Page 15 - 1947

with his thin body, too small for six years, his marked limp, his curly black hair, close-cropped, his pale brown skin without a trace of healthy colour, and his unnaturally large dark eyes burning with the inexplicable light which caused passersby to turn. Still dreaming, Lannie enacted the scene as he had lived it that first day. He reached the school where he hoped to find friends with whom he could play as other children did on his street. There were certainly children in the s.;hool.vard just as he had hoped. ~omething-, h o w e v e r . w a s a m i s s ; s o m e - thing was not as he had planned it, for he, Lannie, was not asked to join their groups. Boys and girls were playing taJ!.'. "Red Rover," and marbles; no one invited him to take part. A lonPly little figure, he stood desolately eside. True, he could scarcely run in the taP' games because of his leg, but h" roulrl nlav marbles. He tooK: a step forward: jn,tantaneouslv one knot of h"VS untierl, and moved tow~rd him. He replied t.o their interro!!,'ations rE>a<lily, told his age, name, where he l i v e n . H e thou~rht p e r h a n s t h a t t h i s mi~rht l e a d t o m a k i n g f r i e n r l R . C o n - seauently, at first his af'to'nisment fll- n,nst eyreeded his fear wh"n the child- " " . . , "~,. 1 - "rl f r n m h i m a n d v e l l e d u n - intelliP"ihlv in harsh voices. But. when he f<>lt the stin.l!.' of the gravel upon h i s f a c e a n d CHU!!,'ht t h p on<> w o r d h e knPw, he turned and hohhled awav with P'l'PH!: f'ohs r.boking- him :omd the "rips of "Crinple!" anrl "Ni ~·e:er!" ring- in.,. in hi!'l ears. In h:s sleop, Lannie thP.n ""r""·med aloud.
Of course when he had reached home that day, dusty and scratched from the gravel onslaught, bruised and torn inwardly, his mother h~d attempt- ed an explanation of the childrens' attitude and action. He had under- stood about their cry of "cripple." He had only to look at his left foot to comprehend that, but-"nigger!" Why had they shouted this word at him'! He was not black-skinned. How could one explain mixed race to a mere baby? How could one tell him of his white mother and Negro father, the father whom he had never seen? It was a thing impossible and Lannie'.> mother had been able only to cleanse and soothe her son's outward wounds, and hope that he might forget.
;But Lannie did not forget, although he never again mentioned the incident to his mother. How could he forget when constant reminders accompanied almost every school day? There were
no more abuses of a physical nature-- his mother's protest had seen to that- but new epithets were added daily to the tormentors' vocabulary. "Darkie !", "Club-foot!", "Dirty blacks!"-all these and others were flung at him. Their sting exceeded the sharpness and rut of the gravel, but Lannie bore insult with an outward passivety almost equal to apparent unconcern. Inwardly at first, the taunts lacerated and cut his spirit leaving great raw welts which caused him unbelievable pain. These open wounds slowly ·evolved to bruises, and as the soul produced its toughened scar tissue, only the imperfectly healed marks remained. And what brought this change? It was not that Lannie had found child companions, for that unfulfilled yearning had been the hardest of all cuts to bear. No, it was not a friend, but a dream which had made him somewhat impervious to ·abuse-a dream awakened by a cheap button, a dream of happiness and play- mates.
To the brush-peddler, Lannie was only one of the manv "kids" to whom he gave trinkets of some kind. He fou~-d that favourable attention shown to a nossible buyer's off-spring fre· oueTlt.ly brought f'atisfactory results. A "nrosnect" often became it "sale" with clever inP"ration of this type. He c~>rt.ainly was innocent of intent to in- Rtill anv deRire or honP in the bov. To him th;, button was nothing; to Lannie it. was :l svmbol of >1ll t.he things for which his lonely self lon.,.ed. It rep- rPsent.Pd ">ttisfact.ion. fnlfiJmPnt of all hio: frnst.r,t.ed nesireR. pPaCe, ann rnmnq.n·ionshiP. ThPSe were his need<;. fnr is it not true that m»n i" a social "nimRl? And was not !.annie a man ;,., the makine:? For minutes at a t:m" he would g-aze at his emblem o-f' hqnpinef:s, f'ePing not a mere piece of trnmperv. p11t hh; Pxistance aR he want.efl it l'ln<l aR it should have bPen. T .nol\ at th<> children nlaving tmretber! What was the game on which you must han on rne leg? Fe could do that and not use his bad foot at all. And in the corner. waRn't that a bov with dark skin? Not black. of course. but rertainlv darker than his companion's. After all, he was not black either; yet they had called him "nigger." He wondered whv ... still that would not matter if he lived in Kinot. There, all the children played together. The nicture on the pin proved it. Oh, if he could only go there-to Kinot! No more standing alone while the others romped and shouted together, no more
C. C. I. GLEANER 13