The Strength of Gideon and Other StoriesDunbar, Paul Laurence
General
The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories
Dunbar, Paul Laurence
African Americans -- Fiction
What things he had at the office Halliday took away that night. A
couple of days later he remembered a book which he had failed to get
and returned for it. The office was as usual. Mr. Featherton was a
little embarrassed and nervous. At Halliday's desk sat a young white
man about his own age. He was copying a deed for Mr. Featherton.
PARY IV
Bertram Halliday went home, burning with indignation at the treatment
he had received at the hands of the Christian judge.
"He has used me as a housemaid would use a lemon," he said, "squeezed
all out of me he could get, and then flung me into the street. Well,
Webb was nearer right than I thought."
He was now out of everything. His place at the factory had been
filled, and no new door opened to him. He knew what reward a search
for work brought a man of his color in Broughton so he did not bestir
himself to go over the old track again. He thanked his stars that he,
at least, had money enough to carry him away from the place and he
determined to go. His spirit was quelled, but not broken.
Just before leaving, he wrote to Davis.
"My dear Webb!" the letter ran, "you, after all, were right. We have
little or no show in the fight for life among these people. I have
struggled for two years here at Broughton, and now find myself back
where I was when I first stepped out of school with a foolish faith in
being equipped for something. One thing, my eyes have been opened
anyway, and I no longer judge so harshly the shiftless and unambitious
among my people. I hardly see how a people, who have so much to
contend with and so little to hope for, can go on striving and
aspiring. But the very fact that they do, breeds in me a respect for
them. I now see why so many promising young men, class orators,
valedictorians and the like fall by the wayside and are never heard
from after commencement day. I now see why the sleeping and dining-car
companies are supplied by men with better educations than half the
passengers whom they serve. They get tired of swimming always against
the tide, as who would not? and are content to drift.
"I know that a good many of my friends would say that I am whining.
Well, suppose I am, that's the business of a whipped cur. The dog on
top can bark, but the under dog must howl.
"Nothing so breaks a man's spirit as defeat, constant, unaltering,
hopeless defeat. That's what I've experienced. I am still studying law
in a half-hearted way for I don't know what I am going to do with it
when I have been admitted. Diplomas don't draw clients. We have been
taught that merit wins. But I have learned that the adages, as well as
the books and the formulas were made by and for others than us of the
black race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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