Page:The New Negro.pdf/107

Rh And while Madge laughed at a wanton song, her grandmother knelt by her bed and through the sinful babel of the airshaft, through her own silent tears, prayed to God in heaven for Jutie's lost soul.

“Too much learnin' ain' good f' nobody. When I was her age I couldn't write my own name.”

“You can't write much mo' 'n that now. Too much learnin'! Whoever heard o' sich a thing!”

Anna's father, disregarding experience in arguing with his wife, pressed his point. “Sho they's sich a thing as too much learnin'! 'At gal's gittin' so she don't b’lieve nuthin?!”

"Hmph! Didn't she jes' tell me las' night she didn' b'lieve they ever was any Adam an' Eve?”

"Well, I ain' so sho they ever was any myself! An' one thing is certain: If that gal o' mine wants to keep on studyin' an' go up there to that City College an learn how to teach school an' be somebody, I'll work my fingers to the bone to help her do it! Now!”

“That ain' what I'm talkin' 'bout. You ain' worked no harder 'n I is to help her git this far. Hyeh she is ready to graduate from high school. Think of it—high school! When we come along they didn' even have no high schools. Fus' thing y' know she be so far above us we can't reach her with a fence-rail. Then you'll wish you'd a listened to me. What I says is, she done gone far enough.”

"Ain' no sich thing as far enough when you wants to go farther. 'Tain' as if it was gonna cost a whole lot. That's the trouble with you cullud folks now. Git so far an stop—set down—through—don't want no mo'.” Her disgust was boundless. “Y' got too much cotton field in you, that's what!”

The father grinned. “They sho' ain' no cotton field in yo' mouth, honey."

“No, they ain't. An' they ain' no need o' all this arguin either, 'cause all that gal's got to do is come in hyeh right now