The age-herald., 1901-04-09
An Easter Lily of Birmingham.

"Shug-mah Easter lily-come on, mom- mer's shug-lump!"
 Black as blackest midnight, little ne- gro girl in glaring white raiment, and wearing a white and pink Easter hat that Topped like a square yard of insecure canvas, toddled along the crowded, sum bright, and windswept street, following her mother, a blackest woman who was humbly attired and with a bandanna
 woven about her coal black head.
 "Shug-mah Easter lily-come on, mom-
 mer's shug-lump!'
 The repeated admonition of the black
 mother fell rythmically, almost like a chant, in the language of the race that scorns aspirates and sibilants and rolls
 vowels with wonderous softness. "Shugs the black little Easter lily of the Birmingham streets. was wee and | quaint as brownie. and weirdly pictur-
 esque. Her great Easter hat, the precious price of all the mothers savings, assumed all conceivable shapes as the wind twist
 ed it's vast brim, and as 1t was blown
 upward in front there was disclosed a perfectly round black face stolid and
 smleless, with round, beady black eyes,
 an apology for a fiat nose, and open
 mouth. showing the whitest teeth in the
 world-the marvellous teeth so charac- teristic of the negroes of the south. About
 her thin neck was wound great ribbon
 of brilliant. far-reaching red, the red idest of all possible reds. and similar rib
 bon gathered the little white dress about
 the big and shapeless waist. The white 4t, l,1, H. 1r,,A a,>I
 on the little legs, wonderfully bowed and
 looking for all the world like the pot
 hooks of the old-time kitchen were white
 stockings, and the pigeon-toed feet were
 encased in low shoes with blue laces per- fectly new.
 "Shug-mah Easter lily-come on, mom-
 mer's shug-lump!' gtf | The proud mother. unquestionably born
 in slavery, was unquestionably ''corn- | field nigger'' come to town to dwell, and l she might have been in other and hap | pier days one of those beloved old black
 mammies, idolized at one time by every southerner who has now reached forty, l and my many who are younger. "Mon-
 mer", black as the most ebony hour that | ever beguiled a dreamer, was fat and
 round and rolling. She waddled as the
 toddled ahead of her Easter lily, her
 poor. cheap garments wrinkled and out of shape her bandanna-covered head
 moving in all directions ceaselessly, her | fat hands gatherel under her abundant apron and with a smile on her face that might have played on the lips of a fat | black angel, she passed slowly along the | crowded way the proudest and happiest l figure in all the sunlit valley. | s.Shug-mah Easter lily-Cone on, mom-
 mers shug-lump"
 Positively the mothers great Joy of
 pride was beautiful to see! Whenever
 she saw twoSor more loiterers looking at her or at that oldest child that ever
 knew an Easter, she would stop and turn
 around and plaintiyely and rythmicaliy | chant, "Shug-mah Easter lily-come on mom- | mers shug-lump
 | Then she would look proudly almost | dehantly, at those who were observing | her and "Shug," as if she would say to | them: Behold; give you the inestimable | privilege of looking upon the most beau | tiful creature that treads the uncertain
 paths of this planet! Be grateful for my
 condescension." It was pathetic after all,
 Snug and her doting ''mommer." Per
 haps twenty times in the course of three squares of the city. the black mammy | stopped, turned around, and chanted with infinite tenderness and the unmeas- ured pathos of the poor and lowly: | "Shug-mah Easter lily-come on, mom- | mers shug-lump!''.,
 | And so saying they two passed out of
 view, and never word spoke poor little Snug" ,,s
 Nay, mother, resume that spirit. when you were wont to say. if you had been the
 wife of Hercules, six of his labors you'ld
 have done.'" quoth a bachelor who is to ved iY, luna