 Chapter 1 of Trial and Trial. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Trial and Trial by Francis E. W. Harper. Chapter 1. Oh, that child, she is the very torment of my life. I've been the mother of six children and all of them put together. Never gave me as much trouble as that girl. I don't know what will ever become of her. What is the matter now, Aunt Susan? What has Annette been doing? Doing? She is always doing something, everlastingly getting herself into trouble with some of the neighbors. She is the most mischievous and hard-headed child I ever saw. Well, what has she been doing this morning, which has so upset you? Why, I sent her to the grocery to have the oil can filled, and after she came back, she had not been in the house five minutes before there came such an uproar from Mrs. Larkin's, my next door neighbor, that I thought her house was on fire. But instead of that, her tongue was on fire, and I know what that means. Yes, that's just it, and I don't wonder. That little minx sitting up there in that corner looking so innocent stopped to pour oil on her clean steps. Now you know yourself. What an aggravating thing that must have been. Yes, it must have been, especially as Mrs. Larkin's is such a nice housekeeper and takes such pride in having everything neat and nice about her. How did you fix up matters with her? I've not fixed them up at all. Mrs. Larkin's only knows one cure for bad children, and that is beating them, and she always blames me for spoiling Annette, but I hardly know what to do with her. I've scolded and scolded till my tongue is tired. Whipping don't seem to do her a bit of good, and I hate to put her out among strangers for fear that they will not treat her right. For after all, she is very near to me. She is my poor, dead Lucy's child. Sometimes when I get so angry with her that I feel as though I could almost shake the life out of her. The thought of her dying mother comes back to me, and it seems to me as if I could see her eyes looking so wistfully on the child and turning so trustingly to me and saying, Mother, when I'm gone, won't you take care of Annette and try to keep her with you? And then all the anger dies out of me. Poor child, I don't know what is going to become of her when my head is laid low. I'm afraid she is born for trouble. Nobody will ever put up with her as I do. She has such an unhappy disposition. She is not like any of my children ever were. Yes, I've often noticed that she does seem different from other children. She never seems lighthearted and happy. Yes, that is so. She reminds me so of poor Lucy before she was born. She even moans in her sleep like she used to do. It was a dark day when Frank Miller entered my home and Lucy became so taken up with him. It seemed to me as if my cruel girl just worshiped him. I did not feel that he was all right, and I tried to warn my dear child of danger, but what could an old woman like me do against him with his handsome looks and oily tongue? Yes, Senator Napier, soothingly, you have had a sad time, but still we cannot recall the dead past, and it is the living present with which we have to deal. Annette needs wise guidance, a firm hand, and a loving heart to deal with her, to spoil her at home as only to prepare her for misery abroad. I'm afraid that I am not equal to the task. If any man lack wisdom, we are taught to ask it of one who giveth liberally to all men and upgradeeth none. There would be so much less stumbling if we looked earnestly within for the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Well, said Mrs. Harcourt, Annette's grandmother, there is one thing about Annette that I like. She is very attentive to her books. If you want to keep that child out of mischief, just put a book in her hand, but then she has a living to get, and she can't get it by nursing her hands and reading books, she has got to work like the rest of us. But why not give her a good education? Doors are open to her, which were closed against us. This is a day of light and knowledge. I don't know much myself, but I mean to give my girls a chance. I don't believe in saying let my children do as I have done, when I think some of us have done poorly enough digging and delving from morning till night. I don't believe the good Lord ever sent anybody into his light and beautiful world to be nothing but a dredge, and I just think it is because some take it so easy that others who will do have to take it so hard. It always makes my blood boil, said a maiden lady who was present to see a great hawk of a man shambling around complaining of hard times and that he can't get work when his wife was just working herself down to the grave to keep up the family. I asked Mrs. Johnson, who just lives in the wash tub, and is that mainstay of her family? What would her husband do if she were to die? And she said, give another wife. Now I just think she has spoiled that man. And if she dies first, I hope that he won't never find another woman to tread in her footsteps. He ought to have me to deal with. When he got through with me, he would never want to laze around another woman. I don't think he ever would, said Mrs. Harcourt, while a gleam of humor sparkled in her eye. Her neighbor was a maiden lady who always knew how to manage other people's husbands, but had never succeeded in getting one of her own and not having any children herself understood perfectly well how to rate other people's. Just then a knock was heard at the door, and Mr. Thomas, Annette's former schoolteacher, entered the room. After an exchange of courtesies, he asked, how does Annette come on with her new teacher? I've not heard any complaints, said Mrs. Harcourt. At first Mrs. Joseph's girl did not want to sit with Annette, but she soon got over it when she saw how well the other girls treated Annette, and how pleasant the teacher was to her. Mr. Scott, who has been so friendly to us, told us not to mind her that her mother had been an ignorant servant girl who had married a man with a little money that she was still ignorant, loud and dressy and liked to put on airs. The nearer the beggar, the greater the prejudice. I think it is true, said Mr. Thomas, if you apply those words not to condition but human souls, for none but beggarly souls would despise a man because of circumstances over which he had no control. Noble, large-hearted men and women are never scornful, contempt and ridicule are the weapons of weak souls. I'm glad, however, that Annette was getting on so well. I hope that she will graduate at the head of her class with high honors. What's the use of giving her so much education? There are no openings for her here, and if she gets married she won't want to. And Mrs. Harcourt sighed as she finished her sentence. Mr. Thomas looked great for a moment and then his face relaxed into a smile. Well, really, Mrs. Harcourt, that is not very complimentary to us young men. Do we have no need of intelligent and well-educated wives? I think our race needs educated mothers for the home more than we do trained teachers for the schoolroom. Not that I would ignore or speak lightly of the value of good-colored teachers, nor suggest as a race that we can well afford to do without them. But today, if it were left to my decision whether the education of the race should be placed in the hands of the school teacher or the mothers and there was no other alternative, I should by all means decide for the education of the race through its motherhood rather than through its teachers. Though we poor mothers had no chance, we could not teach our children. I think you could teach some of them more than they wish to learn. But I must go now. At some of the time we will talk on this subject. End of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 of Trial and Triumph by Francis E. W. Harper. This Liber-Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2. Oh Annette, said Mrs. Harcourt, turning to her granddaughter after Mr. Thomas had left the door. What makes you so naughty? Why did you pour that oil on Mrs. Larkin's steps? Didn't you know it was wrong? Annette stood silent, looking like a guilty culprit. Why don't you answer me? What makes you behave so bad? I don't know, Grandma. I suspect I did it for the devil. The preacher said the devil makes people do bad things. The preacher didn't say any such thing. He said the devil tempts people to be bad. But you are not to mind everything the devil tells you to do. If you do, you will get yourself into a lot of trouble. Well, Grandma, Mrs. Larkin's is so mean and cross. And she is always telling tales on me, and I just did it for fun. Well, that is very poor fun. You deserve a good whipping. And I have a great mind to give it to you now. Why don't she let me alone? She is all the time trying to get you to beat me. She's a spiteful old thing anyhow. I don't like her, and I know she don't like me. Hush, Annette, you must not talk that way of anyone so much older than yourself. When I was a child, I wouldn't have talked that way about any old person. Don't let me hear you talk that way again. You will never rest till I give you a good whipping. Yes, man, said Annette very demurely. Oh, Annette, said her grandmother, with a sudden burst of feeling, you do give me so much trouble. You give me more worry than all my six children put together. But there's always one scabby sheep in the flock, and you will be that one. Now get ready for school and don't let me hear any more complaints about you. I'm not going to let you worry me to death. Annette took up her bonnet and glided quietly out of the door, glad to receive instead of the threatened whipping, a liberal amount of talk, and yet the words struck deeper than blows. Her own grandmother had prophesied evil things of her. She was to be the scabby sheep of the flock. The memory of the blows upon her body might have passed soon away after the pain and irritation of the inflection were over, but that inconsiderate prophecy struck deep into her heart and left its impress upon her unfolding life. Without intending it, Mrs. Harcourt had struck a blow at the child's self-respect, one of the things which she should have strengthened, even if it was ready to die. Annette had entered life, sadly handicapped. She was the deserted child of a selfish and unprincipled man and a young mother whose giddiness and lack of self-control had caused her to trail the robes of her womanhood in the dust. With such an anti-natal history how much she needed judicious but tender loving guidance in that restless, sensitive and impulsive child was the germ of a useful woman with a warm, loving heart ready to respond to human suffering capable of being faithful in friendship and devoted in love. Before that young life with its sad inheritance seemed to lay a future of trial and how much humanly speaking seemed to depend upon the right training of that life and the development within her of self-control, self-reliance and self-respect. There was no mother's heart for her to nestle upon in her hours of discouragement and perplexity, no father's strong loving arms to shelter and defend her, no sister to brighten her life with joyous companionship, and no brother to champion her through the early and impossible period of ripening womanhood. Her grandmother was kind to her but not very tender and loving. Her struggle to keep the wolf from the door had absorbed her life and although she was neither hard nor old yet she was not demonstrative in her affections and to her a restless child was an enigma she did not know how to solve. If the child were hungry or cold she could understand physical wants but for the hunger of the heart she had neither sympathy nor comprehension. Fortunately Annette had found a friend who understood her better than her grandmother and knew looking beneath the perverseness of the child saw in her rich possibilities and would often speak encouragingly to her and that early developed a love for literature and poetry and would sometimes try to make rhymes and string verses together and really Mrs. Lassette thought that she had talent or even poetic genius and ardently wished that it might be cultivated and rightly directed but had never entered the minds of her grandmother and aunts that in their humble home was a rarely gifted soul destined to make music which would set young hearts to thrilling with higher hopes and loftier aspirations. Mrs. Lassette had been her teacher before she married after she became a wife and mother instead of becoming entirely absorbed in a round of household cares and duties the moment the crown of motherhood fell upon her as she often said she had poured a new interest into the welfare of her race with these feelings she soon became known as a friend and helper in the community in which she lived young girls learned to look to her for counsel and encouragement amid the different passages of their lives sometimes with questioning cheeks they whispered in to her ears tender secrets they did not always bring to their near relatives and young men about to choose their life work often came to consult her and to all her heart was responsive with this feeling of confidence in her judgment Mr. Thomas had entered her home after leaving Mrs. Harcourt's educated himself for a teacher he had spent several years in the acquisition of knowledge and was proving himself an acceptable and conscientious teacher when the change came which deprived him of his school by blending his pupils in the different ward schools of this city public opinion which moves slowly had advanced far enough to admit the colored children into the different schools irrespective of color but he was not prepared except in a few places to admit the colored teachers as instructors in the schools what are you going to do next inquired Mrs. Lissette of Mr. Thomas as he seated himself somewhat weirdly by the fire I hardly know I am all at sea but I'm going to be like the runaway slave who been asked where is your past raised his fist and said then is my past is and if I don't see an opening I will make one why don't you go into the ministry Mr. Pugh failed in his examination he turned his attention to the ministry and it is said that he is succeeding admirably Mrs. Lissette I was brought up to respect the institutions of religion and not to lay rash hands on sacred things and while I believe that every man should preach Christ in upright life and Jay's conversation yet I think one of the surest ways to injure a church and to make the pulpit lose its power over the rising generation is for men without a true calling or requisite qualifications to enter the ministry because they have failed in some other avocation and find in preaching an open door to success but they often succeed now why by getting into good churches increasing their congregations and paying off large church debts and is that necessarily success we need in the church men who can be more than financiers and who can attract large congregations we need earnest thoughtful Christly men who will be more anxious to create and develop moral earnestness than to excite transient emotions now there is Reverend Mr. Lampson who is educated in our college I have heard him preach to as I thought an honest well-meaning but an ignorant congregation and instead of lifting them to more rational forms of worship he tried to imitate them and made a complete failure even tried to moan as they do in worship but it didn't come out natural of course it did not these dear old people whose moaning during service seems even now so pitiful and weird I think learn to mourn out in prayers thoughts and feelings rung from their agonizing hearts which they did not dare express when they were forced to have their meetings under the surveillance of a white man it is because I consider the ministry the highest the most sacred calling that I cannot, may I dare not rush into it unless I feel impelled by the strongest and holiest motives you are right and I think just such men as you ought to be in the ministry are you calling me? I wish it were in my power I'm glad that it is not I think there are more in the ministry now than magnify their calling but Mr. Thomas are you not looking on the dark side of the question you must judge of the sun not by its spots but by its brightness though I did not mean to say that the ministry is crowded with unworthy men who love the fleece more than the flock I believe that there are in the ministry a large number who are the salt of the earth and whose life work bears witness to their fitness but unfortunately there are men who seem so liking in reverence for God by their free handling of sacred things now I think one of the great wants of our people is more reverence for God who is above us in respect for the man who is beside us and I do hope that our next minister will be a good man of active brain warm heart and Christly sympathies who will be among us a living moral and spiritual force and who will be willing to teach us a noble plan of line upon line precept upon precept here a little, there a little I hope he will be it is said that brother Lomax our new minister is an excellent young man well I hope that we will not fail to receive him as an apostle and try to hold up his hands I hope so I think that to be called to the God to be an ambassador for Christ to help him build the kingdom of righteousness love and peace amid the misery sin and strike in the most blessed position that a man can hold and because I esteemed the calling so highly I would not rush into it unless I felt divinely commissioned end of chapter 2 chapter 3 of trial and triumph by Francis E. W. Harper this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter 3 Mrs. Harcourt was a southern woman by birth who belonged to that class of colored people whose freedom consisted chiefly in not being the chattels of the dominant race a class to whom little was given and from whom much was required she was naturally bright and intelligent but had come up in a day when the very book of the Christians law was to her a sealed volume but if she had not been educated through the aid of school books and blackboards she had obtained that culture of manners and behavior which comes through contact with well-bred people close observation and a sense of self-respect and self-reliance and when deprived of her husband's help by an untimely death she took up the burden of life bravely and always tried to keep up what she called a stiff upper lip feeling the cramping of southern life she became restive under privations and indignities which were heaped upon free persons of color and at length she and her husband broke up their home and sold out at a pecuniary sacrifice to come north where they could breathe free air and have educational privileges for their children but while she was strong and healthy her husband whose health was not very firm soon succumbed to the change of climate and new modes and left Mrs. Harcourt a stranger and widow in a strange land with six children dependent on her for bread and shelter but during her short sojourn in the north she had enlisted the sympathy and respect of kind friends who came to her relief and helped her to help herself the very best assistants they could bestow upon her capable and deficient she found no difficulty in getting work for herself and older children who were able to add their quota to the support of the family by running errands doing odd jobs for the neighbors and helping their mother between school hours nor did she lay all the household burdens on the shoulders of the girls and leave her boys to the mercy of the pavement she tried to make her home happy and taught them all to have a share of this sunshine it makes boys selfish she would say to have their sisters do all the work and let the boys go scot free I don't believe there would be so many trifling men if the boys were trained to be more helpful at home and to feel more for their mothers and sisters all this was very well for the peace and sunshine of that home but as the children advanced in life with her with painful emphasis what can I do for the future of my boys and girls she was not anxious to have them all professional men and school teachers and government clerks but she wanted each one to have some trade or calling by which a respectable and comfortable living could be made but first she consulted their tastes and inclinations her youngest boy was very fond of horses but instead of keeping him in the city where he was in danger of getting too intimate with horse jockeys and stable boys she found a place for him with an excellent farmer who seeing the taste of the boy took great interest in teaching him how to raise stock and he became a skillful farmer her second son showed that he had some mechanical skill and ingenuity and he was able to bring him a situation with a first class carpenter and spared no pains to have him well instructed in all the branches of carpentry and would often say to him John don't do any sham work if you are going to be a carpenter be thorough in everything you do and try to be the best carpenter in AP and if you do your work better than others you won't have to be yourself somebody will find out what you can do and give you work her oldest son was passionately fond of books and she helped him through school till he was able to become a school teacher but as the young man was high spirited and ambitious he resolved that he would make his school teaching a stepping stone to a more congenial employment he studied medicine and graduated with MD but as it takes a young doctor sometime to gain the confidence of an old community he continued after his graduation to teach and obtained a certificate to practice medicine without being forced to look to his mother for assistance while the confidence of his community was slowly growing he depended on the school for his living and looked to the future for his success as a physician for the girls because they were colored by the view avenues open but they all took in sewing and were excellent seamstresses except Lucy who had gone from home to teach school in a distant city as there were no openings of the kind for her at her own home Mrs. Harcourt was very proud of her children and had unbounded confidence in them she was high spirited and self-respecting and it never seemed to enter her mind that any evil might befall a young sorrow and shame to her home but nevertheless he came and Lucy her youngest child the pet and pride of the household returned home with a great sorrow tugging at her heart and a shadow on her misguided life it was the old story of women's weakness and folly a man's perfidy and desertion poor child how wretched she was to appease bound up her bleeding heart and then the arrow had pierced too deep for healing sorrow had wasted her strength and laid the foundation of disease and an early death religion brought balm to the wounded spirit but no renewed vigor to the wasted frame and in a short time she fell a victim to consumption leaving Annette to the care of her mother it was so pitiful to see the sorrow on the dear old face as she would nestle the wrong inherited child to her heart and would say so mournfully oh I never never expected this although Annette had come into the family and unbidden and unwelcome guest associated with the saddest experience of her grandmother's life yet somehow the baby fingers had wound themselves around the tendrils of her heart and the child had found her shelter in the warm clasp of loving arms to her Annette was a new charge and increased burden but burden to be defended by her love and guarded by her care all her other children had married and left her and in her lowly home this young child with infantile sweetness beguiled many a lonely hour she loved Lucy and that was Lucy's child but where was he who sullied her once unspotted name who lured her from life's brightness to agony and shame did society which closed his doors against Lucy and left her to struggle as best she might out of the depth into which she had fallen poor any righteous wrath upon his guilty head did it demand that he should at least bring forth some fruit meat for repentance by at least helping Mrs. Harcourt to raise the unfortunate child not so he left that poor old grandmother to struggle with her failing strength not only to bear her own burden but the one he had so wickedly imposed upon her he had left AP before Lucy's death and gone to the Pacific coast where he became wealthy through liquor selling speculation gambling and other disreputable means and returned with gold enough for the multitude of sins and then fair women permitted and even courted his society mothers with marriageable daughters condoned his offences against morality and said oh well young men will sow their wild oats it is no use to be too straight laced but there were a few thoughtful mothers old fashioned enough to believe that the law of purity is as binding upon the man as the woman and who conditions would invite him to associate with their daughters women who tried to teach their sons to be worthy of the love and esteem of good women by being as chased in their conversation and as pure in their lives as their young daughters who sat at their side sheltered in their pleasant and peaceful homes one of the first things that Frank Miller did after he returned to AP was to open a large and elegantly furnished room and restaurant. The license to keep such a place was very high and men said that to pay it he resorted to very questionable means that his place was a resort for gamblers and that he employed a young man to guard the entrance of his saloon from any sudden invasion of the police by giving a signal without if he saw any of them approaching and other things were whispered of his saloon which showed it to be a far more dangerous place for the tempted and wary and inexperienced feet of the young men of AP than any low groggery in the whole city. Young men who would have scorned to enter the lowest dens of ice felt at home in his gilded palace of sin beautiful pictures of throwing the walls light streamed into the room through finely stained glass windows women not as God had made them but as sin had to base them came there to spend the evening in the mazy dance so to sit with partners in sin and feast at luxurious tables politicians came there to concoct their plans for coming campaigns to fix their slates and to devise means for grasping with eager hands the spoils of government. Young men anxious for places in the gift of the government found that winking at Frank Miller's vices and conforming to the demoralizing customs of his place were passports to political favors and lacking moral stamina hushed their consciences and became partakers of his sins. Men talked in private of his vices and drank his liquors and smoked his cigars in public. His place was a snare to their souls. The dead were there but they knew it not he built a beautiful home and furnished it magnificently and some said that the woman who married him would do well as if it were possible for any woman to marry well who linked her destinies to a wicked selfish and baseman whose business was a constant menace to the peace, the purity and progress of society. I believe it was Milton who said that the purity of a man should be more expanded than the purity of a woman basing his idea upon the declaration the head of the woman is the man and the head of the man is Jesus Christ. Surely if man occupies this high rank in the creation of God he should ever be the true friend and helper of woman and not see to often proves her falsest friend and basest enemy. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of Trial and Trial by Francis E. W. Harper This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4 Annette said Mrs. Harcourt one morning early I want you to stir your stumps today I'm going to have company this evening and I want you to help me to get everything in Apple Pie order. Who is coming Grandma? Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Lassette. Mrs. Lassette Annette's eyes brightened I hope she will come she is just as sweet as a peach and I do love her ever so much and who else? Brother Lomax the minister who preached last Sunday and gave us such a good sermon. Is he coming too? Annette opened her eyes with pleased surprise oh I hope he will come he's so nice. What do you know about him? My grandmother I understood everything that he said and I felt that I wanted to be good just like he told us and I went and asked Aunt Liza how people got religion she had been to camp meeting and seen people getting religion and I wanted her to tell me all about it for I wanted to get it too What did she tell you? She told me that people went down to the mourners bench and prayed and then they would get up and shout and say they had religion and that was all she knew about it you went to the wrong one when you went to your Aunt Liza and what did you do after she told you? Well I went down in the garden and prayed and I got up and shouted but I didn't get any religion I guess I didn't try it right I guess you didn't when you get older you will know more about it but Grandma Aunt Liza is older than I am why don't she know? Because she don't try she's got her head too full of dress and dancing and nonsense Grandmother Harcourt did not have very much faith in what she called children's religion and here was a human soul crying out in the darkness but she did not understand the cry nor look for the perfecting of praise the babes and sucklings not discerning the emotions of that young spirit she let the opportunities slip for rightly impressing that young soul she depended too much on the church and too little on the training of the home for while the church can teach and the school instruct the home is the place to train innocent and intrusive childhood for useful citizenship and a hope of holy companionship in heaven and every Christian should strive to have her one of the provinces of God's kingdom where she can plant her strongest batteries against the ramparts of folly, sin and vice who else is coming Grandma why of course I must invite Mrs. Larkins it would never do to leave her out shrugged her shoulders a scowl came over her face and she said I hope she won't come I expect she will and when she comes I want you to behave yourself and don't roll up your eyes at her and giggle at her and make ugly speeches she told me that you made mouths at her yesterday and that when Mr. Ross was gripping his horse you said you knew someone whom you wished was getting about beating she said that she just believed you meant her how was that and that if I were like you I would be all the time keeping this neighborhood in hot water and that looked rather crestfallen and said I did make mouths of her house as I came by but I didn't know that she saw me yes she did and you had better mind how you cut your cards with her and that finding the conversation a rather disagreeable turn suddenly remembered that she had something to do in the yard and seized to prolong the dialogue if the truth must be confessed and that was not a very earnest candidate for a saint ship and knowing her next door neighbor was one of her favorite amusements Grandma Harcourt lived in a secluded court which was shut in on every side but one from the main streets and her environments were not of the most pleasant and congenial kind the neighbors generally speaking belonged to neither the best nor worst class of colored people the court was too fully enclosed to be a thorough fare of travel but it was a place in which women could sit at their doors and talk to one another from each side of the court women who had no scruples about drinking as much beer stronger drinks as they could absorb and some of the men said that the women drank more than men and under the sudden influence of beer and even stronger drinks a fearful amount of gossiping news carrying and tumbling went on which often resulted in quarrels and contentions which while it never resulted in blood sadly lowered the tone of social life it was the arena of wordy strife in which angry tongues were the only weapons of warfare that was fast learning their modes of battle but there was one thing against which grandmother Harcourt set her face like Flint and that was sending children to saloons for beer and once she flamed out with righteous indignation when one of her neighbors in her absence sent Annette to a saloon to buy her some beer she told her in emphatic terms she must never do so again that she wanted her girl to grow up a respectable woman and that she ought to be ashamed of herself not only to be guzzling beer like a topper but to send anybody's child to a saloon to come in contact with the kind of men who frequented such places and that any women who sent their children to such places were training their boys to be drunkards and their girls to be street walkers I am poor she said but I mean to keep my credit up and if you and I live in this neighborhood a hundred years you must never do that thing again her neighbor looked dazed and tried to stem her out and apology but she never sent Annette to a beer saloon again and in course of time she became a good temperance woman herself influenced by the faithfulness of grandmother Harcourt the court in which Mrs. Harcourt lived was not a very desirable place but on account of her color eligible houses could not always be obtained and however decent, quiet or respectable she might appear lying for a house, she was often met with love above we don't rent to color people and the men who virtually assigned her raised the lowest place and humblest positions could talk so glibly of the degradation of the negro while by their christless and human prejudice they were helping add to their low social condition in the midst of her unfavorable environments, Mrs. Harcourt kept her home neat and tidy sent Annette to school constantly and tried to keep her out of mischief but there was more contagion in the social atmosphere of tennis court and Annette too often succumbed to its influence but Annette was young and liked the company of young girls and it seemed cruel to confine the child's whole life to the home and school house and give her no chance to be merry and playful with girls of her own age so now and then grandmother Harcourt would let her spend a little time with some of the neighbors girls questions that Annette often asked her grandmother and the conversations she sometimes repeated Mrs. Harcourt feared that she was learning things which should only be taught by faithful mothers in hours of sacred and tender confidence and she determined even if it gave a fence to her neighbors that she would choose among her own friends companions for her granddaughter and not leave all her social future to chance in this she was heartily aided Annette who made it a point to hold in that neighborhood mother's meetings and try to teach mothers who in the dark days of slavery had no bolts nor bars strong enough to keep out the invader from scattering their children like leaves and wintry weather how to build up life and happy homes under the new dispensation of freedom to her it was a labor of love and she found her reward in the peace and love which flowed into the soul and the improved condition in lowly homes where she visited her presence was a benediction and an inspiration women careless in their household and slightly in their dress more careful in the keeping of their homes and the arrangement of their attire women of the better class of their own race coming among them awakened their self-respect prejudice and pride of race had separated them from their white neighbors and the more cultured of their race had shrunk from them in their ignorance poverty and low social condition and they were left in a great measure to themselves ostracized by the whites on the one side and socially isolated from the more cultured of their race on the other hand the law took little or no cognizance of them unless they were presented at its bar as criminals but if they were neither criminals nor paupers they might fester in their vices and perpetuate their social condition who understood or cared to minister to their deepest needs or greatest wants it was just here where the tender thoughtful love of a warm-hearted and intelligible woman was needed to her it was a labor of love but it was not all fair sailing she sometimes met with coldness and distrust where she had expected kindness and confidence lack of sympathy where she hoped to find ready and willing cooperation but she knew that if her life was in harmony with God and Christly sympathy with man for such a life there was no such word as fail End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Trial and Triumph by Francis C. W. Harper this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 5 by dint of energy and perseverance Grandmother Harcourt had succeeded in getting everything in order and the guests began to arrive she had just put the finishing touches upon her well-spread table and was reviewing it with an expression of pleasure and satisfaction and now while the guests are quietly taking their seats let me introduce you to them Mr. Thomas came bringing with him the young minister Reverend Mr. Lomax whose sermon had so interested and edified Mrs. Harcourt the previous Sunday Mrs. Larkins entered a raid in her best attire looking starched and prim as if she had made it the great business of her life to take care of her dignity and to think about herself Mrs. Larkins though for years a member of church had not learned that it was un-christian to be narrow and selfish she was strict in her attendance at church and gave freely to its support but somehow with all her attention to the forms of religion and in the loving clasp of a helping hand in the tender beam of a sympathizing glance we re-hearted mothers and wives never came to her with their heartaches and confided to her their troubles little children either shrank from her or grew quiet in her presence what was missing from her life was the magnetism of love she had become so absorbed in herself that she forgot everybody else and thought more of her rights than her duties and Mrs. Larkins was this that in passing through life one scattered sunshine and the other cast shadows over her path Mrs. Larkins was a fine conversationalist she regarded speech as one of heaven's best gifts and thought that conversation should be made one of the finest arts and used to subserve the highest and best purposes of life and always regretted when it was permitted to degenerate into gossip harsh judgment she always tried to modify often saying in doubtful cases had we not better suspend our judgments truly we do not like people to think the worst of us and it is not fulfilling the law of love to think the worst of them do you not know that if we wish to dwell in his tabernacle we are not to entertain a reproach against our neighbor nor to backbite with our lips and I do not think there is a sin which more easily besets society than this speech she would say is a gift so replete with rich and joyous possibilities and she always tried to raise the tone of conversation at home and abroad of her it might be emphatically said she opened her mouth with wisdom and in her lips was the law of kindness the young minister Reverend Mr. Lomax was an earnest devout and gifted young man born in the midst of poverty with the shadows of slavery encircling his early life he had pushed his way upward in the world toiling while others slept his father was dead while living he had done what he could to improve the condition of his family and had it was thought overworked himself in the struggle to educate and support his children he was a kind and indulgent father and when his son had made excellent progress in his studies he gave him two presents so dear to his boyish heart a gun and a watch for the hour came when the loving hands were closed over the quiet breast and the widowed wife found herself unable to provide the respectable funeral she desired to give him Thomas then came bravely and tenderly to her relief he sold his watch and gun to defray the funeral expenses of his father he was a good son to his aged mother and became the staff of her declining years with an earnest purpose in his soul and feeling that knowledge is power he applied himself with diligence to his studies passed through college and feeling within his soul he had a passion to teach and help others to develop within themselves the love of nature he entered the ministry bringing into it an enthusiasm for humanity and love of Christ which lit up his life and made him a moral and spiritual force in the community he had several advantageous offers to labor in other parts of the country before the sake of being true to the heavenly vision which showed him the needs of his people and his adaptation to their wants and his lucrative but the most needed work which was offered him with a joy to find in every station something still to do or bear he had seen many things in the life of the people with whom he was identified which gave him intense pain but instead of constantly centering and finding fault with their inconsistencies of conscience he strove to live so blamelessly before them that he would show them by example a more excellent way and criticize by creation to him religion was a reasonable service and he wished it to influence their conduct as well as sway their emotions believing that right thinking is connected with right living he taught them to be conservative without being bigoted and liberal without being morally indifferent and careless in their modes of thought he wanted them to be able to give a reason for the faith that was in them and that faith to be rooted and grounded in love he was young, hopeful and enthusiastic and life was opening before him full of hope and promise it has been a beautiful day said Mrs. LaSette seating herself beside Mrs. Larkins who always waited to be approached and was ever ready to think that someone was sliding her or ignoring her presence it has been a fine day but I think it will rain soon I judge by my corn oh I think the weather is just perfect the sun set gloriously this evening and the sky was the brightest blue I think the day was what I call a weather breeder whenever you see such days this time of year you may look out for falling weather I expect that it will snow soon how that child grows said Mrs. Larkins as I net enter the room ill weeds grow apace she has nothing else to do that girl is going to give her grandmother a great deal of trouble oh I do not think so well I do and I told her grandmother so one day but she did not thank me for it no I suppose not I did not do it for thanks I did it just to give her a piece of my mind about that girl she is the most mischievous and worrisome child I ever saw the partition between our houses is very thin and many a time when I want to finish my morning sleep or take an afternoon nap if Mrs. Harkord is not at home and that will sing and recite at the top of her voice and run up and down the stairs as if a regimen of soldiers were after her brim full of mischief and girls of that age I have heard like him two poor Simmons before they are ripe if you attempt to eat them they will pucker your mouth but if you wait till the first frost touches them they are delicious have patience with the child act kindly towards her she may be slow in developing womanly sense but I think that Annette has within her the making of a fine woman do you know what Annette wants yes I know what she wants but what do you think she wants I'd kiss her with a switch if she were mine I do not think it wise to whip a child of her age I'd whip her if she were as big as a house I do not find it necessary with my Laura it is sufficient to deter her from doing anything if she knows that I do not approve of it I've tried to establish perfect confidence between us I do not think my daughter keeps a secret from me I think many young persons go astray because their parents have failed to strengthen their characters and to forewarn and forearm them against the temptations and dangers that surround their paths how goes the battle? I'm still at sea and the tide is not yet turned in my favor of course I feel the change it has taken my life out of its accustomed channel but I am optimist enough to hope that even this change will result in greater good to the greatest number I think one of our great wants is the diversification of our industries and I do not believe it would be wise for the parents to relax their endeavors to give their children the best education and their power we cannot tell what a race can do till it utters and expresses itself and I know that there is an amount of brain among us which canon should be utilized in other directions and teaching school or seeking for clerkships Mr. Clarkson had a very intelligent daughter whom he wished to fit for some other employment than that of a school teacher she went to be studied faithfully graduated at the head of her class and received the highest medal for her attainments thus proving herself a living argument of the capability and a race her friend Ms. Young had artistic talent and learned wood carving she developed exquisite taste and has become a fine artist in that branch of industry a female school teacher's work in the public schools is apt to be limited to her single life but a woman who becomes proficient in a useful trade builds up for herself a wall of defense against the invasions of want and privation whether she is married or single I think that every woman and man too should be prepared for the reverses of fortune by being taught how to do some one thing thoroughly so as to be able to be a worker in the world's service and not a pensioner upon its bounty and for this and it does not become us as a race to despise any honest labor which lifts us above pauperism and dependence to see our people having industrial fairs I believe in giving due honor to all honest labor in covering illegalness with shame and crowning labor with respect End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of Trial and Triumph by Francis E. W. Harper this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 6 for a while Mrs. Harcourt was busy in preparing the supper to which they all did ample justice in her white apron faultless neck handkerchief and nicely fitting but plain dress Mrs. Harcourt looked the impersonation of contented happiness sorrow had left deep furrows upon her kindly face but for a while the shadows seemed to have been lifted from her life and she was the pleasant hostess forgetting her own sorrows in contributing to the enjoyment of others supper being over her guests resumed their conversation you do not look upon the mixing of the schools as being necessarily disadvantageous to our people said the minister that said Mr. Thomas is just in accordance to the way we adapt ourselves to the change if we are to remain in this country as a component part of the nation I cannot fail to regard with interest any step which tends toward our unification with all the other branches of the human race in this western hemisphere although said Mrs. Lissette I've been educating my daughter I felt very sorry when I have witnessed the disappointment of parents who have fitted their children for teachers and have seen door after door closed against them I cannot help regarding the mixing of the schools as at least one step in our right direction the Mrs. Lissette said the minister as we are educated by other means than school books and blackboards such as the stimulus of hope the incentives of self-respect and the consensus of public opinion will it not add to the depression of the race if our children are made to feel that however well educated they may be or exemplary as pupils the color of their skin must debar them from entering avenues which are freely opened to the young girls of every other nationality Mr. Thomas replied in considering this question which is so much broader than a mere local question I've tried to look beyond the life of the individual to the life of the race and I find that it is through obstacles overcome suffering endured and the tests of trial that strength has obtained courage manifested and character developed we are now passing through a crucial period in our race history and what we so much need is more earnestness strength of character and purpose to guide us through the rocks and shoals on which so many life-barks have been stranded and wrecked Yes, said Mrs. Lissette I believe that we are capable of being more than light-hearted children of the tropics and I want our young people to gain more persistence in their characters perseverance in their efforts and that has redecor which shall animate us with higher nobler and holier purpose in the future in the past and while I am sorry for the parents who for their children's sake have fought against the entailed ignorance of the ages with such humble weapons as the washboard, flat iron and scrubbing brush and who have gathered the crumbs from the humblest departments of labor still I feel with Mr. Thomas the fixing of the schools is astride in the march of the nation only we must learn how to keep step in the progress of the centuries I do not think that I fully comprehend you Mr. Lomax replied let me explain I live in the 19th ward in that ward are not a half dozen colored children when my husband bought the land we were more than a mile from the business part of the city but we were poor and the land was very cheap and my husband said that paying rent was like putting money in a sinking fund so he resolved that if it put us to a little disadvantage that he would buy the tract of land where we now live before he did so he called together a number of others pointed out to them the tract of land and told them how they might join with him in planting a small handlet for themselves but except a few colored neighbors we now have no one else would join with us some said it was too far from their work others that they did not wish to live among many colored people and some suspected my husband of trying either to make the advantage of them or of aggrandizing himself at their expense and I have now dear friends who might have been living comfortably in their own homes who today are crowded in tenement houses or renting in narrow alleys and little streets that's true said Mrs. Larkins I am one of them I wanted my husband to take up with your husband's offer but he was one of those men who knew it all and he never seemed to think it possible that any colored man could see any clearer than he did I knew your husband's head was level and I tried to persuade Mr. Larkins to take up with his offer but he would not hear to it said he knew his own business best and shut me up by telling me that he was not going to let any woman and here I am today Larkins gone and his poor old widow scuffing night and day to keep soul and body together but there are some men you couldn't beat anything into their heads not if you took a sledgehammer poor fellow he is gone now and I ought not to say anything again him but if he had minded me I would have had a home land under my feet but it is no use to grieve over spilled milk when he was living if I said yes he was always sure to say no one day I said to him when he was opposing me the way we live is like the old saying pull dick and pull devil and what do you think he said I don't know I'm sure what was it why he just looked at me and smiled and said I am dick that I was the other fellow but said Mrs. Lassette this is a digression from our subject what I meant to say is this that in our ward is an excellent school house without score of well-equipped and efficient teachers the former colored school house was a dingy looking building about a mile and a half away with only one young school teacher who had passed a creditable examination now when my daughter saw that the children of all other nationalities it mattered not how low and debasing might be their environments good into the school for which her father paid taxes and that she was forced either to stay at home or to go through all weathers to an ungraded school in a poorly ventilated evenly-eated room would not such public inequality burn into her soul the idea of race inferiority and this is why I look upon the mixed school as a right step in the right direction taking this view of the matter I see the pertinence of your position on this subject do you know continued Mr. La Max his face lighting up my enthusiasm that I am full of hope for the future of our people that's more than I am said Mrs. Larkins very coldly when you have summered and wintered them as I have you will change your tune oh I hope not he replied with an accent of distress in his voice you may think me a dreamer and enthusiast but with all our faults I firmly believe that the Negro belongs to one of the best branches of the human race and that he has a high and holy mission in the great drama of life I do not think our God is a purposeless being but his ways are not as our ways are and his thoughts are not our thoughts and I dare not say that I his wisdom of humanity would be better I prefer thinking that in the crucible of pain and apparent disaster that we are held by the hand of our loving father who is doing for us all the best he can to fit us for companionship with him in the eternities and with John G. Whittier I feel amid the maddening maze of things when tossed by storm and flood like stake my spirit clings I know that God is good I once questioned and doubted but now I've learned to love and trust in him whom the heavens must receive till the time of the restitution of all things by this trust I do not mean a lazy leaning on providence to do for us what we have ability to do for ourselves I think that our people more to be taught how to live them to be constantly warned to get ready to die as brother Thomas said we are now passing through a crucial period of our history and what we need is life more abundant life in every fiber of our souls life which will manifest itself in moral earnestness, vigor of purpose, strength of character and spiritual progression I do hope said Mr. Thomas that as you are among us you will impart some of your earnestness and enthusiasm to our young people as I'm a newcomer here and it is said that the people of AEP are very sensitive to criticism though very critical themselves and rather set and conservative in their ways that I shall have the benefit of your experience in aiding me to do all I can to help the people among whom my lot is cast you are perfectly welcome to any aid I can give you just now some of us are interested in getting our people out of these wretched alleys and crowded tenement houses into the larger freer air of the country young men to help us fight the battle against poverty ignorance, degradation and the cold, proud scorn of society before our public lands are all appropriated I want our young men and women to get homesteads and to be willing to endure privations in order to place our means of subsistence on a less precarious basis the land is a basis of power and like in the myth we will never have our full measure of material strength till we touch the earth as owners of the soil and when we get the land we must have patience and perseverance enough to hold it in one of our western states is a city which suggests the idea of Aladdin's wonderful land where that city now stands was once the homestead of a colored man who came from Virginia and obtained it under the homestead law that man has since been working as a servant for a man who lives on 80 acres of his former section and who has plotted the rest for the city of sea how did he lose it when he came from the south the country was new and female labor in great demand his wife could earn a dollar and 50 cents a day and instead of moving on his land he remained about 40 miles away till he had forfeited his claim and it fell into the hands of the present proprietor since then our foresight has been developing and some months since in traveling in that same state I met a woman whose husband had taken up a piece of land she and her children remained in town where they could all get work and transmit him help and in a few years I expect they will be comfortably situated in a home owned by their united efforts in the chapter 6 chapter 7 of trial and triumph by Francis C.W. Harper this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter 7 what next was the question Mr. Thomas was revolving in his mind when a knock was heard at his door and he saw standing on a threshold one of his former pupils well Charlie how does the world use you everything going on swimmingly oh no indeed I've lost my situation how is that you were getting on so well Mr. Hazelton seemed to be perfectly satisfied with you and I thought that you were quite a favorite in the establishment how was it that you lost your place I lost it through the meanness of Mr. Mahler Mr. Mahler our superintendent of public schools yes it was through him that I lost my situation why what could you have done to offend him nothing at all I never had an unpleasant word with him in my life do explain yourself I cannot see why he should have used any influence to deprive you of your situation he had it in his power to do me a mean low-life trick and he did it and I hope to see the day when I will be even with him said the lad with a flashing eye while an angry flush mantled his cheek and said Mr. Hazelton perhaps you gave some of them offense through neglect or thoughtlessness in dealing with them it was nothing of the kind Mr. Mahler knew me and my mother he knew her because she taught under him and of course saw me often enough to know that I was her son and so last week when he saw me in the store he was in conversation with Mr. Hazelton he asked him if he employed a nigger for a cashier he replied of course not well he said you have one now after that they came down to the desk where I was casting up my accounts and Mr. Mahler asked is Mrs. Cooper your mother I answered yes sir of course I would not deny my mother isn't your name Charlie I answered yes I could have resorted to concealment but I would not lie for a piece of bread and yet for mother's sake I sorely needed the place what did Mr. Hazelton say nothing only I thought he looked at me a little embarrassed just as any half decent man might when he was about to do a mean and cruel thing but that afternoon I lost my place Mr. Hazelton said to me that he had no further use for me not discouraged I found another place but I believe that my evil genius found me out and that through him I was again ousted from that situation and now I am at my wits end but Charlie were you not sailing under false colors I do not think so Mr. Thompson I saw in the window an advertisement a boy wanted they did not say what color and I applied for the situation and did my work as faithfully as I knew how Mr. Hazelton seemed to be perfectly satisfied with my work and as he did not seek to know the antecedents of my family I did not see fit to thrust them gratuitously upon him you know the hard struggle my poor mother has had to get along how the saloon has cursed and darkened our home and I was glad to get anything to do to honestly earn a dollar and help her keep the work from the door and I tried to do my level best but it made no difference as soon as it was known that I had Negro blood in my veins door after door was closed against me not that I was not honest, industrious, obliging and steady but simply because of the blood in my veins I admit said Mr. Thomas trying to repress his indignation and speak calmly that it was a hard thing to be treated so for a cause over which you had not the least control but Charlie you must try to pick up courage oh it seems to me that my courage has all oozed out, I think that I will go away maybe I can find work somewhere else had I been a convict from out prison there are Christian women here who would have been glad to have reached me out a helping hand and hailed my return to a life of honest industry as a blessed crowning of their labors of love while I who am neither a pauper nor a felon am turned from place to place because I belong to a race on whom Christendom bestowed the curse of slavery and under whose shadow has flourished Christless and in human caste prejudice so I think that I had better go and start life afresh no Charlie don't go away I know you could pass as a white man but Charlie don't you know that to do so you must separate from your kindred and virtually ignore your mother a mother who for your sake would I believe take blood from every vein and strength from every nerve if it were necessary if you pass into the white basis your mother can never be a guest in your home without betraying your origin you cannot visit her openly and crown her with the respect she so well deserves without divulging the secret of your birth and Charlie by doing so I do not think it possible that however rich or strong or influential you may be as a white man that you can be as noble and as true a man as you will be if you stand in your lot without compromise or concealment and feel that the feeble your mother's race is the closer you will cling to it Charlie you have lately joined the church your mission in the world is not to seek to be rich and strong but because there is so much sin and misery in the world it is to clasp the hand of Christ through faith and try to make the world better by your influence and gladder and brighter by your presence Mr. Thomas I try to be and I hope I am a Christian but if these prejudices are consistent with Christianity then I must confess that I do not understand it and if it is I do not want it are these people Christians who open the doors to religions to sinners who are white and close them against the same class who are black I do not call such people good patriots let alone clear-sighted Christians why they act as if God had done wrong in making a man black and that they have never forgiven him and had become reconciled to the workmanship of his hands Charlie you are excited just now and I think that you are making the same mistake that better educated men than you have done you are putting Christianity I do think notwithstanding all this perversions and all the rubbish which has gathered around its simplicity and beauty that Christianity is the world's best religion I know that Christ has been wounded in what should have been the house of his friends that the banner of his religion which is brought enough to float over the wide world with all its sin and misery has been drenched with the blood of persecution trampled in the mire of slavery and stained by the dust of caste prescription but I believe that men are beginning to fully be comprehend the claims of the gospel of Jesus Christ I am not afraid of what men call infidelity, I hold the faith which I profess to be too true too sacred and precious to be disturbed by every wave of wind and doubt amid all the religious upheavals of the 19th century I believe God is at the helm that there are petrified actions creed and dogma that are to be broken up not by mere intellectual speculations but by the greater solvent of Christ and it is for this that I am praying, longing and waiting let schoolmen dispute and contend the faith for which I most ardently long and earnestly contend is the faith which works by love and purifies the soul Mr. Thomas I believe that there is something real about your religion but some of these white Christians do puzzle me awfully oh I think that I will go I am sick and tired of the place everything seems to be against me no Charlie stay for your mother's sake I know a noble and generous man rich enough to face a vitiated public opinion and rich enough to afford himself the luxury of a good conscience I shall tell him your story and try to interest him in your behalf will you stay I certainly will if he will give me any chance to get my living and help my mother it has been said that everything has two handles and if you take it by the wrong handle it will be too hard to hold I should like to know which is the right handle to this prejudice against color I do not think that there is prejudice against color in this country no prejudice against color said Charlie Cooper opening his eyes with sudden wonder what was it that dog steps and shut door after door against me wasn't that prejudice against color whose color Charlie surely not yours for your wider than several of Mr. Hazelton's clerks do you see in your case it was not prejudice against color what was it then it was the information that you were connected by blood without once enslaved and despised and to whom slavery and a low social condition had given a heritage of scorn and as soon as he found out that you were connected with that race he'd neither the manly that's nor the moral courage to say the boy is capable and efficient I see no cause why he should be dismissed for the crimes of his white ancestors I heard an eminent speaker once say that some people would sing I can smile at Satan's rage and face a frowning world when they hadn't courage enough to face their next door neighbor moral question I think that must be the case with Mr. Hazelton I once used to despise such men I've since learned to pity them I don't see what you find to pity in Mr. Hazelton unless it is his meanness well I pity him for that I think there never was slave more account under the whip of his master than he is under the large of public opinion the Negro was not the only one whom slavery subdued to the appliances of submission men feathered the slave and cramped their own souls denied him knowledge and then darkened their own spiritual insight and the Negro poor and despised as he was laid his hands upon American civilization and his help to mold its character it is God's law as he so shall you reap and men cannot so avarice and oppression without reaping the harvest of retribution it is a dangerous thing to gather the flowers of sin that blossom around the borders of hell end of chapter 7 chapter 8 of Trial and Triumph by Francis E. W. Harper this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter 8 I never want to go to that school again said Annette entering Mrs. Lisette's sitting room throwing down her books on the table and looking as if she weren't ready to burst into tears what is the matter now my dear child you seem to be all out of sorts I've had a fuss with that Mary Joseph Mary Joseph the saloon keeper's daughter yes how did it happen yesterday in changing seats the teacher put us together according to the first letter in our last names you know that I comes next to J but there wasn't a girl in the room whose name begins with I and so as J comes next she put Mary Joseph and myself together Ireland and Africa and they were not ready for annexation no and never will be I hope never is a long day Annette go on with your story well after the teacher put her in the seat next to me she began to wriggle and squirm and I asked her if anything was biting her because if there was I did not want it to get on me oh Annette what a girl you are why did you notice her what did she say she said if there was it must have got there since the teacher put her on that seat and it must have come from me well Mary Joseph knows how to scratch as well as you do yes she is a real scratch cat and what are you my dear a pattern saint no said Annette as the rulefulness of her face relaxed into a smile but that isn't all she wanted to eat my lunch she said she wasn't used to eating with niggers then I asked her if her mother didn't eat with the pigs in the old country and she said that she would rather eat with them than to eat with me and then she called me a nigger and I called her a poor white mick oh Annette I'm so sorry I'm afraid that trouble may come out of this fuss and then it is so wrong and I'm maybe like for you to be quarreling for 14 years old where was the teacher all this time did she know anything about it no she was out of the room part of the time but I don't think she likes colored people because last week when Joe Smith was cutting up in school she made him get up and sit alongside of me to punish him she should not have done so but I don't suppose she thought for one moment how it looked I don't know but when I told grandma about it Mrs. Larkins was in the room and she said if she had done a child of her so she would have gone there and sauced her head off the grandma said that she would not notice it that the easiest way is the best I think that your grandmother was right but what did Joe say he said that the teacher didn't spite him that he would as leave sit by me as any girl in school and that he liked girls a little scam he says he likes girls because they are so jolly well I mean old things she went and told her heart old father and just as I was coming along he took hold of my arm and said he had heard that I had called his daughter Mrs. Mary Joseph a poor white mick and that if I did it again he would give me a good thrashing and that for two pins he would do it then what next I guess I felt like Mrs. Larkins does when she says her guinea gets up my guinea was up but I was afraid to show it and I told her that she is Irish I don't like them for anything grandmother says that an Irishman is only a Negro turned wrong side out and I told her so yesterday morning when she was fussing with me say rather when we were fussing together I don't think the fault was all on her side but Mrs. Lassette she had no business calling me a Negro of course not but would you have liked it any better if she had called you a Negro no I don't want her to call me neither Negro nor Negro she shan't even call me black but Annette are you not black I don't care if I am she shan't call me so but suppose you were to say to Mrs. Joseph how white your face is do you suppose she would get angry because you said that she looked white no of course not but suppose you met her hurrying to school and you said to her how red and rosy you looked this morning would that make her angry I don't suppose that it would but suppose she would say to you Annette how black your face is this morning how would you feel I should feel like slapping her why so do you think because Ms. Joseph don't call her miss she is so mean and hateful but that don't hinder her from being Ms. Joseph if she is rude in course that is no reason why I should not have good manners oh Mrs. Lassette you are too sweet for anything I wish I was like you never mind my sweetness that is not the point of listening to me my dear of course I will I could listen to you all night well if it were not for signs there is no mistaking I should think you had a lot of Irish blood in your veins and had kissed the Blarney stone no I haven't and if I had I would try to let hush my child how you do rattle on do you think because Ms. Joseph is white that she is any better than you are no of course not but don't you think that she can see and hear a little better than you can what makes you ask such a funny question never mind just answer me a few more questions don't you think if you and she had got to fighting that she would have whipped you because she is white why of course not didn't she try to get the rule out of my hand and didn't because I was stronger but don't you think she is smarter than you are and gets her lessons better now you are shouting why and that where in the world did you get that slang why Mrs. Lassette I hear the boys saying it in the street and the girls in tennis court all say it too is there any harm in it it is slang my child and a young lady should never use slang don't use it in private and you will not be able to use it in public however humble or poor a person may be there is no use in being course and unrefined but what harm is there in it I don't say that there is any but I don't think it nice for young ladies to pick up all sorts of phrases in the street and bring them into the home the words may be innocent in themselves but they may not have the best associations and it is safer not to use them but let us return to Ms. Dosa if you do not think that she can see or hear any better than you can learn her lessons any quicker than you can and when it comes to a trial of strength that she is stronger than you are now let me ask you one more question who made Ms. Dosa why the Lord of course and who made you he made me too are you sure that you did not make yourself why of course not said I met with an accent of wonder in her voice does God ever make any mistakes why no and if anyone calls you black why should you get angry you say it would not make Ms. Dosa angry to say she looked white or red and rosy I don't know I know I don't like it and it makes me bad now let me explain the reason why it makes you angry to be called black suppose I were to burn my hand in that stove what would I have on my hand I saw a place if it were your hand what would you do I would put something on it wrap it up to keep from getting cold into it and try to get it well as soon as I could well that would be a very sensible way of dealing with it in this country and that color has been made a sore place it has been associated with slavery poverty and ignorance you cannot change your color but you can try to change the association connected with our complexions the slavery force a man to be servile and submissive learn to hold up your head and respect yourself don't notice Mary Joseph's taunts if she says things to tease you don't you let her see that she has succeeded learn to act as if you realized that you were born into this world the child of the ruler of the universe that this is his world and that you have as much right in it as she has I think it was Gilbert Haven a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church a man for whose tombstone I do not think America has any marble too white or any laurel too green who saw on his travels a statue of Cleopatra which suggested to him this thought I'm black but come the sun has looked down upon me but I will make you who despise me feel that I am your superior and and that I want you to be so noble true and pure that if everybody should hate you that no one could despise you no and that if Miss Joseph ever attempts to quarrel with you don't put yourself on the same level by quarreling with her I knew her parents when they were very poor when a half dozen of them slept in one room he has made money selling liquor he is now doing business in one of the most valuable pieces of property I see in East L Street he has been a curse and disloyal a nuisance in that street he has gone up in property and even political influence but oh how many poor souls have gone down slain by a strong drink and debauchery in the Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Trial and Triumph by Francis E. W. Harper this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 9 true to his word Mr. Thomas applied to Mr. Hastings the merchant of whom he had spoken to his young friend he went to his counting room and asked for a private interview which was readily granted they had kindred intellectual and literary tastes and this established between them a free masonry of mind which took no account of racial differences I have a favor to ask said Mr. Thomas can you spare me a few moments I'm at your service Mr. Hastings replied what can I do for you I have he said a young friend who is honest and industrious and competent to fill the place of clerk or cashier in your store he has been a cashier for Hazelton and company and while there gave entire satisfaction why did he leave I cannot say because he was guilty of a skin not colored like your own but because a report was brought to Mr. Hazelton that he had negro blood in his veins and what then he summarily dismissed him what a shame yes it was a shame but this pride of cast dwarfs men's moral perception so that it prepares them to do a number of contemptible things which under other circumstances they were scorned to do yes it is so and I am sorry to see it there are men Mr. Hastings who would grow hotly indignant if you would say that they are not gentlemen who would treat a negro in a manner which would not be recognized as fair even by ruffians of the ring for I believe it is their code of honor to strike out man when he is down but with respect to the colored man it seems to be a settled policy with some not only to push him down but to strike him when he is down but I must go I came to ask a favor and it is not right to trespass on your time no sit still I have a little leisure I can give you my fall trade has not opened yet and I am not busy I see and deplore these things of which you complain but what can be done to help it Mr. Hastings you see them and I feel them and I fear that I am growing morbid over them and not only myself but other educated men of my race and that I think is a thing to be deprecated between the white people and the colored people of this country there is a unanimity of interest and I know that our interests and duties all lie in the direction can men corrupt and intimidate voters in the south without a reflex influence being felt in the north is not the depression of labor in the south a matter of interest to the north you may protect yourself from what you call the pauper of Europe but you will not be equally able to defend yourself from the depressed laborer of the new south and as an American citizen I dread any turn of the screw to lower the rate of wages here and I like to feel as an American citizen that whatever concerns the nation concerns me but I feel that this prejudice against my race compresses my soul narrows my political horizon and makes me feel that I am an alien in the land of my birth it meets me in the church it confronts me in business and I feel its influence in almost every avenue of my life I wish Mr. Thomas that some of the men who are writing and talking about the Negro problem would only come in contact with the thoughtful men of your race I think it would greatly modify their views yes you know us as your servants the law takes cognizance of our crimes your charitable institutions of our poverty but what do any of you know of our best and most thoughtful men and women when we write how many of you ever read our books and papers or give yourselves any trouble to come nearest as friends and help us even some of your professed Christians are trying to set us apart as if we were social lepers you draw a dark picture I confess that I feel pained at the condition of affairs in the south but what can we do in the south set the south a better example but I'm hindering you not at all I want to see things from the same standpoint that you do put yourself then in my place you start both north and south from the premise that we are an inferior race and as such you have treated us has not the consensus of public opinion said for ages no valor redeems our race no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to us that our place is on the lowest round of the social ladder that at least in part of the country we are too low for the equal administrations of religion and the same dispensations of charity and a fair chance in the race of life you bring a heavy verdict against us I hardly think that it can be sustained whatever our motives may have been we have been able to effect in a few years a wonderful change in the condition of the Negro he has freedom and enfranchisement and with these two great rights he must work out his social redemption and political solution if his means of education have been limited a better day is dawning upon him doors once closed against him in the south are now freely open to him and I do not think that there ever was a people who freed their slaves who have given as much for their education as we have and my only hope is that the moral life of the race will keep pace with its intellectual growth you tell me to put myself in your place I think if I were a colored young man that I would develop every faculty and use every power which God had given me for the improvement and development of my race and who among us would be so blind and foolish as to attempt to keep down and enlighten people who were determined to realize in the scale of character and condition know Mr. Thomas while you blame us for our transgressions and shortcomings do not fail to do all you can to rouse up all the latent energies of your young men to do their part worthily as American citizens and to add their quota to the strength and progress of the nation I am conscious of the truth and pertinence of your remarks but bear with me just a few moments of frustration of what I mean speak on I'm all attention the subject you bring before me is of too vital importance to be constantly ignored I have a friend who is presiding elder in the AME church and his wife I think is capable of being a social and intellectual accession in any neighborhood in which they might live he rented a house in the city of L and being of a fair complexion I suppose the last C rented to him the suspicion of his race connection when it was ascertained that he and his family were colored he was ordered to leave and this man holding among the ministers of that city the position of ambassador for Christ was ordered out of the house on account of the complexion of his family was there not a screw loose in the religious sentiment of that city which made such an act possible a friend of mine who does mission work in your city a young woman in the slums and applied at the door of a midnight mission for fallen women and asked if colored girls could be received and was currently answered no for her in that mission there was no room the love of Christ constrained no hand to strive to rescue her from the depths of degradation the poor thing went from bad to worse till at last wrecked and blighted she went down to an early grave the victim of strong drink that same lady found on her mission a bright girl seeing a human soul adrift regardless of color she went in company with some others to that same mission with the poor cast away to her the door was opened without delay and ready admittance granted but I might go on reciting such instances until you would be weary of hearing an eye of relating them but I appeal to you as a patriot and Christian is it not fearfully unwise to keep alive in freedom the old atrocities of slavery today the negro shares citizenship with you he is not arraying himself against your social order his hands are not dripping with dynamite nor is he waving in your face the grims and banners of anarchy but he is increasing in numbers and growing in intelligence and is it not madness and folly to subject him to social and public inequalities which are calculated to form and keep alive a hatred of race as a reaction against pride of caste Mr. Thomas you have given me a new view of the matter to tell you the truth we have so long looked upon the colored man as a pliable and submissive being that we have never learned to look at any hatred on his part as an element of danger and yet I should be sorry to know that by our southern supineness we were thoughtlessly helping create a black Ireland in our Gulf states that in case the fires of anarchy should ever sweep through our land that a discontented and disaffected people in our midst might be as so much fuel to fire there really I've been forgetting my errand have you any opening in your store for my young friend I've only one vacancy and that is the place of that utility man what are the duties of that position almost anything that comes to hand tying up bundles, looking after the males scattering advertisements a fact totem whose work lies here there and everywhere and render you faithful service well then send him around tomorrow and if there is anything in him I may be able to do better by him when the fall trade opens and so Charlie Cooper was fortunate enough in his hour of perplexity to find a helping hand to tie him over a difficult passage in his life gratefully and faithfully did he serve Mr. Hastings who never regretted the hour when he gave the struggling boy such timely assistance the discipline of the life through which he was passing as the main stay of his mother matured his mind and imparted to it a thoughtfulness past his years instead of wasting his time in idle and pernicious pleasure he learned how to use his surplus dollar and how to spend his leisure hours and this knowledge told upon his life and character he was not very popular in society young men with cigars in their mouths and the perfume of liquor on their breaths shrug their shoulders and called him a milkshop because he preferred the church to the liquor saloon and gambling dens the society of P was cut up and divided into little sets encoderies there was an amount of intelligence among them but it ran in narrow grooves and scarcely one intellect seemed to tower above the other and if it did no people knew better how to ignore a rising mind than the society people of AP if the literary aspirant did not happen to be of their set as to talent many of them were pleasant and brilliant conversational but in the world of letters scarcely any of them were known or recognized outside of their set they had leisure little money and some ability but they lacked the perseverance and self denial necessary to enable them to add to the great resources of natural thought they had narrowed their minds to the dimensions of their set and were unprepared to take expansive use of life and duty they took life as a holiday and the lack of noble purposes and high and holy aims left its impress upon their souls and deprived them of that joy and strength which should have crowned their existence and given to their lives its highest excellence and beauty. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Trial and Triumph by Francis C. W. Harper this Libra Box recording is in the public domain Chapter 10 two years have relapsed since we left Annette recounting her school grievances to Mrs. Lassette she has begun to feel the social contempt which society has heaped upon the colored people but she has determined not to succumb to it there is force in the character of that fiery, impetuous and impulsive girl and her school experience is bringing it out she has been bending all her mental energies to compete for the highest prize at the commencement of her school from which she expects to graduate in a few weeks the treatment of the saloon keeper's daughter and that of other girls of her ilk has stung her into strength she feels that however despised her people may be that a monopoly of brains has not been given to the white race Mr. Thomas has encouraged her efforts and taught her to believe that not only is her own honor at stake as a student but that as a representative of her branch of the human race she is on the eve of winning or losing not only for herself but for others this view of the matter increases her determination and rouses up all the latent energies of her nature and she labors day and night to be a living argument of the capability in her race for other girls who will graduate in that school there will be open doors and closed avenues while she knows that the color of her skin will bar against her the doors of workshops factories and school rooms and yet Mr. Thomas knowing all the discouragements around her path has done what he could to keep her interest in her studies from flagging he knows that she has fine abilities and must be disciplined by trial and endeavor before her life can be rounded by success and triumph he has seen several of her early attempts at versification pleased and even delighted with them he has shown them to a few of his most intellectual friends eager and earnest for the elevation of the colored people he has been pained by the coldness with which they have been received I do not call that poetry said one of the most intelligent women of AUP neither do I see anything remarkable about her said another I did not say Mr. Thomas bring you the effusions of an acknowledged poet but I think that the girl has fine ability of recognition but his friends could not see it they were very cherry of their admiration lest their judgment should be found at fault and then it was so much easier to criticize than it was to hardly admire and they knew it seemed safer to show their superior intelligence by dwelling on the defects which would necessarily have an amount of crudeness in them than to look beneath the defects for the suggestions of beauty, strength and grace which Mr. Thomas saw in these unripe but promising effusions it seemed perfectly absurd with the surroundings of tennis court to expect anything grand or beautiful to develop in its midst but with Annette poetry was a passion born in her soul and it was as natural for her to speak in tropes and figures as it was for others to talk in plain, common prose Mr. Thomas called her our inveterate poet and encouraged her but the literary aspirants took scarcely any interest in the girl whom they left to struggle on as best she might in her own home she was doomed to meet with lack of encouragement from her relatives and grandmother's friends one day her aunt Eliza Hansen was spending the day with her mother and Annette showed her some of her verses and said to her that is one of my best pieces oh you have a number of best pieces said her aunt carelessly can you cook a beef steak I suppose I could if I tried where you would better try than to be trying to string verses together you seem to think that there must be something very great about you I know where you want to get you want to get among the upper tens but you haven't got style enough about you for that that's just what I tell her said her grandmother she's got too many errors for a girl in her condition she talks about writing a book and she is always trying to make up what she calls poetry she's crazy some of these days she is all the time talking to herself and I just think it is a sin for her to be so much taken up with her poetry you had better put her to work had she not better go out to service no I'm going to let her graduate first what's the use of it when she's through if she wants to teach she will have to go away yes I know that she just waited me to let Annette graduate and I've promised that I would do so and besides I think to take Annette from school just now would almost break her heart well mother that is just like you you will work yourself almost to death to keep Annette in school and when she is through what good will it do her maybe something will turn up that you don't see just now if a person ain't ready for it they can't take hold of it well I hope a good husband will turn up for my Alice but maybe the good husband won't turn up for Annette that is well said for they tell me that Annette is not very popular and that some of the girls are all the time making fun of her well they had better make fun of themselves in their own bad manners Annette is poor father to stand by her and I cannot entertain like some of their parents can but Annette with all her faults is as good as any of them talk about the prejudice of the white people I think there is just as much prejudice among some colored as there is among them only we do not get the same chance to show it we are most too mixed up and dependent on one another for that just then Mrs. Lissette entered the room and Mrs. Hansen addressing her said we were just discussing Annette's prospects mother wants to keep Annette at school till she graduates but I think she knows enough now to teach a country school and it is no use for mother to be working as she does to keep Annette in school for the sake of letting her graduate there are lots of girls in AP better off than she who have never graduated and I don't see that mother can afford school any longer but Eliza Annette is company for me and she does help about the house I don't think much of her help always when I come home she has a book stuck under her nose Annette said Mrs. Lissette is a favorite of mine I've always a warm place in my heart for her and I really want to see the child do well in my judgment I do not think it advisable to take her from school before she graduates if Annette were indifferent about her lessons and showed no aptitude for improvement I should say as she does not appreciate education enough to study diligently and has not aspiration enough to keep up with her class find out what she is best fitted for and let her be instructed in that calling for which she is best adapted I think said Mrs. Hanson you all do wrong in puffing up Annette with the idea that she is something extra you think Mrs. Lissette that there is something wonderful about Annette but I can't see it and I hear a lot of people say she hasn't got good sense they do not understand the child they all say that she is very odd and queer and often goes out into the street as if she never saw a looking glass why Mrs. Miller's daughter just left till she was tired at the way Annette was dressed when she went to call on an acquaintance of hers why Annette just makes herself a perfect look well I think Mary Miller might have found better employment than laughing at her company now let me tell you Mary Miller don't take her for company and that very evening Annette was at my house just next door and when Mary Miller went to church she never asked her to go along with her although she belongs to the same church I'm sorry to say it said Grandmother Harcourt but your Alice hardly ever comes to see Annette and never asks her with her but may be in the long run Annette will come out better than some who now look down upon her it is a long road that has no turn and Annette is like a singed cat she is better than she looks I think Mrs. Lissette well Annette is very bright and intelligent as a pupil she has been rather slow in developing in some other directions she lacks tact is straightforward to bluntness and has not any style about her and little or no idea of company manners but she is never coarse nor rude I never knew her to read a book whose author I would blush to name and I never heard her engage in any conversation I would shrink to hear repeated I don't think there is a girl a pure ellipse in AP than Annette and I do not think your set as you call it has such a monopoly of either virtue or intelligence that you can afford to ridicule and depress any young soul who does not happen to come up to your social standard where dressed in style are passports Annette may be excluded but where brain and character count Annette will gain admittance I fear said Mrs. Lissette rising to go that many a young girl has gone down in the very depths who might have been saved if motherly women when they saw them unloved and lonely had reached out to them helping hand and encourage them to live and good lives we cry am I my sister's keeper I will not wipe the blood off our hands if through pride and selfishness we have stabbed by our neglect souls we should have helped by our kindness I always feel for young girls who are lonely and neglected in large cities and are in danger of being ensnared by pretended sympathies and false friendship and today no girl is more welcome at any social gathering than Annette Mrs. Lissette said Mrs. Hansen you are rich and you can do as you choose in AP you can set the fashion no I'm not rich but I hope that I will always be able to lend a hand to any lonely girl who is neglected and forgotten while she is trying to do right who comes within my reach while I live in AP good morning Annette said Mrs. Hansen has a champion who will stand by her yes said Mrs. Harcourt Anna is true as steel the kind of women you can tie to when my great trouble came she was good as gold and when my poor heart was almost breaking she always had a kind word for me I wish we had ten thousand like her well mother I must go but if Annette does graduate don't let her go on the stage looking like a fright general H's daughter has a beautiful new silk dress and a lovely hat which she got just a few weeks before her mother's death as she is gone in black she wants to sell it and if you say so and will pay for it on installments I can get it for Annette and I think with a little alteration it would be splendid for her graduation dress no Eliza I can't afford it why mother Annette will need something nice for the occasion and it will not cost any more than what you intend to pay for her dress and hat why not take them because Annette is not able to wear them suppose she had that one fine dress and hat would she not want more to match with them I don't want her to learn to dress in a style that she cannot honestly afford I think this love of dress is the ruination of many a young girl I think this straining after things when you are not able to get them is perfectly ridiculous I believe in cutting your coat according to your cloth I saw Mrs. Hamstead's daughter last Sunday dressed up in a handsome light silk and a beautiful spring hat and if she or her mother would get sick tomorrow they would I suppose soon be objects of public charity or dependent on her widowed sister who is too proud to see her go to the poor house and this is just the trouble with a lot of people they not only have their own burdens to bear but somebody else's you may call me an old fogey but I would rather live cheap and dress plain than shirk my burdens because I had wasted when they had saved you and John Hanson are both young and have got your health and strength and instead of buying seal skins and velvets and furblows you would better be laying up for a rainy day you have no more need for a seal skin cloak than for a cousin now you do as you please I have had my say End of chapter 10