I finds that the most of my race up here aims to copy their actions after white folks when they is showing themselves off in public. They is forever trying to talk like whites and trying to appear deeply oninterested in passing things, the same as some white folks does, and even trying to think like whites, I expect. But when they gets off amongst themselves their natural feelings comes out on 'em and the true coloredism breaks forth and they cuts loose and enjoys themselves regardless. That's the way it is behind the closed doors of our club-rooms. Also, there's suitable games and indoor sports such as coon-can and two-bit-limit poker with the joker running wild and a round of rumdoodlums after every face-full; and when hunger gnaws at you there's a Chinee restaurant right handy by, which it caters 'specially to the colored trade. Here is where I first meets a crock of this here chop suey face to face; which it may be a Chinee dish but certainly is got a kind of an African flavor to it. If you can't get a mess of cow-peas and some real corn-pones and maybe half a fried young spring chicken with an abundance of gravy, I don't know of nothing which makes a more desirable light snack between meals than about fifty cents worth of chop suey with a double order of boiled rice on the side and some of that there greasy black Chinee sauce to sop it in.
It's one time in the front room of the club that I first takes special notice of this here U. S. G. Petty, which he is the same person I goes a-seeking upon leaving the studios on this day in question. The way he comes to bring himself to my attention is this way: One night five or six of us Pastimers in good standing is setting round not doing nothing in particular, but just setting, when talk arises concerning of Gabriel, the Black Prophet of Abyssinia, which his name is now on everybody's tongue, more or less.
It seems that the Black Prophet come a-projecting himself onto the local scene last spring, him claiming to hail from a far-off latitude called Abyssinia, and immediately he creates a big to-do, which is only to be expected considering of his general aspect. In the first place, he's a powerful orator and just overflowing with noble large words. In the second place, he's a great big over-bearing-looking man and wearing at all times a flowing garment of purple like the night-shirt of a king, and instead of having a hat on he's got his head all bandaged up in many silken folds like he's got scalp-trouble. Naturally, folks turns out to look at him; but language and curious clothes is not the sole things by which he recommends himself. He's got something even more compelling to the colored mind than what these two is—he's had a glorious vision, so he states, and he craves for to tell about it on all occasions where folks'll give heed; which they freely does, because he certainly can explain the whyfores and 'numerate the whereases and show the whereins. But showing wherein is his main hold.
From the way he tells it, he laid down one night in his native country for to sleep and whilst he slept an angel appeared before him in a dream bearing a flaming scroll and a golden sword, and the angel anointed his brows with the oils of understanding and wiped the scales of blindness from off his eyes and smeared his lips with the salves of eloquence—altogether, it seem like the angel must a-been working on him half the night getting him greased-up to suit. And along towards morning the command is laid on him to go forth into the world and deliver his race from bondage in every hemisphere there is. So it transpires that he takes his foot in his hand and he comes on across the seas over to these here United States of North America and starts in his ministrations in New York. Leastwise, that is the account as he lays it down; which he calls it an inspired prophecy from On High but it sounds more to me like an inspired real-estate scheme, because the plan as he preaches it is that all us black folks everywhere must straight-away rise ourselves up and follow after him, which he will then lead us back to our original own country of Affika where he will cause all the white folks which has settled there to pull out and leave us in sole charge for to rule the state and run our own government and be a free and independent people from thenceforth on forever. So you pays down so much for to join and so much every month in dues and soon then—to hear him tell it—you will be happy on your way across the ocean to find your haven in the Promised Land.
But not me! I ain't lost no haven. Moreover, if ever anybody does promise me one-such I ain't aiming to go seeking after it under the guidnance of a dark stranger which he ain't no credentials for to endorse him in my eyes, excusing it's a purple silk night-shirt and a tale about him having been lubricated all over with a lot of different kinds of fancy ointments by an Abyssinian angel. No sir, if I has to do traveling in extreme foreign-off parts I'll go along with some of my own white folks which I can put trust in their words and dependence on their acts. And, finally, the idea of my returning to Affika does not seem to appeal to me in no way nor at no time whatsomever. What's the use of returning to a place where you ain't never been? As I says to myself the first time the notion is expounded to me, I says:
"I ain't frum Affika, I is frum Paducah, Kintucky. Some of my former folks may a-hailed frum there—leas'wise, tha's the common rumor—but the Poindexter fambly is been away so long it seems lak I ain't inherited the taste to 'go traipsin' back. Mo'over, ef whut I heahs 'bout it is correc', Affika is full of alligators an' lions an' onreconciled Bengal tigers an' man-eatin' cannibals, w'ich I wouldn't be surprised but whut they all of 'em 'specially favors the dark meat. An' yere I is, a pernounced brunette! So, w'en they starts makin' up the excursion list they kin kin'ly leave my name off, 'cause I 'spects to be very busily engaged stayin' right whar I dog-goned is!"
Chapter XI
Afric Shores
THUS is what I says to myself, very first crack out of the box and I subsequent sees no reason for to change my views. But this night at the Pastime when the subject is brung forward for discussion, I just lurks in a corner, not saying nothing myself but doing some very vigorous listening. Being a new member, the way I is, I prefers not to declare myself in at the go-off but just to sort of hang back and catch the general drift of the old heads before I commits myself.