FullReads

In our town formerly there were any number of negro children named for Caucasian friends of their parents. Some bore for their names the names of old masters of the slavery time, masters who had been kindly and gracious and whose memories thereby were affectionately perpetuated; these were mainly of a generation now growing into middle age. Others–I am speaking still of the namesakes, not of the original bearers of the names–had been christened with intent to do honour to indulgent and well-remembered employers of post-bellum days. Thus it might befall, for example, that Wadsworth Junius Courtney, Esquire, would be a prominent advocate practicing at the local bar and that Wadsworth Junius Courtney Jones, of colour, would be his janitor and sweep out his office for him. Yet others had been named after white children–and soon after–for the reason that the white children had been given first names having a fine, full, sonorous sound or else a fascinatingly novel sound.

Of these last there were instances amounting in the aggregate to a small host.

I seem to remember, for example, that once a pink girl-mite came into the world by way of a bedroom in a large white house on Tilghman Avenue and was at the baptismal font sentenced for life to bear the Christian name of Rowena Hildegarde.

Or is Rowena Hildegarde a Christian name?

At any rate, within twelve months’ time, there were to be found in more crowded and less affluent quarters of our thriving little city four more Rowena Hildegardes, of tender years, or rather, tender months–two black ones, one chrome-yellow one, and one sepia-brown one.

But so far as the available records show there was but one white child in our town who bore for its name, bestowed upon it with due knowledge of the fact and with deliberate intent, the name of a person of undoubted African descent. However, at this stage to reveal the circumstances governing this phenomenon would be to run ahead of our tale and to precipitate its climax before the groundwork were laid for its premise. Most stories should start at the beginning. This one must.

* * * * *

From round the left-hand corner of the house came with a sudden blare the sound of melody–words and music–growing steadily louder as the unseen singer drew nearer. The music was a lusty, deep-volumed camp-meeting air, with long-drawn quavers and cadences in it. The words were as follows:

Had a lovin’ mother,
Been climbin’ up de hill so long;
She been hopin’ git to heaben in due time
Befo’ dem heaben do’s close!

And then the chorus, voicing first a passionate entreaty, then rising in the final bars to a great exultant shout:

Den chain dat lion down, Good Lawd!
Den chain dat lion down!
Oh, please!
Good Lawd, done chained dat lion down!
Done chained dat deadly lion down!
Glor-e-e-e!

The singer, still singing, issued into view, limping slightly–a wizen woman, coal-black and old, with a white cloth bound about her head, turban fashion, and a man’s battered straw hat resting jauntily upon the knotted kerchief. Her calico frock was voluminous, unshapely and starch-clean. Her under lip was shoved forward as though permanently twisted into a spout-shape by the task of holding something against the gums of her lower front teeth, and from one side of her mouth protruded a bit of wood with the slivered bark on it. One versed in the science of forestry might have recognised the little stub of switch as a peach-tree switch; one bred of the soil would have known its purpose. Neither puckered-out lip nor peach-tree twig seemed to interfere in the least with her singing. She flung the song out past them–over the lip, round the twig.

With her head thrown away back, her hands resting on her bony hips, and her feet clunking inside a pair of boys’ shoes too large for her, she crossed the lawn at an angle. In all things about her–in her gait, despite its limp, in her pose, her figure–there was something masterful, something dominating, something tremendously proud. Considering her sparseness of bulk she had a most astoundingly big strong voice, and in the voice as in the strut was arrogant pride.