralled spectator. The little self-conscious action broke the spell she had woven. His gaze left her and rested upon Jane. And there it found—what made him say to himself, suddenly enraged with his own lack of discrimination:
“Have I forgotten to watch you—in watching her? Shame on me! She’s only acting. You are—real!” ”

“ Oh, woman! how like an angel art thou in thy virtue and goodliness! how like a devil, when thou art fallen from thy high estate!
Yes, that black fellow covers her exquisite neck and shoulders with lustful kisses! His hands revel amid the glories of her divine and voluptuous bosom; and his lips wander from her rosy mouth, to the luxurious beauties of her finely developed bust.
'My beautiful mistress!' said the black, 'how kind in you to grant me these favors! What can I do to testify my gratitude?'
'Oh Nero,' murmured the lady 'what if our intimacy should be discovered? ”

“ This contempt of the black is felt by nearly every coloured girl, and is bitterly resented. I have seen young mulatto women refusing to dance with blacks at a ball, and the latter, in fury, threatening to call out the father or brother of the offending beauty. Yet what can be more absurd than such a pretension or prejudice, when, but two generations removed, their mothers were African slaves! ”

“ We have noted then the Negro woman in America as a worker tending to emancipate all women workers; as a mother nursing the white race and uniting the black and white race; as a conspirator urging forward emancipation in various sorts of ways; and we have finally only to remember that to-day the women of America who are doing humble but on the whole the most effective work in the social uplift of the lowly, not so much by money as by personal contact, are the colored women. ”

“ After luncheon—a refreshing affair partaken of on the airy end of the seaside porch—Black had his hour with Mrs. Devoe while Jane wandered off down the beach, [247] taking herself out of sight and sound around a rocky curve. In spite of his eagerness to be with Jane, Black enjoyed that hour to the full, for it meant that he could pour out to this perfect confidante the story of his year amid the new surroundings, and feel as of old her understanding and sympathy, as well as experience afresh her power to show him where he lacked. ”

“ When kindly treated black women love their husbands, as do their white sisters. We had a little child, I was fond of him, oh! so fond. My delight when I came in from the fields was to carry him about in my arms, or to roll with him on the grass, letting him tumble over me and pull my hair and ears, and then he would smile down into my face and laugh merrily. ”

“ Was it the drawing off of the hood, or the stir of wind on board the steamer, that had somewhat disarranged her hair?—at all events, here and there about her small ear or the shapely neck there was an escaped curl of raven-black. She had taken off her gloves, too: her hands, somewhat large, were of a beautiful shape, and transparently white. The magazines and newspapers received not much attention—except from Mr. Lind, who said that at last he should see some news neither a week old nor fictitious. ”

“ My master's brother lost his wife, she leaving an infant son a few months old, whom my mistress took to bring up. When this boy became old enough to need a playmate to watch over him, mistress called the young slaves together, to select one for the purpose. We were all ordered to run, jump, wrestle, turn somersets, walk on our hands, and go through the various gymnastic exercises that the imagination of our brain could invent, or the strength and activity of our limbs could endure. The selection was to be an important one, both to the mistress and the slave. ”

“ True, she had no finer outer garments than a cheap black flannel skirt and coat which she had bought with the first money she could spare, but they were warm, and answered for what she had needed. She had not bought a hat, and had nothing now to wear upon her head but the black felt that belonged to the man she was going to meet. She looked at herself pityingly in the tiny mirror, and wondered if the young man would understand and forgive? ”

“ Meanwhile—that blow over the heart which he had received at the first sight of the big red-headed doctor continued to make itself felt. Therefore, while Black went with a will at all the new duties of his large parish, and made friends right and left—particularly with his men, because he liked men and found it easier to get on with them than with women—he did not for a day relax his watch for the time when he should send a counter blow in under the guard which he somehow felt was up against him, or forget to plan to make it a telling one when he should deliver it. ”

“ Here stands this black young Atalanta, girding herself for the race that must be run; and if her eyes be still toward the hills and sky as in the days of old, then we may look for noble running; but what if some ruthless or wily or even thoughtless Hippomenes lay golden apples before her? What if the Negro people be wooed from a strife for righteousness, from a love of knowing, to regard dollars as the be-all and end-all of life? ”

“ Negro woman more than the women of any other group in America is the protagonist in the fight for an economically independent womanhood in modern countries. Her fight has not been willing or for the most part conscious but it has, nevertheless, been curiously effective in its influence on the working world. ”

“ There was only a black man hurrying on with an ache in his heart, seeing neither sun nor sea, but starting as from a dream at the frightened cry that woke the pines, to see his dark sister struggling in the arms of a tall and fair-haired man.
He said not a word, but, seizing a fallen limb, struck him with all the pent-up hatred of his great black arm; and the body lay white and still beneath the pines, all bathed in sunshine and in blood. John looked at it dreamily, then walked back to the house briskly, and said in a soft voice, "Mammy, I 'm going away,—I 'm going to be free." ”

“ The long black nights, when the moon hides her face, when the stars are afraid, are not so black. The silence that dwells in the forest is not so black. There is nothing in the world so black as thy hair.... ”

“ In my early married days, when the great coffee-urn was still a menace to my composure and dignity, at a little home-dinner, when Mr. William Black, the famous writer of Scottish novels, honored me by his presence on my right, Mr. Barrett on my left, moved, no one knows by what freak of memory, lifted his glass, and, speaking low, said: "'Just Clara,' your health!"
I laughed a little, and was nodding back, when Mr. Black, who saw everything through those glasses of his, cried out: "Favoritism, favoritism! ”