Iola Leroy - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (suggested reading txt) 📗

contest his claim. You have your marriage certificate and papa’s will.”

“Yes, my dear child, but Judge Starkins has decided that we have no standing in the court, and no testimony according to law.”

“Oh, mother, what can I do?”

“Nothing, my child, unless you can escape to the North.”

“And leave you?”

“Yes.”

“Mother, I will never desert you in your hour of trial. But can nothing be done? Had father no friends who would assist us?”

“None that I know of. I do not think he had an acquaintance who approved of our marriage. The neighboring planters have stood so aloof from me that I do not know where to turn for either help or sympathy. I believe it was Lorraine who sent the telegram. I wrote to you as soon as I could after your father’s death, but fainted just as I finished directing the letter. I do not think he knows where your brother is, and, if possible, he must not know. If you can by any means, do send a letter to Harry and warn him not to attempt to come home. I don’t know how you will succeed, for Lorraine has us all under surveillance. But it is according to law.”

“What law, mother?”

“The law of the strong against the weak.”

“Oh, mother, it seems like a dreadful dream, a fearful nightmare! But I cannot shake it off. Where is Gracie?”

“The dear child has been running down ever since her papa’s death. She clung to me night and day while I had the brain fever, and could not be persuaded to leave me. She hardly ate anything for more than a week. She has been dangerously ill for several days, and the doctor says she cannot live. The fever has exhausted all her rallying power, and yet, dear as she is to me, I would rather consign her to the deepest grave than see her forced to be a slave.”

“So would I. I wish I could die myself.”

“Oh, Iola, do not talk so. Strive to be a Christian, to have faith in the darkest hour. Were it not for my hope of heaven I couldn’t stand all this trouble.”

“Mother, are these people Christians who made these laws which are robbing us of our inheritance and reducing us to slavery? If this is Christianity I hate and despise it. Would the most cruel heathen do worse?”

“My dear child, I have not learned my Christianity from them. I have learned it at the foot of the cross, and from this book,” she said, placing a New Testament in Iola’s hands. “Some of the most beautiful lessons of faith and trust I have ever learned were from among our lowly people in their humble cabins.”

“Mamma!” called a faint voice from the adjoining room. Marie immediately arose and went to the bedside of her sick child, where Mammy Liza was holding her faithful vigils. The child had just awakened from a fitful sleep.

“I thought,” she said, “that I heard Iola’s voice. Has she come?”

“Yes, darling; do you want to see her?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, as a bright smile broke over her dying features.

Iola passed quickly into the room. Gracie reached out her thin, bloodless hand, clasped Iola’s palm in hers, and said: “I am so glad you have come. Dear Iola, stand by mother. You and Harry are all she has. It is not hard to die. You and mother and Harry must meet me in heaven.”

Swiftly the tidings went through the house that Gracie was dying. The servants gathered around her with tearful eyes, as she bade them all goodbye. When she had finished, and Mammy had lowered the pillow, an unwonted radiance lit up her eye, and an expression of ineffable gladness overspread her face, as she murmured: “It is beautiful, so beautiful!” Fainter and fainter grew her voice, until, without a struggle or sigh, she passed away beyond the power of oppression and prejudice.

XIII A Rejected Suitor

Very unexpected was Dr. Gresham’s proposal to Iola. She had heartily enjoyed his society and highly valued his friendship, but he had never been associated in her mind with either love or marriage. As he held her hand in his a telltale flush rose to her cheek, a look of grateful surprise beamed from her eye, but it was almost immediately succeeded by an air of inexpressible sadness, a drooping of her eyelids, and an increasing pallor of her cheek. She withdrew her hand from his, shook her head sadly, and said:⁠—

“No, Doctor; that can never be. I am very grateful to you for your kindness. I value your friendship, but neither gratitude nor friendship is love, and I have nothing more than those to give.”

“Not at present,” said Dr. Gresham; “but may I not hope your friendship will ripen into love?”

“Doctor, I could not promise. I do not think that I should. There are barriers between us that I cannot pass. Were you to know them I think you would say the same.”

Just then the ambulance brought in a wounded scout, and Iola found relief from the wounds of her own heart in attending to his.

Dr. Gresham knew the barrier that lay between them. It was one which his love had surmounted. But he was too noble and generous to take advantage of her loneliness to press his suit. He had lived in a part of the country where he had scarcely ever seen a colored person, and around the race their misfortunes had thrown a halo of romance. To him the negro was a picturesque being, over whose woes he had wept when a child, and whose wrongs he was ready to redress when a man. But when he saw the lovely girl who had been rescued by the commander of the post from the clutches of slavery, all the manhood and chivalry in his nature arose in her behalf, and he was ready to lay on the altar of her heart his first grand and overmastering love. Not discouraged by her refusal,