"Indeed you are not seeing that any of us are helped," Mrs. Pickens cried, calling Dick's attention to his duties at the head of the table, and Hertha soon found herself making the best of the left-overs of the previous meal.
No one seemed in good spirits. Mrs. Wood told them all a half dozen times that her head ached, and her daughter showed on her face that she had heard the same tale at regular and irregular intervals during the day. She looked more than ever as though she wished she were a man, a desire that was rarely absent from her thoughts. "A man," she was wont to say, "is not expected to earn the family income and also be a companion and nurse, and if by any chance he did take all three positions he would make sure to be paid well for them." Mrs. Pickens was tired, she was always tired on Sunday, it being the maid's easiest and her hardest day; and Dick was disgusted that yesterday's happiness had been spirited away with the morning. So the conversation lagged and only as the meal was almost concluded did it take an unexpected and exciting turn.
It was Miss Wood who began it. "You are from the South, I think, Miss Ogilvie?" she said, addressing Hertha.
"Yes," answered Hertha.
"So am I," called out Dick.
"I am aware of that fact," Miss Wood went on in anything but a cordial tone, "but I wished to ask Miss Ogilvie's opinion on a certain question. I was reading in a magazine to-day," she looked across at Hertha, ignoring the young man at the table's head, "in an article by a southern physician, a man, I understand, of some note, a very sweeping statement. In writing of the Negroes he said that he was confident there was not a pure colored woman in the country above the age of sixteen."
Mrs. Pickens choked over her bread and butter. She had not been brought up to discuss sociological questions and she deeply disapproved of the way Miss Wood frequently introduced them, especially at meal time. Last week they had been treated to a shocking tale of reformatories, but this was the first time they had been drawn into the social evil. Looking at Hertha, she expected to see her with drooping head murmuring a gentle nothing. But she was mistaken. The southern girl's face was on fire, with anger, not shame.
"It's not true," she said.
"And I say it is true," cried Dick, bringing his fist down on the table. "That doctor knew what he was writing about. It's damned true, every word of it."
He gulped as he realized he had been guilty of swearing, but Miss Wood, who was in control of the conversation, paid no attention to him. "I am interested in what you say," she went on to Hertha, "for it agrees with my own impression. I have not met many colored people in my work, but I have had a few cases among them, and while I have seen degradation it has not seemed to me any greater than that among the whites of the same class. Such a sweeping statement as this is unjust."