The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-11-24
"SHE DRAWED OUT"
What Aunt Dinah Said
to the Agent Man.
Supreme Court Opinion as Good as a
Short Story. A Slick Insurance
Guy and a equality Niger"
All There but Dialect.

Court proceedings, like placer min
ing, require a deal of digging to get
either humour or human interest, al
though both are bound up in every
suit and action. 1t is occasionally
however, that one finds pocket of
the virgin stuff. pure and undefiled.
When such a find is made, it is the
more delightful by reason of the sur
prise.
This is anticipatory of the story re-
vealed in an opinion of Justice Common
of how Dinah Caldwell ancient relic
of the 'ole issue" made a savings bank
out of an insurance company. The
way the opinion is put together would
have done justice to writer of short
fiction of the sort that seeks to pre-
sent a type. 1t is crisp, clear, photo
graphic in its character drawing. AS
one reads he gets the spirit of the
piece-the pleasure of the contrast,
the joy indebted which follows on SIM
plicity conquering shrewdness by its
own weight How Dinah was toyed
with by the insurance agent. how IN
the end she took her 'trubbleS to de
cote and how she won out nave a
fascinating charm. One can see the
plaintiff, broad hipped, oily-faced, with
her small red eyes sunk in her head
and her ample busom heaving with
the inbred scorn of the old darkey
for the trash that takes up time with
niggers. He sees the -patronizlng,
parity deferential and wholly persua-
sive picture of the slick industrial
agent. He comes upon the inevitable
surrender of the cook with start, he
agonizes with her in the realization
of the fact that her savings are in
danger, he throws up his hat at the
h. a
cue like a good fairy and the old
negress retires smiling from the stage
with her gains done up in red BAN
danna,-yet muttering her wrath as
she departs.
While the story is told in the words
of the witness, with the dialect left out,
it has been put together with the hand
of an artist The author-Jurist makes
a careful approach. Dinah CaldWell
was IAN iliterate colored woman. nav
ing ten children. That sometime dur
ing the year 1905, while she was en-
gagged as a cook at the Buford Hotel
in Charlotte, the superintendent or the
defendant company sent for her TO
come to his office. That upon going
to the office, he asked her if she had
any objection to being written up, to
which she replied that she knew noth-
ing about ibid not know what IN
surance meant. He said that he would
tell her, to which she replied that if
he did, she would know nothing about
it then, to which he replied.
'''Youf will have d nice carriage and
a nice funeral
'.She said: L can't feel the ride in
the hearse and / can't see the funeral
procession
He said: You will have q heap of
money.
"She replied: L don't want the mon
ey if | am dead. | nave got to go to
work at three o'clock in the morning
and am not going to take my money
to pay insurance.
He said: Il will tell you what you
can do. You can come in for ten
years and after ten years you can go
out.
"She said: 4 don't know anything
about this. | have been living with
white people ever since l was born.
L don't know anything about it and
| don't want to fool with it.
He said: 'Aunty you can go in for
ten years He said that after ten
years. ] could draw out the claim and
if ANYTHING happened to me, the claim
would be paid
Here it all iS-the victim. of SIM
pie race combating vainly against Sc
ductive wiles with native common
sense, resisting appeals that touched
her vanity and her inclinations. dis
truStfuI with the intuition of child;
the willy agent eXerting all his arts,
even making a joke for his own amuse-
ment over the head of his ignorant
prey-"you can go in and then you
can go out" Then the final touch,
when the agent came down to real
business and called her "aunty" and,
somehow, because maybe that sounded
so much like the old-time white folks,
she yielded-and her troubles began.
Soon she went out indeed, without
even drawing her breath though she
wasted much of 1t in going
from office to office and
agent to agent, entering indignant.
coming away puzzled with the flow of
words from oily lips. And then the
lawyers took it up and the case came
TO the Supreme court and the court
decided that all that Aunt Dinah
had paid should come back TO her with
interest, and Aunt Dinah hev done
drawed out.
1t is a sordid soul that will not wish
her a merry quilting party.
But it is d pity that a photograph
and a stenographer and a photograph
could not have gone into that court
record:
An upward glancing flash of white
eye-ball a snort, placing of arms
akimbo:
"Whut good dat money gwiner do
me, huh? l doant know muffin bout
dis here surance biZness, no-how.
What | want er money when Use