And just here it was that Mirama Young and Alexander Simpson differed, and so radically that Mirama had put her little foot down and Mr. Alexander Simpson could not budge it. They had been fighting it over for the hundredth time, this Christmas Eve, and had reached a point where silence had fallen upon them like a wet blanket. Mirama was immovable; Alexander was stubborn.
“I have reached the conclusion that we had better break off our engagement, Mr. Simpson,” said Mirama, gloomingly, staring into the fire.
“But you can’t back out now, Mirama. You have gone too far for that.”
“Oh, yes I can!” snapped Mirama. “It is never too late to back out when you find that you have made a mistake.”
“But have you made a mistake?”
“Certainly. That is the reason I think it best to break the engagement.”
“What is the mistake?” asked Alexander, meekly.
“What is it? Why you are as stubborn as I am, and that I give away to you as much as you do to me.”
“Now, Mirama, be reasonable. You know that you are as stubborn as I am, and that I give away to you as much as you do to me.”
“That is just it,” exclaimed Mirama. “Neither of us ever gives away. One of us must give away. You don’t expect me to do it, do you?”
Alexander did not know how to answer this question, so evaded it by asking another: “You don’t love me a bit, do you, now?”
“You know I do,” [Mirama said] reproachfully; “but you are so stubborn.”
“Now, what am I most stubborn in?” asked Alexander, soothingly.
“Everything!” said Mirama, with a sweep of her arm. “Everything! You would provoke a saint.” [Taking a] long pause [she said], “Now, take this law scheme of yours.”
“Don’t!” said Alexander. “We can’t agree on that.”
“If we can’t agree on that, we shall not be able to agree on anything, and we had better not get married, and I won’t marry you. So there!” Mirama had put her little foot down. Alexander argued and coaxed, but he made no headway. He was in despair. Things had never reached this stage before, and a compromise of some sort must be reached.
“What do you want me to do?” asked the strong man, desperately.
“What do I want you to do?” asked Mirama indignantly. “I’ve told you a hundred times, I want you to give up the idea of reading law, and I want you to stop teaching school, and I want you to go with my father in the carpenter business. You will never succeed in the law, and you don’t like school teaching, and you know all about carpentering. My father wants you to help him. He’s getting old, and can’t attend to all his business. And I am not going to marry you unless you do what I want you to do in this matter.”
Alexander had studied the question from a thousand points of view and he had reached the conclusion that the law was the business in life he wanted to follow and that the carpentering business was not up to his idea of dignity. What did he get a college education for; just to be a carpenter? Not much. “You needn’t say another word,” said Mirama. “I will not budge an inch. The business that was good enough for your father and that is good enough for mine is good enough for you. You couldn’t make enough money as a lawyer to support me, and you know it.”
“O, I don’t think I know anything of the sort,” exclaimed Alexander.
“Perhaps you don’t,” [Mirama said] dryly; “but I do, and I am not going to try the experiment. We don’t need to argue the question anymore.”
Mr. Alexander Simpson did not argue the question any more. He put on his thinking cap and kept it on, in dead silence, for ten minutes. Then a big spasm of pain passed over his face, and Mr. Alexander Simpson, for the first time in their courtship, surrendered.
“I have been trying to get you to fix the marriage day for a year, now, if I do what you want will you fix the date?”
“Certainly,” said Mirama. “I will fix the day any time you say after you write your resignation to the school board.”
“That is your Christmas test,” said Mirama Young.
Alexander took his fountain pen and securing a sheet of paper wrote his resignation to the school board, to take effect at the end of the holidays, and handed it to Mirama. She read it through carefully and said:
“We’ll fix the date of the wedding.”
“To-morrow, at 3 o’clock,” said Alexander.
“O, that is a Christmas test!” exclaimed Mirama.
“Yes; Mirama’s Christmas test,” said Alexander Simpson.
A CHRISTMAS PARTY THAT PREVENTED A SPLIT IN THE CHURCH
Margaret Black
In 1916, John Murphy, the editor of the Baltimore Afro-American, described Margaret Black as a “writer and thinker of experience” and “an occasional writer of delightful short stories.” Indeed, she was all of this and more. Although we do not know where or when she was born, she began her writing career in 1896 as the editor of the paper’s “Women’s Column.” The initial column, which appears to have lasted for less than a year, reappeared in 1916 and enjoyed a run of at least three years. Published simultaneously with the column were Black’s short stories. An outspoken feminist, she announced to her readers, “This column has its limits as well as its purposes. The editor allows us only a short space and being women, of course we must bow to the inevitable.” In her writings, she addressed a number of issues that reflected the distinct consciousness of black women in the past, a worldview that was distinctive from those of black men and white women.
Black’s “Women’s Column,” as well as her short stories, provides a unique opportunity to discover how black women viewed their society and how they strove to change it. Short stories, such as “A Christmas Party That Prevented a Split in the Church,” provided a definition of black women’s culture, specifically their values, practices, and institutions, and their ways of looking at the world common to a large number of black women who belonged to the church missionary societies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Given the large numbers of working- and middle-class women who participated in these organizations, as well as the fact that they represented a key base of power for black women, we are able to observe black women’s consciousness and culture from a unique vantage point.
“A Christmas Party That Prevented a Split in the Church,” published in 1916, is a story about the shortage of “eligible” men available to black women for establishing families. Black has recorded the thoughts, words, deeds, and feelings of black church women as they struggled to give meaning and definition to their lives. At the center of this text is an African American and a female consciousness rarely seen at this early date. The story is set in the village of St. Michaels, which has a small black population and one black church that appears to be affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal denomination (the Mite Missionary Society suggests this connection).
Black centers this story in the church, emphasizing the centrality of the institution in the lives of African Americans. The story focuses as well on who will marry the most eligible bachelor. The plot revolves around the activities of the Ladies Aid Society, which is actively engaged in preparing for the arrival of the Reverend Jonathan Steele, a twenty-five-year-old minister who is single. The society is made up primarily of the wives of the all-male board of trustees and board of stewards, and includes some of the most powerful women in the church.
Although black church women have been traditionally perceived as being subordinate and powerless in a male-dominated institution, Black creates narrative strategies that stress the power these women wielded through their organizations. In doing so, she effectively recovers their voices and their sense of autonomy. At the center of this text is the empowerment of black women.
A Christmas Party That Prevented a Split in the Church
Part I
Goodness,” exclaimed Milly Brown. “All these things to move and dust, they’re a sight and if I had my way, I’d get rid of some of them. No single man needs all this trash around, es
pecially a minister.”
“Always getting rid of something,” said Sara Simpson, “I declare you are the limit; perhaps you’ll want to be getting rid of your daughter Alice—now we are having a new minister and he a single man.”
“I guess you are the one who’ll be wanting the minister to marry them,” laughed Milly. But Sara Simpson did not see the joke, you see Sara was past thirty—and did not like it mentioned—had a lovely home in town and everybody knew she was sore at Mrs. Jake Todd because Jake preferred her when she was Margaret Clayton instead of Sara Simpson—whose father was the leading lawyer in town and who gave his wife and daughter anything they wanted.
Sara was a pretty girl, but Margaret was much prettier and had such a sweet disposition that everybody loved her, even if she did have to wear cheap cotton dresses—and her hats and coats two winters and couldn’t afford furs. But Sara snubbed poor Margaret every chance she got and poor Milly Brown also—because she was Margaret’s friend.
Mrs. Milly Brown was a widow with only one daughter who lived beyond the town a lonely way and made her living by doing plain sewing.
You see there was only one church in the very small town—you or I would call it a village—which would surely have insulted the small population of St. Michaels because they felt themselves very important people and more especially now—as they were able to support a minister by themselves.
No more circuit riding minister for them. Since attaining the dignity of supporting a minister and having a parsonage rent free—they had organized a Mite Society for the grown people and a Helping Hand Society for the young folks and a Sunday Afternoon Literary Society, hence the self-satisfied feeling among them.
Their last pastor had been a married man with a large family, a wife and six children, and the poor man had so much trouble and such poor charges (which is the fate of a good many Methodist ministers) that he felt after he got to St. Michaels that he should take a rest, and he rested so well, and so long, that the people sent the Bishop word they did not want him back. So the good Bishop had now sent them not only a young man, but a single one, and St. Michaels folks were going out of their way to make things pleasant for the new minister.
He was very young and considered a genius, and as St. Michaels always gave the parsonage ready furnished and found the good parson coal and wood—they felt that since this was a young man they should go a step further and stock his pantry with all things needful and have him a good housekeeper, so they had installed old Aunt Eliza West as his housekeeper.
There had been a meeting of the Ladies’ Aid Society, and a Committee for the pastor’s arrival.
The Board of Trustees and Board of Stewards had also held meetings, but the Ladies’ Aid had taken things in their hands and the men were well content to step aside and let them do the work—as most of their wives belonged to the Aid Society and those whose wives did not, thought it good policy to not object.
So there was just lots of help—because as Mrs. Orion Tucker remarked, “Wherever they had a married minister all the women stayed at home except a few old stand-bys who could always be depended on, but if he was a single man, every spinster and young girl and married woman in the town was in evidence to help, they had all they needed and more.”
So they scrubbed floors—cleaned paints and windows—and swept and dusted and polished dishes and silver until it seemed as tho the things would surely come to life and cry out—enough! oh, enough! or melt into nothing.
At last everything was in readiness and St. Michaels was in a state of expectancy.
Only Brother Tucker and Sister Marion Ford had attended the conference at Greenville and neither of them could give a very clear account of what he looked like.
Brother Tucker said, “He was a pretty pert and spry looking youngster,” and Sister Marion Ford said, “He was a handsome young chap—straight and tall as a young poplar and with the snappiest black eyes she’d ever seen—altogether quite ‘stinguished looking.”
“But,” as Marie Phillips sarcastically remarked, “you can’t depend on either one of these old folks, because everybody is ‘pert’ and spry to Brother Tucker, who walks and talks pretty slick and as for Sister Marion Ford—Oh pshaw! she can’t see good anyway.”
But “all’s well that ends well”—and Rev. Jonathan Steele had arrived and was quite all both Brother Tucker and Sister Ford had described, and more, some of them thought. In plain words—“he came, he saw, he conquered” and after several months with the town folks—he was still “the new preacher”—at least he was as new as seven months steady wear in a small town could leave him. You see new silver does not tarnish very quickly and Rev. Steele was still untarnished. Of course he made mistakes—and this Thursday night at the meeting of the Ladies’ Aid they were discussing the fact that the Rev. Mr. Steele did not or could not seem to grasp the fact that Mrs. John Taylor was the leader of the Ladies’ Aid and a shining light in the church, and that Mrs. Orion Tucker was to be church treasurer for life and that the Trustees and Stewards’ Boards were composed of life time members and also that Mrs. St. Anthony was the head deaconess of the church and as her husband had donated the ground on which the church stood and donated five thousand dollars towards the building fund, she must be consulted on all matters pertaining to the welfare of the church.
How was the Rev. Jonathan Steele, not a day over twenty-five and a young snipe just out of college, as Mrs. Tucker emphatically declared, to realize the importance of each separate man’s and woman’s work in his ever increasing congregation.
Although after seven months—if he really had failed to grasp these many cited facts—it was no fault of the members of St. Michaels’ Church.
“Things seem to be moving along rather smoothly,” remarked Mrs. Phillips—“I think the Reverend has commenced to appreciate his charge”—which remark was due to the fact that the Rev. Steele had lately congratulated Mrs. Phillips on her executive ability.
The ladies were lingering over the task of sorting out table linen and dishes after the yearly oyster supper for the benefit of the Stewards’ Board.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Phillips, “how our girls did work; they are coming into the church and working like soldiers, and are not near so thoughtless and silly as they used to be.”
“Oh yes!” said Mrs. Tucker sarcastically. “It is really remarkable how they work. An unmarried minister can inspire so much enthusiasm among spinsters—and women with marriageable daughters.”
“Well, I’m not making any unkind remarks,” said Mrs. Phillips virtuously.
“Well,” replied Mrs. Tucker—“neither am I, but I can’t help noticing things when they happen right under your nose. I have eyes to see with and although we might not care to spread it broad cast, we can all see the difference between the treatment accorded Rev. Butler and that given Rev. Steele. You see Rev. Butler was an antiquated married man, while Rev. Steele is a very live young man. With Rev Butler we crawled along and the community hardly knew we existed, while now we are increasing by leaps and bounds—fairly flying.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Phillips, “it’s natural isn’t it. The young—”
“Of course it’s natural,” broke in Mrs. Tucker. “Life is just a succession of thrills anyway, and we all run after that we don’t have. Didn’t I run a little after my old man Orion, and didn’t you run after Nathan?”
“No, I didn’t” snapped Mrs. Phillips, “I never took one step out of my way for Nathan Phillips.”
“Oh, well, you grabbed him mighty quick when he asked you—and that’s what I’m thinking about these girls and old maids—any one of them could grab Rev. Steele mighty quick if he asks them.”
A light laugh startled them and made them turn rather quickly—they had forgotten they were in church.
“I’m glad my girl lives such a distance from the church—that she can’t take part in everything. Until she does her school work and helps me a little, she has no time to join church clubs and Ladies’ Aid Soci
eties, and talk scandal,” said the irrepressible Milly Brown. “But I guess you’ll soon have a new member any way for your society—because Hannah Burke Starks has come home and is occupying the Powell place adjoining us. You remember her don’t you Mrs. Phillips.”
“Well, I should say, “replied Mrs. Phillips, “she married young Dr. Stark of Cleveland. So she’s home. Is her husband with her?”
“Oh no, she is a widow” said Milly, “and I’m thinking a pretty wealthy one at that.”
“You don’t say,” said Mrs. Tucker. “How do you know?”
“Well, by the style of her and the way she lives and the improvements she is making in the place. She has house servants, a gardener, and chauffeur and a man to tend the farm and she has had the house all done over. You won’t know the place when it is finished. And she has an immense touring car, and the dearest coupe she runs herself. Then she rides and has a beautiful thoroughbred horse and has just the finest of clothes.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Phillips, “that don’t sound like she’ll be much of a church worker—but we’ll wait and see. You never can tell.”
“Alice says she’s lovely,” replied Milly. “She’s been very good to Alice.”
“We must call,” said Mrs. Tucker, “it is so lonely out there.”
“Yes, it’s lonely with only Milly and her Alice for neighbors” retorted Mrs. Phillips. “But I’ll have to study over it first. You see I knew Hannah before she was married, and she was always a mighty independent little piece and held her head very high.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Mrs. Tucker, “birds fly high too, but they always come down for water. So perhaps your Hannah was lonesome and home-sick for the sight of home and old faces, the reason she returned to St. Michaels.”
A Treasury of African American Christmas Stories Page 9
