Thomas White

“ Once upon a time, a man, looking towards the celestial city, saw “The reflection of the sun upon the city (for the city was of pure gold) , so exceeding glorious that he could not as yet with open face behold it, save through an instrument made for that purpose;” but Mr. Thomas Broad and his hearers needed no smoked glass now to prevent injury to their eyes. Mr. Thomas had put on a white neckerchief, had mounted the desk, and had spoken for three-quarters of an hour from the text, “The carnal mind is at enmity with God.” ”

“ Simply tell them we are all sinners, and deserve damnation. God sent His Son into the world. If we believe in Him we shall be saved; if not, we shall be lost. There is no mystery in that; everybody can understand it; and people are never weary of hearing the old old gospel.”
Mr. Thomas was well contented with himself, as we have said, when he knocked at Zachariah’s door. It was opened by Pauline. He took off his hat and smiled.
“My name is Broad. I come from Cowfold, and know the Allens very well. I am now living in London, and having heard of you so often, I thought I should like to call.” ”

“ Our pursuer had fallen far behind us and was out of sight; only the rippling Thames lay before us.
A man knocked upon the door and informed us that Governor White awaited us on deck, and we followed him to where White stood, a little apart from his men.
"We have almost reached the ocean," he said as we approached him. "If Sir Robert desires to land, he had best [Pg 200] do so now; but say the word and thou shalt go ashore where thou dost wish."
Bobby turned to me.
"I have half a mind to go with thee, Thomas," he said in a low voice. ”

“ Wharton was not the man to let such an opportunity escape him. At White's, no doubt, among those lads of quality who were his pupils in politics and in debauchery, he would have laughed heartily at the fury with which the nation had on a sudden begun to persecute men for doing what every body had always done and was always trying to do. ”

“ So they united in the work and soon had a large church, under the superintendance of a white preacher; although a colored man could preach in it, if qualified and licensed by the whites. The congregation was large. Many white people went there to hear the colored ones sing and praise God, and were often much affected by their simple but earnest devotion.
Mr. Thomas, being a lawyer of great reputation and extensive practise, was necessarily often called from home on business, disconnected with his farm; consequently he employed an overseer to attend to this and the slaves. ”

“ It has the further rare merit of being written by one of the "despised race"; for none but a negro can fully and correctly depict negro life and character.
General Thomas—a Southern man, and a friend of the Southern negro—was once in conversation with a gentleman who has attained some reputation as a delineator of the black man, when a long, lean, "poor white man," then a scout in the Union army, approached the latter, and, giving his shoulder a familiar slap, accosted him with,—
"How are you, ole feller?" ”

“ He let his hair Grow long to qualify for Mayor, An' once or twice he poked his snoot In Congress like a low galoot! It had to come—no gent can hope To wrastle God agin the rope. Tom went from bad to wuss. Being dead, I s'pose it oughtn't to be said, For sech inikities as flow From politics ain't fit to know; But, if you think it's actin' white To tell it—Thomas throwed a fight!
INDUSTRIAL DISCONTENT. As time rolled on the whole world came to be A desolation and a darksome curse ”

“ Rudd's quit, an' Marvin is hogtied, an' Shorty Simms is dead. Accordin' to my figurin', that makes eighteen."
"Yo're well educated, Mr. Loudon," said Johnny Ramsay.
"Correct. Well, then, unless Blakely has hired a bunch o' new men, which ain't likely, then eighteen from twenty-five leaves seven."
"First class in 'rithmetic will take the front seats," remarked Chuck, solemnly. "The little boys mustn't sit with the little girls. Attention, children, an' I'll interduce our new teacher, Mr. Thomas Loudon, a well-known—— Hi! you leave my cayuse alone, Tom! ”

“ All we can say to him with reference to this portion of his violent suppositions is that "the average black nature, such as it now exists," should NOT, in a civilized community, be left free to assert itself, any more than the average white, the average brown, the average red, or indeed any average colour of human nature whatsoever. ”

“ The simile of the protective device of the chameleon came to his mind. Yes, the Negro in the South had many things in common with the chameleon—he had to be able to change his colour figuratively to suit the environment of the South in order to be allowed to stay alive. His own trouble with the Parkers and Lane seemed much more trivial now than before. He looked at Mr. Wilson and asked:
“What’s the purpose of this meeting to-night? How can I help, Reverend Wilson?”
“It’s like this. A good part of my congregation is made up of folks who live out in the country. ”

“ Why, if Tom tried to stop Grant’s meeting to-night Market Street itself would mob Tom–mob the very Temple of Love.” The Doctor chuckled and returned to his own 434affairs. “Being on the winning side isn’t really important. But it’s like carrying a potato in your pocket for rheumatism: it gives a feller confidence. And after all, the devil’s rich and God’s poor have all got votes. And votes count!” He grinned and revived his pipe.
He was about to speak again when Laura interrupted him, “Oh, father–they’re not God’s poor, whose ever they are. ”

“ His work finished for the day, he went as soon as he decently could to talk with Jane. She, too, had been at work. Eagerly they planned between them the infinite details of so ambitious a scheme. Confidently they discounted possible difficulties they might expect to encounter—the opposition of the whites who were profiting from the present system, the petty jealousies and suspicions of those who would gain most from the success of their scheme. They realized that the Negro had been robbed so much, both by his own people and by the whites, that he was chary of new plans and projects. ”

“ Especially ought we to defend character unjustly assailed. A character is something alive, a soul; to rescue it is the salvation of a soul!”
He stopped and seemed to wake up suddenly.
“Good-bye! God’s blessing on you.” He shook Tom’s hand and was going out of the yard.
“There is just one thing more, sir: I do not want to leave Eastthorpe with such a character behind me—to leave in the dark, one may say, and not defend myself. It looks as if it were an admission I was wrong. I should, above everything, like to get to the bottom of it, and see who is the liar or what the mistake is.” ”

“ As he saw each day more and more of the evasions, the repressions, the choking back of natural impulses the Negro practised to avoid trouble, Kenneth often thought of the coloured man as a chip of wood floating on the surface of a choppy sea, tossed this way and that by every wind that blew upon the waters. ”

“ If one of your patients had a cancer, you wouldn’t advise him to use Christian Science in treating it, would you?”
Without pausing for a reply, she went on, her words pouring out in a flood that made Kenneth feel as he did as a boy when spanked by his mother. “No, you wouldn’t! You’d operate! And that’s just what the coloured people and the white people of [139] the South have got to do. That is, those who’ve got any sense and backbone. If they don’t, then this thing they call the race problem is going to grow so big it’s going to consume the South and America. ”

“ Forty times a day reg'lar he r'ars an' sw'ars 'cause yuh ain't arrove yet, an' forty times a day he does likewise for fear yuh'll come before yore ankle's all right. Yo're the bright apple of his eye, Tom. How yuh done it, I don't see. I can't please his R'yal Highness in a million years."
"Oh, it's a cinch when yuh know how," grinned Loudon. "Where's the outfit?"
"Most of 'em are out with Telescope. Doubleday an' Swing Tunstall are drivin' a bunch o' hosses over to the north range. Mister Mackenzie is a-settin' up in the office doin' like I said." ”

“ But this game is interesting; and I’m only a man,” he straightened up again, patted his mustache, and again tipped his hat into a cockey angle over his forehead, and went on, “not a monk.” He smiled, pivoted on his heel nervously and went on, “And what is more I can take care of myself.”
“Tom,” cried the Doctor in his treble, with excitement in his voice, “you can’t take care of yourself. No man ever 237lived who could. You may get away with your love affairs, and no one be the wiser; you may make a crooked or dirty million on a stock deal and no one be the wiser ”

“ Mr. Wilson seemed always overheated even in the coldest weather, and his face shone with a greasiness that seemed to indicate that his body excreted oil instead of perspiration. Yet, perhaps this man could give him some ray of no light, if there was any to be had.
He told Mr. Wilson of his experiences of the past two days. The preacher’s eyes widened with a mild surprise and the unctuous, benevolent mask which he wore most of his waking hours seemed to drop rapidly as he heard Kenneth through to the end without comment. ”

“ Of all races that make up the heterogenous populace of America, none is more self-critical than the Negro—its often unjust and carping criticism of those who stand out from the mass serves as an excellent antidote for undue pride and conceit. ...
The next evening the seven men met again at Mr. [173] Wilson’s. Kenneth stopped by for Mr. Phillips, but he did not see Jane. The Reverend Stewart, Tucker, Tracy, Swann, and Mr. Wilson sat awaiting them. Tom Tracy was exhibiting, somewhat proudly it seemed, a note he had found tacked to his door that morning. ”

“ In the dark down in the mines I saw the Holy Ghost rise into the lives of a score of men. And now I see the Holy Ghost coming into a great class. And I must go–go with neither purse nor script to meet it, to live for it, and maybe to die for it.” He shook his head and cried vehemently:
“What a saphead I’d be if I fell to that bait!” He turned to the store and called to Miss Calvin. “Ave–is there a telegraph blank in the desk?”
Mr. Brotherton threw it, skidding, across the long counter. Grant fumbled in his vest for a pen, held the sheet firmly with his claw and wrote:
“You are kindness itself. ”

“ Twice did he have Thunder Hawk recount to him the details of Davies's calm courage in this second daring capture, red-handed, of the rebellious chief, and White went to Cranston like the blunt, outspoken campaigner that he was.
"It begins to look to me," said he, "as if this young fellow had been most damnably backbitten. You can haul Devers before a court, but what can we do with these women?"
"You have never told me, major, what these women had to say against him."
"And I'm not going to," said White. "When a man's ashamed of having believed a mean story, the sooner he buries it the better. ”

“ Tom was not a philosopher, but some of his misery was due to a sense of carelessness and injustice somewhere in the government of the world. He was religious after his fashion, but the time had passed when a man could believe, as his forefathers believed, that the earth is a school of trial, and that after death is the judgment. ”

“ When Tom was alive I was in the midst of the current of affairs. Few men, except Maxwell, come to the house now. My property is in the hands of trustees. Tom continually consulted me in business matters. I have nothing to look after except my house, and I sit at my window and see the stream of life pass without touching me. I cannot take up work merely for the sake of taking it up. ”

“ Nesbit’s mind, and it was from a sad, hurt heart that he spoke almost kindly: “Tom–Tom, my boy, don’t be too sure of yourself. You may keep fit and you may survive–but Tom, Tom–” the Doctor looked steadily into the bold, black eyes before him and fancied they were being held consciously from dropping and shifting as the Doctor cried: “For God’s sake, Tom, don’t let up! Keep on fighting, son, God or no God–you’ve got a devil–keep on fighting him!”
The olive cheeks flushed for a fleeting second. Van Dorn laughed an irritated little laugh. ”

“ If he solved his problems and every other Negro did the same, he often thought, then the thing we call the race problem will be solved. Besides, he reasoned, the whole thing is too big for one man to tackle it, and if he does attack it, more than likely he will go down to defeat in the attempt. And what would be gained? ...
His office completed, Kenneth began the making of those contacts he needed to secure the patients he knew were coming. In this his mother and Mamie were of invaluable assistance. Everybody knew the Harpers. ”

“ Whatever Tom White did to you, you’d no right to do what you did. You’ve put me in a fix, I say. Take my advice and write to your father, and tell him all about it, and get him to come down. If Tom White’s partners and the pawnbroker get their money, they may stop the case, and there’ll be an end of it. If they don’t, Tom must take his chance. Dear, dear, things have changed in Templeton since my day. Confound it, I wish the Harriers would choose some other run! A nice fix I’m in, to be sure—young rascals!”
Late that evening a crowd assembled in the Quadrangle of Templeton. ”

“ The bills faced them wherever they went, and once, as they passed the boat-house with a crowd of other fellows, they received a shock by seeing Tom White himself sitting and smoking on a bench, and looking contemplatingly out to sea.
“There’s Tom White,” said one of the group. “I say,” shouted he, “have you found your boat, Tom?”
Tom looked up and scanned the group. Our heroes’ hearts were in their boots as his eyes met theirs. But to their relief he did not know them. A half-tipsy man on a dark night is not a good hand at remembering faces. ”