villagers a fortnight before, when he was supposed to be in St. Louis;
but he doubted if he had sent away enough stuff to realize the
required amount, and was afraid to make a further venture in the
present excited state of the town. His mother approved of his conduct,
and offered to help, but this frightened him. He tremblingly ventured
to say that if she would retire from the town he should feel better
and safer, and could hold his head higher–and was going on to make
an argument, but she interrupted and surprised him pleasantly by saying
she was ready; it didn’t make any difference to her where she stayed,
so that she got her share of the pension regularly. She said she would
not go far, and would call at the haunted house once a month for her money.
Then she said:
“I don’t hate you so much now, but I’ve hated you a many a year–
and anybody would. Didn’t I change you off, en give you a good fambly
en a good name, en made you a white gen’l’man en rich, wid store
clothes on–en what did I git for it? You despised me all de time,
en was al’ays sayin’ mean hard things to me befo’ folks, en wouldn’t
ever let me forgit I’s a nigger–en–en–”
She fell to sobbing, and broke down. Tom said: “But you know I
didn’t know you were my mother; and besides–”
“Well, nemmine ’bout dat, now; let it go. I’s gwine to fo’git it.”
Then she added fiercely, “En don’t ever make me remember it ag’in,
or you’ll be sorry, _I_ tell you.”
When they were parting, Tom said, in the most persuasive way
he could command:
“Ma, would you mind telling me who was my father?”
He had supposed he was asking an embarrassing question. He was mistaken.
Roxy drew herself up with a proud toss of her head, and said:
“Does I mine tellin’ you? No, dat I don’t! You ain’t got no ‘casion
to be shame’ o’ yo’ father, _I_ kin tell you. He wuz de highest quality
in dis whole town–ole Virginny stock. Fust famblies, he wuz.
Jes as good stock as de Driscolls en de Howards, de bes’ day dey
ever seed.” She put on a little prouder air, if possible,
and added impressively: “Does you ‘member Cunnel Cecil Burleigh Essex,
dat died de same year yo’ young Marse Tom Driscoll’s pappy died,
en all de Masons en Odd Fellers en Churches turned out en give him de
bigges’ funeral dis town ever seed? Dat’s de man.”
Under the inspiration of her soaring complacency the departed graces of
her earlier days returned to her, and her bearing took to itself a
dignity and state that might have passed for queenly if her
surroundings had been a little more in keeping with it.
“Dey ain’t another nigger in dis town dat’s as highbawn as you is.
Now den, go ‘long! En jes you hold yo’ head up as high as you want to–
you has de right, en dat I kin swah.”
CHAPTER 10
The Nymph Revealed
All say, “How hard it is that we have to die”–a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
–Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
Every now and then, after Tom went to bed, he had sudden wakings
out of his sleep, and his first thought was, “Oh, joy, it was
all a dream!” Then he laid himself heavily down again, with a groan
and the muttered words, “A nigger! I am a nigger! Oh, I wish I was dead!”
He woke at dawn with one more repetition of this horror, and then he
resolved to meddle no more with that treacherous sleep.
He began to think. Sufficiently bitter thinkings they were.
They wandered along something after this fashion:
Why were niggers _and_ whites made? What crime did the uncreated
first nigger commit that the curse of birth was decreed for him?
And why is this awful difference made between white and black? . . .
How hard the nigger’s fate seems, this morning!–yet until last night