“I’ll have to see Givens,” said Matthew as they turned to leave the room.
“Here he comes now,” Bunny announced.
Sure enough, the little gray-faced, bald-headed man, came leaping up the stairs like a goat, his face haggard, his eyes bulging in mingled rage and terror, his necktie askew. He was waving a newspaper in his hand and opened his mouth without speaking as he shot past them and dashed into Helen’s room. The old fellow was evidently out of his head.
They followed him into the room in time to see him with his face buried in the covers of Helen’s bed and she, horrified, glancing at the six-inch-tall headline. Matthew rushed to her side as she slumped back on the pillow in a dead faint. The physician and nurse dashed to revive her. The old man on his knees sobbed hoarsely. Mrs. Givens looking fifteen years older appeared in the doorway. Bunny glanced at Matthew who slightly lowered his left eyelid and with difficulty suppressed a smile.
“We’ve got to get out o’ this!” shouted the Imperial Grand Wizard. “We’ve got to get out o’ this. Oh, it’s terrible. … I never knew it myself, for sure. … Oh, Matthew, get us out of this, I tell you. They almost mobbed me at the office. … Came in just as I went out the back way. … Almost ten thousand of them. … We can’t lose a minute. Quick, I tell you! They’ll murder us all.”
“I’ll look out for everything,” Matthew soothed condescendingly. “I’ll stick by you.” Then turning swiftly to his partner he commanded, “Bunny order both cars out at once. We’ll beat it for the airport. … Doctor Brocker, will you go with us to look out for Helen and the baby? We’ve got to get out right now. I’ll pay you your price.”
“Sure I’ll go, Mr. Fisher,” said the physician, quietly. “I wouldn’t leave Mrs. Fisher now.”
The nurse had succeeded in bringing Helen to consciousness. She was weeping bitterly, denouncing fate and her father. With that logicality that frequently causes people to accept as truth circumstantial evidence that is not necessarily conclusive, she was assuming that the suspiciously brown color of her newborn son was due to some hidden Negro drop of blood in her veins. She looked up at her husband beseechingly.
“Oh, Matthew, darling,” she cried, her long red-gold hair framing her face, “I’m so sorry about all this. If I’d only known, I’d never have let you in for it. I would have spared you this disgrace and humiliation. Oh, Matthew, Honey, please forgive me. I love you, my husband. Please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me!” She reached out and grasped the tail of his coat as if he were going to leave that very minute.
“Now, now, little girl,” said Matthew soothingly, touched by her words, “You haven’t disgraced me; you’ve honored me by presenting me with a beautiful son.”
He looked down worshipfully at the chubby, ball of brownness in the nurse’s arms.
“You needn’t worry about me, Helen. I’ll stick by you as long as you’ll have me and without you life wouldn’t be worth a dime. You’re not responsible for the color of our baby, my dear. I’m the guilty one.”
Dr. Brocker smiled knowingly, Givens rose up indignantly, Bunny opened his mouth in surprise, Mrs. Givens folded her arms and her mouth changed to a slit and the nurse said “Oh!”
“You?” cried Helen in astonishment.
“Yes, me,” Matthew repeated, a great load lifting from his soul. Then for a few minutes he poured out his secret to the astonished little audience.
Helen felt a wave of relief go over her. There was no feeling of revulsion at the thought that her husband was a Negro. There once would have been but that was seemingly centuries ago when she had been unaware of her remoter Negro ancestry. She felt proud of her Matthew. She loved him more than ever. They had money and a beautiful, brown baby. What more did they need? To hell with the world! To hell with society! Compared to what she possessed, thought Helen, all talk of race and color was damned foolishness. She would probably have been surprised to learn that countless Americans at that moment were thinking the same thing.
“Well,” said Bunny, grinning, “it sure is good to be able to admit that you’re a jigwalk once more.”
“Yes, Bunny,” said old man Givens, “I guess we’re all niggers now.”
“Negroes, Mr. Givens, Negroes,” corrected Dr. Brocker, entering the room. “I’m in the same boat with the rest of you, only my dark ancestors are not so far back. I sure hope the Republicans win.”
“Don’t worry, Doc,” said Bunny. “They’ll win all right. And how! Gee whiz! I bet Sherlock Holmes, Nick Carter and all the Pinkertons couldn’t find old Senator Kretin and Arthur Snobbcraft now.”
“Come on,” shouted the apprehensive Givens, “let’s get out o’ here before that mob comes.”
“Whut mob, Daddy?” asked Mrs. Givens.
“You’ll find out damn quick if you don’t shake it up,” replied her husband.
Through the crisp, autumn night air sped Fisher’s big tri-motored plane, headed southwest to the safety of Mexico. Reclining in a large, comfortable deck chair was Helen Fisher, calm and at peace with the world. In a hammock near her was her little brown son, Matthew, Junior. Beside her, holding her hand, was Matthew. Up front near the pilot, Bunny and Givens were playing Conquian. Behind them sat the nurse and Dr. Brocker, silently gazing out of the window at the twinkling lights of the Gulf Coast. Old lady Givens snored in the rear of the ship.
“Damn!” muttered Givens, as Bunny threw down his last spread and won the third consecutive game. “I sure wish I’d had time to grab some jack before we pulled out o’ Atlanta. Ain’t got but five dollars and fifty-three cents to my name.”
“Don’t worry about that, Old Timer,” Bunny laughed. “I don’t think we left over a thousand bucks in the treasury. See that steel box over there? Well, that
