National Baptist world., 1894-09-21
A WAY OUT.
Aunt James View Of the World
and It's Opportunities.

and It's Opportunities
"Peace and happiness, truth and
justice, religion and piety"-the words
from the church service came to mind
unbidden wien one looked at her.
She was plain little woman on the
shady side of sixty, sitting in streak
of wintry sunshine seeding raisins,
and seeding them so earnestly she
failed to notice the opening of the
door.
1t opened, swinging back to the
wall, and Maria Clendennin entered
with a quick step, her face flushed,
and unrest written plainly in her dark
eyes.
Life is an awful muddle!'' she said,
and she seized the poker and stabbed
fercely at the soft-coal fire. "'Tis
enough to drive woman crazy just to
be alive nowadays. And there you
sit, Aunt Jane. with face like-well,
you always make me think of the
'Hallelujah Chorus in the Messiah
and | believe Handel would say so
himself ii he could see you"
Aunt Jane was little deaf "What's
the child talking about?" she said,
glancing over her spectacles. The eyes
were dark and bright as though
spark glinted through them. The
hallelujah was in the face, but it was
written there not by the touch of an
angel; it was the victory of battle,
and the peace was the rest after war
fare.
Maria had come to the border of her
battlefield now, to the confines Of the
broad plain mistily bounded by the
other world, where each earnest wOm-
an, looking out on the every-days. the
playground Of youth outgrown, be-
gins to realize that ones living soul,
an everlasting life, is an awful thing
TO fo' have ones keeping.
II believe" she said, slowly, ''yes, [
verify believe I'll take to paper roses
and lamp shades, and bonbons and
matinees. I'll put on my rose-colored
glasses and walk only on Fifth avenue,
and then I'll forget there is any Five
Points, and I'll be happy"
''Oh, no, my dear thee won't The
Clendennins aren't made for tissue
paper and cream drops. Thy grand
father was burned out of house and
home for daring to say black man
had rights; but he continued to say it
louder and louder"
But, Aunt Jane, the world is so
fierce now. People used to live their
little lives; but now society is bubbling
and boiling and seething over ques-
tions nobody can answer though ever
body is trying to-"
THE bubbling and boiling began in
a little town in Palestine nineteen
hundred years ago, and it's spreading
that's all, my DEAR" was the reply.
'Well, l wish I'd lived before the
spreading began, when Julius Caesar
did, for instance How delightful to
sit on the best seat IN a circus, and
Just for the whim of the moment, make
or mar life by turn of ones thumb
no conscience then to bother any
body. I've tried skimming over life
till felt was dancing on graves, and
Nv tried diving into it till my hair is
gray at twenty-five, over other peo-
ple's woes. This very afternoon I've
been perched for two hours on hard
wooden settee, to hear Mrs. Lydia
Mary Potts tell us all the horrors Of
underpaid buttonholes and overpaid
landlords, of damp, shivery cellars,
and sitting, stuffy garrets, till | feel
like a voracious criminal in having a
third-story room and bed to myself .
A look of sympathy crept into the
face under the plain Quaker cap.
Maria quietly set the raisins aside,
pushed stool towards her aunt, and
sat down.
1T is too dark to see the seeds,
of YOU now.' 'This winter" she add.
ed, shyly, 1--WE been trying to brighten
my little corner Of the whole, and Mrs.
Lydia Mary tells me from the platform
that I'm pauperizing the masses.
Awhile ago another woman told lis
that education was the key to unlock
the problem. Teach, teach, teach,
she said, and it sounded practical. Sc
by wearing last years bonnet and
shabby gloves I've put shoes on theil
cold little feet and oatmeal into theil
empty little stomachs, and kept Patsy
and Billy at school all winter. Now
find I'm making paupers' of the boys
and thought / was making citizens,
and there was a tremble in the voice.
did the Oracle propose a bette,
way Of making citizens?" said the
quiet voice. The voice was quiet, but
the eyes were afire.
Il can't remember that she proposed
anything to do. The world seems just
a dreary, helpless, hopeless blunder
and I've been battered against great
stone wall, not a CLEAN of light
through it, nor even a Granny where
one could get foothold to climb up te
the light"
'sAhem!" said Aunt Jane; talk il
cheap"