Hazel

HAZEL

BY
MARY WHITE OVINGTON
AUTHOR OF “HALF A MAN”

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
HARRY ROSELAND

CRISIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
26 Vesey Street
NEW YORK

Copyright, 1913
BY
MARY WHITE OVINGTON
Robert N. Wood,
Printer
202 East Ninety-ninth Street, New York

TO
E. D. M.

PREFACE

When I was a little girl, my favorite books dealt with children whose lives were like my own. I smudged with many readings the pages that told of Susy and Prudy and Dotty in Portland, of their visits to the country, of their every-day happenings. Their adventures were far dearer to me than those of foreign lads and lasses and richly clad little princesses whose ways were not as my ways.

I have thought for some time that the colored children in the United States might also like to have their intimate books telling of happenings that were like their own. They must be tired of reading always of far-away children. So, out of my years of experience among these soft-eyed, velvet-cheeked small friends, I have written this story.

I have purposely avoided dialect. Correct English spelling is difficult enough to young readers without superimposing other forms for the not too-familiar words. I have, however, tried to give the turn of expression in the southern speech.

I hope my colored child friends will smudge my pages. And if the white child stops to read, I trust that she will feel an awakened sympathy for the dark-faced boys and girls whose world is outside her own.

M. W. O.

Brooklyn, N. Y.,
September 15, 1913.

CONTENTS

HAZEL

CHAPTER I
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA

It was raining, and Hazel Tyler had not been allowed to go out all day. As she sat looking out of her window into the narrow Boston street she would have made a pretty picture but for the woe-begone expression on her brown face. Her hair was soft and curly, her eyes dark and clear, her mouth full, but delicate. Usually it was happy in expression; but this afternoon it drooped at the corners. Four o’clock! Two hours more before supper. Oh, this stupid, stupid Saturday!

She got up and walked from the tiny parlor, where she had been sitting, into a tiny bedroom where a large baby doll lay on the bed she and her mother shared. Hazel took the doll up, shook it severely, and put it down again. She was growing to care very little for dolls; they were not warm and dimpled and you had to do all the talking for them. She left the tiny bedroom and stepped into a tiny kitchen thus making the tour of the apartment.

“Mother,” she said to a slender woman who stood at an ironing-board, “may I go around and play with the McGinnis’s baby? It’s such a little way.”

Mrs. Tyler looked up. Her face like Hazel’s was gentle and delicate, but the features were finer and the skin lighter in shade. She was ironing an elaborate pink tea gown, and she seemed ill-fitted for such taxing work.

“No, Hazel,” she replied. “I’ve told you that you can’t go out in the rain while you have a cold. There is no use in teasing.”

Hazel knew this to be true, and for a time was silent, watching her mother. She ran her slender finger along the tucks of the pink gown.

“What pretty clothes Mrs. Hollingsworth always has,” she said. “I wish I could have something pretty. I’ve nothing to wear but this blue serge.”

Hazel’s mother looked at her a second and the child felt abashed. She knew very well that since her father’s death—her dear, dear father—her mother had had to support them both, and how hard she had worked at whatever would bring in money—at sewing, hairdressing, and even this tiring laundry. She knew, too, that when the rent was paid, and the grocer’s and butcher’s bills settled, the little money left went first to her and her wants. Why, only last week she had had pretty hair ribbons; and her mother’s black dress was growing shabby. She bent over and kissed the hand that was patting the pink wrapper into place.

“I’ll go into the parlor and make my picture-puzzle,” she said.

“That’s right, dear,” Mrs. Tyler answered.

The little girl worked for a time at the elaborate puzzle spread out on the parlor table; but its green trees were perplexing, and she soon returned to the kitchen to find the pink dress finished and on the top of a pile of speckless linen in the laundry basket. Her mother stood with hat and coat on.

“I’m going to run out to make sure that John comes to-night to get the clothes,” Mrs. Tyler said. “Now, don’t look so woe-begone, dear. I’ll cook waffles for supper, and we’ll have the maple syrup that Mrs. Brown brought us from the country.”

Hazel’s face brightened. “May we eat off the pretty china?” she asked.

“Yes, you may set the table with it when I get back.” And Mrs. Tyler went out into the narrow hall, down the dark stairs and into the narrow street.

She could hardly have reached the corner when Hazel heard a knock at the door, and opened it to a little black girl who at once stepped gaily into the room.

“Where you been all day, Hazel?” she asked.

She was a jolly little girl of ten, a year younger than Hazel, with plump arms and legs and a sturdy body. Her crinkly hair was tied with a bright red ribbon, and she wore a gay bandanna about her neck. Her black eyes shone with good will.

“How do you do, Charity?” Hazel said, a little hesitatingly.

She liked this new neighbor and had played with her the rare afternoons that she had been allowed on the street; but she knew her mother scarcely approved of Charity. But then her mother did not approve of any of the girls and boys on Hammond Street and one must play with some one.

“Your mother’s out,” said Charity. “I know, for I saw her go. Where you been all day, Hazel?”

“Here at home,” Hazel answered. “I’ve got a sore throat, and I’m not allowed to go out, and there’s nothing to do in this poky place.”

“Let’s play,” said Charity, “you shut your eyes and I’ll hide.”

“Pooh,” Hazel replied contemptuously, “you know, Charity, there isn’t a single place here big enough for a cat to hide in.”

“Well, let’s, let’s,” Charity looked about for inspiration, and her glance fell on the doll in the adjoining room, “let’s play house.”

“No, you would just beat the baby. Let’s play a new game, something brand new that we never played before.”

Charity began jumping about on one foot, and on into the little parlor, but she had no suggestion to offer. Hazel followed her and as her eye fell on the family Bible, her face lighted with excitement.

“I know,” she declared, “let’s play a Bible game. Let’s act a Bible story the way we act history at school.”

Charity stood on her two feet. “George Washington?” she asked.

“No, not George Washington, but like that. A Bible story. We can’t be Joseph and his Brethren,” Hazel went on musing, “there’re too many of them. I don’t like Jacob—”

“I’ll be King Solomon,” Charity exclaimed quite suddenly.

She sat in the arm chair and held herself erect. Taking her bandanna she wreathed it in a turban about her head.

“That’s splendid, Charity,” Hazel said heartily. “That’s your crown and you’re sitting on your throne. Now who shall I be?”

“You? Why, of course, you’ll be the Queen of Sheba.”

Hazel laughed gleefully. “I’ll be a real queen, won’t I? What’ll I do, Charity?” Her friend’s knowledge of Bible history was evidently greater than her own.

“You ask me questions,” Charity explained, “all sorts of questions, and I answer them.”

“But what do I wear?”

“Let me recollect.” Charity shut her eyes to think the harder. “The Queen of Sheba she come to Jerusalem, with, with a very great train. You must wear a train, Hazel.”

“There isn’t a thing with a train here,” Hazel replied mournfully.

Looking into the kitchen her eyes fell upon the laundry basket with the pink dress on top. “I could borrow Mrs. Hollingsworth’s tea gown,” she said.

Now Charity might make slips in grammar and slap unoffending dolls, but the laundry was sacred to her. Once the pile of muslin was ironed and placed in the basket it was not to be tampered with.

“You daren’t,” she said.

Hazel walked into the other room, took the pink wrapper and slowly put it on. Her heart beat fast and her fingers trembled, but she fastened the dress at the throat and held it up about her. Entering the parlor she went to the chair in which King Solomon sat, and bowed low, dropping the pink dress so that it trailed upon the floor. Then she looked up into the king’s dark face.

“Isn’t this a royal great train?” she said softly.

King Solomon nodded. He was saying to himself, “You bet, my mother needn’t say she’s such a good little girl again!”

The Queen of Sheba bowed once more. “What do I do next, Charity?”

“You ask me questions.”

“I can’t think of any;” and the queen, like Alice in Through the Looking Glass, courtesied again to help her think. “What did I have for dinner?” she said at last.

“Myrrh and mint and jasper and honey and the honeycomb.”

The queen looked up in admiration. “That’s a beautiful answer; how did you think of all those things? But is jasper something to eat?”

King Solomon did not regard the question. “Ask me something else?” he demanded.

“What—what—what did I have for breakfast?”

The king stuck out his tongue derisively. “Can’t you think of a single thing, Hazel Tyler, but food?”

Hazel felt her lack of originality. “Have you had pleasant weather this past week in Jerusalem?” she asked politely.

“It has rained,” replied King Solomon, “for forty days and nights; and great was the fall thereof.”

The king’s answers were so much more impressive than the queen’s questions that Hazel sought for first place.

“Now I shall dance before the king,” she said, and began slowly advancing and receding before King Solomon’s throne, holding up the pink dress as she moved. She looked very pretty and graceful as she made her low courtesies and King Solomon’s eyes gleamed approbation.

“If you like a me, as I like a you,” he began to sing and the Queen of Sheba stepped in a little livelier fashion toward the kitchen door. “’Cause I love you,” he went on, and the little queen danced before him over the door-sill and into the kitchen where she struck against the table and fell in a heap upon the floor.

The singing stopped. Charity stooped to where Hazel sat, a frightened heap. She examined the pink gown. It had a black smudge on the back.

“Have to be done all over again,” said Charity briefly.

Hazel rose and took the dress off. Her lip quivered.

“I’d best go home,” said Charity. “There ain’t nothing I can do. Oh, Hazel won’t you catch it!”

“My mother never whips me,” said Hazel sharply.

“She ain’t like mine,” said Charity.

The bandanna was off King Solomon’s head and he crept out of the door and down the stairs to his home.

The Queen of Sheba sat on the kitchen chair with the soiled dress on her lap. Like the queen of old, “there was no more spirit in her.” She remained quite still two, three, five minutes. Then she heard her mother knock.

She opened the door, the dress in her hand, and showed the spot without speaking.

“How did it happen?” Mrs. Tyler asked.

“I was playing with Charity. It wasn’t her fault,” hastily, “she told me not to touch it, but I was the Queen of Sheba and I wanted a train. Will it have to be done all over, Mother? Charity said it would have to be done all over.”

“Yes, it will,” said Mrs. Tyler, and turned to the tub where she began to draw water.

“You must go to bed, Hazel,” she said sternly. “Later I will bring you a supper of bread and milk.”

As the little girl lay in bed, she could hear her mother rub, rubbing the dress against the wash-board. Then that sound ceased, and the door of the refrigerator was opened and shut. She silently ate the bread and milk brought her. No jolly time together at the table over the waffles and maple syrup and the pretty flowered plates! She heard her mother’s tired footsteps moving from ironing-board to stove and back to ironing-board, and she noted the click of the iron as it fell upon the metal holder. She could almost count each movement up and down the waist and the long skirt.

At length John came. He was kept waiting a few minutes. Then the basket was handed him, the outer door closed, and the long day’s work was done.

Hazel stole out of bed into the kitchen where her mother sat. She put her arms about her neck and kissed her again and again.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Her mother kissed back and held her close.

“It does seem, Mother dear,” Hazel said at length, “as though, ever since we came to this place, I couldn’t have the least bit of fun without making such a lot of trouble.”

CHAPTER II
HEALTH AND A DAY

The sky was washed the clear blue of late November the next morning, and Hazel could count the few little white clouds floating on it as she walked to church. The cold, fresh air quickened her blood and made her want to skip and dance, but she stayed demurely at her mother’s side. They soon left their dingy street and turned into a well-to-do neighborhood where white people lived, and then went on with the white people into a large church. The usher nodded pleasantly to them, and they took a pew to the left, half way up the aisle. Here they sat in silence while the organ played its solemn, spiritual music.

As she listened to the music the anxious look, that was usually present, left Mrs. Tyler’s face. This was her dear and holy place where her mother and her mother’s mother had worshipped. As a little girl she had known its first minister—the noble, courageous citizen who had never failed to plead for the freedom of the slave. After her marriage with her southern husband she had gone a few times to listen to the big-hearted oratory at the colored church; but the service there did not touch her spirit, and she and her husband had agreed on Sunday mornings to worship in different places the same Heavenly Father. Hazel had always accompanied her mother, and she was quite at home among the white people. More than one greeted her with a smile.

“My heart is resting, oh, my God,

My heart is in Thy care,”

sang the congregation.

Hazel loved this hymn. She joined in the singing with her clear child’s voice. She always loved the hymns, and she even loved the sermon, for was not the minister her dear friend? When the sermon was finished there was the five cents to be dropped into the contribution plate, and there was the beautiful benediction at the end of the service asking that the peace of God abide in her heart. “Amen,” sang the choir, and the organ pealed that the service was over.

“How do you do, Hazel?” the lady behind her asked. “She seems a little peaked, doesn’t she?” addressing the mother.

The anxious look returned to Mrs. Tyler’s face. “She hasn’t been very well,” she answered.

“Keep her in the fresh air as much as you can, though I know that that is difficult to do in cold weather.”

“How do you do, Hazel?” “How do you do, Mrs. Tyler?” came from many sides as the two walked from the church into the street.

Their Sunday dinner was to be eaten with their old friends, the Perkins, who lived in Jamaica Plains. As their car stopped, Hazel fairly raced down the street where she had spent her life until her father’s death, and turned up the steps of a pleasant cottage, and almost into the arms of a big, smiling black man. He carried her off at once, leaving Mrs. Tyler to be ministered to by his young, bright-faced wife. The two visitors were evidently at home.

The dinner was a lavish one, beginning with turkey and ending with ice-cream. Mr. Perkins heaped Hazel’s plate, urging her to eat. But though these were her favorite dishes her appetite was small. He encouraged her to tell him of her doings, of how well she ranked at school. “Right at the top, Hazel; you know you are going to college.” He asked how she liked the new story he had given her, “The Jungle Book.” After dinner was over he took her to his study across the hall from the parlor where the two women sat.

“How Henry loves children,” Mrs. Tyler said to her friend. Mrs. Perkins nodded. Behind where she sat, was the picture of the only child born to her and her husband, the child whom they had lost five years ago. She knew how his hungry heart went out to this little girl.

Mrs. Tyler faced the picture. She had loved the child and mothered her. A lump rose in her throat.

“Sarah,” she said, laying her hand on her friend’s arm, “I’ve got to talk with you about Hazel. I’m worried, I’m worried.”

“Hazel, why hasn’t she been well?”

“No, all this autumn she has seemed so delicate. She takes cold easily and she doesn’t throw it off. I fear the long winter for her.”

“I wish you hadn’t left Jamaica Plains.”

“I had to. I mustn’t spend the little money left me. I must work and save. Hazel will need more every year. But I don’t want to save just for doctor’s bills. Sometimes, Sarah, she frightens me. She looks as her father looked——”

Mrs. Tyler stopped. She could not yet speak of her husband’s long illness and of the blank left by his death.

“I’m not saying this just to complain,” she went on after a moment. “I’ve a wild idea that I can’t keep out of my head.”

“What is it, Lucy?”

“It’s to send Hazel for the winter to her grandmother Tyler’s.”

“To Alabama? Oh, Lucy, how could you! It’s so far away.”

“I know, but it’s a home in a beautiful place where she could be out-of-doors all day long. My husband used to tell me about the good times he had as a boy among the pines with plenty of space around him. He, like Hazel, would have hated to have been shut up in three rooms.”

“But it’s in the South,” Mrs. Perkins said earnestly. “We don’t know the South, Lucy, but I fear it with its jim-crow cars and its lynchings.”

“Don’t,” gasped Mrs. Tyler. Then, after a little, she laughed. “There are thousands and tens of thousands of colored children who grow up there in safety. Hazel will be under good care. Her grandmother will have more time to give to her than I.”

“Has she written for Hazel?”

“Not recently, but I know she would welcome her. She is alone just now, but she is always mothering some child. She will love Hazel, for Hazel is like her father in many ways. Perhaps living with her grandmother, she will learn to be still more like him. I cannot bear the thought of having her leave me, but I know that if she goes she will be in good hands.”

A tremendous noise issued from the room across the hall, and Hazel popped out her head to call, “He’s Shere Khan, a tiger of the jungle, and I’m Mowgli.”

“Come here and let me eat you, Little Frog,” called out the tiger, and made a hideous sound between a snarl and roar.

“It’s Sunday, Henry. Don’t make so much noise,” said his wife.

“Don’t make so much noise, Shere Khan,” said Mowgli, and fearlessly shut herself up with the tiger in the jungle.

Through the door the two women heard the little girl cough.

“How could you get the child South?” Mrs. Perkins asked.

Granny

“Why, oddly enough, one of my neighbors, Mrs. Graham, is going South in two or three weeks. She lives at Montgomery, only a couple of hours by train from Mother Tyler’s home. She is a kindly, sensible soul whom Hazel likes. I can trust the child with her. I dread it, Sarah,” and Mrs. Tyler clasped her hands tightly together, “I dread it inexpressibly, but I dread her staying here more.”

“Couldn’t you go with her?”

“That would be impossible. What could I do there to earn money? I must stay at home and work. I’ve plans for building up a good business. I feel sure that I can, but it will take time. Perhaps I shall succeed more quickly if I put all my energy into my work. And then Hazel will return in the spring, for it wouldn’t be good for her to stay through a southern summer. If I am busy every minute I’m hoping that the time won’t seem so long. It will pass quickly if I hear that Hazel gains in health.”

“Who’s talking about health?” asked Mr. Perkins, as he came out of his room with Hazel at his side.

“I am,” replied Mrs. Tyler.

“You remember Emerson: ‘Give me health and a day and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.’ Lucy, may I take this young lady out for a walk?”

“Surely, Henry.”

Hazel put on her hat and coat and raced off with her boon companion.

“She will need a warmer coat,” Mrs. Tyler said, and her brow puckered. “If she stays here she must have warm clothes and even then I shall have sometimes to keep her indoors. She was restless yesterday and naughty, and that isn’t like Hazel. Health. That is more than anything else in the world, isn’t it? What shall I do, Sarah?”

Her friend had risen and was looking at the picture of her little child.

“I can only say this Lucy,” she at length answered. “You will never cease to reproach yourself if anything happens and you haven’t done everything possible for Hazel. If a winter in the South will mean health for her, then if she is ill you will always regret that you did not send her away.”

“People are ill in the South,” said Mrs. Tyler, wanting to contradict the advice she sought.

“Of course. But you will have done all you could.”

Mrs. Tyler looked hard at the floor, for a minute. When she raised her eyes to her friend’s they were full of tears.

“It won’t really be living while she’s away,” she said; “but I’ll write to mother Tyler to-night.”

CHAPTER III
LEAVE TAKING

When Hazel first learned that she was to go away from her mother, she cried bitterly. But as the preparations for her departure began, she regained her spirits. Who could grieve for long in the midst of such excitement?

In the first place, there was the new trunk, very small and shining.

“Look at it, Charity,” she said, the afternoon it came home “See my initials on the side, H. T. That stands for Hazel Tyler.”

Charity looked, and envy entered her heart. When she visited her granny in Virginia her clothes were stuffed into a shabby, collapsible bag.

“Folks ’ll think you stuck up,” she said.

“Well, let them,” answered Hazel. “This is a steamer trunk, Charity,” she went on, opening it, “see the cunning tray. When it’s shut you push it under your berth on the steamer. I’m going to have a warm shawl in it to wear on deck.”

“Bet you’ll be sick,” said Charity.

Nevertheless, she was deeply impressed with the little trunk, and watched Hazel as day after day she packed and repacked it.

“I’m putting all my clothes in the bottom, Charity. Mother says for me to take my summer and my winter clothes both. Here is my blue gingham, and Mother has let down my white muslin dress again. Isn’t it pretty with the lace and embroidery?”

Charity sniffed. “Bet you won’t wear your white dress. Folks wear calico down there. Who’s going to spend the time washing and ironing for you?”

Hazel looked a little troubled. “Why, Granny, I suppose.”

“Humph, your Granny ’ll be too busy to wait on you.”

Hazel patted the white dress better in place. “I can keep it clean quite a while,” she said.

“See, Charity, the pretty present Mrs. Perkins gave me,” she said later, taking a dainty box from the tray and opening it. “Six handkerchiefs and each marked with an ‘H.’ Nobody can take them, can they, because the ‘H’ shows they belong to me.”

Charity deliberately took one from the box. “Guess I’ve got one now,” she declared.

But while she refused to show enthusiasm regarding Hazel’s preparations she was really greatly interested and appeared one day with something, new to Hazel, in her hand.

“It’s a sun-bonnet,” she explained, holding it out. “Everyone wears them down there; the sun is so hot. Mother and I made it for you.”

“Oh, it’s such a pretty pink,” cried Hazel, turning it about on her hand. “Thank you and your mother so much, Charity,” and she kissed her companion.

Charity’s eyes shone. “Put it on,” she commanded.

The brown face with the soft hair looked very attractive set in the pink muslin frill. Hazel viewed herself in the glass and jumped up and down with pleasure.

“It’s like a play to be wearing a sun-bonnet.”

“Take it off and I’ll show you how to pack it.” And together they put it in the tray.

“I’ve another present, Charity,” Hazel confided, taking out a small package, and showing a long, black hair-ribbon. “It’s from Miss Gray, my teacher. Mother says I must count these presents for Christmas, because I’ll be away at Christmas. Perhaps I’ll put them in my stocking Christmas eve.”

“Pooh! Folks don’t hang up stockings South.”

“Why, Charity, you’d think they didn’t do anything down there.”

Charity cogitated. “They don’t do much,” she decided, and added a little wistfully, “it’s lots more fun on Hammond Street.”

Hazel slipped her hand in her friend’s. “I wish you were going with me,” she whispered.

“I wish you weren’t going away,” Charity whispered back.

Hazel and her mother had a long discussion regarding a suitable present to take to Granny. Hazel wanted to buy a black and white gingham dress she saw at Jordan, Marsh’s; but did Granny wear a thirty-six like her mother, or a forty-four, like Charity’s mamma? Such uncertainty made the dress impracticable. A pretty black and white kitten strayed into the Tyler flat and when Hazel had fed it, and become attached to it, she felt that it would be a better present even than the dress. No arguments concerning the difficulty of carrying a kitten to Alabama could make her forsake her plan; only when her mother asked that it be left to keep her company did Hazel at once give it up.

“Yes, do keep it, Mother dear,” she said.

But still Granny’s present was unsettled. Mrs. Perkins unconsciously determined what it should be.

“Lucy,” she said, one day, “here is a card that entitles you to six photographs. You have a good picture of Hazel, but she has none of you. Please have them taken immediately and give the child one.”

“Yes, and give one to Granny,” Hazel said. And although Mrs. Tyler protested, Granny’s present, carefully packed in many rolls of tissue paper, was her daughter-in-law’s picture tastefully framed.

Hazel could not decide, even to the day of departure, whether she should give it to Granny on her arrival or should wait until Christmas.

One day her minister climbed the tenement stairs and called upon her and her mother. The trunk was in the parlor and he examined with deep interest the contents that Hazel showed him. Especially he admired the pink sun-bonnet.

“You must wear it to church next summer,” he said. “Only I should look at it so much I might forget to preach my sermon.”

He encouraged Mrs. Tyler in what she was doing. “It will be the making of the child,” he assured her. “I’ve lived a little in that country and I know how healthful it is.”

At parting he placed a package shaped like a book in Hazel’s hands. “This is for Christmas,” he said; and taking a pencil from his pocket, he wrote in big letters, “Not to be opened until Christmas.”

Hazel gave him a kiss, and holding the book declared, “I will keep it sacredly until Christmas.”

She walked down the stairs with him. “You’ll take good care of my mother at the church, won’t you?” she asked, squeezing his hand, “She works so hard. She says she’s saving to send me to college, and now I’ll lose a whole year at school. It troubles me.”

“Why, it mustn’t trouble you, little girl,” said the minister. They reached the street and he looked down at her anxious face. “We will look after your mother. The ladies will see that she gets work. That is the only way that we can help her, for she will take nothing that she does not earn.”

Then he raised his hat and bade the child good-bye.

It was nearing the time of departure—Thursday, and the ship sailed Saturday. The trunk was packed for the last time, with Mrs. Tyler’s gifts, a box of writing-paper and a dictionary, on top.

“I hope you will write me a little every day, Hazel,” her mother said. “It will be good practice for you. Mail the letters once or twice a week, but write a little every day.”

“It will be like a diary,” said Hazel.

“Yes, dear.”

“And you’ll write often to me, Mother, won’t you?”

“I’ll write often, but you will write without waiting for an answer. That will be your gift to me.”

The days were so full that Hazel had not much time to think of the Southland to which she was going; but at odd minutes she questioned what it might be like. She had traveled no further from Boston than neighboring seashore resorts, and until her father’s death she had seen little of any but refined people, white or colored.

“Charity,” she said, Friday night, “I’ve been saying good-bye to the McGinnis’s baby. He is so dear and dimpled and rosy. Are there many white babies South?”

“Sure,” answered Charity. “But don’t you have nothing to do with white folks. There’s two kinds of white folks down there: those that hates you and those that calls you ‘a cute little nigger.’ My mother says that ain’t so, for she knows the first families of Virginia, but I ain’t acquainted with ’em.”

“My father used to tell about white people near his home who were nice,” said Hazel reflectively.

“Poor white trash, I guess. There ain’t any first families in Alabama.”

That night, before they went to bed, Hazel questioned her mother about the white folks.

“Won’t they like me?” she said. “Will they call out ‘Nigger,’ the way the boys on Shawmut Avenue do to Charity?”

“I don’t know, dear, I don’t know. Granny can help you about that, not I. But I would not bother with them, Hazel. They go their way and you go yours. On the steamer, in the train, at the church and at school—everywhere you will be separated. Their world will not be your world. Leave them alone.”

“I will remember,” Hazel said softly.

The kind world that she had known seemed slipping away from her. She held her mother’s hand tight.

“I will be with the colored people,” she said, “and I will love Granny.”

“And when night comes, Hazel, remember we shall both be saying our prayers to the same Father in Heaven. I shall ask him to bless you.”

“And I to bless you, Mother dear.”

“And when I look at the stars at night I shall know that the same stars shine on you, only you will see the huge heavens and I shall only see a piece from my city window.”

“And the stars shine on Father, too,” said Hazel. “I think he sees the stars.”

With this thought she went to bed and, after a little, fell asleep, but her mother lay awake the night long.

The last present came as they stood on the steamer. Mr. Perkins brought it to her and demanded and received six hugs in thanks. It was a soft woolen coat, blue outside and red within, finer than anything Hazel had ever owned.

“It’s to keep your heart warm for your old friend,” Mr. Perkins said, as he buttoned it about her. “Take very good care of her, Mrs. Graham;” he spoke earnestly to the woman at Hazel’s side. “Don’t let her from your sight.”

“I’ll be mighty careful,” Mrs. Graham answered.

Then the bell rang and visitors were ordered ashore.

Hazel gave her mother one more kiss. “I’ll be back soon,” she whispered.

Mrs. Tyler did not try to answer; but her last look was at a shy, brave little girl in a new blue coat, going out into an unknown, untried world.

CHAPTER IV
THE JOURNEY

Charity was right. The shawl did not come out of the trunk until the ship had passed Cape Hatteras and the voyage was nearly at an end. Poor Hazel lay in her upper berth, sick and wretched. When at length she was able to dress and climb to the deck the rough weather was over, and she saw a clear, blue sky and an expanse of soft, tranquil water. She grew better at once, and ate her dinner with an appetite.

The landing was wearying, and the long journey to Alabama in a dirty, ill-ventilated car was inexpressibly tiring. The child grew wretchedly weary, and a big lump rose in her throat when night came on. She was homesick and uncomfortable. Instead of her pleasant bed at home, there was only a hard seat on which to rest. Mrs. Graham pillowed her as well as she could, but the sensitive child lay awake the most of the night: for if she fell asleep from weariness, a vicious jolt of the train shook her awake again. Early in the evening their train stopped to wait until an express overtook it and passed on ahead. Hazel saw the Pullman with its comfortable beds and its brightly-lighted dining car where colored waiters were serving delicious-looking food to white people.

“Why don’t we ride in a car like that?” she asked Mrs. Graham.

But she knew the answer before she heard it. “Colored people are not allowed to in the South.”

All things come to an end, however, even a wakeful night. In the morning Montgomery was reached, and at the station Hazel was met by a kindly colored man who said that his name was Jenks and that he was a friend of Granny’s. He was to look after Hazel and take her to her grandmother’s home. So the little girl bade Mrs. Graham an affectionate good-bye and went with her new companion.

Mr. Jenks lived in a quiet, country-like street, and Hazel picked out his house before they reached it. It had roses growing by the doorway, and a sweet-faced young woman, like her mother, stood on the porch.

“You’re tired out, aren’t you, honey?” the young woman said, giving Hazel a kiss. “You don’t travel again until late afternoon. Come in and have breakfast, and then lie down and sleep.”

The biscuit and egg tasted delicious. To her hostess’s surprise Hazel refused coffee. “My mother doesn’t want me to drink it until I am grown up,” she explained; and instead she had a glass of milk. Breakfast over, she gladly accepted the invitation to lie down in the clean, white bed in the little room upstairs. How good it was to get into a fresh night-gown and creep between the sheets! Her head swam from the motion of the cars, but soon that stopped and she was in the land of dreams.

She dreamed that her mother called, “Come, Hazel, it is time for dinner,” and she answered, “Yes, I’m coming,” and tried to run from the bedroom into the little kitchen; but she could not move. Again the voice called her, and with a great effort she caught her mother’s hand, and awoke to find that she was clutching Mrs. Jenks’ dress.

“You’ve slept a long while, dear,” her hostess said. “There’s only time to wash and dress for dinner. Here is hot water I’ve brought for you. You’ll feel better when you’ve had a bath.”

She washed and dressed, and was just fastening her collar when there was a knock at her door. Opening it she found a little girl of about six who shyly held out to her a bunch of roses.

“Are these for me?” Hazel asked.

The child nodded.

Hazel looked with astonishment at the flowers. They were like hot-house roses. At home they would cost ten, fifteen cents apiece, so much that you only looked at them in the florist’s window. You could never afford to buy them, unless it were for a wedding or a funeral. And she held all these lovely pink and white blossoms in her hand!

“Thank you so much,” she said to the child, who still remained outside. Hazel went to the washstand and filling the glass she found there with water, placed the roses in it. Then, viewing her treasures with great pride, she took out one bud and pinned it to her dress.

It seemed very festive, like a party, to be wearing a pink rose. And the dinner was festive, too, with more roses on the table and Mr. and Mrs. Jenks and their two little daughters talking and laughing. Hazel ate heartily of the chicken and sweet potato and guava jelly, the last a gift from a friend in Florida and only put on the table at special occasions. But this was a special occasion, for while Hazel was only a little girl she was a visitor from the North, and from the North’s best-loved city, Boston.

Dinner over, Hazel and the children played together, building towers of blocks and destroying them only to build others. The time seemed short when Mrs. Jenks called her to make ready to go to the train.

“My husband will take you all the way,” she said to Hazel, who rose reluctantly from the floor. The child went to her room, took the roses out of the water, dried their stems and tied them together with a bit of thread from her traveling bag. They would be a comfort, she thought, in the dirty train. Then putting on her hat and coat she went down stairs.

It was hard to say good-bye to her new friends. The children clung to her and Mrs. Jenks invited her to make them a visit when she returned in the spring. “You haven’t been a bit of trouble,” she answered in reply to Hazel’s thanks for her hospitality. “I wish I could keep you over night.”

Hazel wished the same in her heart, but she only said good-bye again and returned to the railroad station.

“Let me have your check,” Mr. Jenks said. “And have you the money for your ticket?”

“Yes,” answered Hazel, and with a feeling of pride, she took the money needed from her leather purse. The business of ticket and trunk accomplished, the two took their seats in the car and were soon moving out into the big world.

“It isn’t far now, is it?” asked Hazel when they had traveled for an hour and a half.

“No,” her companion replied, “we shall soon be at the station; and then we drive three miles to your grandmother’s.”

The station was reached at last, and when they got out Hazel met a colored man whom Mr. Jenks called John, and whom he seemed to know very well. John took the check for Hazel’s trunk, and placed the luggage on the back of his wagon. Then giving the reins to Mr. Jenks, he walked away.

“See you right soon,” he called.

“I’m to drive you. Jump in,” Mr. Jenks commanded, and Hazel climbed to the seat by his side.

It was sunset. There was but one house near the station, and their road led through a sparsely tenanted country. Slender pines stood in the fields, and beyond the sky glowed golden. The air was clear and fragrant, and Hazel found herself drinking in deep breaths. Suddenly from the meadow came a bird’s note, long and sweet and plaintive. Again and again the bird called.

“A meadow lark,” Mr. Jenks said.

The child pressed her hands together. She felt exquisitely sad, and yet full of awe and wonder. The bird sang on and on from the meadow, and when at length she left it behind, the sunset had changed to red and the air was growing chill.

“Yes, I have a warm coat,” she said in answer to Mr. Jenks’ look, and she buttoned the blue coat about her neck.

Fields and pines and pines and fields. The sunset light, purple now, a single star shining in the west. Then a cabin by the road, and the horse stopped.

Hazel trembled as Mr. Jenks lifted her down. The cabin door opened and a tall, large woman came down the steps, put her arm about Hazel and spoke to Mr. Jenks.

“You done brought my child,” she said. “Come in and rest yourself.”

“Not to-night,” Mr. Jenks answered. “I’m going back to John’s.”

He took the trunk from the wagon and placed it on the ground.

“Good-night, Hazel. Good-night, Aunt Ellen,” and turning his team, he drove away.

The room that Hazel entered was lighted by a kerosene lamp and a fire of logs that sent forth a rich, yellow flame. Her grandmother helped the child take off her hat and coat, and then, sitting on a low chair by the blaze, drew the little girl toward her.

“You favors your mother, honey,” she said, “but your eyes looks at me like your father’s did. They’s dark and tired, now. You’s come over the sea and over the land clear to your granny. Put your head on my breast where your daddy rested when he was a baby.”

Hazel put her arms around the old woman’s neck and held her tight. Little warm pulses of feeling swept through her. The pines, the sunset, the bird’s note, and this loving welcome by the open fire, all made her heart beat fast and her body shake. She was sobbing before she knew it.

Granny understood what to do. She put the little girl in her chair, and leaving her for a moment came back with a gray kitten, very small and warm and helpless. Hazel ceased crying as she took it on her lap and gently stroked its fur.

“Is it named?” she asked after a moment.

“No, honey; it’s been saving for you.”

“Then, please, I will call it Lucy after my mother.”

She stroked it tenderly and thought of the purring black and white kitten in the kitchen at home.

“You has a sweet, loving mother, I know.”

“I’ve her picture for you.” And that settled the question of whether Granny’s present should be kept until Christmas.

It was decided not to open the trunk until morning. A warm supper was eaten before the fire, and then Granny declared that it was time good little girls were in bed.

The room in which they sat seemed very large to Hazel. Granny’s big bed was at one end, and the fire-place at the other. A door to the left of the fire-place lead into Hazel’s bedroom, the one other room of the house.

“Here your father used to sleep, honey,” Granny said, “and here you rest to-night.”

But in this last statement Granny was mistaken. After Hazel had said her prayers and had crept among the soft feathers a terrible feeling of loneliness came over her. She heard her grandmother walking in the other room, and then the light grew less and she knew the lamp was out. Her door was open and she could see shadows on the wall beyond.

“Granny,” she called. “Are you going to bed?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Could I have pussy Lucy with me?”

Her grandmother brought her the little kitten and placed it on the pillow.

“Shut your eyes, honey, and the sand man will come.”

But the sand man refused to visit the little room. Granny went to bed, and Hazel could hear no sound save the chirp of a late cricket outside the open window. Out there were the heavens, where her father had gone, filled with their myriad stars. Was her mother gazing at them and thinking of her? She hugged the kitten, and looked for comfort into the other room. It seemed to her, as she watched the flickering shadows, that the light was growing less. Yes, the fire would go out, and she would be left alone in darkness. Her heart pounded and a strange terror possessed her. She did not yet know this new home, and while she loved the light of the moon and the stars, she hated blackness. If she should wake up alone, the fire gone, only the black night about!

Her throat grew hot. Holding the kitten in one hand against her warm neck and cheek, she left her bed and walked into Granny’s room. The firelight showed her standing there, a slim, timid figure.

She sat by the hearth a minute and watched the blaze just as her father had watched it when he was a little boy. The kitten tumbled to her lap, and crawled to the floor.

Then she heard a sweet, drawling voice, “Lonely, baby? Come by the big bed to-night.”

And the lonely baby climbed into the great pile of feathers, and with one hand pillowing her cheek, the other touching the warm face of her father’s mother, fell fast asleep.

CHAPTER V
GRANNY

When Hazel awoke the next morning her grandmother was up and dressed, and moving about the room. The child watched her unobserved.

Here was someone quite different from any of the people Hazel had known. Until she moved to Hammond Street she had met only the small class of business and professional colored people of her city. These men and women dressed and acted like the cultivated white people about them. Their view-point was that of their New England white neighbors; and their children, who were educated with white children, were staunch little New Englanders, with the same speech, the same dress, the same ambitions as their white schoolmates. On Hammond Street colored people were different. But then, they were poor, and did not have time for the niceties of life. But no one she had known in Jamaica Plains or in the South End was in the least like this grandmother.

The first thing Hazel noted was her strength. She had felt it the night before when she had snuggled up against the old woman’s breast, and she felt it this morning as she watched her move about the room lifting the full kettle as though it were made of tin, not of iron. And yet the hair that the child could see under the turban was grey, and the face bore many wrinkles.

She was dressed as though she had come out of a story book. On her head was a turban of a rich, deep red, and about her neck was a gay bandanna; her calico dress, faded now, still showed its red stripes on a grey background. Her dark brown face with its big features was alight with expression. She was looking toward the bed and Hazel shut her eyes.

She opened them in a few seconds and began to study the room. Here again was something quite outside her experience. It was large and the walls were of wood, but partly covered with pictures, photographs in frames, postal cards, illustrations cut from newspapers. On the bureau was her picture, taken when she was a baby.

One end of the room was the kitchen, where there were shelves with pots and pans and glasses filled with delicious-looking jelly. There was a sideboard full of china, and a table which Granny was setting for breakfast. And last, the room was full of a delicious fragrance, the odor of wood smoke.

Granny looked over again, and nodded.

“I see you’s awake, sugar,” she said, “Getting acquainted with the new room and them as is in it. Run and dress now or the breakfast will spoil.”

Hazel scampered into her room where everything was in readiness for her. The little trunk had been moved in, the pitcher was filled with water, and the roses she had brought were in a glass on the bureau. She dressed carefully, putting on the blue gingham that showed her slender prettiness. Granny looked approval as she came in to breakfast.

After breakfast the trunk was unpacked. Granny was full of praise of the photograph that brought her daughter home to her, and wanted to see again and again the pretty gifts that Hazel had received from her friends. Then everything was put in place, the trunk was stowed under the bed and Hazel put on her pink sun-bonnet and went out-of-doors.

The morning was warm, and though it was December she had no need of a coat. Granny’s house was fenced in and within the enclosure was her garden and a little outhouse in which was a small cooking-stove and a loom. The garden showed a few late vegetables and in the front of the house roses climbed upon the porch, and grew in tall bushes by the fence.

The landscape dipped at the back of the cabin, and Hazel looked over fields of corn and stubble and dry cotton stalks. A number of cabins were dotted about among the fields. In front, across the road, was a hill, half covered with pines. No house was visible from the road, but among the pines, to the left, was a chimney from which smoke issued. Hazel felt that she was a long way from trolley and library, from rattling carts and loud-voiced children, from school and playground.

Dinner-time came; and after dinner there was a long letter to write to Mother who had learned of the journey only on hurriedly written post-cards. But while the child kept busy, the day was tedious to her and she was glad with the coming of the night to seek her little room, grown familiar now. What, she wondered, would she do in the many days that stretched before her? How could she ever occupy herself until the summer came?

The week that followed was the longest that Hazel had ever known. Accustomed as she was to regular hours for school and play and home-work she now found the time from breakfast to supper very hard to fill. And Granny did not help her much. She was watching the little girl, “studying” she would have said. So Hazel wandered about somewhat aimlessly, and yet gradually learned to enjoy her new surroundings.

Her first acquaintances were the hens.