The Personal History of Rachel DuPree (16 page)

And that, I couldn’t help but think as I trimmed the crusts from the tea sandwiches, was the funny thing about today’s guest of honor. Ida B. Wells-Barnett had been born a slave in Mississippi.

I kept the kitchen door half open so I could listen and watch the Circle of Eight. It was a strain; the dining room was between me and the parlor. But if I stood just so, I caught a glance now and then of the ladies in their crisp white blouses with pleated sleeves puffed high at the shoulders and lacy collars that held their necks tall. Wide satin sashes, every color of the rainbow, showed off their waistlines pulled tight by corsets. Their dark skirts flared from their hips. Petticoats rustled when they walked. The ladies wore brooches pinned to their collars. Earrings of colored crystal beads dangled from their ears. Their broad-brimmed hats dipped, throwing shadows on their faces. Their maids, I knew, had worked hard to make the ladies look that good.

I couldn’t imagine wearing fancy clothes on a Tuesday afternoon. I didn’t even have anything half as fine for Sundays. I put a hand on my collar. No brooch for me. Instead I had on the black dress with the starched white apron that Mrs. DuPree made me wear when special guests came. Trudy liked wearing hers. She was proud of it and especially liked how the apron strings made a crisp bow in the back. But I thought it was the kind of dress you’d expect to wear if you worked for a white woman.

In the parlor the ladies talked, their voices high with excitement. I tiptoed into the dining room, stood close to a side wall, and peeked out. There was Trudy, standing to the side of the sofa, waving the fan, her face wet with sweat. Some of the younger women circled around the room looking out the windows, unable to sit still for more than a minute. They were as excited as I was about Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

“I just don’t know what to call her,” Mrs. Fradin said. Her husband was a lawyer and had an office on the edge of downtown. Mrs. Fradin snapped open a fan. On it a picture of a pasty white woman with slanted eyes dressed in a long black narrow dress flashed before Mrs. Fradin’s coppery round face. “Should we call her Miss Wells, or is it Mrs. Wells-Barnett? Or Mrs. Barnett? I’ve heard it all three ways.”

“She’s a married woman with two babies,” Mrs. DuPree said. “I’m calling her Mrs. Barnett.”

“Yes, but her columns say Ida B. Wells. They wouldn’t say that, would they, if she didn’t approve? She’s the owner, after all, she and her husband.” Mrs. Fradin’s free hand played with her earring. “I wonder what he thinks about this business with her name?”

“When I sent her my invitation,” Mrs. DuPree said, “I addressed her as Mrs. Barnett. She’s a married woman and that’s her name.”

Rebecca Hall said, “I do believe that she prefers Mrs. Wells-Barnett. With a hyphen.” She leaned back in the black love seat. “Wells-Barnett is so modern. Don’t you agree, Mother?”

Eve Hall raised her eyebrows. “I most certainly do not. I’m proud to be Mrs. Wilbur Hall, and someday, young lady, you’ll be proud to take your husband’s name.”

I saw Mrs. DuPree frowning at me. I went back into the kitchen. Seemed to me that being modern didn’t have a thing to do with it. Ida B. Wells-Barnett had to keep her maiden name when she got married three years ago. If she had changed it, folks would feel like they didn’t know her. They’d worry that she wouldn’t speak her mind anymore. They’d say that marriage and motherhood had turned her soft.

A little past three she arrived, and then I was tearing around the kitchen pouring coffee into the polished silver urn and arranging tea sandwiches on Mrs. DuPree’s white scallop-edged platter. Rose Douglas hurried into the kitchen and hurried back out with the coffee urn. A minute later she was back for the tea sandwiches.

“Mrs. Douglas, let me carry that for you,” I said. “You’re wearing yourself out.”

Sweat beaded Rose Douglas’s forehead, dampening a row of pressed curls. I gave her a handkerchief; she dabbed at her neck and face.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Elizabeth said you weren’t to—”

But I was already past Rose Douglas, the platter held high. I didn’t care if Mrs. DuPree fired me. I was not going to miss the chance to see the world-famous Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

I put the platter on the dining-room table. The ladies were talking, but I couldn’t make out any words, my ears were ringing so loud. I took a deep breath and went into the parlor. The ladies were a blur of hats and white blouses.

I swallowed. Then I saw her.

Mrs. Wells-Barnett was plainer than the Circle of Eight ladies. Her navy skirt wasn’t as full as the other ladies’. Her cream blouse was simple, with few lacy frills, and she didn’t wear a brooch. Her brimless hat had only one feather. She was round, and her skin was as black as mine.

My heart pounding, I looked right at Mrs. Wells-Barnett and curtsied. “Refreshments are served,” I said in my best voice.

From the corner of my eye I saw Mrs. DuPree. She was reared back in her chair, glaring and warning me off with several quick shakes of her head. I ignored her.

“Why, honey, thank you,” Mrs. Wells-Barnett said to me. She talked Southern, like my parents. “That is so good of you. And here we are, enjoying ourselves while you,” she turned toward Trudy, “while you both are working so hard.”

I curtsied again, and Trudy bobbed, her fan dipping with her.

“No need to curtsy me,” Mrs. Wells-Barnett said. “I’m not royalty—wouldn’t want to be.” She held up her teacup. “There’s more African blood than white in my veins.” She paused. “Obviously.”

I drew in my breath. Somebody made a sharp, gasping sound. Mrs. Wells-Barnett’s eyes smiled at me as she drank some tea. I raised my chin, a chill running along my spine. For the first time I was proud of my black skin.

“Rachel,” Mrs. DuPree said, her voice hard. I flinched and then hurried back into the kitchen, the door closing behind me. There, I did a little two-step dance. Nothing Mrs. DuPree said or did was going to ruin what had just happened. Ida B. Wells-Barnett had looked me right in the eye and thanked me like I was somebody important.

I heard what Mrs. Wells-Barnett really said behind her words: I know what it’s like to be a maid. That’s what she meant when she told me not to curtsy. I know how it feels when other people think you don’t count for much. Put your chin up, Rachel Reeves. Change their minds. Show them what you’re made of.

“I will,” I said out loud in the empty kitchen. “I’ll make you proud. You’ll see.”

Not that it’d be easy. Changing people’s minds never was. Especially people like Mrs. DuPree and the Circle of Eight ladies. But it could not have been easy for Mrs. Wells-Barnett. Her parents had died when she was sixteen, leaving her with five little brothers and sisters to rear. But she did all that and got an education too, good enough to be a newspaper lady. Mrs. DuPree was always saying education was the key to advancement for the Negro race. Maybe she was right, even if I didn’t care to admit that anything Mrs. DuPree said might be true. Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a living example of what a woman—a Negro woman—could be.

Then and there, I vowed to do better. It was too late to go back to school; I had quit five years ago. But I could still improve my mind. That very night, I decided, as soon as the supper dishes were washed up, I’d ask Mrs. DuPree if I could borrow one of the books she kept locked in the parlor bookcase. That was, if she didn’t fire me. But if she said yes, I’d read two pages—no, five pages—every night, no matter how tired I was. And I wouldn’t quit just because I didn’t know all the words. I’d ask my mother and Sue to help me. If they didn’t know the words, I’d just have to ask Mrs. DuPree.

I’d start saving my money too. After all, everyone knew a person couldn’t get ahead without a little savings. That’d mean no more Saturday evenings at the Peppermint Parlor. My spirits drooped. The Peppermint Parlor was something to look forward to every week, that and church on Sunday mornings. Thinking about the Peppermint Parlor made getting out of bed on Monday mornings easier. It was where I went with friends for ice cream; it was where men courted young women.

I could still go, I decided, if I settled for an iced drink instead of an ice cream soda. That saved money. Of course, I gave half of my wages to Dad—that was only fair. And some went in the church collection basket. But I didn’t have to have fancy buttons for my dresses, and I didn’t have to have a new pair of gloves every winter. I’d save for my future instead. Like Ida B. Wells-Barnett must have.

And men? Mrs. Wells-Barnett was over thirty when she got married. She might have been born a slave, but that didn’t mean she kept her sights low. She married a newspaperman. She waited for a man of proven ambition. I didn’t know where I’d meet such a man, but if Mrs. Wells-Barnett managed to do it, so could I.

The clock in the parlor chimed four times. Time to start supper.

I was cutting up chicken parts to fry when the ladies applauded. Rose Douglas banged into the kitchen door with the empty urn. “More coffee,” she said. “And it’s time to serve the cake.”

“Isn’t she something?” I said, wiping my hands on a damp washrag.

“I’ll say. She’s certainly no lady.”

I stared.

“Embarrassed Elizabeth something awful. Told her her name is Mrs. Wells-Barnett. Of all the gall, treating her hostess like that.”

I turned away to hide my smile.

“That was just the beginning. She’d hardly sat down when she saw Mr. Booker T. Washington’s photograph on the mantel. She looked right at Elizabeth and said, ‘That man has sold out the black race, bowing and scraping to the white man.’ I thought Elizabeth was going to strangle her. And she didn’t say anything about sightseeing in England, not even when we asked her about Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey. All she talked about were lynchings, how we need to organize protest rallies, stop being so mealy-mouthed like Booker T. Washington. Then she passed around a picture of this colored boy hanging from a tree, his neck all twisted. It turned my stomach. He’d been set on fire.”

Rose Douglas picked up the coffee urn. “Hurry up with that cake. The sooner we eat, the sooner we can get that woman out of here.” She backed out of the kitchen with the urn.

Her standing up to the Circle of Eight made me admire Mrs. Wells-Barnett all the more. It pleased me that she had shocked them. They should have known better. If they’d been reading her columns, they would have known what kind of woman she was.

I scooted the chicken fryers to the side, waved off a scattering of flies, and wiped my hands again. I sliced the cakes, making sure that the servings were the same size. I arranged each slice just so on the china dessert plates, knowing Mrs. DuPree would notice if I got it wrong. From the icebox I got out the wooden container of vanilla ice cream and scooped one dip for each slice of cake. Rose Douglas hurried in and out of the kitchen with the tray, doing her best to serve the desserts before the ice cream melted.

I wiped my neck and face with a dish towel, then flapped it at the flies crawling on the bloody chicken parts. What I would give to see Mrs. Wells-Barnett one more time.

I looked out the back window, wishing I was in the parlor sitting right next to her. Outside, Peaches Orwell from two doors down was walking her baby in the alley, carrying her on her hip, trying to get her to stop fussing. Peaches had a tight look on her face, and I didn’t blame her. Lily cried all the time. Ignoring her didn’t stop her, and giving her attention just gave her more reason to cry. Lily was a baby born to scream.

A train on the elevated tracks a few blocks over thundered past, rattling the kitchen walls and blocking out the baby’s cries.

Mrs. Wells-Barnett had sure cooked her goose. She wouldn’t be getting any more invitations from Mrs. DuPree, not if she didn’t see eye to eye with her over Booker T. Washington. Mrs. DuPree thought he was a living example of a self-made man what had overcome the shameful obstacle of being the son of common slaves. He was a college president, and for Mrs. DuPree that was almost as good as being a man of medicine. Then too, she approved of his views. She liked how he encouraged Negroes to be clean, go to school, and learn a trade like bricklaying or carpentry.

“You’d do well to remember that,” Mrs. DuPree had told the boarders more than once.

Baby Lily shrieked right in my ear. I jumped, nearly dropping a bread pan. It wasn’t Baby Lily, and I wasn’t in Chicago. It was my two-year-old Emma screaming, sitting next to the cookstove, her legs ramrod stiff out before her, her face balled up tight with pain.

I tried to reach for her but my big belly was in the way. I dropped to my knees, ignoring the pain that shot through me. I grabbed Emma’s arms to pull her to me. She jerked away and screamed louder, flapping her right hand high in the air. I caught her arm; her palm was slashed with red streaks. White blisters bubbled to the surface on her fingers.

The cast-iron cookstove. Emma had put her hand on it.

I got myself up. I dipped a rag in the water bucket and got back down on the floor. Emma arched her back, screaming, and kicked at me. I heard a funny yelp. Alise sat wide-eyed under the table, staring in horror. I pinned Emma to the floor, half lying on her. I wrapped the wet rag around her burned hand. She screamed louder, flinging the rag.

“Liz!” I hollered. “The blue compound.” I looked over my shoulder. Liz stood frozen by the table. Emma bucked and shrieked with pain.

“The blue compound,” I hollered again at Liz, jerking my head at the cupboard.

Liz’s hands fluttered but she couldn’t get her feet moving, and it wouldn’t have mattered if she had. The compound was on the top shelf. I got to my feet, Emma’s screams tearing at my nerves.

By now all three girls were crying. “Stop it,” I snapped at Liz and Alise. “Right now!” I got the compound and the soothing syrup. I got myself back down on the floor, held up Emma’s head, and between screams, poured syrup in her open mouth. She sputtered and spit.