Читать книгу The Hindered Hand; or, The Reign of the Repressionist - Sutton E. Griggs - Страница 5

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To the pagan yet remaining in man it would seem that yon railroad train plunging toward the Southland is somehow conscious of the fact that it is playing a part in events of tremendous import, for observe how it pierces the darkness with its one wild eye, cleaves the air with its steely front and causes wars and thunders to creep into the dreams of the people by whose homes it makes its midnight rush.

Well, this train now moving toward Almaville, queen city of the South, measured by the results that developed from that night's journey, is fully entitled to all its fretting and fuming, brag and bluster of steam and smoke, and to its wearisome jangle of clanging bell and shrieking whistle and rumbling wheel.

It was summer time. A Negro porter passing through a coach set apart for white passengers noted the fixedness with which a young woman with a pretty face and a pair of beautiful blue eyes was regarding him. Her head was inclined to one side, her hand so supporting her face that a prettily shaped ear peeped out from between her fingers. In the look of her eye there was a slight suggestion of immaturity, which, however, was contradicted by the firm outlines of her face. As the porter drew near her seat she significantly directed her look to a certain spot on the car floor, thence to the eyes of the porter.

Having in mind the well understood dictum of the white man of the South that the Negro man and the white woman are to be utterly oblivious of the existence of each other, this Negro porter was loth to believe that the young woman was trying surreptitiously to attract his attention, and he passed out of the coach hurriedly. In a short while he returned and again noted how intently the young woman regarded him. This time he observed that she had evidently been weeping and that there was a look of hopeless sorrow in her eyes. Again the young woman looked at him, then upon the floor and up at him once more. The porter looked down upon the spot indicated by her look, saw a note, stooped and picked it up. He returned to the coach or rather to the end of a coach, set apart for Negroes, took a rear seat and surveyed the car preparatory to reading the note which the young woman plainly indicated was for him.

"I don't want white girls passing me notes," thought the Negro, clutching the note tightly and continuing to glance about the coach in a half-frightened manner. He arose to hoist the window by which he sat, intending to utilize it to be rid of the note in case the occasion should demand it. His fears had begun to suggest to him that perhaps some white man had noticed his taking cognizance of the young woman's efforts to attract his attention.

As the Negro section of the coach was the forward section and next to the baggage car, any person coming from the section set apart for the whites would be to the back of the Negro passengers. The porter therefore changed his seat, going forward and taking a position where he would be facing any one coming from the coach for whites. He raised the window by which he sat and his eye wandered out into the darkness amid the sombre trees that went speeding along, and there arose to haunt him mental visions of a sea of angry white faces closing around some one dark face, perhaps guilty and perhaps innocent; and as he thought thereon he shuddered. He felt sorely tempted to toss the note out of the window unread, but remembering the pleading look on the face of the young woman he did not follow the promptings of his fear.

"In case of trouble, this crew in here couldn't help a fellow much," said the porter, moving his eyes about slowly again, taking note one by one of those in the section with him. There was the conductor, who though a white man, seemed always to prefer to sit in the section set apart for the Negroes. There was the newsboy, also white, taking up two seats with his wares.

"As well as they know me they would go with the other gang. A white man is a white man, and don't you forget it," mused the porter.

There were two male passengers sitting together, Negroes, one of whom was so light of complexion that he could easily have passed for white, while the other was of a dark brown hue.

"A fine looking fellow," thought the porter concerning the dark young man.

Across the aisle from the two young men mentioned, and a seat or so in advance of them, sat a young woman whose face was covered with a very thick veil. The perfect mould of her shoulders, the attractiveness of her wealth of black hair massed at the back of her head—these things were demanding, the porter noticed, many an admiring glance from the darker of the two young men.

The porter seemed about to forget his note in observing with what regularity the young man's eyes would wander off and straightway return to rest upon the beautiful form of the young woman, but an incident occurred that brought his mind back very forcibly to the note. The door from the section for the whites opened and two white men entered.

The porter's hand in which the note was held cautiously crept toward the open window, while he eyed the two white men whom he feared had come to accuse him of an attempted flirtation with a young white woman. One of the men reached behind to his hip pocket and the porter half arose in his seat, throwing up his hands in alarm, expecting a pistol to appear to cover him. The white man was simply drawing out a flask of whiskey to offer his companion a drink.

Ensal Ellwood, the dark young man, looking around to see if the parties who had entered had closed the door behind them (for the adjoining section was the white people's smoking apartment, and care had to be exercised to keep smoke and tobacco fumes out), saw the two white men about to take a drink. He arose quickly and advancing to the two men, said quietly, urbanely and yet with an air of firmness,

"Gentlemen, the law prescribes that this coach shall be used exclusively by Negro passengers and we must ask that you do not make our first-class apartment a drinking room for the whites."

The two men stared at Ensal and he looked them frankly in the face that they might see that in a dignified manner he would insist to the last upon the rights of the Negro passengers. The justness of Ensal's request, his unostentatious, manly bearing had the desired effect. The two men quietly turned about and left the car.

The porter who had been standing during this little scene now sat down, opened the note and read as follows:

"Mr. Porter: When this train is within a fifteen minutes' run of Almaville please pass through this coach and so announce. Then stand on the platform leading from this coach to the coach in which the Negroes have their section.

"From the Girl that Looked at You."

The first part of this request the porter concluded to comply with, but he registered all sorts of vows to the effect that he would never be found waiting on any platform for any white girl. He murmered to himself.

"My young lady, you may sign yourself, 'From the girl that looked at you;' but with all due respect my signature is 'The boy that wasn't there.'"

Again he looked out of the window at the same sombre trees and into the gloom of their shadows, and he put his hand in his collar as though it was already too tight.

"No, my God!" he said softly. Tearing the note to shreds, he fed it to the winds, lowered the window and began to whistle.

When the train was in the designated distance of Almaville the porter entered the coach for whites in which sat the young woman who wrote the note. "Fifteen minutes and the train pulls into Almaville," he exclaimed, as he walked the aisle in an opposite direction to that desired by the young woman. She at once understood and saw that she must depend upon herself.

The fragile, beautiful creature arose and by holding to the ends of the various seats staggered to the door. She opened it and by tenacious clinging to the iron railings on the platform managed to pull herself across to the adjoining coach. Passing through the smoker for the white men she entered the Negro section. With a half stifled sob she threw herself into the lap of the Negro girl and nestled her face on her shoulder.

The young woman from the coach for the whites now tossed back the veil of the Negro girl and the two girls kissed, looking each other in the eyes, pledging in that kiss and in that look, the unswerving, eternal devotion of heart to heart whatever the future might bring. The young woman now slowly turned away and went toward the coach whence she came, assisted by the wondering conductor.

From large dark eyes whose great native beauty was heightened by that tender look of the soul that they harbored, the Negro girl stood watching her visitor depart. The grace of her form that was somewhat taller and somewhat larger than that of the average girl, stamped her as a creature that could be truthfully called sublimely beautiful, thought Ensal. Whatever complexion on general principles Ensal thought to be the most attractive, he was now ready to concede that the delicate light brown color of this girl could not be surpassed in beauty.

If, incredulous as to the accuracy of the estimate of her beauty forced upon one at the first glance, an effort was made to analyze that face and study its parts separately, each feature was seen to have a beauty all its own.

"So sweet and beautiful a face and so lovely a form could only have been handed to a soul of whom they are not even worthy," thought Ensal.

A sober look was in Ensal's eye and some kind of a mad gallop was in his heart. There was more than soberness in the blue eyes of Earl Bluefield, Ensal's companion. When Ensal looked around at his friend he was astonished at the terribly bitter look on his face.

The train emptied a number of its passengers and rushed on and on and on, as if fleeing from the results to be anticipated from its deposit of new and strange forces into the life of Almaville.