Sat alone by the church steps
She did not know how many times he slipped away from the other children and sat alone by the church steps, where he had so often listened to George's vesper melodies. She did not know what mournful cadences of memory thrilled him, as he rocked himself back and forth among the dead weeds, with his arms around his knees and his head bowed on them. She knew nothing of the music that had sung wordless longings into his simple child-heart until it awakened answering voices of a deathless ambition. So her surprise knew no bounds when he came slowly into the cabin one evening, and asked if he might be allowed to start to school the following week.
"Law, chile!" she answered. "They isn't any school for cul'ud folks less'n a mile an' a half away, an' besides, you hasn't clothes fitten to wear. The scholars would all laugh at you."
Still he persisted. "What put such a notion in yo' head, anyhow?" she demanded.
John Jay turned his face aside, and busied himself with taking another reef in his suspenders. "The Rev'und Gawge wanted me to go," he said, in a low tone. "Besides, how can I know what all's in the books he done left me 'thout I learn to read?"
"That's so," assented Mammy, looking proudly at the shelves now ornamenting one corner of the little cabin with George's well-worn school-books. Most of the volumes were upside down, because her untutored eyes knew no better than to replace them so, when she took them out to dust them with loving care. They were George's greatest treasures, and she allowed no one to touch them, not even John Jay, to whom they had been left.
"What does a little niggah like him want of schoolin'," she had once said to Uncle Billy, when he had proposed sending the boy to school to keep him out of mischief. "Why, that John Jay he hasn't got any mo' mind than a grasshoppah. All he knows how to do is jus' to keep on a jumpin'. No, brer Billy, it would be a pure waste of good education to spend it on anybody like him."
John Jay had always cheerfully agreed with this opinion, which she never hesitated to express in his hearing. He had had no desire to give up his unlettered liberty until that day on the haymow when he had his awakening. Having heard Mammy's opinion so often, it was no wonder that he kept his head turned bashfully aside, and stumbled over his words when he timidly made his request. It was the sight of George's books that gave him courage to persist, and it was the sight of the books that decided Mammy's answer. She could remember the time when Jintsey's boy had been almost as light-headed and light-hearted as John Jay; so it was not past belief that even John Jay might settle down in time.