The girl had finally reached the bursar’s window and was paying her fees, and loudly differing with the cashier about the total amount due.
“I tell you it ain’t that much,” she shouted through the window bars. “I figured it up myself before I left home.”
The cashier obligingly turned to her adding machine and once more obtained the same total. When shown this, the girl merely grinned, examined the list closely, and said:
“I’m gonna’ pay it, but I still think you’re wrong.”
Finally she moved away from the window, but not before she had turned to Emma Lou and said, “You’re next,” and then proceeded to wait until Emma Lou had finished.
Emma Lou vainly sought some way to escape, but was unable to do so, and had no choice but to walk with the girl to the registrar’s office where they had their cards stamped in return for the bursar’s receipt. This done, they went onto the campus together. Hazel Mason was the girl’s name. Emma Lou had fully expected it to be either Hyacinth or Geranium. Hazel was from Texas, Prairie Valley, Texas, and she told Emma Lou that her father, having become quite wealthy when oil had been found on his farmlands, had been enabled to realize two life ambitions—obtain a Packard touring car and send his only daughter to a “fust-class” white school.
Emma Lou had planned to loiter around the campus. She was still eager to become acquainted with the colored members of the student body, and this encounter with the crass and vulgar Hazel Mason had only made her the more eager. She resented being approached by anyone so flagrantly inferior, anyone so noticeably a typical southern darky, who had no business obtruding into the more refined scheme of things. Emma Lou planned to lose her unwelcome companion somewhere on the campus so that she could continue unhindered her quest for agreeable acquaintances.
But Hazel was as anxious to meet someone as was Emma Lou, and having found her was not going to let her get away without a struggle. She, too, was new to this environment and in a way was more lonely and eager for the companionship of her own kind than Emma Lou, for never before had she come into such close contact with so many whites. Her life had been spent only among Negroes. Her fellow pupils and teachers in school had always been colored, and as she confessed to Emma Lou, she couldn’t get used “to all these white folks.”
“Honey, I was just achin’ to see a black face,” she had said, and, though Emma Lou was experiencing the same ache, she found herself unable to sympathize with the other girl, for Emma Lou classified Hazel as a barbarian who had most certainly not come from a family of best people. No doubt her mother had been a washerwoman. No doubt she had innumerable relatives and friends all as ignorant and as ugly as she. There was no sense in anyone having a face as ugly as Hazel’s, and Emma Lou thanked her stars that though she was black, her skin was not rough and pimply, nor was her hair kinky, nor were her nostrils completely flattened out until they seemed to spread all over her face. No wonder people were prejudiced against dark skinned people when they were so ugly, so haphazard in their dress, and so boisterously mannered as was this present specimen. She herself was black, but nevertheless she had come from a good family, and she could easily take her place in a society of the right sort of people.
The two strolled along the lawn-bordered gravel path which led to a vine-covered building at the end of the campus. Hazel never ceased talking. She kept shouting at Emma Lou, shouting all sorts of personal intimacies as if she were desirous of the whole world hearing them. There was no necessity for her to talk so loudly, no necessity for her to afford everyone on the crowded campus the chance to stare and laugh at them as they passed. Emma Lou had never before been so humiliated and so embarrassed. She felt that she must get away from her offensive companion. What did she care if she had to hurt her feelings to do so. The more insulting she could be now, the less friendly she would have to be in the future.
“Goodbye,” she said abruptly, “I must go home.” With which she turned away and walked rapidly in the opposite direction. She had only gone a few steps when she was aware of the fact that the girl was following her. She quickened her pace, but the girl caught up with her and grabbing hold of Emma Lou’s arm, shouted, “Whoa there, Sally.”
It seemed to Emma Lou as if everyone on the campus was viewing and enjoying this minstrel-like performance. Angrily she tried to jerk away, but the girl held fast.
“Gal, you sure walk fast. I’m going your way. Come on, let me drive you home in my buggy.”
And still holding on to Emma Lou’s arm, she led the way to the side street where the students parked their cars. Emma Lou was powerless to resist. The girl didn’t give her a chance, for she held tight, then immediately resumed the monologue which Emma Lou’s attempted leave-taking had interrupted. They reached the street, Hazel still talking loudly, and making elaborate gestures with her free hand.
“Here we are,” she shouted, and releasing Emma Lou’s arm, salaamed before a sport model Stutz roadster. “Oscar,” she continued, “meet the new girlfriend. Pleased to meetcha, says he. Climb aboard.”
And Emma Lou had climbed aboard, perplexed, chagrined, thoroughly angry, and disgusted. What was this little black fool doing with a Stutz roadster? And of course, it would be painted
