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Henry James - "The Marriages"

Walter Hawkins - "Old John Brown"

Achim von Arnim - "Isabella von Ägypten"

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus - "Pharsalia, [Civil War]"

The House Behind The Cedars

C >> Charles W. Chesnutt >> The House Behind The Cedars




"It is not right," maintained the lad.

"God bless me!" exclaimed the old gentleman,
"he is invading the field of ethics! He will be
questioning the righteousness of slavery next! I'm
afraid you wouldn't make a good lawyer, in any
event. Lawyers go by the laws--they abide by the
accomplished fact; to them, whatever is, is right.
The laws do not permit men of color to practice
law, and public sentiment would not allow one of
them to study it."

"I had thought," said the lad, "that I might
pass for white. There are white people darker
than I am."

"Ah, well, that is another matter; but"--

The judge stopped for a moment, struck by the
absurdity of his arguing such a question with a
mulatto boy. He really must be falling into
premature dotage. The proper thing would be to
rebuke the lad for his presumption and advise him
to learn to take care of horses, or make boots, or
lay bricks. But again he saw his old friend in the
lad's face, and again he looked in vain for any sign
of negro blood. The least earmark would have
turned the scale, but he could not find it.

"That is another matter," he repeated. "Here
you have started as black, and must remain so.
But if you wish to move away, and sink your past
into oblivion, the case might be different. Let us
see what the law is; you might not need it if you
went far enough, but it is well enough to be within
it--liberty is sweeter when founded securely on
the law."

He took down a volume bound in legal calf and
glanced through it. "The color line is drawn in
North Carolina at four generations removed from
the negro; there have been judicial decisions to
that effect. I imagine that would cover your
case. But let us see what South Carolina may
say about it," he continued, taking another book.
"I think the law is even more liberal there. Ah,
this is the place:--

"`The term mulatto,'" he read, "`is not invariably
applicable to every admixture of African blood
with the European, nor is one having all the features
of a white to be ranked with the degraded class
designated by the laws of this State as persons of
color, because of some remote taint of the negro
race. Juries would probably be justified in holding
a person to be white in whom the admixture
of African blood did not exceed one eighth. And
even where color or feature are doubtful, it is a
question for the jury to decide by reputation, by
reception into society, and by their exercise of the
privileges of the white man, as well as by admixture
of blood.'"

"Then I need not be black?" the boy cried,
with sparkling eyes.

"No," replied the lawyer, "you need not be
black, away from Patesville. You have the somewhat
unusual privilege, it seems, of choosing
between two races, and if you are a lad of spirit,
as I think you are, it will not take you long to make
your choice. As you have all the features of a
white man, you would, at least in South Carolina,
have simply to assume the place and exercise the
privileges of a white man. You might, of course,
do the same thing anywhere, as long as no one knew
your origin. But the matter has been adjudicated
there in several cases, and on the whole I think
South Carolina is the place for you. They're more
liberal there, perhaps because they have many
more blacks than whites, and would like to lessen
the disproportion."

"From this time on," said the boy, "I am white."

"Softly, softly, my Caucasian fellow citizen,"
returned the judge, chuckling with quiet
amusement. "You are white in the abstract, before the
law. You may cherish the fact in secret, but I
would not advise you to proclaim it openly just
yet. You must wait until you go away--to South
Carolina."

"And can I learn to be a lawyer, sir?" asked
the lad.

"It seems to me that you ought to be reasonably
content for one day with what you have
learned already. You cannot be a lawyer until
you are white, in position as well as in theory, nor
until you are twenty-one years old. I need an
office boy. If you are willing to come into my
office, sweep it, keep my books dusted, and stay
here when I am out, I do not care. To the rest
of the town you will be my servant, and still a
negro. If you choose to read my books when no
one is about and be white in your own private
opinion, I have no objection. When you have
made up your mind to go away, perhaps what you
have read may help you. But mum 's the word!
If I hear a whisper of this from any other source,
out you go, neck and crop! I am willing to help
you make a man of yourself, but it can only be
done under the rose."

For two years John Walden openly swept the
office and surreptitiously read the law books of old
Judge Straight. When he was eighteen, he asked
his mother for a sum of money, kissed her good-
by, and went out into the world. When his sister,
then a pretty child of seven, cried because her
big brother was going away, he took her up in his
arms, gave her a silver dime with a hole in it for
a keepsake, hugged her close, and kissed her.

"Nev' min', sis," he said soothingly. "Be a
good little gal, an' some o' these days I'll come
back to see you and bring you somethin' fine."

In after years, when Mis' Molly was asked what
had become of her son, she would reply with sad
complacency,--

"He's gone over on the other side."

As we have seen, he came back ten years later.


Many years before, when Mis' Molly, then a
very young woman, had taken up her residence in
the house behind the cedars, the gentleman heretofore
referred to had built a cabin on the opposite
corner, in which he had installed a trusted slave
by the name of Peter Fowler and his wife Nancy.
Peter was a good mechanic, and hired his time
from his master with the provision that Peter and
his wife should do certain work for Mis' Molly and
serve as a sort of protection for her. In course of
time Peter, who was industrious and thrifty, saved
enough money to purchase his freedom and that
of his wife and their one child, and to buy the little
house across the street, with the cooper shop behind
it. After they had acquired their freedom,
Peter and Nancy did no work for Mis' Molly save
as they were paid for it, and as a rule preferred
not to work at all for the woman who had been
practically their mistress; it made them seem less
free. Nevertheless, the two households had
remained upon good terms, even after the death of
the man whose will had brought them together,
and who had remained Peter's patron after he had
ceased to be his master. There was no intimate
association between the two families. Mis' Molly
felt herself infinitely superior to Peter and his
wife,--scarcely less superior than her poor white
neighbors felt themselves to Mis' Molly. Mis'
Molly always meant to be kind, and treated Peter
and Nancy with a certain good-natured condescension.
They resented this, never openly or offensively,
but always in a subconscious sort of
way, even when they did not speak of it among
themselves--much as they had resented her
mistress-ship in the old days. For after all, they
argued, in spite of her airs and graces, her white
face and her fine clothes, was she not a negro,
even as themselves? and since the slaves had been
freed, was not one negro as good as another?

Peter's son Frank had grown up with little
Rena. He was several years older than she, and
when Rena was a small child Mis' Molly had often
confided her to his care, and he had watched over
her and kept her from harm. When Frank became
old enough to go to work in the cooper shop,
Rena, then six or seven, had often gone across
to play among the clean white shavings. Once
Frank, while learning the trade, had let slip a sharp
steel tool, which flying toward Rena had grazed
her arm and sent the red blood coursing along the
white flesh and soaking the muslin sleeve. He
had rolled up the sleeve and stanched the blood
and dried her tears. For a long time thereafter
her mother kept her away from the shop and was
very cold to Frank. One day the little girl
wandered down to the bank of the old canal. It had
been raining for several days, and the water was
quite deep in the channel. The child slipped and
fell into the stream. From the open window of
the cooper shop Frank heard a scream. He ran
down to the canal and pulled her out, and carried
her all wet and dripping to the house. From that
time he had been restored to favor. He had
watched the girl grow up to womanhood in the
years following the war, and had been sorry when
she became too old to play about the shop.

He never spoke to her of love,--indeed, he
never thought of his passion in such a light.
There would have been no legal barrier to their
union; there would have been no frightful menace
to white supremacy in the marriage of the negro
and the octoroon: the drop of dark blood bridged
the chasm. But Frank knew that she did not
love him, and had not hoped that she might. His
was one of those rare souls that can give with
small hope of return. When he had made the
scar upon her arm, by the same token she had
branded him her slave forever; when he had saved
her from a watery grave, he had given his life to
her. There are depths of fidelity and devotion in
the negro heart that have never been fathomed or
fully appreciated. Now and then in the kindlier
phases of slavery these qualities were brightly
conspicuous, and in them, if wisely appealed to, lies
the strongest hope of amity between the two races
whose destiny seems bound up together in the
Western world. Even a dumb brute can be won
by kindness. Surely it were worth while to try
some other weapon than scorn and contumely and
hard words upon people of our common race,--
the human race, which is bigger and broader than
Celt or Saxon, barbarian or Greek, Jew or Gentile,
black or white; for we are all children of a
common Father, forget it as we may, and each one
of us is in some measure his brother's keeper.



XIX

GOD MADE US ALL


Rena was convalescent from a two-weeks'
illness when her brother came to see her. He arrived
at Patesville by an early morning train before the
town was awake, and walked unnoticed from the
station to his mother's house. His meeting with
his sister was not without emotion: he embraced
her tenderly, and Rena became for a few minutes
a very Niobe of grief.

"Oh, it was cruel, cruel!" she sobbed. "I
shall never get over it."

"I know it, my dear," replied Warwick
soothingly,--"I know it, and I'm to blame for it. If
I had never taken you away from here, you would
have escaped this painful experience. But do not
despair; all is not lost. Tryon will not marry
you, as I hoped he might, while I feared the
contrary; but he is a gentleman, and will be silent.
Come back and try again."

"No, John. I couldn't go through it a second
time. I managed very well before, when I thought
our secret was unknown; but now I could never
be sure. It would be borne on every wind, for
aught I knew, and every rustling leaf might
whisper it. The law, you said, made us white;
but not the law, nor even love, can conquer
prejudice. HE spoke of my beauty, my grace, my
sweetness! I looked into his eyes and believed
him. And yet he left me without a word! What
would I do in Clarence now? I came away
engaged to be married, with even the day set; I
should go back forsaken and discredited; even the
servants would pity me."

"Little Albert is pining for you," suggested
Warwick. "We could make some explanation
that would spare your feelings."

"Ah, do not tempt me, John! I love the child,
and am grieved to leave him. I'm grateful, too,
John, for what you have done for me. I am not
sorry that I tried it. It opened my eyes, and I
would rather die of knowledge than live in ignorance.
But I could not go through it again, John;
I am not strong enough. I could do you no good;
I have made you trouble enough already. Get a
mother for Albert--Mrs. Newberry would marry
you, secret and all, and would be good to the child.
Forget me, John, and take care of yourself. Your
friend has found you out through me--he may
have told a dozen people. You think he will be
silent;--I thought he loved me, and he left me
without a word, and with a look that told me how
he hated and despised me. I would not have
believed it--even of a white man."

"You do him an injustice," said her brother,
producing Tryon's letter. "He did not get off
unscathed. He sent you a message."

She turned her face away, but listened while he
read the letter. "He did not love me," she cried
angrily, when he had finished, "or he would not
have cast me off--he would not have looked at
me so. The law would have let him marry me. I
seemed as white as he did. He might have gone
anywhere with me, and no one would have stared
at us curiously; no one need have known. The
world is wide--there must be some place where a
man could live happily with the woman he loved."

"Yes, Rena, there is; and the world is wide
enough for you to get along without Tryon."

"For a day or two," she went on, "I hoped
he might come back. But his expression in that
awful moment grew upon me, haunted me day and
night, until I shuddered at the thought that I might
ever see him again. He looked at me as though I
were not even a human being. I do not love him
any longer, John; I would not marry him if I
were white, or he were as I am. He did not love
me--or he would have acted differently. He
might have loved me and have left me--he could
not have loved me and have looked at me so!"

She was weeping hysterically. There was little
he could say to comfort her. Presently she dried
her tears. Warwick was reluctant to leave her in
Patesville. Her childish happiness had been that
of ignorance; she could never be happy there again.
She had flowered in the sunlight; she must not
pine away in the shade.

"If you won't come back with me, Rena, I'll
send you to some school at the North, where you
can acquire a liberal education, and prepare
yourself for some career of usefulness. You may
marry a better man than even Tryon."

"No," she replied firmly, "I shall never marry
any man, and I'll not leave mother again. God
is against it; I'll stay with my own people."

"God has nothing to do with it," retorted
Warwick. "God is too often a convenient stalking-
horse for human selfishness. If there is anything
to be done, so unjust, so despicable, so wicked that
human reason revolts at it, there is always some
smug hypocrite to exclaim, `It is the will of God.'"

"God made us all," continued Rena dreamily,
"and for some good purpose, though we may not
always see it. He made some people white, and
strong, and masterful, and--heartless. He made
others black and homely, and poor and weak"--

"And a lot of others `poor white' and shiftless,"
smiled Warwick.

"He made us, too," continued Rena, intent upon
her own thought, "and He must have had a reason
for it. Perhaps He meant us to bring the others
together in his own good time. A man may make
a new place for himself--a woman is born and
bound to hers. God must have meant me to stay
here, or He would not have sent me back. I shall
accept things as they are. Why should I seek the
society of people whose friendship--and love--
one little word can turn to scorn? I was right,
John; I ought to have told him. Suppose he had
married me and then had found it out?"

To Rena's argument of divine foreordination
Warwick attached no weight whatever. He had
seen God's heel planted for four long years upon
the land which had nourished slavery. Had God
ordained the crime that the punishment might
follow? It would have been easier for Omnipotence
to prevent the crime. The experience of his sister
had stirred up a certain bitterness against white
people--a feeling which he had put aside years ago,
with his dark blood, but which sprang anew into
life when the fact of his own origin was brought
home to him so forcibly through his sister's
misfortune. His sworn friend and promised brother-in-
law had thrown him over promptly, upon the
discovery of the hidden drop of dark blood. How many
others of his friends would do the same, if they
but knew of it? He had begun to feel a little of
the spiritual estrangement from his associates that
he had noticed in Rena during her life at Clarence.
The fact that several persons knew his secret had
spoiled the fine flavor of perfect security hitherto
marking his position. George Tryon was a man of
honor among white men, and had deigned to extend
the protection of his honor to Warwick as a man,
though no longer as a friend; to Rena as a woman,
but not as a wife. Tryon, however, was only human,
and who could tell when their paths in life might
cross again, or what future temptation Tryon might
feel to use a damaging secret to their disadvantage?
Warwick had cherished certain ambitions, but these
he must now put behind him. In the obscurity of
private life, his past would be of little moment; in
the glare of a political career, one's antecedents are
public property, and too great a reserve in regard
to one's past is regarded as a confession of something
discreditable. Frank, too, knew the secret
--a good, faithful fellow, even where there was no
obligation of fidelity; he ought to do something for
Frank to show their appreciation of his conduct.
But what assurance was there that Frank would
always be discreet about the affairs of others?
Judge Straight knew the whole story, and old men
are sometimes garrulous. Dr. Green suspected the
secret; he had a wife and daughters. If old Judge
Straight could have known Warwick's thoughts, he
would have realized the fulfillment of his prophecy.
Warwick, who had builded so well for himself, had
weakened the structure of his own life by trying to
share his good fortune with his sister.

" Listen, Rena," he said, with a sudden impulse,
"we'll go to the North or West--I'll go with
you--far away from the South and the Southern
people, and start life over again. It will be easier
for you, it will not be hard for me--I am young,
and have means. There are no strong ties to bind
me to the South. I would have a larger outlook
elsewhere."

"And what about our mother?" asked Rena.

It would be necessary to leave her behind, they
both perceived clearly enough, unless they were
prepared to surrender the advantage of their whiteness
and drop back to the lower rank. The mother
bore the mark of the Ethiopian--not pronouncedly,
but distinctly; neither would Mis' Molly, in all
probability, care to leave home and friends and the
graves of her loved ones. She had no mental
resources to supply the place of these; she was,
moreover, too old to be transplanted; she would
not fit into Warwick's scheme for a new life.

"I left her once," said Rena, "and it brought
pain and sorrow to all three of us. She is not
strong, and I will not leave her here to die alone.
This shall be my home while she lives, and if I
leave it again, it shall be for only a short time, to
go where I can write to her freely, and hear from
her often. Don't worry about me, John,--I shall
do very well."

Warwick sighed. He was sincerely sorry to leave
his sister, and yet he saw that for the time being
her resolution was not to be shaken. He must bide
his time. Perhaps, in a few months, she would tire
of the old life. His door would be always open to
her, and he would charge himself with her future.

"Well, then," he said, concluding the argument,
"we'll say no more about it for the present. I'll
write to you later. I was afraid that you might
not care to go back just now, and so I brought
your trunk along with me."

He gave his mother the baggage-check. She
took it across to Frank, who, during the day,
brought the trunk from the depot. Mis' Molly
offered to pay him for the service, but he would
accept nothing.

"Lawd, no, Mis' Molly; I did n' hafter go out'n
my way ter git dat trunk. I had a load er sperrit-
bairls ter haul ter de still, an' de depot wuz right
on my way back. It'd be robbin' you ter take
pay fer a little thing lack dat."

"My son John's here," said Mis' Molly "an'
he wants to see you. Come into the settin'-room.
We don't want folks to know he's in town; but
you know all our secrets, an' we can trust you like
one er the family."

"I'm glad to see you again, Frank," said
Warwick, extending his hand and clasping Frank's
warmly. "You've grown up since I saw you last,
but it seems you are still our good friend."

"Our very good friend," interjected Rena.

Frank threw her a grateful glance. "Yas, suh,"
he said, looking Warwick over with a friendly eye,
"an' you is growed some, too. I seed you, you
know, down dere where you live; but I did n' let
on, fer you an' Mis' Rena wuz w'ite as anybody;
an' eve'ybody said you wuz good ter cullud folks,
an' he'ped 'em in deir lawsuits an' one way er
'nuther, an' I wuz jes' plum' glad ter see you
gettin' 'long so fine, dat I wuz, certain sho', an' no
mistake about it."

"Thank you, Frank, and I want you to understand
how much I appreciate"--

"How much we all appreciate," corrected Rena.

"Yes, how much we all appreciate, and how
grateful we all are for your kindness to mother for
so many years. I know from her and from my
sister how good you've been to them."

"Lawd, suh!" returned Frank deprecatingly,
"you're makin' a mountain out'n a molehill. I
ain't done nuthin' ter speak of--not half ez much
ez I would 'a' done. I wuz glad ter do w'at little
I could, fer frien'ship's sake."

"We value your friendship, Frank, and we'll
not forget it."

"No, Frank," added Rena, "we will never
forget it, and you shall always be our good friend."

Frank left the room and crossed the street with
swelling heart. He would have given his life for
Rena. A kind word was doubly sweet from her
lips; no service would be too great to pay for her
friendship.


When Frank went out to the stable next morning
to feed his mule, his eyes opened wide with
astonishment. In place of the decrepit, one-eyed
army mule he had put up the night before, a fat,
sleek specimen of vigorous mulehood greeted his
arrival with the sonorous hehaw of lusty youth.
Hanging on a peg near by was a set of fine new
harness, and standing under the adjoining shed, as
he perceived, a handsome new cart.

"Well, well!" exclaimed Frank; "ef I did n'
mos' know whar dis mule, an' dis kyart, an' dis
harness come from, I'd 'low dere 'd be'n witcheraf'
er cunjin' wukkin' here. But, oh my, dat is a
fine mule!--I mos' wush I could keep 'im."

He crossed the road to the house behind the
cedars, and found Mis' Molly in the kitchen.
"Mis' Molly," he protested, "I ain't done nuthin'
ter deserve dat mule. W'at little I done fer you
wa'n't done fer pay. I'd ruther not keep dem
things."

"Fer goodness' sake, Frank!" exclaimed his
neighbor, with a well-simulated air of mystification,
"what are you talkin' about?"

"You knows w'at I'm talkin' about, Mis'
Molly; you knows well ernuff I'm talkin' about
dat fine mule an' kyart an' harness over dere in
my stable."

"How should I know anything about 'em?"
she asked.

"Now, Mis' Molly! You folks is jes' tryin' ter
fool me, an' make me take somethin' fer nuthin'.
I lef' my ole mule an' kyart an' harness in de
stable las' night, an' dis mawnin' dey 're gone, an'
new ones in deir place. Co'se you knows whar
dey come from!"

"Well, now, Frank, sence you mention it, I did
see a witch flyin' roun' here las' night on a broom-
stick, an' it 'peared ter me she lit on yo'r barn, an'
I s'pose she turned yo'r old things into new ones.
I wouldn't bother my mind about it if I was you,
for she may turn 'em back any night, you know;
an' you might as well have the use of 'em in the
mean while."

"Dat's all foolishness, Mis' Molly, an' I'm
gwine ter fetch dat mule right over here an' tell
yo' son ter gimme my ole one back."

"My son's gone," she replied, "an' I don't
know nothin' about yo'r old mule. And what
would I do with a mule, anyhow? I ain't got no
barn to put him in."

"I suspect you don't care much for us after
all, Frank," said Rena reproachfully--she had
come in while they were talking. "You meet
with a piece of good luck, and you're afraid of it,
lest it might have come from us."

"Now, Miss Rena, you oughtn't ter say dat,"
expostulated Frank, his reluctance yielding immediately.
"I'll keep de mule an' de kyart an' de
harness--fac', I'll have ter keep 'em, 'cause I
ain't got no others. But dey 're gwine ter be yo'n
ez much ez mine. W'enever you wants anything
hauled, er wants yo' lot ploughed, er anything--
dat's yo' mule, an' I'm yo' man an' yo' mammy's."

So Frank went back to the stable, where he
feasted his eyes on his new possessions, fed and
watered the mule, and curried and brushed his
coat until it shone like a looking-glass.

"Now dat," remarked Peter, at the breakfast-
table, when informed of the transaction, "is somethin'
lack rale w'ite folks."

No real white person had ever given Peter a
mule or a cart. He had rendered one of them
unpaid service for half a lifetime, and had paid for
the other half; and some of them owed him
substantial sums for work performed. But "to him
that hath shall be given"--Warwick paid for the
mule, and the real white folks got most of the
credit.

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