The Third Generation (5 page)

She nodded. “Professor Taylor.”

“I s’pose you were frightened for a minute.”

“Oh, your wife had everything under control,” she said impassively.

Professor Taylor removed his cap and tossed it on the table. ‘They’re just boys,” he said. He had a habit, when assuming an attitude of indulgence toward his wife, of cocking his head to one side, mussing his short cropped hair, and squinting his eyes off to one side while his wide mouth fashioned a grin. It always infuriated Mrs. Taylor. ‘They’re just Daddy’s boys.”

Mrs. Taylor turned away in anger and disgust. Professor Taylor looked at Mrs. Allen for support. “Boys will be boys. They’re just busters.”

Mrs. Allen remained neutral. She knew, as did all the faculty wives, of Professor Taylor’s tendency to seek feminine approval of his behavior, and how this enraged and upset his wife. He loved a feminine audience.

“Now Lillian, honey, you get them dressed and I’ll take them over and have Doc Barnes look at their eyes and ears and then I’ll have Jethroe clean their hair and by suppertime you won’t know they’ve been in the paint.”

“We’ll never get the paint out of their hair,” she said grimly.

“It’s colored hair,” he replied slyly. “A little paint won’t hurt colored hair.”

She knew that secretly he was glad it had happened. She could barely restrain herself. Without replying she left the room. Mrs. Allen excused herself and went home. Professor Taylor began to undo his coveralls. He doubted if the paint would hurt the boys’ hair. But even so, what difference would it make after all, he thought.

Unlike his wife, who before her marriage had known but few black people, and none intimately, Professor Taylor had grown up with black people exclusively. His father, Caleb Taylor, had been apprenticed to the blacksmith on the plantation where he’d grown up as a slave. He had been bought by his master at an early age and had no memory of his own parents. He was twenty-seven years old and the father of four, when the Civil War ended. After the war he had remained on the plantation and worked for the owner.

Caleb was a short, powerful man with coal-black skin and incredibly kinky hair. Professor Taylor had inherited his father’s physique, but they were nothing alike in temperament. When it served a point, Professor Taylor often feigned anger he didn’t feel. But his father had possessed a truly ungovernable temper. Soon after Caleb was freed he had a row with his former overseer and felled him with a singletree. He left him for dead and fled the country. His wife got word in time to flee with her children. He never had word of them again.

A year later, in another section of Georgia, he married again. His second wife was also an ex-slave, but they were married in a church by a traveling evangelist. She was as black as Caleb, but frail. They had five children, three boys and two girls. Professor Taylor was the third born. He was fourteen years old when his mother died of consumption and his older sister, Lou, took her place. The oldest son, Henry, left home and became lost to the family. But the three youngest children became a tightly-knit group under Lou’s tender care.

Although Caleb was a good blacksmith, he could barely feed his family. After his trouble with the overseer, he worked only for ex-slaves, and there were but few of them who could afford the services of a blacksmith.

Professor Taylor was the only child to get a college education. All of the others had to sacrifice. He attended a small church college in Georgia and worked at menial jobs to pay for his room and board. It was not until after he began teaching that he could afford to study in Boston. But he didn’t let his poverty or color hold him back. Although he hardly ever had a decent suit of clothes, he wore those he had with an air, and his ingratiating manner endeared him with everyone. He was never lost, never without friends. He could always get a girl.

In part his popularity came from his being a magnificent actor. None knew this so well as his wife, who had learned it to her regret. He could dissemble and pose with such validity that his innermost thoughts and emotions were seldom revealed. Mrs. Taylor despised this characteristic almost as much as she did his color. She thought of it as a slave inheritance. Whenever she saw him scratch his head and assume his attitude of subservience, she was reminded of the fictional character, Uncle Tom. Ofttimes she was struck with the queer notion that he, also, might have been a slave.

Only his wife could make him feel inferior. In the presence of most people he felt a wonderful assurance. But she was so conscious of her white blood she kept him constantly on the defensive. He could never be natural with her. He was either indulgent or resentful. She seemed destined to bring out the worst in him.

Now, added to her contempt for himself, was her attitude toward their children. She wanted to rear them in the belief that they were, in large part, white; that their best traits came from this white inheritance. He wanted to prepare them for the reality of being black. Between them the battle of color raged continuously. But he still wanted her; he still loved her; and deep down he was proud of being married to her.

When he had finished removing his coveralls, he turned to the older child. “Now, Will, you’re getting to be a big boy. You mustn’t do naughty things to upset your mother.”

“He did it,” William said, pointing toward his younger brother.

“Didn’t, didn’t, didn’t!” Charles denied.

“It makes no difference,” his father replied. “You’re the oldest. You have to keep your little brother out of mischief. You must learn to take care of your little brother.”

William looked at him solemnly without replying. He didn’t love his father with the same intensity as he loved his mother, but he was excited and awed by him. At that time Charles loved his father passionately. He loved to go to strange places with him and hold his hand and be made much of by people. And he loved to hear his father’s loud rich voice and his indulgent laugh. His mother he took for granted.

Mrs. Taylor returned with the children’s clothes and dressed them. She had a hard, bitter set to her face. She wouldn’t look at her husband.

“Now don’t fret, honey,” he said. “I’ll have them spanking clean. I’ll get Jethroe to clip their hair—”

“Don’t you dare!” she cried threateningly. “Don’t you dare have Charles’s hair cut.” Mrs. Taylor was one of those persons who believed that cutting a child’s hair at a tender age would ruin its texture. “Don’t you dare! You just have the paint cleaned out and I’ll see to it myself.”

“Now don’t worry, honey. I’ll have it cleaned with turpentine,” he promised.

But once outside he forgot his promise. He became so carried away with telling all the curious neighbors what had happened, unthinkingly he let the barbers clip the boys’ hair and shave their skulls.

At the college hospital their eyes and ears were cleaned and their skins washed with alcohol. The children were excited and happy. It was better than a game. Never before had they been the center of so much fuss and bother. Several members of the staff had gathered about. Professor Taylor told the story again. It was the beginning of a family legend. The students laughed and teased the little tots. The children forgot that they’d been naughty.

In the meantime, as Mrs. Taylor went about cleaning up the mess they had made in the kitchen, she wondered if she’d be able to save Charles’s hair. When mulatto children’s hair turned kinky, the transformation was termed “going back.” To Mrs. Taylor it was more than that. She thought of Charles’s hair as being lost. First, she’d wash it with tar soap, and then she’d apply hot castor oil. She’d have to brush the life back into it. The thought made her suddenly weary. So much care she’d taken—and now to have this happen.

Thomas came in at two-thirty, swinging his books by a leather strap. He kissed his mother fondly. “Can I have a sandwich?” he asked.

He was at an age when children shoot up like beanstalks. “Thomas has a tapeworm,” his mother often teased. “We must feed him enough for himself and his tapeworm too.” At eleven he was taller than his mother, but rather thin. His face was narrow and his eyes set a little close together. He had his father’s large hooked nose and his mother’s thin mouth. Although he was the fairest of the children, his features were strongly Negroid.

She sliced some bread and liverwurst. “The children have gotten themselves all messed up with the paint your father left out in the yard,” she informed him.

He stood eating the sandwich rapidly. “How, Mother?” he asked with his mouth full of food.

She’d warned him repeatedly against talking while chewing, but now she overlooked it. “Your father is so thoughtless. He
will
leave things about for the children to get into. Sometime he’s going to leave his shotgun out and the children are going to kill themselves.”

All of the children loved her voice. It was a small and shallow voice but very pleasant. Often she played the piano and sang for them. But they were hurt and embarrassed by the strident tone it took whenever she spoke of their father.

Tom wanted to know more about what had happened to his little brothers. But he wouldn’t ask. The intonation of her voice made him feel too ill at ease. He couldn’t understand her feelings for his father. It seemed so strange and wrong to him. He thought his father was the greatest man in all the world. He was awed and fascinated by the things his father did.

He’d stop by the shop on his way home from school to watch his father at the forge, see him grip the white glowing metal with the long iron tongs and slam it on the anvil, and then quickly, before it cooled, pound and shape it with short deft strokes of his blacksmith’s hammer. Sparks flew harmlessly against his father’s leather apron. His black face would shine with sweat. The students stood about, frozen to attention.

Tom watched his father work with open-mouthed wonder. He scarcely breathed as the white metal magically took shape and cooled to cherry red. His father would stick the metal back into the forge. A student would turn the handle of the bellows. His father would wipe the sweat from his eyes and see him standing there. He’d smile at him and Tom’s heart would turn over with pride. Again the glowing metal would be slapped upon the anvil and pounded into shape. Then his father would plunge the glowing shape into a pail of water to temper it. The water would hiss and bubble. And Tom would breathe again. Finally a student would plunge his hand into the pail and withdraw a plowshare. Tom believed his father could make anything.

He knew his mother didn’t like his father. She called him “Mister Taylor.” But it was more than that. It was the way she spoke of him, always accusing him of doing something wrong, and the harsh tone of her voice. It hurt him to see his mother’s mouth get so hard and tight. She was so pretty and she had such a nice light way of laughing. It made him tingle inside when she was happy.

He ran up to his room to change his clothes. His mother made him wear a Norfolk suit and long black stockings to school. But after school he could wear his corduroys and let them dangle down his legs.

It was four o’clock when Professor Taylor returned with the children. At sight of their bald, square heads Mrs. Taylor went white. She hadn’t believed that Professor Taylor would go against her expressed wish. Then the blood rushed to her face. For a moment she was speechless with fury.

The change was more pronounced in Charles. He looked like a wax doll before the wig has been attached. But he was not his mother’s beautiful long-haired boy.

“I’ll never forgive you, Mr. Taylor,” she said. “You just did it to spite me.”

“Now, honey, it’s going to grow back,” Professor Taylor said in his sugary, placating voice. “The world hasn’t come to an end. Our little boys have just had their hair cut, that’s all.”

She turned her face away and bit back the recrimination that came to her lips. What was the use, she thought. Her mouth closed in a grim, straight line.

When Charles’s hair began to grow, Mrs. Taylor brushed it endlessly. But the texture had changed to the soft fuzz of beginning kinkiness. She firmly believed that it had been the shaving of his skull that had changed its texture, ft hurt her deeply to know he wouldn’t have straight hair. She felt he’d been deprived of his birthright. Until her death she considered it one of the tragedies of his life.

One evening as she was reading to the children before putting them to bed, Charles said suddenly, “I got wool hair, Mama, just like the black sheep.”

Professor Taylor laughed. But tears came to Mrs. Taylor’s eyes.

“Yes, darling,” she choked, trying to smile. “Just like the little black sheep.”

They were sitting about the living room fireplace, the children sprawled upon the hearth rug, and she and Professor Taylor in the easy chairs. Professor Taylor leaned down and rubbed Charles’s fuzzy head. Mrs. Taylor gave him a look of venom. Charles laughed delightedly.

“Rub mine too, Daddy,” William cried, inching toward his father.

Mrs. Taylor stood up. “It’s time for bed, children,” she said harshly.

When she returned from putting the children to bed she gave her husband a look of infinite contempt. He squirmed guiltily.

“I suppose you’re satisfied,” she accused.

“Yes, I’m glad it’s turning nappy, if that’s what you mean,” he blustered defiantly. “The boy has to be what he is.”

“And what is that, pray?”

“Just a Negro, that’s all; just a Negro. Did you think he’d be white?”

“Must he have kinky hair to be a Negro?”

“I want my children to look like me,” he muttered.

“So they can grow up handicapped and despised?”

“Despised!” His face took on a lowering look. “What do you mean, despised? I suppose you think I’m handicapped and despised?”

“Aren’t you?” The question startled him. “Can’t you see,” she went on, “I want the children to have it better, not just be common pickaninnies.”

“Pickaninnies!” Her thoughtless remark cut him to the quick. “That’s better than being white men’s leavings.”

She whitened with fury. It was the second time he’d slurred her parents but this time was all the more hurting because they were dead, and she revered their memory. Striking back, she said witheringly, “You’re nothing but a shanty nigger and never will be anything else. And you would love nothing better than to have my children turn out to be as low and common as yourself.”