Part 17 (1/2)
”That's news to me,” said J.W., ”though of course I'm glad to hear it.
But I didn't know that the Board put money into such work as this.
Somehow I supposed you were under the Board of Education for Negroes.”
”No, not for this sort of church work,” the colored pastor answered. ”I was 'under' the Board of Education for Negroes, as you put it, for a long time myself, in the days when it was called the Freedmen's Aid Society. And so was my wife. But now we're doing missionary work, and that's the other Board's job.”
”Oh, yes,” J.W. a.s.sented. ”I might have known that. And you mean that you were under the Freedmen's Aid Society when you were going to school--is that it?”
”That's it,” said Pastor Driver, with a gleaming smile. ”I was in two of the schools. Philander Smith College, at Little Rock, Arkansas, and Clark University, at Atlanta, Georgia. Then I got my theological course at Gammon, on the same campus as Clark.”
”You say your wife was in school too?”
”Yes”--with an even brighter smile--”she was at Clark when I met her.
Like me, she attended two schools on that campus. The other was Thayer Home, a girls' dormitory, supported by the Woman's Home Missionary Society.”
”A home? Then how could it be a school?” J.W. asked.
”That's just it, Mr. Farwell,” the minister explained. ”It was a school of home life, not only cooking and sewing and scrubbing, and what all you think of as domestic science, but a school of the home spirit--just the thing my people need. Thayer was, and is, a place where the girl students of Clark University learn how to make real homes. And in the college cla.s.ses they learn what you might suppose any college student would learn. That's why I said Mrs. Driver went to two schools.”
J.W. recalled the Hightower speech of the night before, and the discussion with Mr. Drury on the way home. He wanted to go into it all with this pastor, who wasn't much past his own age, and evidently had some ideas. For the first time he wondered too how it happened that in that draft of the Everyday Doctrines of Delafield they had altogether ignored the Negro. Was that a symptom of something? Then he remembered his errand, and the work which was waiting up at the store.
So he said: ”Excuse me, Mr. Driver, for being so inquisitive. I've never thought much about our church's colored work, but what I heard at last night's meeting started me. Rather curious that I should be here talking about it with you the very next morning, isn't it? But about that roofing, now. Of course you'll look around and get other estimates, but anyway I'd be glad to take the measurements and give you our figures. I promise you they'll be worth considering.”
”I'm sure of that, Mr. Farwell,” said the other, heartily, ”and if I have any influence with the committee--and I think I have--you needn't lose any sleep over any other figures we might get. As for being inquisitive about our work here, I wish more of this town's white Methodists would get inquisitive. And that reminds me: there's to be an Epworth League convention here week after next, and I've been told to invite one of the League leaders in your church to make a short address on the opening night. You're a League leader, I know, and the first one I've thought about. So I'm asking you, right now. Will you come over and speak for us?”
Now, though J.W. always said he was no speaker, he had never hesitated to accept invitations to take part in League conventions. But this was different. He made no answer for a minute. And in the pause his mind was busy with all he knew, and all he had acquired at second hand, about the relations of colored Christians and white, and particularly about what might be thought and said if it should be announced that he was to speak at a Negro Epworth League convention. And then he had the grace to blush, realizing that this colored pastor, waiting so quietly for his answer, must infallibly have followed his thoughts. In his swift self-blame he felt that the least amends he could make for his unspoken discourtesy was a prompt acceptance of the invitation.
So he looked up and said, hurriedly: ”Mr. Driver, forgive me for not speaking sooner. I'll do the best I can”; and then, regaining his composure, ”Have you any idea as to the subject I'm supposed to talk about?”
”Yes,” the colored minister replied, not without a touch of curious tenseness in his voice. ”The committee wanted me to get a representative from your Chapter to make a ten-minute address of welcome on behalf of the Epworthians of First Church!”
Again J.W. was forced to hesitate. Here he was an Epworthian, but knowing nothing at all about the work of these other young Methodists.
Until to-day he scarcely knew they existed. And now he was asked to welcome them to town in the name of the League!
But once again shame compelled him to take the bold course. With an apologetic smile he said, ”Well, that's the last subject I could imagine you'd give to any of us at First Church. Your young people and ours have hardly been aware of each other, and it seems queer that you should ask me to make an address of welcome in your church. But as I think of it, maybe this is just what somebody ought to do, and I might as well try it. Trouble is, what am I going to say?”
”We'll risk that, Mr. Farwell,” said Pastor Driver, confidently. ”Just say what you think, and you'll do all right.”
J.W. was by no means sure of that, and the more he thought about his speech in the next few days, the more confused he became. Any ordinary speech of welcome would be easy--”Glad you were sensible enough to come to Delafield,” ”make yourselves at home,” ”freedom of the city,” ”our latch strings are out,” ”command us for anything we can do,”
”congratulate you on the fine work you are doing,” ”know when we return this visit and come to the places you represent you will make us welcome”--and so on. But it was plainly impossible for him to talk like that. It wouldn't be true, and it would certainly not be prudent.
He put the thing up to J.W., Sr. ”What'll I say, dad?” he asked. ”You know we haven't had much to do with the people of Saint Marks, and maybe it wouldn't be best for us to make any sudden change as to that, even if some of us wanted to. But I've got to talk like a Christian, whether I feel like one or not.”
”My son,” his father answered him, sententiously, ”it's your speech, not mine. But if an old fogy may suggest something, why not forget all about the usual sort of welcome address? Why not say something of the whole program of our church as it affects our colored people? It touches the young folks more than any others. Welcome them to that.”
”That's all very fine,” J.W. objected. ”Everybody who's on for an address of welcome is advised by his friends to cut out the old stuff, but it means work. And you know that I don't know the first thing about what you call the whole program of our church for the colored people.
That man Driver knows, but I can't ask him.”
”Of course not,” a.s.sented J.W., Sr., ”but you can ask somebody else.
I'll venture Mr. Drury can tell you where to find all you would want to talk about. Ask him. You're never bothered by bashfulness with him, if I remember right.”