She recalled once a man, a mulatto and obviously a pervert, who answered a street preacher. She could never seem to forget his words.
"You say," he had said, "that I should get religion. and I say, what's the use? I'm a nigger, and that means I'm a vagabond, a cast-off, a thing to be hated, condemned and persecuted. You speak of brotherly love and the reward hereafter. I laugh when you make such assertions. Heaven for a Negro? Why, do you suppose that even Satan would care for him? As to brotherly love, why don't you go to the white man that keeps my sister? Why don't you tell that man what you preach about? I am illegitimate. My youngest sister, the white man's mistress, is too, and so are all the rest! Then you speak of heaven and reward in the hereafter for Negroes. The hereafter is the chain gang, where my illegitimate brother is serving twenty years for murder. As for me, I'm going to a blind tiger and get a drink. I'm going to get drunk. The idea that a Negro can be anything is a joke. There may be a heaven for white people, but for a Negro, oh, you fool!"
As all this and other instances passed through her mind, Mildred became much excited. Then, as the reality dawned upon her, a picture of what that money could do became clear to her, and with Wilson Jacobs as its secretary, she presently came to feel that her sacrifice might be a blessing in disguise.
On and on she hurried, until at last she came to the house. She paused at the gate, and caught her breath. Her thoughts were busy for a moment, as she tried to formulate a plan to deliver the money without being caught. She struggled nervously, with first one plan and then another, and then at last she boldly entered the gate and walked up to the front door. As she reached to push the bell, she looked through the glass door. Wilson sat nodding in the study. His position, she saw, was such that he could see the clock, and watch the fatal moments pass. It was then past eleven. She could see the clock and realized what those moments meant. He had, as she observed him, fallen asleep from sheer fatigue. As she watched him, there came to her mind a bold idea, and she put it into effect at once. She tried the door, fearing it might be locked, but was relieved when it opened with a turn of the knob.
She entered the house on tip-toe, passed through the hall to the study, which was to one side, entered the room in which he sat, and, with breath held, nerves tense, she cautiously crossed to where he sat. She slowly drew her breath, when she saw he was sleeping peacefully. She placed the package containing the price of her virtue upon the table. She looked at him again, and caught her breath in fear, as he moved slightly, but did not fully awaken.
The next moment she stole her way to the door, like a thief in the night, and was outside. She turned, as she heard a sound, and saw Constance, weary, tired, and apparently nervally exhausted, come from the rear and enter the study. She dared stand and watch her, as she entered the study where her brother sat, now fully awake, but oblivious to the presence of the package. He was watching the clock that was ticking away.
With a catch of her breath, she saw that Constance had discovered the package, and she saw them open it with curiosity. She noted the look of intense joy, as their eyes beheld the contents.
As she was leaving, these words floated out to her in the stillness of night, "Go, brother, in God's name, go!"
No one, so far as we know, guessed where the much needed money came from. But, strangely enough, the giving had relieved the giver. After she left the Jacobs' home, she felt as she had never felt before, and took life and what it brought very calmly. As she passed along, she looked with silent relief into the faces of those of her race, who were persecuted on one hand by fear of the superior white, and, on the other, by cast. At times she had regarded them as so many dogs, lurking, hungry dogs, who wait until darkness sets in, before lurking in the alleys and searching garbage cans, expecting to be kicked or be killed upon discovery, if, for no other reason, simply to give vent to a hatred. They felt, as she saw it, that it was the lot of the Negro to be hated. They got no kindness; they expected none; they even scoffed when it was offered, regarding it as some subtle means of inviting them to a worse fate, and this was what discrimination and prejudice had brought them to.
There still remained the dispensation. No person in all the world, she felt, was so fitted for the task as Wilson Jacobs. Care of the building, after its completion, would itself be a problem. Then there was that distrust to dispell. Too often, she knew, that arrogance on the part of the leaders of these institutions, had a tendency to keep away from their doors the very class whom they sought to attract. Unfortunately, the Negroes themselves realized that those conditions were true.