The Purple Heights

The Purple Heights

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Purple Heights, by Marie Conway Oemler This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Purple Heights
Author: Marie Conway Oemler
Release Date: June 12, 2004 [EBook #12596]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: "We have met"]
THE PURPLE HEIGHTS
By
MARIE CONWAY OEMLER
Author of "Slippy McGee." "A Woman Named Smith," etc.
NEW YORK 1920
To JOHN NORTON OEMLER FROM THE LADY HIS SON USED TO CALL "MRS. DADDY"

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
THE RED ADMIRAL II THE PROMISE III AT GRIPS WITH LIFE IV THE SOUL OF BLACK FOLKS V THE PURPLE HEIGHTS VI GOOD MORNING, GOOD LUCK! VII WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDED VIII CINDERELLA IX PRICE-TAGS X THE DEAR DAM-FOOL XI HIS GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE XII "NOT BY BREAD ALONE" XIII THE BRIGHT SHADOW XIV SWAN FEATHERS XV "I, TOO, IN ARCADIA" XVI THE OTHER MAN XVII THE GUTTER-CANDLE XVIII KISMET! XIX THE POWER XX AND THE GLORY

CHARACTERS
PETER CHAMPNEYS: _Of Riverton, South Carolina, and Paris, France_. MARIA CHAMPNEYS: His Mother. CHADWICK CHAMPNEYS: The God in the Machine. EMMA CAMPBELL: A Colored Woman. ANNE CHAMPNEYS, N��E NANCY SIMMS: Cinderella. MRS. JOHN HEMINGWAY: _Peter's First Teacher_. JOHN HEMINGWAY: An American. JASON VANDERVELDE: An Attorney at Law. MRS. JASON VANDERVELDE: _Anne's Mentor_. MRS. MacGREGOR: A Disciple of Hannah More. GLENN MITCHELL: A Bright Shadow. BERKELEY HAYDEN: The Other Man. GRACIE: _A Gutter-Candle_. DENISE: A Perfume. THE QUARTIER LATIN. RIVERTON, SOUTH CAROLINA. THE CAROLINA COLORED FOLKS. MARTIN LUTHER: A Gray Cat. SATAN: A Black Cat. THE RED ADMIRAL: A Fairy.

THE PURPLE HEIGHTS

CHAPTER I
THE RED ADMIRAL
The tiny brown house cuddling like a wren's nest on the edge of the longest and deepest of the tide-water coves that cut through Riverton had but four rooms in all,--the kitchen tacked to the back porch, after the fashion of South Carolina kitchens, the shed room in which Peter slept, the dining-room which was the general living-room as well, and his mother's room, which opened directly off the dining-room, and in which his mother sat all day and sometimes almost all night at her sewing-machine. When Peter tired of lying on his tummy on the dining-room floor, trying to draw things on a bit of slate or paper, he liked to turn his head and watch the cloth moving swiftly under the jigging needle, and the wheel turning so fast that it made an indistinct blur, and sang with a droning hum. He could see, too, a corner of his mother's bed with the patchwork quilt on it. The colors of the quilt were pleasantly subdued in their old age, and the calico star set in a square pleased Peter immensely. He thought it a most beautiful quilt. There was visible almost all of the bureau, an old-fashioned walnut affair with a small, dim, wavy glass, and drawers which you pulled out by sticking your fingers under the bunches of flowers that served as knobs. The fireplaces in both rooms were in a shocking state of disrepair, but one didn't mind that, as in winter a fire burned in them, and in summer they were boarded up with fireboards covered with cut-out pictures pasted on a background of black calico. Those gay cut-out pictures were a source of never-ending delight to Peter, who was intimately acquainted with every flower, bird, cat, puppy, and child of them. One little girl with a pink parasol and a purple dress, holding a posy in a lace-paper frill, he would have dearly loved to play with.
Over the mantelpiece in his mother's room hung his father's picture, in a large gilt frame with an inside border of bright red plush. His father seemed to have been a merry-faced fellow, with inquiring eyes, plenty of hair, and a very nice mustache. This picture, under which his mother always kept a few flowers or some bit of living green, was Peter's sole acquaintance with his father, except when he trudged with his mother to the cemetery on fine Sundays, and traced with his small forefinger the name painted in black letters on a white wooden cross:
PETER DEVEREAUX CHAMPNEYS _Aged 30 Years_
It always gave small Peter an uncomfortable sensation to trace that name, which was also his own, on his father's headboard. It was as if something of himself stayed out there, very lonesomely, in the deserted burying-ground. The word "father" never conveyed to him any idea or image except a crayon portrait and a grave, he being a posthumous child. The really important figures filling the background of his early days were his