Trial and Triumph

Trial and Triumph

Project Gutenberg's Trial and Triumph, by Frances Ellen Watkins
Harper This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: Trial and Triumph
Author: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Release Date: February 12, 2004 [EBook #11056]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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Transcriber's Note: This document is the text of Trial and Triumph.
Any bracketed notations such as [?], and those inserting letters or other
comments are from the original text.
Transcriber's Note About the Author: Francis Ellen Watkins Harper
(1825-1911) was born to free parents in Baltimore, Maryland.
Orphaned at three, she was raised by her uncle, a teacher and radical
advocate for civil rights. She attended the Academy for Negro Youth
and was educated as a teacher. She became a professional lecturer,
activist, suffragette, poet, essayist, novelist, and the author of the first
published short story written by an African-American. Her work

spanned more than sixty years.

TRIAL AND TRIUMPH
A Rediscovered Novel by
Frances E.W. Harper
Edited by Frances Smith Foster

Chapter I
"Oh, that child! She is the very torment of my life. I have been the
mother of six children, and all of them put together, never gave me as
much trouble as that girl. I don't know what will ever become of her."
"What is the matter now, Aunt Susan? What has Annette been doing?"
"Doing! She is always doing something; everlastingly getting herself
into trouble with some of the neighbors. She is the most mischievous
and hard-headed child I ever saw."
"Well what has she been doing this morning which has so upset you?"
"Why, I sent her to the grocery to have the oil can filled, and after she
came back she had not been in the house five minutes before there
came such an uproar from Mrs. Larkins', my next door neighbor, that I
thought her house was on fire, but----"
"Instead of that her tongue was on fire, and I know what that means."
"Yes, that's just it, and I don't wonder. That little minx sitting up there
in the corner looking so innocent, stopped to pour oil on her clean steps.
Now you know yourself what an aggravating thing that must have
been."
"Yes, it must have been, especially as Mrs. Larkins is such a nice
housekeeper and takes such pride in having everything neat and nice
about her. How did you fix up matters with her."

"I have not fixed them up at all. Mrs. Larkins only knows one cure for
bad children, and that is beating them, and she always blames me for
spoiling Annette, but I hardly know what to do with her. I've scolded
and scolded till my tongue is tired, whipping don't seem to do her a bit
of good, and I hate to put her out among strangers for fear that they will
not treat her right, for after all she is very near to me. She is my poor,
dead Lucy's child. Sometimes when I get so angry with her that I feel
as though I could almost shake the life out of her, the thought of her
dying mother comes back to me and it seems to me as if I could see her
eyes looking so wistfully on the child and turning so trustingly to me
and saying, 'Mother, when I am gone won't you take care of Annette,
and try to keep her with you?' And then all the anger dies out of me.
Poor child! I don't know what is going to become of her when my head
is laid low. I'm afraid she is born for trouble. Nobody will ever put up
with her as I do. She has such an unhappy disposition. She is not like
any of my children ever were."
"Yes. I've often noticed that she does seem different from other
children. She never seems light-hearted and happy."
"Yes, that is so. She reminds me so of poor Lucy before she was born.
She even moans in her sleep like she used to do. It was a dark day when
Frank Miller entered my home and Lucy became so taken up with him.
It seemed to me as if my poor girl just worshiped him. I did not feel
that he was all right, and I tried to warn my dear child of danger, but
what could an old woman like me do against him with his handsome
looks and oily