"I didn't mean to make such a noise," he said in a peculiarly penetrating whisper, "but what the dickens do you do after you find your book?"
It is always a pleasure to be placed in the superior position of an imparter of knowledge, and Hertha, unbending from her dignity, found herself whispering instructions.
Once put on the right path, the youth showed no further shyness, and was soon talking familiarly with the librarian who equipped him with a card.
"It's all hunky," he explained, coming back to Hertha. "She gave me the book and as long as you think it's good I'm going to read it through. I'm not much on reading," he added as though apologizing for his new taste. "Never entered a library before, but there ain't such a lot to do of a Sunday."
Hertha nodded but did not look up, and after some minutes of aimless wandering the young man went out.
She found herself thinking of him after he had gone. His type was not unfamiliar. The tall, lank figure, the yellowish skin, looking as though indigestion lurked around the corner, the hard, narrow mouth—white men like this had been customary figures in her Southern life. They were the sort who monopolized four places in the train, lolling back on one seat and putting their feet up on another. More than once, on a street car, she and Ellen had been obliged to stand when such a man, quite oblivious of whether or not he usurped the jim-crow section, had taken his lazy comfort. But a person of this type would be courteous to a white girl, would be glad to sacrifice his pleasure to do her a kindness. She had recognized at once that he was from the South, and her speech had proclaimed to him her birthplace. But what if he had seen her when she was colored? She found the blood rush to her face at the thought. Then, remembering Mammy's injunction, she grew calm again. It was for her to-day, in New York, to live only in the white world.
Going to the shelves she selected a book to take home, and then as the librarian was making ready to close, pushed at the outside door, which was a little stiff in opening, and walked into the street.
Into the street? Oh, no, into Heaven!
Everywhere about her white crystals were falling through the air—on her hat, on her coat, on her upturned face. As she looked overhead they came in multitudes, like a soft curtain. They made a carpet at her feet, and as far as she could see down the street they dropped one after another, millions upon millions, shimmering golden in the light of the lamp.
It was a miracle of beauty. Here in this ugly city, where she had missed the clean sand and the growing flowers, from the very heavens had come a sacred robe, for were not the angels clothed in white? And the robe was covering the world. The gray stone stoops were shining, and on each bit of cornice or projecting woodwork was a line of light; and she was moving through it; feeling the soft flakes encircle her, stepping as lightly as she could that she might not crush the lovely things that had come straight from God.