"Dearie," the Irishwoman replied, "you talk as if color were a state of mind."

"Isn't it?" Hertha asked.

Rising from her seat she went to the sink and turning on the faucet got a drink for herself. As she put down the gla.s.s she looked at her hands.

"This is Tom's blood," she said, washing them under the running water.

"White people are so brave! They never strike any one weaker than they!

Why, Kathleen, he's just a little boy. It isn't long since he was in short trousers. I know, I made them for him."

She wiped her hands clean and stood looking beyond Kathleen into the world of men and women. Speech, usually so difficult, came to her in gusts of words, thoughts that clamored for expression, the pent-up thoughts that for many years had been pressing against her heart.

"White people are wicked. Not you, Kathleen, you are good and that's why people laugh at you and scorn you. They hate goodness. It is the way that old man said at the restaurant. People, white people, are cruel.

They care only for themselves. What did they do for me in this world?

They threw me out to die. I wasn't worth an hour's care. And the men, men who've said they loved me! Loved! They saw color in my face and they played with me or despised me. And they say they're so good!" The bitterness in her voice was pitiable. "They're always saying they're so good. They write about it and preach about it. We black people, we are bad. We are immoral and common and cheap. Well, I want to be with bad people. I've been with good people as long as I can bear. I want to be with bad people again."

"Don't go on so, dearie," Kathleen said, anguish in her voice. "Rest and see what to-morrow will bring. You'll kill yourself if you go on like this."

"Good!" Hertha cried again with infinite scorn. Then as though a sudden thought came to her, her whole manner softened. "I'll tell you who is good,--my mammy. She took me in. She didn't question whether I'd grow up pretty and clever, or ugly and dull. She took me in her arms. She's like that. She isn't thinking about herself, she's thinking about others. She don't care if they're black or white. I know, oh, I know. And if she dies before I get home I'm going to die too!"

Suddenly her strength gave way, her indignation, her angry pride. "And I was trying to be white," she moaned, "I was trying to be ashamed of her." She flung herself into her friend's arms, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "I was trying to forget."

Then Kathleen came into her own. Soothingly, caressingly, she got Hertha out of her white dress with its bloodstains into a loose one of her own.

She brought water and a towel and washed her face. She brushed back her tangled hair. And all the time she talked, sympathetically yet cheerfully, with rare tact turning the girl's attention from her own sorrow. Hope emanated from her kind face, from her running speech; until at length Hertha found herself sitting in a chair sipping a cup of tea, and smiling a little uncertainly at some odd remark.

"It's so good to be here," she said, looking with deep grat.i.tude into Kathleen's face. "When I had to leave Tom, I hurried to you. I knew if you were home you'd take me in, but I was afraid you'd be caring for some one else. I was frightened to ring the bell."

Her friend smiled benignantly.

"It's just the same as ever, only prettier. You've been doing a lot of housecleaning."

There was a smart look about the place. The chairs had a fresh coat of paint, the oilcloth on the table was white and new, and every bit of metal was polished, from the k.n.o.b on the oven door to the faucets at the sink. The agate tea-kettle was gone, its place taken by one of shining aluminum. At the windows the flowers blossomed with lovely profusion, geraniums sharing the boxes with trailing green vines and marguerites.

Even the floor had shared in the general sprucing up and shone with paint and varnish.

Taking in the many changes about her, commenting on this and that, Hertha suddenly rose and going to a shelf above the stove, took down a pipe. She turned it in her hand and said with a trembling little smile, that would have been mischievous if it had had the strength, "I wouldn't have thought it of you, and you so young. Wait till you're an old woman."

Kathleen was too happy in her friend's returning brightness to be able to retort. She could only answer, looking very foolish: "You've taken a glance about the room and can see for yourself what's happened. I was that lonely after you went away I hadn't the will to deny him. He came in one day with the license in his pocket, and nothing for it but we must go to the mayor to be tied together. So I put on my hat and went with him."

"I am so glad!" Hertha's eyes shone with unselfish pleasure. "I liked him very much. But where is he?"

"In your old room, darling, sleeping as quiet as a baby. He goes to bed each night at half-past ten and at eleven he's breathing as regular as if there was never a care in the world. He wanted me to live in his place, but when I caught a sight of his landlady's face I brought him here. It would have been strychnine in my tea if she had had the chance, she was that fond of him."

"I don't wonder a bit."

Kathleen's kimona trailing behind her on the polished floor, Hertha walked about the room, examining each newly acquired article. "How pretty and shipshape everything looks!"

"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