The Color of Your Skin Ain't the Color of Your Heart

by Michael Phillips

  "Do you know his whereabouts?"

  "No, sir. I haven't seen him ... uh, for some time."

  "I see. All right, then. I had best be going."

  He rose and walked to the door. Katie got up and followed him outside.

  "Good day, Mrs. Clairborne," he said.

  "Good day, uh ... Mr. Sneed," replied Katie.

  She stood on the porch until he was gone, then came back inside and collapsed into a chair.

  I ran in from the kitchen.

  "You were some pumpkins, Katie!" I laughed. "You almost had me starting to believe you were your mother too!"

  Emma came bounding down the stairs a minute later full of questions, and I ran out to the blacksmith's shop to tell Aleta she could stop.

  HAT AFTERNOON KATIE TOOK A LONG NAP. THE interview with Sneed, after all that had happened the day before and the long ride to Oakwood and back, had exhausted her. After her nap we had another talk about what to do.

  We still didn't know if Sneed was who he said he was. But we knew one thing those men who had been here twice were after Katie's gold! Neither of us were too confident that they'd give up, even after what Katie had told them. The men who were involved with Sneed sounded mean, like they were the kind of men who would kill to get what they wanted. And gold could make people kill too. It got inside them and filled them with greed and hate and envy.

  That night Katie looked up the word assayer in the dictionary.

  "'Assayer,"' she read me out of the Webster's from the bookshelf, "'one who examines metals to find their quantity, purity, and value"'

  "Maybe he is from the government after all," I said. "But that still doesn't explain what he was doing with those other men and why they're looking for both your uncles."

  She put the dictionary away and we sat thinking.

  "I still don't understand," said Katie. "If that man works for the government, why is he taking my mama's and uncle's gold? I thought working for the government meant you were honest."

  "I don't know," I said. "I sure never knew anyone from the government in my life."

  "He just took that gold, just like he took the piece Mr. Taylor gave him," Katie continued, more riled up than I had ever seen her about just about anything. "I don't know what to call it but stealing."

  "Maybe just because he works for the government doesn't necessarily mean he can be trusted," I said.

  "I don't know," said Katie, "but I was stupid to take the gold to the bank. Now it's gone."

  "I don't know what else you could have done," I said. "You had to pay off your mama's loan."

  "But it didn't pay it off," said Katie. "Mr. Taylor's still got it ... if he didn't give it to Mr. Sneed. Just what kind of a name is that, anyway? I don't like it. And I don't like him! In fact," Katie added, getting that determined expression, "I'm going to go get it back."

  "But you just gave it to him," I said. "That was our plan."

  "Not from Mr. Sneed," she said, "from the bank. If Mr. Taylor won't put that gold on the loan, then there's no reason he should keep it. So I'm going to go get it back!"

  And she meant it too, because the next morning she and I were off in the buggy to town again, and she was still acting mighty determined. We were doing so much traveling around lately that Aleta and Emma hardly thought anything about us leaving them alone now. But with all the goingson and so many strange men around, we asked Jeremiah to come out again and be there when we were gone.

  We got to town and went straight to the bank. Katie marched in without even waiting for me. I followed behind her a little timidly. Any other time I'd have waited outside, but I didn't want to miss this! And I was her cousin now too. Maybe I had the right to go with her.

  She went straight to Mr. Taylor's desk. He looked up without expression.

  "I've come about the gold," said Katie.

  "You know about the problem with it, then, I take it?" he said.

  "Mr. Sneed came to see my mother two days ago," said Katie. "He told her he had to take the gold because it was stolen."

  "Precisely," said Mr. Taylor, "which means that the gold you gave me could not be applied to your mother's loan."

  "My mother doesn't believe what Mr. Sneed said about the gold being stolen," said Katie. "He said it was from something that happened a year ago, but she has had it for five or six years."

  "Be that as it may," said Mr. Taylor, "I'm afraid there is nothing I can do about it, Miss Clairborne. He is an attorney and the appointed governmental agent."

  "He took all the rest of the gold too that we were going to use for expenses.

  "I am sorry," said the banker. "That is unfortunate. But my hands are tied. As long as Mr. Sneed does not release the funds to the bank, I cannot apply it to your mother's loan."

  "But what if he is just ... stealing our gold?"

  "That could hardly be. I told you, he has been appointed by the government."

  "Well, I don't believe what he said," insisted Katie. "Did you give him all the gold I brought in?" she asked.

  "Of course not, only the one piece."

  "Where is the rest?"

  "Still in the bank safe."

  "Then I want it back," said Katie.

  "Until I find out whether or not it was stolen, Miss Clairborne, I have a duty to-"

  "It's not stolen," interrupted Katie, as close to getting angry as I'd seen her in a long while. "Mr. Sneed is not telling the truth. So if you won't take the gold for my mama's loan, then I want it back!"

  By now her voice was getting loud and the bank manager was a little unnerved. Heads were turning and people were starting to stare.

  "Now, Mr. Taylor," said Katie. "I want it back today. The bank has no right to keep it."

  "Calm down, Miss Clairborne," he said in a soft voice, nervously adjusting his tie. "All right, if that is the way you want it, whether it is stolen is no concern of mine-"

  "It's not stolen, I tell you."

  "Fine, fine ... please just keep your voice down," said Mr. Taylor, now speaking in just above a whisper. "You can have the gold back and work out the legalities with the sheriff in Oakwood or Mr. Sneed or anyone else for all I care. But your mother's loan remains due in less than three weeks"

  He rose from his desk, walked across the floor, trying to smile at a few people who were still staring from the brief commotion Katie's raised voice had caused, and disappeared behind the counter. Katie and I stood there in silence. The other people in the bank gradually returned to their business. However Katie might have tried to keep news about the gold quiet before, people had heard about it now!

  Mr. Taylor returned a few minutes later.

  "Here you are, Miss Clairborne," he said coldly. "But as I said, this changes nothing."

  "That may be, but at least I have my uncle's gold back."

  "Perhaps, but if the loan is not paid, I will have no choice but to begin foreclosure proceedings."

  Katie turned to go.

  "I understand from Mr. Sneed," said the banker's voice behind her, "that your father is working in the North."

  "Yes ... yes, that's right," said Katie.

  "No one around here saw a thing of him when he returned from the war. When did he go up north?"

  "A while ago," said Katie. "He had to find work. Good day, Mr. Taylor."

  EREMIAH AND HENRY WERE ALMOST LIKE OUR eyes and ears in town.

  It's a funny thing about some white folks-not like Katie or Mr. Daniels and people like that, but white folks that can't see people of different color skin for who they really are. They figure if people talk and act different, that's the same as being stupid.

  But like Henry said, it's who we are on the inside that matters, what kind of person we are, which direction we're moving, which direction we're growing, what we're making of ourselves, and whether we're letting God make us into the sons and daughters He wants us to be.

  What I'm getting at is that people tend to look past folks like Henry and even Jeremiah because they're quieter and o
f a different color and maybe can't talk like they're educated, which neither of them were. And it makes them blind to how smart and shrewd and clever Henry really was.

  So Henry managed to see and hear all kinds of things that people never suspected because they ignored him, or, if they saw him, they thought no more of his overhearing them than they would if a dog was standing next to them. So Henry followed people without them even knowing it, and walked into stores and always kept his eyes and ears open, and folks never knew how he was looking out for us and protecting us and how much news he brought us about the town and what folks were saying.

  One time he even told us something that Mrs. Hammond had said about us, which made us both laugh and get angry at the same time, and she'd never suspected he was even around.

  But mostly he was watching for the men.

  One day Henry saw Mr. Sneed come into town. So he left his work for a few minutes and followed him into the bank and pretended to be busy about something. But mainly he was trying to find out what he and the men might do.

  When Henry walked in Mr. Sneed was already standing in front of the bank manager's desk in the middle of what sounded like a heated discussion.

  ". . . rest of the gold ..."

  "Please ... keep your voice down."

  "I want it."

  "I gave it back."

  "You what!"

  "I had no choice. She was making a scene in the bank. Besides, I had no legal right to keep it."

  As he listened, Henry ambled a little closer.

  "I told you it was stolen."

  "She says otherwise."

  "You are a fool, Taylor, if you believe her. So where is it now?"

  "I assume back at Rosewood. Where else would it be?"

  "Well, that's fine, then I'll get it from them. I am still convinced that there is a great deal more ... lady is lying ..

  "I know nothing about that."

  "That may be, but I intend to find out."

  "-Patterson, what are you doing hanging about!" said Mr. Taylor to Henry as he suddenly noticed him.

  "Uh, nuthin', Mr. Taylor."

  "Well, then, if you have no business with the bank," said the bank manager, "get out."

  Henry wandered out of the building but kept his eyes on the bank. He saw Mr. Sneed get in a buggy a few minutes later and ride off, but he saw none of the other men.

  IGURING OUT WHO I WAS-THAT WAS ONLY HALF of what I had to contend with. Then I had to figure out who Templeton Daniels was. I knew who he was, of course. What I mean is that I had to figure out who he was-or maybe who he was supposed to be, who God intended him to be-in my life.

  I reckon that's something everybody's gotta face sooner or later if they're going to be a whole and complete person. They've got to come to know themselves and who they are. Then they've got to figure out who their mama and papa are to them.

  Some folks grow up without mamas and papas at all. But a lot more folks who have them grow up either hating their mamas and daddies or else feeling other kinds of bad feelings toward them. But we've all got to grow up and face the fact that God gave us our mamas and papas, and I don't reckon He did it by accident. I don't figure God likely does anything by accident. How could He if He's God? Even if they aren't perfect and did things to us that we didn't like, they're still God's children just like everyone else. So maybe they need our understanding more than our bitterness and anger.

  I suppose that's the grown-up Mayme talking, remembering back to things I was slowly coming to realize at that time in my life but that I hadn't quite realized all the way yet. That's the way life is-you learn things slowly, especially things about yourself. Sometimes it takes a lot of years before some of the best things in life sink in. If you're trying to get rid of it, self-centeredness seems to gradually fall off you through the years. It's probably not because it gets easier when you get older, but that it gets easier because you've been practicing so long at it. So I'm not saying I realized this all at once. It was coming to me slowly.

  I reckon what I'm trying to say is that maybe we all need to forgive our mamas and papas for the things they did that hurt us or confused us. I'd never held anything against my mama because I thought she was about the finest lady in the world. But now I came to realize that I needed to forgive Mr. Daniels for the resentment I'd allowed myself to feel toward him.

  If he was my father, then maybe God wanted that word to mean something in my life. And maybe the first thing it meant was forgiveness. I realized that I could never altogether be the person God wanted me to be without it. I realized that lots of times wholeness as a person starts with forgiving others, and usually somebody close to you like a mother or father. At least that's what I found to be true for me.

  I'd let myself be overjoyed to be Katie's cousin, yet I began to see that I'd kept a few feelings of anger stewing down inside me toward her uncle. I don't know why. I knew I needed to forgive him. It really wasn't so hard to do either. People have such a hard time with forgiveness, just like they do with saying they're sorry. But I never saw that either one was so fearsome or so hard. Once I got myself out of the way and started thinking about how God looked at my father, and how God saw him the same way as He saw me and everyone else-with love-then I found that my heart had already begun to forgive him.

  I think what might make forgiveness so hard for some folks is that they expect other people to be perfect. They especially never want anyone to do or say anything that might hurt them. But when it comes to looking inside themselves, they don't expect their own actions and words and attitudes to be perfect. And they make all kinds of excuses for themselves when they aren't. At least that's the conclusion I've come to from trying to figure myself out. I can be so cantankerously mean-tempered when I'm looking at somebody else, and so sweet and forgiving and understanding when looking at myself. Doesn't make much sense, does it? It seems like we'd want to treat everyone else the same as we do ourselves.

  Anyway, that sure helped me see some of the dark spots in my own heart a little more clearly. And when I saw that my father wasn't perfect, and never had been perfect, and even that maybe God had never intended him to be perfect and understood a little better than me all the whys for everything he'd done wrong, it helped me to start seeing him differently. And then I discovered that maybe God looked at my imperfection in the same way, and that was a relief! God forgave me too!

  And once I was able to forgive Mr. Daniels, then a new love for him began to open in my heart. When that happened, I felt that I'd finally begun to take some big steps toward growing up and becoming an adult. A lot of folks want to think they're grown-up before they really are. But growing up's got more to do with attitude than age. I believe I started to truly grow up when I knew I'd forgiven my father.

  But no sooner had I done that than I began to feel guilty all over for what I'd done, for the things I'd said, for driving him away when he'd been trying to love me in the only way he knew how.

  I got out the cuff link of my mama's again. I stared at the teardrop, as she always called it. As I remembered back, I realized that it had been when Mr. Daniels had seen me holding it that that peculiar look had come over his face, and that he'd looked at me that way ever since. That's the moment he'd known who I was, or thought he knew.

  Suddenly I knew why. I stared down at the monogrammed TD and now realized that it didn't mean teardrop at all, but Templeton Daniels.

  He had given it to her during that autumn they had been together.

  She'd kept it all those years, even after being married to Mr. Jukes, as a reminder of the dapper white man she had loved so briefly and who had fathered her first child-me.

  I thought back to the day when I'd asked her about it, and remembered the wistful, longing expression that came to her face.

  "What's that, Mama?" I'd asked.

  "Just a reminder of a long ago time, Mayme, chil'," she said, smiling in that funny way.

  "What does that word on it mean?" I said, pointing to the TD.
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  "That stands for teardrop," she said. "It's a reminder of the tears of life that sometimes a body can't help, to help us remember that some memories are best left unremembered."

  The words carried more meaning to me now than they had when I'd first heard them. I reckon I was just about woman enough by now to understand.

  Mama'd loved him too, just like he'd said he loved her.

  How sad it was that they never saw each other again, even though they kept loving each other. It made me cry. And my tears were all the more bitter because now I knew that I loved Templeton Daniels too, but might never see him again. It seemed like the forgiveness in my heart had come too late. What if his leaving this time turned out just like when he left Rosewood all those years ago? Was I going to suffer the same fate as my mama? Was this cuff link in my hand going to be my only reminder of my father?

  I asked Katie for a chain, and after that I started wearing the cufflink around my neck. It would be a reminder of my teardrops too, the ones I'd shed for my dead family, and now the ones I shed for the father I had found and lost at the same time.

  The day it finally dawned on me that I loved him, but that he was gone, I was sadder than I think I'd ever been in my life. When my family was killed, I was in shock and disbelief. Now I was consumed with an overpowering sadness that I didn't think would ever go away.

  There was nothing else to do but cry. I had to be alone to cry the kind of tears I could feel about to erupt out of me.

  I went to Katie's place in the woods. I stayed there two hours.

  FEW DAYS LATER WE WERE OUT PLANTING A field that Jeremiah had recently finished ploughing with new cotton seed when the men came. We knew instantly that they weren't in a friendly mood.

  Aleta was in the yard taking care of William. The men rode up before she could get back into the house. Immediately they surrounded her with their horses.