FullReads

In spite of his unique entrance into the world and his precarious journey, Blink was a vigorous young chicken, with what mammy was pleased to call “a good proud step an’ knowin’ eyes.”

Three months passed. The long, dull summer was approaching, and yet Evelyn had found no regular employment. She had not been idle. Sewing for the market folk, decorating palmetto fans and Easter eggs, which mammy peddled in the big houses, she had earned small sums of money from time to time. In her enforced leisure she found opportunity for study, and her picturesque surroundings were as an open book.

Impressions of the quaint old French and Spanish city, with its motley population, were carefully jotted down in her note-book. These first descriptions she afterwards rewrote, discarding weakening detail, elaborating the occasional triviality which seemed to reflect the true local tint–a nice distinction, involving conscientious hard work. How she longed for criticism and advice!

A year ago her father, now usually dozing in his chair while she worked, would have been a most able and affectionate critic; but now–She rejoiced when a day passed without his asking for her mother, and wondering why she did not come.

And so it was that in her need of sympathy Evelyn began to read her writings, some of which had grown into stories, to mammy. The very exercise of reading aloud–the sound of it–was helpful. That mammy’s criticisms should have proven valuable in themselves was a surprise, but it was even so.

II

“A pusson would know dat was fanciful de way hit reads orf, des like a pusson ‘magine some’h’n’ what ain’t so.”

Such was mammy’s first criticism of a story which had just come back, returned from an editor. Evelyn had been trying to discover wherein its weakness lay.

Mammy had caught the truth. The story was unreal. The English seemed good, the construction fair, but–it was ” fanciful.”

The criticism set Evelyn to thinking. She laid aside this, and read another manuscript aloud.

“I tell yer, honey, a-a-a pusson ‘d know you had educatiom, de way you c’n fetch in de dictionary words.”

“Don’t you understand them, mammy?” she asked, quickly, catching another idea.

“Who, me? Law, baby, I don’t crave ter on’erstan’ all dat granjer. I des ketches de chune, an’ hit sho is got a glorified ring.”

Here was a valuable hint. She must simplify her style. The tide of popular writing was, she knew, in the other direction, but the best writing was simple.

The suggestion sent her back to study.

And now for her own improvement she rewrote the “story of big words” in the simplest English she could command, bidding mammy tell her if there was one word she could not understand.

In the transition the spirit of the story was necessarily changed, but the exercise was good. Mammy understood every word.

“But, baby,” she protested, with a troubled face, “look like hit don’t stan’ no mo’ ; all its granjer done gone. You better fix it up des like it was befo’, honey. Hit ‘minds me o’ some o’ deze heah fine folks what walks de streets. You know folks what ‘ain’t got nothin’ else, dee des nachelly ‘bleege ter put on finery.”

How clever mammy was! How wholesome the unconscious satire of her criticism! This story, shorn of its grandeur, could not stand indeed. It was weak and affected.

“You dear old mammy,” exclaimed Evelyn, “you don’t know how you are helping me.”

“Gord knows I wushes I could holp you, honey. I ‘ain’t nuver is craved educatiom befo’, but now, look like I’d like ter be king of all de smartness, an’ know all dey is in de books. I wouldn’t hol’ back noth’n f’om yer, baby.”

And Evelyn knew it was true.

“Look ter me, baby,” mammy suggested, another night, after listening to a highly imaginative story–“look ter me like ef–ef–ef you’d des write down some truly truth what is ac-chilly happened, an’ glorify it wid educatiom, hit ‘d des nachelly stan’ in a book.”