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Show CHA.1SK3U n!t Joseph Heresheimer TAT.F Abner Shapley and the glr! In the front room, I couldnt bqt he Impressed by the beauty, the power, of the Invocation sounding boyt Lucy's devout position and responsive ardor. ' ( T was unmlxed chase thgt recalled, at th only Junction possible with my passage north, th melancholy tact that Abner fchapley waa living In Louisiana. This was depressing both because sickness had forced him to move away from the Quaker comfinunlty in Pennsylvania, where he was rooted by every association and bellfef, and for the reason that in the south Abner must be supremely out of keeping with the modes of life and thought. One of the veiled rapid decisions that defy common sense carried me, by a change of trains very much for the ware. in a rambling manner through the dark toward barney, Shapley's forced place of retreat, while I found entertainment in the thought of him living in a garish. I had telegraphed, and when, at last, Varney was reached, Abner was waiting on the station platform in the clear thin light of early morning. It was evident, however, that physically Louisiana had proved beneficial he was quite fat again, and bis face, boyish and placid at hfty, had the bright glow of 4! a summer apple. In his plain clothes, without buttons, his v rotundity and color, he was even a greater contrast to the life about him than I had expected. The native whites at the station 'V', were rather thin than not, sallow with black eyes somnolent or momentarily stirred by a glittering sultry vision; while Abner, 4 ' i, ' whose eyes were calmly blue, preserved the crispness of frost in his voice and movements. " This was very kind of thee. he 6aid, my heavy bag in his With thy valise it would be better to strong grasp. taka a hack. Ordinarily I walk. But this information waa needless. I knew j Abner, I knew my own town, and I could see the dejection that settled over him at the thought of paying the driver. We rattled. In a decrepit single phaeton, through the ugliest streets imaginable, past a gloomy square with dark trees and broken iron benches, along a raw wide chasm that held a yellow river perhaps fifty feet below, out over a road between leaden gray fields to a crossing with a closely wooded stream and ' a number of small houses, one of which was spectacular in fresh, orderly paint. Here we are, he announced cheerfully, recovering from a small disbursement, and Lucy, I can see, has breakfast for us. . The bare, contracted ball and sparely furnished room to which be conducted me were immaculately, meticulously clean, and, in answer to my surprise at his servant's efficiency, he admitted In a rueful tone that h Alhad had to wash the house himself, though she Is Improving every day, be continued earnestly, at the breakfast table. If the Negro is shiftless, It's because he sees shiftlessness everywhere. The whites he hesitated and sighed. Tet warmer hearts dont exist. Really they have been a lesson to me in humanity. At the same time the must realise I can't approve of them. They have passionate evil humors, and hardly regard it a sin to take fellow lives. The Lord will not hold them guiltless. But their treatment of the Negro! His lips tightened and his blue northern gaze was frigid. Lucy, I saw, scarcely ever withdrew a wondering speculation from her employer. She was absolutely black, with a flattened African countenance, while her young body was a solid monument to nature's perfected intention. Her dress included such striking and incongruous articles as a battered soft gray masculine hat and beetles red morooco As she stood th light poured slippers that dragged over the floor as sh waited on the table in an abrupt, slovenly He rose serenely. beck and call of men. manner and replied to Abner in a tone not Shall we go out on the porch, an air seems entirely Innocent of impertinence. 1 to be stirring. This, however, was inevitable, the result of & shared misconception, but equally I Following Ins full neat back I was sudknew there would be very little actual imdenly overwhelmed by the somber strangeness of the land to which the accident of position on a celebrated Quaker frugality. sickness, interpreted bv Abner as the will Take this girl, Lucj , Abner Shapley began of God, had carried him. I'd appositel), then interrupted himself, "thank thee not to smoke. Now, Lucy she n. Is entirely the result of example. If I may It was late March and already, through , say so without undue pride, I comprehend the day, oppressive in a diffused, enervating her thoroughly But indeed that is not diffsunlight. The sandy rutted road before the icult, she is as simple and transparent as house lay parallel to the stream choked with a child foliage, the somber water oaks folded In trailOr a savage, I added. ing gray shawls of Spanish moss, the forbid Abner was at once opposed to me. That ding undergrowth, the pale spongy cypiesa Is a wicked thought," he asserted I had with bared roots snakelike in the gumbo expected more enlightenment from the son mud. made a tiaglc oontrast to the rememof thy father. Lucy Is a daughter of God bered open green hills, the bright maples and The color of her skin Is nothing but a prohollows flushed with coral peach blossoms, vision Of nature to protect the body from white with the drifting petals of cherry trees, tropical suns. Her soul is all that should concf Abner Shapley home cern us, and I have found it w onderfully reSome black children, half naked, their eyesponsive to patience and grace balls startlingly white, were playing with "The Negro is admittedly religious, peroft shouts by the road, and my companion haps too impressionable; but for that very Indicated them benevolently. Who could reason easier to bring into the way of righthe demanded. It keep from liking them eousness. He became very grave. Friend, would be difficult, certainly, to quarrel with my affliction and Journeying here were a him there; the children were appealing, alert, mission. What, in my blindness, I lamented and Innocent and happy. But their gayety was a provision of the almighty." Abner waa abruptly extinguished by a Negro who gazed at me with the steadiness of convicadvanced ponderously with the assistance of tion, of faith, that is the greatest good proa thick carved stick. I am to fetch some holicurable on earth. He was amazingly fat, a pendulous body la ness to the Negroes of this place a precariously strained garb, with a droopMy long admiration, even affection, for him ing face the color of wood ashes. It was was shadowed by a swift doubt, and the dedifficult to see bis eyes the merest bloodshot sire to uphold his faith led me to the verge glimmer, his lips, like stale meat, rolled with of brutal frankness. You mustn't hope for a soundless mutter at his arduous progress, much," I told him. " Helping the Negro is while he breathed in painfully sharp explopot so simple as you think. It will be done, sive breaths. cf course, but it's a problem for science and Abaer leaned forward and called. Homer not sentiment." I trust to find thee better today. The Tybo, ) He regarded me with a placid pity, and in bulk paused and a resonant, unctuswaying his next words made it appear that I was in ous, deferential voice replied that Homer danger of being victimized by current skeptiTybo was barely able to walk The misery cisms. Such science, be corrected me, is was powerful bad Again addressed to his hut a trace of the wisdom of the As progress, be lifted a foot, placed it ahead of I said before, I have been sent here. What I the other, and painfully resumed his course. can accomplish is small, if anything heavenly That unfortunate creature, Abner told to small, and I have begun with Lucy. A me, is regarded w ith a superstitious and Negro lives down the road. Their moral wicked awe. Not only by the Negroes. I sense. he admitted, is deplorable, many ha.e heard presumably intelligent whites deof the births are out of wedlock. However, clare that he Is a . , . some Godless am encouraging Lucy and Zachary he's nonsense I cant remember. It is better, thee called Zebra, but I couldn't support that recalls, to have a millstone hung about the to live differently. At first they had no he pointed toward neck than to offend and I allowed them to sit In my front the children once more engaged in eager room. I demanded: ) They are all, young and old, lik play. What do your neighbors say? of such is not th that," he concluded; It doesnt concern them, be answered kingdom made? " True, they have remonstrated, Tbs heat became almost palpable Ilk a stubbornly. and the rougher element were even threatswimming of th night; the passerehy were infreoiuvn wIuImh in jjj muffling an and ening; but our Fathers ways art not at the XXL VS? r.U i " 1 ,? , v t v" V, $ r v .$ i .$y self-respe- f ii.i. - , i taM v . VU,J ana I 'at last asked a 'question that had lurked apprehensively among my thought since I had been in Varney with Abner Shapley. My companion turned an Injured expression toward me that immediately Changed to the greatest beneficent good tumor. "Why, bless your Innocent heart," he cried, w bat have you been reading about us! We're not all night riders. I like Simp-levery well; he's made a lot of friends. It only needs a look to see bis quality. Of course, he la different, but, Kaner smiled, that doesnt always tell against him. One or twe little deals havt been decidedly to his advantage. Shrewd. He's a member of the Varney Board of Trad and we re thinking bow to get him into th Rotary club. If a local man held bis views It would be another thing, or if be upset the blacks we couldn't allow that." Suddenly he became uncommunicative. " But, be quickly grew cheerful again, nothing of the kind has happened. The Negroes respect him, while I Imagine they take advantage of his well, ball we say hopefulness? The country through which we were progressing lay flat, unrelieved, like the circular unvaried horizon of the sea. It waa gray and without grass, and had the appearance of Intolerable heat, as though it were a furnace floor from which the fires had been lately drawn. There were no trees except the secretive dark oaks about the plantation g bouses, suffocated In moss, and the cypress brakes of the illimitable swamps. Occasionally a bayou, tideless and deep, cut through the sandy monotony Uks a prolongation of ths viscid morasses. The ground seemed absolutely dead. Incapable of sustaining any life, the dried stems of the cotton plants looked as though they had been arbitrarily stuck in as they were, and th flowers, gorgeous in color, exactly resembled paper. "These swamp, Kaner told mo, are remarkable I have been in them fishing or Just exploring You would be lost, probably dead, by night. A hundred yards and youd be helpless. Some of the Negroes know them there are dreadful stones of the old days, rumors still. I tell you, brother, If you knew the Negro jou wouldn't be so about him. We were passing by what I could see whs a great plantation, the stark fields wer only lost in far vapors, and under open sheds the cotton was heaped in bursting bales. The Negroes, the field hands, we; re gathered In uplne, grotesque attitudes about their priml tive cabins Mostly black their bodies gleamed through scant brilliant or sordid rags; and they followed our movement with faces empty of any expression but a dull cunoslty. All at once my comfortable sense of was lost in the apprehension of a mystery the dignity of an enigma withholding the truth, the women with babies at great breasts like sooty black bags, shriveled old men with patches of white wool'adherlng to their dried bkulls, gigantic young males like sable Olympians with broken features, oppressed me not merelv as tragic aliens, but with a feeling of Imminence. "Perhaps you can tell me this, Kaner proceeded, adding to my discomfort: Why won't a Negro pick the last corner of a cotton field? He paused, but I could only reflect his Interrogation The Rev .Mr Kaner didn't know. Why does he leave part of a corn row ? Why w ont he cut down a tree struck by lightning Suddenly he stopped the car by the mot respectable black I had yet seen, a man neatly dressed, with steel bowed spectacles. Sumpter. the minister said cheerfully, here's a gentleman 'way from the north who wants to know how things are down In Louisiana, and Id like you to tell him what youve got In your left shoe. A pleasant smile, wreathing the countenance before us, gave place to utter seriousness. There aint nobody Ignorant Trout that. he asserted. I Just got a pinch of snake dus'. Kaner added, And your buzzard's feather you havent gone and lost It? A lively concern Invaded Sumpter, only dispelled when h located, hidden In hia hat. a moldly and rumpled feather. y 'r tL & $ w; i The following day, wabbling over a characteristic road with Kaner in his automobile th light car necessary In central Louisi- i Sc I SWAMPS OF THELOUISIANA low-lyin- easy-minde- d &;.:$-f.lf ,1, - ' jUy'i- V over her shining body with the quick liquid eilver gleams of water. an insidious drowsiness enveloped me, ftom which I was roused by the appearance, from the back of the house, of a small colored man. whose pigmentation wa3 faintly streaked by a trace of other blood. He was raggedly clad and wore, fastened by a shining brass button, a dingy starched collar unattached to any shirt. His manner expressed a wistful humility with, at the same time, shrewdly appraising glances, and a subconscious sense of opportune dramatic values. he salutrd us Morning, gentlemen This is a powerful fine day for you-- good healths Good morning, Zachary," Abner replied A deprecating smile was turned to me with the explanation, My names Zebra, that s what it Is, but Zebra's not high toney enougn for the Gen ral "lie told you before not to give me a military title," the other, annoyed instructed 1 am Abner him. Shapley Zebra privately I liked this better than He Zachary was painfully disconcerted wrinkled a troubled forehead, and, from a largely inarticulate murmuring I gathered that he had no Intention of Inviting disaster by informally naming a white gentleman. After profound study, a stumbling in the obfuscation of his mind, he triumphantly suggested the alternative of Judge. This, with a sigh. Abner allowed Then Zebra, ima after cheered, mensely politely veiled inspection of my clothes, proposed a rtsponsl-bilitfor my appearance The Judge, he continued, w th tremenhe don t ride to no account dous emphasis, at all, and your shoes wul just have to be brushed up all the time. That was self evident, and I engaged him at once for my short - y stay at Varney, I come around, Zebra explained, to give that Lucy any lift, but maybe you got something for me right now, you might have " a whole lot of shoes When he learned that I hadn't he made his bow and, putting on his hat, left in the direction of the kitchen. Men." Abner declared, are made alike in the image of God. I wish I could lead them away from these expressions of worldly servitude " He regarded me with pursed lips. It might be well to keep an eye on Zachary and your things; Negroes have almost no idea of property. Some of mine disappeared and I was obliged " to get locks. My large red bandanas His optimism, I reflected, in regard to hi familiar brilliant handkerchiefs, reached absurdity. And, going up to my room for white flannels. X found Lucy engaged in putting sheets on the bed. I opened a bag delaying until she was through and, laying out what J needed, I secured the rest with a key. I could fee her, In lb small looking glass gf the bureau, and she made a childish face at me tnat had entirely vanished wnen I turned. Purely on Abners account, after the formal transference of a doHat, I encouiaged her in the expression of her general state of being and she announced a large dissatisfaction Abner, it appeared, was difficult it not imIt waa evident that she possible to please had looked, from a gentleman, for notable attitude and had been disappointed Then she giggled at his eccentricities, bitting In the pirlor with that skinny vellow mggerl Ruinate him something terrible. He wants us to get mairied, bhe added, roiling her eyes at Abner's extraerdinary interest in such trivialities Mr Shapley's powerful religious Hei cnancter, I tnought, was enurety evl dept to me Abner Shapleys fanaticism it was that, a bitter flame, for all his placidity had, of course, misled him. He saw the Negro as a duty, his message, as beings amenable to Christian Influence, capable of taking permanency the shape of virtue, whereas they were vet, in the light of west-r- i ri civilization, simply unmoral beings of r tally different racial heritage betrayed into an alien and fatal captivity. Tills I explained to an acquaintance of Abner's, calling hospltab'y to welcome me to Varney. He was the Rev. Teter Kaner, a Methodist minister with, I realized at once, a big prosperous church and wide influence. Theio was every reason why this bhould be n he combined to a remarkable degree the opposites of a solemn calling and a penetrating humorous comprehension of reality. He face listened with his mobile, smooth-shaveclosely attentive to my assertion that, to gether with him, I understood the Negro. Perhaps"" olfjb. he said. indeed, it is possible that you may. I should certainly be delighted. But I don't, his voice was positive and, for a moment, gave me the uncomfortable feeling of having made a pretentious, 111 founded statement. Yet, 1 thought, the south had made a botch of the coloted problem, they had hopelessly Involved it in a hundred unfortunate aspects. I'll take you around with me, Kaner promeasceeded, and show you our country. ure of prosperity has come to us with three hundred dollar cotton. This is the regibn of the genuine long staple A kind man. Abner pronounced, when the visitor had gone, but, like the rest, a shade benighted, unenlightened, toward the black brother. With this I waa able to concur. They see things." he specified, that dont actually exist, and make the Negro out to be a sort of scarecrow. It's time for the " evening prayer ilo iuos and .called Lucy. Kneeling with y under-btandi- with raised eyebrows. SumptM.v he si is one of the pillars of the church. T snake dust is to make him invisible, a with the buzzard's feather, he thinks no law or posse can catch him. But there ar things I couldnt ask him, even If it would be of any use. You cant learn a scrap of the Negros secrets. Take th grapevine telephone if a murder is committed twenty miles one side of Varney ami the sheriff, following a clew, drives hard twrenty miles In the other direction and Inquires of th Negroes, they will know already word will have been sont them to cabins back of nowhere. We were again In the town, by the chasm f ths river, precariously swaying narrow steps led giddily down to the cypress etaired water, and on the left the courthouse waa set In th shadow of th hollow square of oaks. The gloomy light swimming in the created the fantastic Illusion of a gigantic lynched Negro slowly twisting and untwisting at the end of a long rope; and I was relieved to he back in the familiar presence of Abner Shapley, seated with him at a frugal table In his bare, scrubbed house. Lucy put the coffee pot down noisily; as aha moved about her red slippers ' AND AFRICA boards, her atainod felt hat was pulled over an amazing complication of pqffed, crlflkled hair. The supper was miserable, a plat of fried tomatoes uneatable, and Abner was pldinlv disconcerted by th waste. He addressed rvnt which, with a fuliln, homily to th lowered countenance, ah heard standing by the kitchen door. The conviction that had disturbed me earlier, of a potent secret bidden in the Negros heart, returned; but I was conscious of a growing Irritation at what I called my gullible disposition all that I felt was no more than a reflection of the local superstition. The south waa pimply benighton th ( , ed about ita human charge. But the next morning Lucy waa ontlrely cheerful, even communicative. Abner, It ap. peared, had advanced the plana for her marriage, Zebra had procured a suit of clothes, almost new, and the ceremony waa to bo held here, in a white folks house, with a white minister. Lucy reckoned there'd be some mighty grand presents which, she added, she'd take good care didnt reach that useless pale nigger. Such being her description of Zebra. This he practically repeated, standing by the roadside; whatever it might have occurred to me to give them would be safest with himself. You couldnt trust that Lucy; she was said to be luny. I demanded exactly what. In such a connection, luny meant; but he absolutely refused to add another word and hurried away as If he had committed a dangerous Indiscretion. 4 TV. ft Standing In Abner 8hapleys swept front room with Zebra uneasily at her side, Lucy presented a remarkable combination of the exceptional and the commonplace In garb; the red morocco slippers were still In but there were now transparent white fiber silk stockings; her skirt, unevenly hitched, I recognized; but the soft hat was gone and her hair gathered into three masses like the close elastic filling of a mattress that gave her charcoal black face and dull, thick lips a sat agely African appearance. A heavy string of variegated glass beads was wound t1c$ around bar throat and large el-denc- Imitation pearls were fastened to her ears. A nose ring, I reflected, would have heon In no way out of place. The evident fact about Zebra was that beyond any doubt he was frightened; his face a as more gray than yellow. Th suit almost new waa too large for him, and on feet encumbered with tremendous half shoes of a forgotteen pattern the trousers fell in awkward folds. The coat sleeves wers so long that his hands, but for ths extreme finger tips, were swall t wed; while on hia thin neck the pretentious collar still rode unconnected with the safety, the anchorage, of a shirt. The Rev. Mr. Kaner, facing them, dropped a cheerfully bantering manner and waa Instancy grave in the pronouncement of the grave words of the marriage service: " Dearly beloved, we are gathered together In the sight of God to Join , . . holy bonds of matrimony an honorable , estate Lucy followed him with an impressed attention, but I doubt if her companion heard a word. The dread deepened perceptibly, hia shoulders twitched and his feet shuffled, he glanced about despairingly in search Of a possibility of escape; and he inevitably entangled the business of the ring. The woman to whom he was being Joined for better or worse gave him an infuriated shove w ith a muttered promise of 111 Immeto follow . . , and tho ceremony diately w as over. Abner and I fixed our names to th wedding certificate and the former led us to th dining room, where there wer cakes and lemonade. Here, however, Kaner rather hastily withdrew. There was no question of a honeymoon, and Lury. discovering something burning on ths stove, vanished, while Zbra reckoned, in tones both weary and at a loss, that hed better b getting along. He reckoned that, with that paper bearing our names, be had been married very tightly. Abner called his attention to the neglected supposition that God anij not man had Joined Lucy and himself; and uninterestedly he reckoned, a third time, that this was a fact. Abner Shapley, in the full formality of Quaker garb, wore a pepper and salt coat with tails which he parted carefully upon occupying a chair on the porch. Beyond, the trees, choked with mosa, th naked roots of the cypresses, the glimpse of ooppery water, were utterly still; the sky was empty except for the perpetually wheeling buzzards. I suppose,1 Abner said, " at home thy plowing has commenced and the robins have arrived. Hi expression, as always, waa placid, the rosy countenance of a boy; but I reoognlzed that be was saturated with nostalgia. , These are a kind people, he repeated; " kind, but hut Improvident and quick tempered. They are not my people and mins Hr not theirs. He lghd. Everything la as God wills, and my duty has been mads clear. The know it is no longer my lung that keep me here, but the unhappy Negro I must stay and extend His Influence. How much do you think lk waa assisted by this marriage? I asked directly. I can th deplorable spirit that lias entered thee," he replied gently. Thy faith is weak. Recalling my feeling of th Negro strange Bess, I repeated Kaners conviction that wo knew nothing, practically, of the black race. Abner smiled and forced my conviction toward hia rather than to th support of th local opinion. o mysterious They ar about it, I complained, and Insinuate ) things, but theres no substance ..." I, Continued ... oo following page, , |