and helped him, not as a charity, but as a mere business operation
to set up a place for himself; he had the skill; they had the money,
and had they united both perhaps to-day there would be a flourishing
business carried on by the man who is now digging wells for a living.
I do hope that some time there will be some better modes of
communication between us than we now possess; that a labor bureau
will be established not as a charity among us, but as a business
with capable and efficient men who will try to find out the different
industries that will employ men irrespective of color and advertise
and find steady and reliable colored men to fill them. Colored men
in the South are largely employed in raising cotton and other produce;
why should there not be more openings in the South for colored men
to handle the merchandize and profit by it?"
"What hinders?" said Rev. Lomax.
"I will not say what hinders, but I will say what I think you can try
to do to help. Teach our young to dedicate their young lives to the
noble service of devoting them to the service of our common cause; to
throw away their cigars, dash down the foaming beer and sparkling wine
and strive to be more like those of whom it was said, 'I write unto you,
young men, because you are strong.'"
Chapter XIV
Grandmother Harcourt was failing. Annette was rising towards life's
summit. Her grandmother was sinking to death's vale.
The hours are rifting day by day
Strength from the walls of living clay.
Her two children who were living in A.P. wished her to break up her home
and come and live with them. They had room in their hearts and homes for
her, but not for Annette. There was something in Annette's temperament
with which other members of the family could not harmonize. They were
not considerate enough to take into account her antenatal history, and
to pity where they were so ready to condemn. Had Annette been born
deficient in any of her bodily organs, they could have made allowance
for her, and would have deemed it cruel to have demanded that she should
have performed the same amount of labor with one hand that she could
have done with both. They knew nothing of heredity, except its effects,
which they were not thoughtful enough to trace back to the causes over
which Annette had no control, and instead of trying to counteract them
as one might strive to do in a case of inherited physical tendencies,
they only aggravated, and constantly strengthened all the unlovely
features in Annette's character, and Annette really seemed like an
anomalous contradiction. There was a duality about her nature as if
the blood of two races were mingling in her veins. To some persons
Annette was loving and love-able, bright, intelligent, obliging and
companionable; to others, unsociable, unamiable and repelling. Her heart
was like a harp which sent out its harmonious discords in accordance
with the moods of the player who touched its chords. To some who swept
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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