Page:Rowland--In the shadow.djvu/324

 sharp tongue of the sex. The other women jeer at him in chorus, even as they pound the clothes which they are cleansing. Our negro rallies his repartee, is jeered again, loses his grip, turns away sulkily. The jeers follow him, when suddenly he burst into tears and flings away!

"Yet he has his moments of exaltation, periods when he is sublime. A child is sometimes sublime, but this sublimity of the negro is rather that of the faithful dog. He will live for a loved master; toil for him; die for him. With this master he knows no fear, no evil; without him he is a rudderless vessel.

"This negro of ours has no master, no rudder; he cannot sail a straight course in waters which are strange to him. He is a creature of impulse, the shuttlecock of his emotions, lazy, improvident, lacking in imagination, which he substitutes with fantasy; he is irrepressible, incomplete. Yet he has a vote, a citizenship; he must obey the laws of the land or receive his punishment!

"Now mark him when confronted with a problem. Ah, that is pathetic, absurdly pathetic! See his doubt, his uncertainty, his bewilderment. He has been sold a house, a boat, a horse and cart, on easy payments, with usurious interest. What does he know of interest? His imagination can scarcely carry him beyond the period of his next sleep! See him wrinkle his brow, scratch his woolly head, appeal blindly to a black friend, who, flattered and with no more knowledge than the asker, gives him childishly absurd advice! My word! There should be founded in this great nation, whose first instinct is fairness, a Society for the Prevention of Swindling of Negroes! It is so pathetic! He is so hopelessly out 314