He bent over her. “To think of your crying for me, Joanna! Goodbye, goodbye, my sweet. Remember, I’ll be back Christmas.”
He vanished through the gates, was borne out of her vision. A strange exaltation possessed him. He was sad, but his sadness was as nothing to his joy, his sense of satisfaction. Joanna loved him. She had been unusually capricious since that night in Morningside Park. But now he was sure of her. He smiled steadily from Manhattan Transfer Station to North Philadelphia.
His cousin Louis Boyd met him at Broad Street Station and took him to his great-uncle Peter’s in South Eighteenth Street. The old man almost cried over him.
“You’re Meriwether’s son, but you’re more like your grandfather, Isaiah. He was darker than you, but he held his head high like yours, and you’re going to do what he wanted his son to do. It’s good to see you, boy.”
He registered at the University the next day, consulted catalogues, met professors, wrote a glowing letter to Joanna. By the end of the week he was desperately homesick. He would have gone over to New York if he had not been so ashamed, and if he had not been expected to dinner at Louis Boyd’s.
“Tell you what’s the matter with you, fellow,” said Louis when Peter had told him of his nostalgia, “you want to meet a few girls. We’ll start out after dinner.”
Peter did not think this would help much. He wanted Joanna, though he said nothing about that to Louis. Astonishingly, however, the cure worked.
Louis seemed to know half of colored Philadelphia. “Mighty nice girls in this man’s town, I can tell you. They’ll take to you, Peter, because, of course, you’re a Bye. Mentioned your name to old Mrs. Viny the other day and she told me to be sure to bring you around. She’d like to meet an ‘old Philadelphian,’ even if he had been living a while in New York.”
The girls deserved the nice things Louis said about them. They were pretty, nicely dressed and a shining contrast to the dingy streets and old-fashioned houses in which most of them lived. Peter was pleasantly struck, too, by the apparent lack of aspiration on the part of most of them. They seemed to be pretty well satisfied with being girls. A few were able to live home, many sewed, a number of others taught. There was no talk of art, of fame, of preparation for the future among them. Peter spoke of it to Arabelle Morton, the last girl to whose house Louis took him.
“Well, of course we want to get married, and we’re not spoiling our chances by being highbrows. Wouldn’t you like to come and play cards next Friday night, Mr. Bye? There’ll be just two tables, then afterwards we might dance. I’m sure you’d like it.”
Peter thought so, too. He liked Arabelle already and her friendly shallowness. He wrote to Joanna:
“Tell you what, Jan, I think I’m going to like Philly very much. Being Isaiah Bye’s grandson seems to help me no end. They actually consider me an ‘old Philadelphian’ and on the strength of that alone I’ve had four dinner invitations from elderly people to meet other ‘old Philadelphians.’ Some of them old enough, too, I’ll say. However, the dinners are fine and come in very handy for a struggling student. I don’t board at Uncle Peter’s, you see.
“There’re lots of jolly girls here. Of course, they’re not like yours and Sylvia’s crowd, bent on climbing to the top of a profession—well, Sylvia wasn’t that way so much—but they’re a very nice bunch and they have been most kind to your humble servant. …
“Do you remember that day in the Park? Joanna darling, what are you going to say to me when I come back Christmas?
His letters to Joanna reacted to his own advantage. He felt he must be able to tell her truthfully of his success in his studies, of his ability to fit into this new life. Joanna was interested in him with a deep personal interest such as she had never exhibited before, and he meant to keep it alive. These were with one exception the most wholesome, most formative days of Peter’s life. He had youth, he had inspiration, he had the promise of love, with much hard labor to keep it.
Many of the colored boys lived in West Philadelphia. They had a fraternity, and though according to their laws he could not be taken in during his freshman year, it was plain that this honor would be extended to him as soon as he became a sophomore. He was pretty well liked, and was constantly receiving invitations to spend the night across the river. One or two of the boys lived in the dormitories and he was frequently offered a chance to see something of this side of college life.
But his steadiness surprised himself. He got his meals in a restaurant on Woodland Avenue, worked faithfully in the Library between classes, and completed the rest of his assignments at night in his Uncle’s sitting room. The old fellow loved to see him there. He pictured in Peter the restoration of the Bye family in Philadelphia.
To eke out his scanty bank account, he played three nights a week in a dance hall at Sixteenth and South Streets. Saturday afternoons he did track work. Friday and Sunday he spent at Arabelle Morton’s or at Lawyer Talbert’s on Christian Street. This latter and his family consisting of two sons and two daughters, were the relatives with whom the Marshalls stayed on their visits to Philadelphia. He found them very enjoyable. One of the boys was an undertaker but with a disposition far less lugubrious than his calling. The other was in the Wharton School of Finance at Pennsylvania and was to read law later at Harvard. Both girls were young and
