Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/28

 might acquire the same knowledge in the public schools of Boise, but then there would be some limit to the extent to which they could apply this knowledge, seeing that they lived at home and perforce must submit to some parental supervision. A cot in the attic at home was to Samuel a much safer place for a growing child to sleep than an iron four poster in a boarding school dormitory.

So Samuel had remained adamant and the two carefully reared scions of Boise’s first blue vein family had of necessity sought their mates among the lower orders. However, Joe’s wife was not as undesirable as Emma Lou’s father, for she was almost three-quarters Indian, and there was scant possibility that her children would have revolting dark skins, thick lips, spreading nostrils, and kinky hair. But in the case of Emma Lou’s father, there were no such extenuating characteristics, for his physical properties undeniably stamped him as a full blooded Negro. In fact, it seemed as if he had come from one of the few families originally from Africa, who could not boast of having been seduced by some member of the southern aristocracy, or befriended by some member of a strolling band of Indians.

No one could understand why Emma Lou’s mother had married Jim Morgan, least of all Jane herself. In fact she hadn’t thought much about it until