Darkwater | Page 5

few things, especially saloons. In
my town the saloon was the open door to hell. The best families had
their drunkards and the worst had little else.
Very gradually,--I cannot now distinguish the steps, though here and
there I remember a jump or a jolt--but very gradually I found myself
assuming quite placidly that I was different from other children. At first
I think I connected the difference with a manifest ability to get my
lessons rather better than most and to recite with a certain happy,
almost taunting, glibness, which brought frowns here and there. Then,
slowly, I realized that some folks, a few, even several, actually
considered my brown skin a misfortune; once or twice I became
painfully aware that some human beings even thought it a crime. I was
not for a moment daunted,--although, of course, there were some days
of secret tears--rather I was spurred to tireless effort. If they beat me at
anything, I was grimly determined to make them sweat for it! Once I
remember challenging a great, hard farmer-boy to battle, when I knew
he could whip me; and he did. But ever after, he was polite.
As time flew I felt not so much disowned and rejected as rather drawn
up into higher spaces and made part of a mightier mission. At times I
almost pitied my pale companions, who were not of the Lord's anointed
and who saw in their dreams no splendid quests of golden fleeces.
Even in the matter of girls my peculiar phantasy asserted itself.
Naturally, it was in our town voted bad form for boys of twelve and

fourteen to show any evident weakness for girls. We tolerated them
loftily, and now and then they played in our games, when I joined in
quite as naturally as the rest. It was when strangers came, or summer
boarders, or when the oldest girls grew up that my sharp senses noted
little hesitancies in public and searchings for possible public opinion.
Then I flamed! I lifted my chin and strode off to the mountains, where I
viewed the world at my feet and strained my eyes across the shadow of
the hills.
I was graduated from high school at sixteen, and I talked of "Wendell
Phillips." This was my first sweet taste of the world's applause. There
were flowers and upturned faces, music and marching, and there was
my mother's smile. She was lame, then, and a bit drawn, but very happy.
It was her great day and that very year she lay down with a sigh of
content and has not yet awakened. I felt a certain gladness to see her, at
last, at peace, for she had worried all her life. Of my own loss I had
then little realization. That came only with the after-years. Now it was
the choking gladness and solemn feel of wings! At last, I was going
beyond the hills and into the world that beckoned steadily.
There came a little pause,--a singular pause. I was given to understand
that I was almost too young for the world. Harvard was the goal of my
dreams, but my white friends hesitated and my colored friends were
silent. Harvard was a mighty conjure-word in that hill town, and even
the mill owners' sons had aimed lower. Finally it was tactfully
explained that the place for me was in the South among my people. A
scholarship had been already arranged at Fisk, and my summer
earnings would pay the fare. My relatives grumbled, but after a twinge
I felt a strange delight! I forgot, or did not thoroughly realize, the
curious irony by which I was not looked upon as a real citizen of my
birth-town, with a future and a career, and instead was being sent to a
far land among strangers who were regarded as (and in truth were)
"mine own people."
Ah! the wonder of that journey, with its faint spice of adventure, as I
entered the land of slaves; the never-to-be-forgotten marvel of that first
supper at Fisk with the world "colored" and opposite two of the most

beautiful beings God ever revealed to the eyes of seventeen. I promptly
lost my appetite, but I was deliriously happy!
As I peer back through the shadow of my years, seeing not too clearly,
but through the thickening veil of wish and after-thought, I seem to
view my life divided into four distinct parts: the Age of Miracles, the
Days of Disillusion, the Discipline of Work and Play, and the Second
Miracle Age.
The Age of Miracles began with Fisk and ended with Germany. I was
bursting with the joy of living. I seemed to ride in conquering might. I
was captain of my soul and master of fate! I _willed_ to do! It was