“You white men set yrselves up as the image of God, but which of you have seen Him? You have seen Genl Sibley & you have seen Govr Ramsey but which of you has seen God? Maybe He is dark, like the Indians and me, and maybe He is all colors, or no color at all, like a rock in the moonlight.
“I have been reading the Scriptures a gd deal lately & found a text to tell you whites, He that hateth Me hateth my Father also. Excuse writing as my hands are stiff I froze them last week getting a missionary out of some rapids when his canoe upset, he asked me, Can you or the heathen Indians read & write?”
* * * * *
Neil admired, “There is blood royal for Biddy to be proud of.” Then he laughed. He could hear Clem Brazenstar jeering, “That’s the trouble with all you mulattoes. You got to be so high and biggety, while the rest of us only want good jobs and a good seegar!”
* * * * *
As December froze its way toward Christmas, the family avoided Neil except for urgent private conferences at which only Charles Sayward seemed quite human—and firmly hostile. The rest of the tribe were either touchy or desperately respectful.
Pat Saxinar was constantly running in. To an extent which did not at all please Vestal, Pat assumed that Neil and she were underground conspirators, and she had tales for him of how frantically Harold Whittick and Alice were sniffing at Brother Robert to see if he really had done the foul crime of getting himself born a Negro.
Vestal did not again speak of “that other Xavier Pic,” and Neil guessed that while consciously she would not believe in his piebald origin, deep down and hopelessly she was certain. She held Biddy on her lap and looked at her so long.
He remembered how she had skipped through the sacred chores of Christmas a year ago, while now she sighed, “There’s still such a post-war shortage of all the pretty things; let’s not try to get any new Christmas-tree ornaments this year, but use the old junk.” In pity he saw that her zest in life was being wiped out, saw that he and his social justice had done this to her.
They did try to make a festival of Christmas shopping. They lunched together at the Fiesole Room, looking at the unconscious Drexel Greenshaw as at an unwelcome relative. They struggled through the human surf at Tarr’s Emporium. Levi Tarr, who had been a colonel four months ago, was now trying to learn again how to rub his hands and be piously attentive to women who wanted an electric refrigerator for forty-nine ninety-five. He shepherded them through the toy-department, calling them Neil and Vestal, and when with slightly heavy secrecy they parted, to shop for each other, he murmured to Neil that he could get a very fine thing for Vestal in the way of matching bracelet, earrings, necklace, in brilliants.