She herself, appointed two years previously, had had no such luck. Strictly speaking there are no coloured schools as such in Philadelphia. Yet, by an unwritten law, although coloured children may be taught by white teachers, white children must never receive knowledge at the hands of coloured instructors. As the number of coloured Normal School graduates is steadily increasing, the city gets around this difficulty by manning a school in a district thickly populated by Negroes, with a coloured principal and a coloured teaching force. Coloured children living in that district must thereupon attend that school. But no attention is paid to the white children who leave this same district for the next nearest white or “mixed” school.
Angela had been sixth on the list of coloured graduates. Five had been appointed, but there was no vacancy for her, and for several months she was idle with here and there a day, perhaps a week of substituting. She could not be appointed in any but a coloured school, and she was not supposed to substitute in any but this kind of classroom. Then her father discovered that a young white woman was teaching in a coloured school. He made some searching inquiries and was met with the complacent rejoinder that as soon as a vacancy occurred in a white school, Miss McSweeney would be transferred there and his daughter could have her place.
Just as she had anticipated, Angela did not want the job after she received it. She had expected to loathe teaching little children and her expectation, it turned out, was perfectly well grounded. Perhaps she might like to teach drawing to grownups; she would certainly like to have a try at it. Meanwhile it was nice to be independent, to be holding a ladylike, respectable position so different from her mother’s early days, to be able to have pretty clothes and to help with the house, in brief to be drawing an appreciably adequate and steady salary. For one thing it made it possible for her to take up work at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts at Broad and Cherry.
Jinny was in excellent spirits at dinner. “Now, Mummy darling, you really shall walk in silk attire and siller hae to spare.” Angela’s appointment had done away with the drudgery of washday. “We’ll get Hettie Daniels to come in Saturdays and clean up. I won’t have to scrub the front steps any more and everything will be feasting and fun.” Pushing aside her plate she rushed over to her father, climbed on his knee and flung her lovely bronze arms around his neck. She still adored him, still thought him the finest man in the world; she still wanted her husband to be just exactly like him; he would not be so tall nor would he be quite as dark. Matthew Henson was of only medium height and was a sort of reddish yellow and he distinctly was not as handsome as her father. Indeed Virginia thought, with a pang of shame at her disloyalty, that it would have been a fine thing if he could exchange his lighter skin for her father’s colour if in so doing it he might have gained her father’s thick, coarsely grained but beautifully curling, open black hair. Matthew had inherited his father’s thick, tight, “bad” hair. Only, thank heaven, it was darker.
Junius tucked his slender daughter back in the hollow of his arm.
“Well, baby, you want something off my plate?” As a child Virginia had been a notorious beggar.
“Darling! I was thinking that now you could buy Mr. Hallowell’s car. He’s got his eye on a Cadillac, Kate says, and he’d be willing to let Henry Ford go for a song.”
Junius was pleased, but he thought he ought to protest. “Do I look as old as all that? I might be able to buy the actual car, now that my girls are getting so monied, but the upkeep, I understand, is pretty steep.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Mattie. “Go on and get it, June. Think how nice it will be riding out North Broad Street in the evenings.”
And Angela added kindly: “I think you owe it to yourself to get it, Dad. Jinny and I’ll carry the house till you get it paid for.”
“Well, there’s no reason of course why I—” he corrected himself, “why we shouldn’t have a car if we want it.” He saw himself spending happy moments digging in the little car’s inmost mysteries. He would buy new parts, change the engine perhaps, paint it and overhaul her generally. And he might just as well indulge himself. The little house was long since paid for; he was well insured, and his two daughters were grown up and taking care of themselves. He slid Jinny off his knee.
“I believe I’ll run over to the Hallowells now and see what Tom’ll take for that car. Catch him before he goes down town in it.”
Virginia called after him. “Just think! Maybe this time next week you’ll be going down town in it.”
She was very happy. Life was turning out just right. She was young, she was twenty, she was about to earn her own living—“to be about to live”—she said, happily quoting a Latin construction which had always intrigued her. Her mother would never have to work again; her father would have a Henry Ford; she herself would get a new, good music teacher and would also take up the study of methods at the University of Pennsylvania.
Angela could hear her downstairs talking to Matthew Henson whose ring she had just answered. “Only think, Matt, I’ve been appointed.”
“Great!” said Matthew. “Is Angela in? Do you think she’d like to go to the movies with me tonight? She was too tired last time. Run up and ask her, there’s a good girl.”
Angela sighed. She
