VI

Miss Agatha Cramp had, among other things, a sufficiently large store of wealth and a sufficiently small store of imagination to want to devote her entire life to Service; in fact, to Social Service on a large scale. And because Miss Cramp took very personal interest in her successive servants, it came about that this Social Service was directed towards definite racial groups. When her maid had been French, Miss Cramp had organized a club to assist rebuilding demolished French villages; when her maid had been Polish, she had taken up with a Society for the Aid of Starving Poland; and shortly after hiring a Russian girl, she became a member of the Russian Relief Committee.

Thus Miss Cramp had devoted the more recent years of her life to Service, and now, with a colored maid on hand, she had no outlet for her urge. For two weeks she had been idle, and idleness drove her to distraction. She felt worse and worse day by day, until at last her doctor said what she paid him to say: that she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and would simply have to go to bed and rest.

She rested three days; whereupon an ironic Court Avenue sun revealed to her something of which she had hitherto been unaware: her colored maid, bringing in her breakfast, looked somehow amazingly pretty. And although Miss Cramp had no very generous eye for beauty, she was so struck by the discovery of what hitherto had mysteriously escaped her that she was moved to exclaim:

“Why, Linda, what’ve you done to yourself? You look so nice this morning.”

Linda stood stiff in astonishment, eventually managing what might have been construed as a reply:

“You⁠—feeling better, Miss Cramp?” The twinkle in the maid’s eye escaped her mistress.

“I believe I am, Linda. I really believe I am.” Miss Cramp stared at the girl a while, then turned her attention to the tray just placed on her lap; inspected it, looked through it absently.

“Something else, Miss Cramp?” asked Linda.

“No. This is very nice, Linda. Very nice. But don’t go. I want to talk to you. Something has just occurred to me.”

It had indeed. For fifteen years Miss Cramp had been devoting her life to the service of mankind. Not until now had the startling possibility occurred to her that Negroes might be mankind, too.

The bare statement is extravagant; the fact is not. The only Negroes Miss Cramp had ever spoken to were porters, waiters, and house-servants of acquaintances. These were the only ones of whose existence she had been even remotely aware. Negroes to her had been rather ugly but serviceable fixtures, devices that happened to be alive, dull instruments of drudgery, so observed, so accepted, so used, and so forgotten. Had all the dark-skinned folk in the country been blotted out by some specific selective destruction, Miss Cramp would not have missed them in the least, would not have been glad nor sorry, would have gone serenely on unaware, tchk-tchk-ing perhaps over the newspaper account, but remaining wholly untouched in her sympathies.

Not so with remoter disasters: Over the slaughter of Armenians by Turks she had once sobbed bitterly and even over the devastation of the Japanese by earthquake she had mourned a little; because, though she had never known Armenian or Japanese, she had thought somewhat about them; though they had never approached her person, they had penetrated her intellect a little. But Negroes she had always accepted with horses, mules, and motors, and though they had brushed her shoulder, they had never actually entered her head.

But now something had occurred to her.

“Linda you’re quite different from most⁠—er⁠—colored people, aren’t you?”

To Linda, who had no idea what “most colored people” might mean, this was a baffling question.

“I don’t know, Miss Cramp,” she said.

“I mean⁠—you know⁠—you’re⁠—I hadn’t noticed before. You’re really quite pretty.” She was experiencing the difficulties familiar to all who itch with curiosity but prefer not to be seen scratching. “You’re so light, you know.”

Linda’s lips twitched. “Why I’m not so awfully light, Miss Cramp. And plenty folks lighter than I am are far from being pretty.”

“Yes⁠—of course,” Miss Cramp considered. “Even white people. To be sure. But of course you meant⁠—er⁠—colored. But your hair now⁠—it isn’t kinky.” At once an assertion and a question.

The only answer was, “No, Miss Cramp.”

“And how can you afford to wear such nice looking things on eighteen dollars a week?”

“Well,” Linda said, “ ’course I could do better on twenty.”

Miss Cramp did not hear this, but observed, “Patent-leather pumps and a black satin dress⁠—”

“They’re cheap shoes,” Linda explained. “Just look nice ’cause they’re new. The dress I got down on Eighth Avenue for seven dollars.”

“But your skin, my dear. You might pass for a Sicilian or an Armenian.”

Linda was not sure about these. “I was a gypsy once in a concert,” she admitted.

“A concert?”

“At church.”

“You go to church?”

“I like to go very much.”

“Now that’s just what I wanted to ask you about. Your people are very religious creatures aren’t they?”

“Well, some are and some not.”

“I thought⁠—er⁠—slavery, you know, would have made you very religious.”

“Maybe it did,” said Linda. “I wouldn’t know ’bout that.”

“But don’t you have your own hymns? Spirituals, I believe they are called.”

“Not in my church,” Linda said.

“What church is that, Linda?”

“Saint Augustine’s,” said Linda. “It’s Episcopal.”

“Episcopal!” incredulously. “Why I’m an Episcopalian.” The tone indicated clearly that there must be some mistake.

A little devilishly, Linda smiled, but all she said was, “Is that so?”

“But you⁠—” began Miss Cramp, then reconsidered. “But you must sing spirituals. All Negroes sing spirituals, don’t they?”

Doubtfully Linda ruminated. “Why⁠—I remember some jubilee singers gave a concert of ’em once at the Parish. And I’ve been to Methodist revival meetings where they sang ’em just like jazz. We only went for fun, to see the folks get happy and shout. I’ve never heard them at my church in regular service, though.”

“Well,” said Miss Cramp. And again, “Well.” Then, “What I was getting at was⁠—do your churches make any effort to improve conditions, to render any real service to your people?”

“Oh, yes. We have an employment agency. They sent me to the one that sent me to you.”

“No, no, Linda.” So stupid a reply restored Miss Cramp’s self-assurance. “That is not what I mean, my dear. I mean the people that are mentally ill, the criminals, the dope-fiends, the fallen women. Do your churches try to help them?”

“I don’t think so⁠—not unless they’re members.”

“There must be some organization to do such work among your people,” Miss Cramp insisted.

“Well,” Linda suggested brightly, “maybe the same organization does it that does it among your people.”

“Of course⁠—of course. One would think so, wouldn’t one? But I haven’t come in contact with⁠—of course, I haven’t worked in colored communities⁠—”

After a vacuous pause, Linda said, “Maybe you mean the G.I.A.”

“G.I.A.? What’s that?”

“General Improvement Association.”

“What do they do?”

“Well, they collect a dollar a year from everybody that joins, and whenever there’s a lynching down south they take the dollar and send somebody to go look at it.”

“Whatever’s the good of that?”

“I don’t know, Miss Cramp. Seems like they just want to make sure it really happened.”

“Well. Then what do they do?”

“Well, by that time the year’s up and it’s time to collect another dollar. So they collect it.”

“Why don’t they turn their attentions to conditions here at home?” Miss Agatha wanted to know. “There must be much to be done here among you⁠—an alien, primitive people in a great, strange metropolis. Why don’t they do something here?”

“Well, nobody gets lynched here.”

The simplicity of this response did not satisfy Miss Cramp, who could never have suspected that her colored maid would dare make game of her ignorance or play upon her credulity.

“Why I can’t understand⁠—I really can’t. Here is a situation that surely needs attention, and the people do nothing⁠—absolutely nothing⁠—about it. Lynchings⁠—of all things! When right here in New York City there are⁠—How many of you are there here, Linda?”

“Two hundred thousand, according to Father Bruce.”

“Oh, that’s an exaggeration, of course. But even if there are as many as ten thousand, a great work could be done among them. This organization you mention⁠—”

“The G.I.A.”

“Yes⁠—quite evidently needs someone to point the way. Their attention is entirely in the wrong quarter.”

“Whyn’t you help them out, Miss Cramp?”

“That’s just what occurred to me Linda. Exactly what occurred to me. When I saw you this morning and noticed for the first time how different you were from most colored people, I said to myself, ‘There now⁠—why can’t they all be like that?’ And I said, ‘Why they can be if they have the right sort of help. Some organization that could render real service, that’s just what they need!’ Then you mentioned this G.A.R.⁠—”

“G.I.A.”

“⁠—and told me of the mistake they were making, and I said, ‘There now, there is an instrument that can be turned to good use in the proper hands.’ Yes indeed, Linda, I think I will help them out. I really do think I will.”

“They’ll certainly appreciate it, Miss Cramp.”

“Of course⁠ ⁠… Well, that’s all, Linda. Thank you very much. Linda, bring me the phone book when you come back, won’t you? I presume they have a telephone?”

“Who, Miss Cramp?”

“This G.I.R. Society.”

“A telephone? I don’t know, Miss Cramp.” Linda was elaborately uncertain, eventually concluding, “They might have one. They might at that. I’ll bring the book, Miss Cramp.”