Читать книгу Silas X. Floyd's Short Stories for Colored People Both Old and Young - Silas Xavier Floyd - Страница 12

Table of Contents

The people of the Piney Grove settlement, both white and black, had been free for nearly a generation. The whites had been freed from the curse of being slave-holders, and the blacks had been freed from the curse of being held in bondage. But never in the history of this little town, in the very heart of the so-called “Black Belt” of Georgia, had the people known anything about the proper observance of Thanksgiving Day until 189—. And in that year the revolution was brought about by a young colored woman named Grace Wilkins.

Grace Wilkins was the only daughter of Solomon and Amanda Wilkins. Solomon and his wife were farmers—plain, simple, ordinary country folk. Amanda was literally her husband’s helpmeet. She went along with him every morning to the field, and, in season, chopped as much wood, picked as much cotton, hoed as much corn, pulled as much fodder, and plowed as much as her husband did. Up to her fourteenth year Grace had been reared on a farm, and had learned to do all the things that any farmer’s child has to do—such as milking cows, feeding hogs and chickens, hoeing cotton and corn, picking cotton, pulling fodder and the like. In her fourteenth year, acting upon the advice of an uneducated colored preacher, her parents sent Grace away from home to attend one of the great normal and industrial institutes for the training of the black boys and girls of the South.

Grace Before Going to School.

At first her mother and father were filled with forebodings. It was the first time that they had ever allowed their daughter to be away from them, and they missed her so much and longed for her so constantly that they thought that they had made a mistake in sending her off to “boardin’ school.” Ignorant and superstitious neighbors, though they knew as little about such matters as did Solomon and Amanda, were loud in saying that “Sol” and “Mandy” would live to regret the step they had taken in sending Grace away from home. The only rays of sunshine that came in to brighten these periods of mental unrest and gloom on the part of Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins were found in the letters which they received regularly from their daughter. Grace invariably informed her parents, whenever she wrote, that she was “well an’ doin’ well.” Thus reassured from time to time, Solomon and Amanda managed somehow to undergo the terrible strain of having their daughter absent from them for eight months. But meantime they were firmly of the opinion that, once they got their hands on her again, they would never allow Grace to return to school.

With glad and thankful hearts Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins joyously embraced their daughter when she came home at the close of her first year in school. With keen and genuine interest, they listened to her wonderful accounts of the great school and of the great man at the head of it. Grace dressed differently and talked differently; and her mother said, speaking one day in confidence to her husband shortly after Grace’s return, “Dat gal’s sho got a new walk on her!”

Grace Wilkins brought back a toothbrush with her from school. That was something which she had never had before. She used that toothbrush every morning and night. That was something that she had never done before. She was now careful to keep her hair well combed every day. That was something that she had been accustomed to do on Sundays only or on special occasions. She washed her face two or three times a day now, as her mother and father noticed. Before she went to school she had been in the habit of giving her face, as the old people say, “a lick and a promise” early each morning. Besides, Grace kept the house cleaner than she had kept it before. She brought home with her a brand new Bible which she read regularly at home and always carried to church and Sunday school. She also had a song book called “Jubilee Songs and Plantation Melodies,” and it gladdened the hearts of the good “old folks at home” to hear their daughter sing from a book some of the very songs that they had sung all their lifetime and which were so dear to them.

All these things and others made a deep and abiding impression upon Solomon and his wife. And finding that withal their daughter was just as loving and kind as she had been before, and that she was just as industrious and faithful as formerly, Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins were not long in deciding that their daughter should go back to that school another year, and that they would work hard and stint themselves in order that they might keep her there until she had finished the normal course.

So back to school Grace Wilkins went—that year, and the next year, and the next. It was the proudest day in Solomon’s and Amanda’s lives when they sat in the magnificent chapel of the school and heard their daughter read her graduation essay on “The Gospel of Service.” Glad tears welled up in their eyes when they heard the principal call their daughter’s name, and then saw Grace step up to receive her certificate of graduation.

Coming back to Piney Grove to live, “Miss Gracie”—everybody called her that after graduation—established a little school which she called “The Piney Grove Academy.” It was the first public school for colored children ever opened within the corporate limits of the little village. Before that the schools were district schools or county schools, which were taught about in different places for only three or four months in the year, mainly during the summer. Miss Gracie began her school the first day of October. By special arrangement she used the first three months for the public term allowed by the state, and supplemented that with a five-months term, for which the pupils were required to pay fifty cents each per month. The plan worked well, the parents joining in heartily in the movement, and the Piney Grove Academy soon became the model school for the surrounding counties.

Grace’s Graduation.

Among other things Miss Gracie had learned at school what was the import of our national Thanksgiving Day. At the opening of the second year of the Piney Grove Academy she decided that she would inaugurate an annual Thanksgiving service. Accordingly on the opening day of the second year Miss Gracie informed the pupils of her plan, and told them that she would begin the very next day to prepare a suitable program for the exercises. Afterwards Miss Gracie secured the cooperation of the village pastor—the same man who had been instrumental in having her parents send her away to school. Through him she was permitted to talk to the people at the church two or three times about the proposed celebration. She was careful to tell them that the Thanksgiving festival was meant specially to be a home festival in addition to being a time for the people to come together in their accustomed places of worship to thank God for the blessings of the year. She urged them, therefore, as far as they were able without going to unnecessary expense, to have family dinners and bring together at one time and in one place as many members of the family as possible. She explained to them how this might be done successfully and economically, and with pleasure and profit to all concerned. She also urged them to be planning beforehand so that nothing might prevent their attending church Thanksgiving Day morning. She was going to hold the exercises in the church, because her little school was not large enough to furnish an assembly hall for the people who would be likely to be present.

On Thanksgiving Day nearly everybody in town went to the exercises. Many white people attended, including the county school commissioner and the school trustees. It was the first Thanksgiving service that any of them had ever witnessed.

The program was made up, for the most part, of choice selections from negro authors, composers, orators, and so forth. A selection from Frederick Douglass on “Patriotism” was declaimed; one from Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Exposition speech was also delivered. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem entitled “Signs of the Times” (a Thanksgiving poem) was read by one of the pupils, and also “The Party,” another of Dunbar’s pieces, was rendered. “The Negro National Hymn,” words by James W. Johnson and music by his brother, Rosamond Johnson, was sung by a chorus of fifty voices. At the opening of the service the president’s Thanksgiving proclamation was read and appropriate remarks were made by Miss Wilkins. The closing remarks were made by the Rev. John Jones, the village pastor. The remarks of Mr. Jones were in the congratulatory mood. He was naturally proud of Miss Gracie’s achievements, because he had had something to do with putting her on the road to an education. He spoke of the teacher as the leaven that was leavening the whole lump, and the applause which followed the statement showed plainly the high esteem in which the teacher was held by all the people. Everyone enjoyed the service. None of the villagers had ever seen anything like it before. After singing “America” all of them went away happy, many of them, in obedience to Miss Gracie’s previous counsel, going home to eat for the first time, well knowing what they were doing, a Thanksgiving dinner.

At the home of Miss Wilkins there was an excellent spread of ’possum, potatoes, rice, chicken, pickles, macaroni, bread, a precious Thanksgiving turkey, and the inevitable mincemeat pie. Besides Miss Gracie, there sat at the table that day her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Wilkins, John and Joseph Wilkins, brothers of Solomon who had come from a distance, Mary Andrews, a sister of Mrs. Wilkins, who also came from a distance, Grandma Wilkins, Grandma and Grandpa Andrews, the Rev. John Jones, his wife, his daughter, and his only son, Jasper Jones.

Jasper had gone to school at T—— one year after Gracie went, and, of course, was one year later in finishing the course there. On this Thanksgiving Day, nevertheless, he had been out of school long enough to have successfully established himself in the business of poultry raising and dairying.

Just before the dinner party was dismissed the Rev. Mr. Jones arose and said:

“There is another little ceremony you’all is invited to witness befo’ you go out to see the baseball game. I am authorized by these credentials which I hol’ in my hands to unite in the holy bonds of matrimony Miss Grace Wilkins and Mr. Jasper Jones. If there is no objection, these two persons will please stan’ up, an’ I’ll tie the knot.”

Of course there were no objections. The knot was tied. And when the villagers learned of the occurrence not long afterwards they had additional reason for believing that they were right when they voted that Piney Grove had never seen the like of such a Thanksgiving Day, and that Miss Gracie Wilkins was one of the best women in all the world.