HEARTS OF GOLD

17. AT WORK.

168 AT WORK. Chapter XVII. It was with feelings of fear bordering on despair that Regenia Underwood alighted from the coach the second morning after leaving Minton. She had pierced through to the very heart of the South, an absolute stranger. Armed with a letter to Rev. Mr. Foggs, she set out, carrying her traveling bag, on a hunt for this much desired person. It was through this gentleman of some importance in the community where he lived, that Clement had obtained the position that Regenia so readily accepted. After some inquiry of the hangers-on, always about the station, she secured a hack and was driven to the parsonage. The parson was at breakfast and Regenia was received by his good wife, who, with true southern hospitality , invited the young girl out to breakfast. Regenia wanted no second invitation. Her scanty lunch-box had been turned bottom side upward and thrown from the car window, long before the sun had closed his burning eye the evening before. She was tired, hungry and sleepy, a trio of discomforts, which when added to loneliness, made a combination hard to outweigh in the scale of misfortunes. While Regenia is enjoying her much needed refreshment, let us take a little glimpse at the place in which she is to meet humanity in every form for next few months. On a little knoll in the centre of clump of trees, near the outskirts of the city of Grandville, stands a neat white building. The school house has been recently erected. The knoll on which it stands slopes gently for some distance until it reaches the banks of a babbling brook whose clear waters laugh and frisk over its shallow bed. A rustic foot-log, hewed smooth on one side and made safe for passengers by a rude guard consisting of a hickory pole placed between the forks of two uprights nailed to the above- 169 hearts of gold mentioned log, formed the approach to the school. The building had desk room and seating capacity for sixty, but was expected to accommodate more than twice that number. The school was new because the necessity for it was new also. A Northern syndicate had recently established in the vicinity of the school, a large steel plant. The workmen about this new enterprise were for the most part, Afro-American. The company, with far-seeing generosity, had almost immediately erected two churches and a school house; well aware that around these institutions, so highly prized by the Negro, could be best made permanent a happy and contented class of laborers. The Afro-American, unlike any other people similarly circumstanced, believes in God and intelligence. Toward these two ideas he inclines with unerring instinct. He may be irreligious; he may be ignorant, but with all the strength of an over-enthusiastic heart, he believes in the church and the school. The shrewd Yankees knew this, and planned their campaign of cheap labor with gilded generosity, accordingly. It was the generosity that pays, the religion that brings shekels with its contentment. The children of the laborers at this new plant were to be the recipients of the syndicate’s generosity. Regenia Underwood thenceforward would share with them their sorrows and misfortunes and through them hear more acutely the heart-throbs of this sin-burdened world than she would have heard in a century at Mt. Clare. As Regenia entered the dining room, Rev. Foggs pushed his chair back from the table and walking around a number of little Foggs, made his way to Regenia, and grasping her hand with a warmth too genial for comfort, welcomed her to such hospitality as his table afforded. “Make yourself at home,” he said, re-seating himself and tucking his napkin under his chin, “you must be hungry after your long ride. How far have you come? I received Mr. St. John’s telegram yesterday, but supposed you would not arrive until this afternoon. How did you find me, anyway?” he continued, not even deigning to await a reply to all of these questions. When he was at last satisfied that he had asked about all the questions he could think of, he paused for a reply. Regenia answered his series of questions in a general way, which seemed to satisfy him until he could get time to cut another huge rasher of ham and fill his plate sufficiently to begin a new siege of stuffing and talking. [3.139.62.103] Project...