The Forged Note Part 10

After a spell, he peeped from beneath the coverlets. "Say! since ah come t' think uv't, we c'n have them toddies wid-out get'n froze out in doin'

it."

"How's that?" asked the other.

"I'll get dat liquah from John."

"And who is John?"

"John? Wull, did'n' you git 'quainted wi'im when I brung you heah?

John's the man we room with. He sells liquah."

"Say Spoon," said Sidney one day, "I'm going to cut the tiger kitin'

out."

"Aw, gwan, kid, what you talkin' 'bout?"

"I'm going to church in the mornings, and in the evenings, I hope to find a place that will be more in keeping with respectable people,"

announced Sidney.

"Come on, let's go up here to old lady Macks, and get some of that 'Sparrow Gin,'" Spoon suggested, temptingly.

"To prove that I am not likely to keep my resolution."

"You've none to keep as I can particular see. I have never seen you drink anything stronger than beer when you've been with me. You seem to go along with me, to see me and the others act a fool. Sometimes you impress me as being a strange person.... I wonder. Now I wonder...."

"Where is a church that would be likely to appeal to you and myself?"

"Up on Herald Street is one that I think will appeal to _you_. You're serious. Me--I'm quite unfit for any; but I'll take you up there, and sit through one of Hodder's sermons if you care to go. My people are members of that church, and it is a progressive one."

"We will attend services there--Sunday morning."

Wyeth became a regular visitor.

The following Sunday, the pastor appraised the congregation of the fact, that on the following Sunday, they would have with them the Reverend W.

Jacobs, the energetic young man who was doing such great work for the training of wayward children. And this takes our story into a matter of grave human interest.

Coincident with better educational facilities, and the more careful training of the children, time had brought a change that was slowly but surely being felt by these black people in the south. It has already been stated, that the Baptist church required little literary training in order to preach; but, in this church, it is quite different, and no man would be tolerated as a minister, who had not a great amount of theological, as well as literary training.

Henry Hugh Hodder was a man, not only prepared in the lines of theology and literature, but was fully supplied with practical knowledge as well.

He had, at the time Sidney Wyeth became acquainted with him, gathered to his church, a majority of Attalia's best black people. His popularity was, moreover, on the increase, and his church was filled regularly with a cla.s.s of people who listened, studied and applied to their welfare, what he said each Sunday in the pulpit.

His church stood on a corner to the edge of the black belt, and near a fas.h.i.+onable white neighborhood. And it had, at the time it was constructed, caused considerable agitation. When Sidney and Spoon came to the door, prayer was being offered, and when it was over, they entered, taking seats near the door.

It was a nicely ventilated church, with large colored windows, arranged to allow air to pa.s.s in without coming directly upon the congregation.

At the front, a small rostrum rose to the level of the rear, and contained, in addition to the altar, only four chairs. Sidney was told afterwards, that, due to a practice always followed in other churches, particularly the Baptist, of allowing journeymen preachers to put themselves before the congregation uninvited, Hodder had removed the chairs in order to discourage such practice.

Apparently he had succeeded, for, on the Sundays that followed, Sidney saw only those who were invited, facing the congregation.

Directly over the rostrum hung a small balcony, which contained the choir and a pipe organ. Following a song, the pastor came forward. He was a tall man, with width in proportion, perhaps two hundred and twenty pounds. Not unlike the average Negro of today, he was brown-skinned. His hair, a curly ma.s.s of blackness, was brushed back from a high forehead.

His voice, as he opened the sermon, was deep and resonant. And for his text that day, he took "Does It Pay!"

Not since Sidney Wyeth had attended church and heard sermons, had he been so stirred by a discourse! Back into the ancient times; to the history of Judea and Caesar, he took the listener, and then subtly applied it to the life of today. Never had he heard one whose eloquence could so blend with everyday issues, and cause them to react as moral uplift. For he knew the black Oman's need. Pen cannot describe its effect upon Sidney Wyeth. It seemed, as the words of the pastor came to him, revealing a thousand moral truths, which he had felt, but could not express, that he had come from afar for a great thing, that sermon.

It lifted him out of the chaos of the present, and brought him to appreciate what life, and the duty of existence really meant.

Having, in a sense, drifted away from the pious training he had received as a youth, Sidney Wyeth was suddenly jerked back to the past, and enjoyed the experience. On account of his progressive ideas, he had been accused, by some of his people, since his return to live among them, of being an unbeliever. He was often told that he was not a Christian; they meant, of course, that he was not a member of a church, which, to most colored people, is equivalent to disbelief. Sidney Wyeth saw the life, the instance of Christ as a moral lesson.

When the sermon closed, Wyeth had one desire, and fulfilled it, and that was to shake Henry Hugh Hodder's hand; moreover, to tell him, in the only way he knew how, what the sermon had been to him.

He did so, and was received very simply.

As he approached the rostrum, at the foot of which stood the pastor, shaking hands with many others who had come forward in the meantime, he was like one walking on air. He recalled the many sermons preached to satisfy the emotion of an ignorant ma.s.s, and which, in hundreds of instances, went wide of the mark, causing a large portion of the congregation to rise in their seats, and give utterance to emotional discordance, the same being often forgotten by the morrow.

Hodder was not only as he was just described, but he proved to Sidney Wyeth to be a practical, informed, and observing man as well. When he had received the card, he inquired of the country from whence Sidney came, and related briefly the notices he had followed, regarding its opening a few years previous.

At that moment, a large man, almost white--that is, he was white, although a colored man--was introduced to him as Mr. Herman. He proved to be the proprietor of the large barber shop on Plum Street, which had caught Sidney's attention the day he came. After Mr. Herman's introduction, he met many others prominent in Negro circles, including the president and cas.h.i.+er of the local Negro bank. And thus it came that Sidney Wyeth met these, the new Negro, and the leaders of a new dispensation.

Two hours after the services had closed, he pa.s.sed a big church on Audubon Avenue; a church of the "old style religion" and, which most Negroes still like. It was then after two o'clock. Morning service was still in order--no, the sermon had closed, but collection hadn't. Out of curiosity, he entered. The pastor had, during this period, concentrated his arts on the collection table. He was just relating the instance of people who put their dollar over one eye, so closely, that it was liable to freeze to the eye and bring about utter blindness. "So now," he roared, brandis.h.i.+ng his arms in a rally call, "_We jes' need a few dollahs mo' to make the collection fo'ty-fo'. I'll put in a quata', who'll do the rest_," whereupon the choir gave forth a mighty tune, that filled the church with a strain which made some feel like dancing.

The following Tuesday, an editorial appeared in one of the leading dailies, concerning the sermon and the instance of Henry Hugh Hodder. It dwelt at some length on his work for the evolution of his people, and concluded by praying that (among the black population) great would be the day when such men and such sermons were an established order.

Sidney, now in an office to himself, read it to a man next door.

Whereupon the other said:

"Oh, that is nothing unusual. They often speak of him and his work in the editorial columns. Which might account for his having such a fine church." ...

Wyeth was silent, apparently at a loss what to say. The silence had reached a point which was becoming strained, when another, who happened to be in the office, relieved it by spitting out sneeringly:

"White fo'kes'll give any n.i.g.g.a plenty money, when he says what they want him too." He was a deacon in the big church referred to. This was not investigated.

Wyeth called him a liar then and there.

CHAPTER NINE

"_Sweet Genevieve_"

"Wilson, dear," said Constance Jacobs to her brother, the pastor, on his return from Attalia, Effingham, and other places where he was required to go in the interest of his work. Coming up to him in her usual manner, she kissed him fondly, for she was not only fond of this, her only brother, but she was proud of him. Well she could be, for Wilson Jacobs was a hard, conscientious worker in the moral uplift of his people. "I have a surprise in store for you," she said, "and if you are comfortable I will tell you."

"Little sister," he said, as he kissed her fondly in return, and gave her his undivided attention.

"I hardly know how to tell you, but I have with me, someone who came during your absence; the most unusual to be a usual girl I have ever known." She then related the instance of Mildred Latham's coming, and the circ.u.mstance, including the book. "I have read the book that she is selling, and with which she seems to be very successful, in fact, she is so successful that I am almost persuaded to take up the work myself. The story is interesting; but it is not that which has caused me much thought, it is the girl herself.

"She is a beautiful girl, intelligent, kind and winning, although she does not, as I can see, practice or exercise any arts to be winning. She is single, and does not appear to have any interest in the opposite s.e.x, nor does she appear to care for any society. In fact, besides being nice and kind to all whom she chances to meet, she does not have any interest beyond the book. She is simply foolish about it, just as much so as though the author were her lover, and depended upon her for its success.