The Conquest: The Story of a Negro PioneerMicheaux, Oscar
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The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer
Micheaux, Oscar
African American pioneers -- Fiction; Autobiographical fiction; South Dakota -- Fiction; Western stories
I found that most of the colored people with whom I had become
acquainted who lived in Chicago very long were similarly reluctant about
leaving, but I was ready to go anywhere. So my new friend took me over
to a barber supply house on Clark street, where a man gave me the name
of the barber at Eaton and told me to come by in the morning and he'd
give me a ticket to the place. When I got on the street again I felt so
happy and grateful to my friend for the information, that I gave the
little mulatto a half dollar, all the money I had with me, and had to
walk the forty blocks to my room. Here I filled my old grip and the next
morning "beat it" for Eaton, arriving there on the first of May, and a
cold, bleak, spring morning it was. I found the shop without any
trouble--a dingy little place with two chairs. The proprietor, a drawn,
unhappy looking creature, and a hawkish looking German assistant
welcomed me cordially. They seemed to need company. The proprietor led
me upstairs to a room that I could have free with an oil stove and table
where I could cook--so I made arrangements to "bach".
I received no wages, but was allowed to retain all I made "shining". I
had acquired some experience shining shoes on the streets of M--pls with
a home-made box--getting on my knees whenever I got a customer. "Shining
shoes" is not usually considered an advanced or technical occupation
requiring skill. However, if properly conducted it can be the making of
a good solicitor. While Eaton was a suburb it was also a country town
and this shop was never patronized by any of the metropolitan class who
made their homes there, but principally by the country class who do not
evidence their city pride by the polish of their shoes. Few city people
allow their shoes to go unpolished and I wasn't long in finding it out,
and when I did I had something to say to the men who went by, well
dressed but with dirty shoes. If I could argue them into stopping, if
only for a moment, I could nearly always succeed in getting them into
the chair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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