"I doan' know 'bout bein' 'leged agin' you, whutsomever dat mout be. But dey is sayin' dat whut I hez tole you is so, and dey is sayin' it powerfil strong. An' dat is 'zactly whut brung me here fir ter see you."

With a joyful laugh, Erma sprang over to Mrs. Marston and well nigh smothered her with an avalanche of kisses. Sitting on one of Mrs.

Marston's knees, with an arm thrown fondly about her neck, Erma spoke as follows:

"My dear Aunt Mollie, because our race has borrowed the white man's language, manner of dress, religion, ideas of home, philosophy of life, we have apparently decided that everything that the white man does is good for us to imitate. We do not stop to think that the white race has deep, ingrained faults as a race; and thus we proceed to imitate faults and virtues alike, indiscriminately and instinctively. We unhesitatingly adopt even those erroneous traits in the white man's character that have oppressed us. Now, Aunt Mollie, one of the most baneful evils that slavery has left us is the idea that physical labor is a badge of disgrace, and that a condition of luxurious idleness is the most exalted, the most honorable, the ideal existence. The Southern white people are the parents of the idea that physical labor is disgraceful, and, being such an imitative people, we have accepted without question, their standard of what is honorable. Aunt Mollie, the insidious influence of that idea is what makes the rising generation of Negro youths so idle and so averse to physical labor. They are imitating the wealthy young white man, who cites the fact that he does not have to work as proof positive that he is a gentleman. The young Negro decides that he can and must be a gentleman like the young white man. This idea that work is disgraceful is destined to ruin thousands of Negro girls who are going to try to play 'lady' and abstain from employment. No, no, Aunt Mollie, labor is not in the least degree degrading, even if the white people do seem to think so. Believe me, Aunty, there is no disgrace connected with the doing of any work that is honest. Work, hard, hard work, has not stained your soul, dear Aunt Mollie. You are as much a true woman as any queen, as much a lady as that woman who has never deigned to stoop to tie her own shoe."

Mrs. Marston shook her head as though Erma's way of looking at things was beyond her comprehension.

But Erma continued, coming nearer home in her argument:

"If Margaret were to take her place by your side day by day and do what you do it would not corrupt her soul any more than it has corrupted yours. And so long as the soul is pure G.o.d loves you, and who dares despise what G.o.d loves? G.o.d loves an honest heart, even when the frame that contains it is bending over the washtub. It would be so grand, Aunt Mollie, if you could get Margaret out of that false notion of life, borrowed from white people in the South. She would be so much help to your overburdened frame. I could scarcely repress my tears as you told me how you, an aged, feeble woman labored so hard for that young, strong and vigorous girl to sustain her in a false notion of life. Yes, yes, Mrs. Marston, I am going to hire out. There is a little mortgage on our home that must be paid. Then, too, I wish to earn money enough to enable me to finish my education. These ends being honorable and desirable, I am willing to perform any task that is honorable, though menial to attain them. Now, Aunt Mollie, I have an engagement at four o'clock and must leave you. Pray for me, for I shall be most viciously a.s.sailed by my own people who feel that the stand they take against me has a parallel in the white race where the common laborer is shut out from social recognition by the well-to-do element. And you know how hard a Negro will throw a stone at another if he feels that he has the sanction of the white people. Nevertheless, I shall strive in my humble way to prove that labor is not inimical to ladyhood."

"Pray for you! G.o.d bless yer pew soul! Dat I will, Erm, dat I will,"

said Aunt Mollie, brushing away with her h.o.r.n.y hands the tears from her eyes. She continued, "Disgrace or no disgrace, dere is powerfil few lack you, Erm, powerfil few. Ef you eber needs a home, come to your Aunt Mollie Marston's. Good day. So long, chile, G.o.d bless you."

Mrs. Marston walked homeward, musing over Erma's sayings. "Wal, I hez notused dat dem northun wimmin es c.u.ms doun here doos wuck. I 'specks dese Suverners hes got us blevin' wrong ter tink dat a washtub spiles yer ladyship. Mebbe arter all I hez been a lady and didunt know it all dis whiul. Been cheated outen my standing in life foolin' arter dese Suverners! I declar' it begins ter peer ter me dat Erm is right, 'do I 'fess I didunt ketch on ter all de pints in her argifikashun. One pint she made 'prest me powerfil much. It mout not hurt Margie so much ef she would help her ole mammy er bit. It is gitting hard fir me ter liff and tote dem big tubs like I hez ter do, fir dey shuah air heavy. I uster help my mammy ter liff hern. Margie mout do a little ub de cookin' and i'nin' and let her pore mammy rest some. I hez been wuckin' so hard all my days and I hez nebber had no rest. But I ain't here fir much longer.

Frum de way my rheumatis feels, Jesus will be callin' me soon." Thinking thus, she went back to her work. As she labored, the sweet face and tender brown eyes of Erma were peeping up through the soapsuds and the sight thereof made her happy and her task the lighter. Strange to say, and perhaps not strange after all, her mind did not once go out to her own daughter, who, in company with Ellen Sanders, was stirring up the entire city against an orphan girl whose only offense was that she had decided to obey the Bible injunction to labor six days in the week.

CHAPTER V.

WHAT A KISS DID.

We are within the folds of night, and Elbridge Noral is once more a visitor at the home of Dolly Smith. We have the same dimly lighted room and the same parties to the conversation.

"Mrs. Smith," began Noral very excitedly, "I come to ask you in the name of heaven to prevent a catastrophe and to unravel a puzzle that racks my brain. I wish for you to prevent Erma Wysong from becoming a servant girl; and I further beg of you to tell me why she seeks to become one."

"Explain, Mr. Noral, wherein becoming a servant girl is such a catastrophe. Is not work honorable?" asked Dolly, in evident astonishment.

"Yes, yes, but ah! the atmosphere surrounding the Negro service girl!

She is away from her own people, not allowed social contact with the family of her employer, and usually resides in solitude in a little house in the back yard, with alleyways as the only approach. Such a state of affairs puts a premium on male companionship, which may be ever so frequent, or at improper hours, without the fear of any adverse comment thereon, and, in fact, without its being known. This condition of things, as might reasonably be expected, generates a great deal of immorality. While there are service girls of sterling worth, a bad odor attaches to the calling. If Erma goes into service in such fashion, the very atmosphere will breed insults for her. White youths will feel that she has no further claims to respectability, and will proceed to deal with her accordingly. So much for the catastrophe. The puzzling thing to me is as to why Erma should contemplate such a course." These remarks were delivered by Noral with unwonted energy.

"Well, Mr. Noral, Erma simply needs money, I presume, to supply her natural wants and satisfy reasonable and legitimate desire. Such stations as her talents peculiarly fit her for are denied to her because she is a Negro girl. There is no honorable course open to her save the one that she has pursued. Away goes the puzzle. As to the catastrophe, Mr. Noral, opinions may differ, according to the view point. I fancy that I see in her determination to enter service the surest means to the accomplishment of your purpose."

Noral's face betokened a wrathful storm; his voice gave sign of its coming.

"Mrs. Smith, do I understand you to intimate that I am such a sensual degenerate that I am willing to see Erma degraded by others as a sort of preparation for me?"

"Be calm, Mr. Noral. My meaning was far from that, as you will soon discover. My plan of action is as follows: Now that Erma is determined to enter service, you select a place where you may become a frequent visitor and can contrive to see Erma without exciting her suspicions as to your ultimate purposes. Erma is one of the purest girls in the world, and you must first establish yourself in her good graces as a necessary prelude to my part of the work. If you can inspire regard, I will give the necessary downward turn."

"A capital idea, Dolly, a capital idea! Now, let me see where Erma might go."

"How about Mrs. Turner who lives adjoining you?"

"What!" said Noral, rising to his feet hurriedly. "Where do I live? Who told you where I lived?" he said, retreating from Dolly as he spoke, and adjusting his mask to his face. Dolly saw at once that she had committed a monstrous error, and was much perplexed, for a moment, as to how to extricate herself.

"To tell you the truth, Mr. Noral, I have known who you were from the very first."

"Known me from the first! Have you had spies tracking me, you she devil?"

"She devil, heh! she devil!" hissed Dolly Smith in a tone that was full of venom. Her head shaking with violent emotion, she walked up to Noral and said: "She devil, did you say? But who made me a she devil? Who destroyed my soul? Who first started me on the d.a.m.nable mission of polluting the entire stream of the virtue of my race? Who did this? Will you tell me? say, will you tell me? Oh, you don't know, do you? Well, you shall know, James Benson Lawson! Yes, you shall know!"

Lawson's anger disappeared in his surprise at the torrent of invective that Dolly Smith poured upon him. He answered not a word, but stood with folded arms, looking at Dolly Smith. He discovered that he had a tigress to deal with, and that at the bottom of the heart of this cold-blooded, callous schemer there were fires as hot as those of the reputed lower regions, and it did not take much fanning to cause them to blaze up.

Then, too, her remarks seemed to have been intended for him individually, and were not mere ravings against the world at large. The more he thought, the more puzzled he was. Dolly Smith, after this violent outburst, grew very calm, and inwardly chided herself for having allowed her temper to perhaps frighten away from her hook a fish on whose capture all the soul that she had was set. She summoned all of her adroitness and cunning in an endeavor to regain lost ground. Pushing open the folding doors, and disappearing in the adjoining room, she returned shortly, bearing in her hand a photograph. She brought it to Lawson and said, "Here is the spy that tracked you. Go look at it."

Lawson took it to the gaslight and, turning on the light, examined the picture.

"You see that it is a picture of your father. As Governor of this State, he was more popular with the colored people than any other governor before or since his time. True, he is a Democrat, but the colored people love him, and his picture is in almost every Negro home. As soon as I saw you the other night, though the room was dark, I recognized the likeness. I knew where you lived, as the papers have been printing pictures of the old Lawson Mansion as it has been repaired to receive your father, just returned from his post as minister to Germany. Now, that is the sort of spying I have done. Don't mistrust me, Mr. Lawson.

Your honor is safe in my hands. I hold some of the most terrible secrets of your most noted families in this city, and they are as safe with me as though they were in the grave, locked in the bosom of the dead."

Dolly Smith eyed Lawson keenly as she talked, trying to discern the impression that her words were making. She saw that she had not succeeded in reaching the main current of his thoughts and she planned another effort.

"The vigor of my remarks a while ago naturally astonished you. Well, I was once a pure girl and not wholly uneducated. Nor was I homely, either. This corpulence has come from drinking excessively. Well, a white woman encompa.s.sed my fall. She taught me to drink. She was such a great white lady, I thought that if she could drink I could do so as well. I got drunk in public and was forever disgraced. She got drunk frequently, but the newspapers always said that she fainted or was attacked with nervous prostration. Her wealth allows her to maintain her social standing, among her people, while I am an outcast among mine. She started me in this business. I hate her, though I confess I get a great deal of fun, excitement and money out of my profession. I know I am a she devil, but when one calls me that, I get angry from thinking of that woman. All of this occurred when I lived in another city. My previous history is unknown here."

Lawson was profoundly interested in Dolly Smith's recital. He had not dreamed that a woman so depraved ever allowed her mind to wander back to the days of purity. In fact, he did not conceive of her ever having had such days. Thus, with these adroitly constructed fabrications, she lulled Lawson's suspicions to sleep.

"Dolly Smith, I beg your pardon. Don't you know, I always supposed people of your type were born dest.i.tute of moral nature. But I begin to believe that humanity at its worst is not as bad as it seems."

Dolly Smith now saw that she had recaptured him.

"All right, Dolly, quarrelling aside, let's get down to business. Let me see; where were we," says Noral.

"My idea is that some way ought to be found to have Erma Wysong in the employ of Mrs. Turner, your next door neighbor. She has no male member in her family," put in Dolly.

"Yes, but she has a servant," replied Lawson.

"And you have money. The servant went there for money, and will come away for money. Pay her a few months' wages in advance. Ask her to get Erma Wysong and take her to Mrs. Turner's to fill her place, and the work is done," said Dolly.

"Oh, you are a daisy," said Lawson, and in his excess of joy at the prospective success of his scheme, he seized Dolly Smith about the waist and kissed her. That kiss awakened every demon in Dolly's nature. It took her mind back to the days when the blue of her sky was interwoven with the blackest of clouds, and the lightnings of trouble flashed forth therefrom, ripping open her every vein, and spilling beyond recall all the blood of her life. And she pledged in her soul, shaking like a decayed and tottering building in the grasp of the wind, to crush James Benson Lawson in her fall.

CHAPTER VI.

UP TO DATE ARISTOCRACY IN A NEGRO CHURCH.

Erma Wysong was now happily located at Mrs. Turner's, little dreaming, innocent soul, of the motives and midnight plottings that had brought her there. Ignorant of all this, she was giving G.o.d thanks for having secured for her such an ideal place of service. In this happy, joyous, light-hearted frame of mind, she clads herself in her most lovely apparel on the Sabbath and goes forth to church. While she is on her way there, let us acquaint ourselves with the preparations made to receive her.

The fact that Erma Wysong, a graduate of the High School, had entered service, shocked the Negro population of the city. Educated members of the race, the school teachers, the doctors, the lawyers and the recent girl graduates were simply enraged. Ellen Sanders and Margaret Marston had canva.s.sed the whole city and had persuaded the entire circle of educated colored persons in the city to come out to Erma's church to aid them in giving her such a snubbing as had never as yet been administered to a mortal. This was their ambition's end just now, the complete snubbing, crushing of Erma for "throwing away her education in a most shameful and disgraceful way by going to work." Their plan was to have the educated and professional people to sit together in that section of the church where Erma usually sat; and she was to be thus forced out of her seat and out of their midst. If by any means she got a seat near them they were to get up in a body and move to another part of the church. So, on Sunday morning this group was out early and in full force. As the hour of the service drew on they grew restless from thinking over the stinging rebuke that they were about to administer to Erma. Ellen Sanders had turned her head and shoulders completely around from facing the pulpit and her large flashing eyes were keeping guard on the door so that she might see Erma when she first appeared in the doorway.

"There she is," said Ellen, flopping herself around, a.s.suming an att.i.tude apparently as stiff and immovable as a granite cliff.

All turned to look and then s.n.a.t.c.hed their eyes away in disdain. Erma came forward unsuspectingly, a sweet smile upon her lovely face. Her glistening black hair nestled in lovely coils on her queenly head. Her brown eyes, resting complacently beneath lovely eyebrows, sparkled with a quiet glow and a tenderness known only to the innocent and happy at heart. Her dress was a flawless fit and brought out all the graces of her divinely moulded form. This pure, blushing, aspiring, orphan girl went up the aisle of her church and stopped opposite her accustomed seat, expecting the occupants to make room for her. Instead of doing this, they got closer together.