IV
There is some quality which possesses the soul of a good old negro that gives them a power not granted to other men. They have, above everything, the power to inspire confidence, to win confidences. Perhaps this is because of their simplicity, or because of their vast sympathy. White children in the South will love and trust their darky friends and will share with them those intimate secrets of childhood from which even parents are excluded. These old darkies have a talisman against the griefs that visit others; they soothe the sufferer, they murmur: “Nemmine, now chile,” and the suffering is forgotten. In their own sorrows they wail and lament theatrically, and tear their hair and vent without restraint their primitive despair. But when white folks weep, the darky has comfort to give, and gives it.... To tell them a secret is like whispering it to one’s own self; there is the bliss of confession without the anguish of knowing that one’s shame is shared. It is easy to tell, hard to rebuff their gentle inquiries....
Jim Forrest was never able to understand how he had been led to unbosom himself to old Eph; but he did. The negro took him over Beacon Hill, and down one thin and dingy street, and then another; and so into a boarding house, and up to the room where Eph dwelt. This room was as clean as a new pin; it was meagerly furnished; yet it was comfortable. It was tiny, but it was large enough to be a home. Eph made Jim welcome there; he sat the boy down; he talked to him....
And Jim, who had come to hear Eph’s story, found himself talking while Eph listened. And though he held his head high and steadily, there was in the boy’s tones something of the longing that possessed him, something of the shame that oppressed him because he could not be out and doing like his fellows. Day broke and found them there together; and it was two hours after dawn before Jim left at last, comforted in a way he could not understand, cheered and content as he had not been for months, steady and unafraid....
He did not realize till that night that he had failed to get Eph’s story.
Old Eph, when the boy was gone, sat down on his bed and put his head in his hands and thought hard. He was a shrewd old man, for all his simplicity; and the fruits of his thoughts were action. He knew what he wished to do, he considered only the method; and when this was chosen at length, he took his hat and went out, and up over the Hill, and down Beacon street to find the man he sought.
He waited humbly in an outer office till this man could see him. When he was admitted, he fumbled in his inner pocket for a dog-eared little bank book, and went in.
Jim Forrest, the day after, received a registered letter. This letter contained a check for eleven hundred dollars; and it read briefly:
“I am instructed by my client to hand you this check, and to inform you that there will be mailed, each week, to your mother, for an indefinite period hereafter, a check for ten dollars. I have no further instructions, except to preserve absolute secrecy.”
The letter ended in due legal form.
Jim, thereafter, did three things. The first was to go to the lawyer who had sent the letter and ask who had given the money. He got no answer. The second was to seek out old Eph and accuse him of sending it. At which Eph cackled joyfully.
“Lawdy, suh,” the old darky chuckled guilelessly. “Where you think I gwine git ’leven hunnerd dollars. Don’ you joke an old man, boy.”
The third thing Jim did, when he gave up hope of discovering the identity of his benefactor, was to enlist.