Old Mam' Henry, and her word may be taken, said that it was "De powerfulles' sehmont she ever had hyeahd in all huh bo'n days." That was saying a good deal, for the old woman had lived many years on the Stone place and had heard many sermons from preachers, white and black. She was a judge, too. It really must have been a powerful sermon that Brother Lucius preached, for Aunt Doshy Scott had fallen in a trance in the middle of the aisle, while "Merlatter Mag," who was famed all over the place for having white folk's religion and...
Short Stories - Post by : ravereview - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 2181
In the failing light of the midsummer evening, two women sat upon the broad veranda that ran round three sides of the old Virginia mansion. One was young and slender with the slightness of delicate girlhood. The other was old, black and ample,--a typical mammy of the old south. The girl was talking in low, subdued tones touched with a note of sadness that was strange in one of her apparent youth, but which seemed as if somehow in consonance with her sombre garments. "No, no, Peggy," she was saying, "we have done the best we could, as well as even...
Short Stories - Post by : JBSikes - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 1827
Part I There was joy in the bosom of Ben Raymond. He sang as he hoed in the field. He cheerfully worked overtime and his labors did not make him tired. When the quitting horn blew he executed a double shuffle as he shouldered his hoe and started for his cabin. While the other men dragged wearily over the ground he sprang along as if all day long he had not been bending over the hoe in the hot sun, with the sweat streaming from his face in rivulets. And this had been going on for two months now--two happy months--ever...
Short Stories - Post by : Scott_Doppke - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 3337
There was great commotion in Zion Church, a body of Christian worshippers, usually noted for their harmony. But for the last six months, trouble had been brewing between the congregation and the pastor. The Rev. Elisha Edwards had come to them two years before, and he had given good satisfaction as to preaching and pastoral work. Only one thing had displeased his congregation in him, and that was his tendency to moments of meditative abstraction in the pulpit. However much fire he might have displayed before a brother minister arose to speak, and however much he might display in the exhortation...
Short Stories - Post by : rrm7777 - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 2312
I Mr. Leckler was a man of high principle. Indeed, he himself had admitted it at times to Mrs. Leckler. She was often called into counsel with him. He was one of those large souled creatures with a hunger for unlimited advice, upon which he never acted. Mrs. Leckler knew this, but like the good, patient little wife that she was, she went on paying her poor tribute of advice and admiration. To-day her husband's mind was particularly troubled,--as usual, too, over a matter of principle. Mrs. Leckler came at his call. "Mrs. Leckler," he said, "I am troubled in my...
Short Stories - Post by : Joe_Coon - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 4268
The man of the house is about to go into the dining-room when he hears voices that tell him that his wife has gone down to give the "hired help" a threatened going over. He quietly withdraws, closes the door noiselessly behind him and listens from a safe point of vantage. One voice is timid and hesitating; that is his wife. The other is fearlessly raised; that is her majesty, the queen who rules the kitchen, and from it the rest of the house. This is what he overhears: "Well, Mis' Ma'tin, hit do seem lak you jes' bent an' boun'...
Short Stories - Post by : pcprofit - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 2911
His name was Patsy Barnes, and he was a denizen of Little Africa. In fact, he lived on Douglass Street. By all the laws governing the relations between people and their names, he should have been Irish--but he was not. He was colored, and very much so. That was the reason he lived on Douglass Street. The negro has very strong within him the instinct of colonization and it was in accordance with this that Patsy's mother had found her way to Little Africa when she had come North from Kentucky. Patsy was incorrigible. Even into the confines of Little Africa...
Short Stories - Post by : Creation - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 7664
Part I When Bertram Halliday left the institution which, in the particular part of the middle west where he was born, was called the state university, he did not believe, as young graduates are reputed to, that he had conquered the world and had only to come into his kingdom. He knew that the battle of life was, in reality, just beginning and, with a common sense unusual to his twenty-three years but born out of the exigencies of a none-too-easy life, he recognized that for him the battle would be harder than for his white comrades. Looking at his own...
Short Stories - Post by : BMInvest - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 3462
For so long a time had Jim been known as the hardest sinner on the plantation that no one had tried to reach the heart under his outward shell even in camp-meeting and revival times. Even good old Brother Parker, who was ever looking after the lost and straying sheep, gave him up as beyond recall. "Dat Jim," he said, "Oomph, de debbil done got his stamp on dat boy, an' dey ain' no use in tryin' to scratch hit off." "But Parker," said his master, "that's the very sort of man you want to save. Don't you know it's your...
Short Stories - Post by : camtex1 - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 1494
Mr. Marston sat upon his wide veranda in the cool of the summer Sabbath morning. His hat was off, the soft breeze was playing with his brown hair, and a fragrant cigar was rolled lazily between his lips. He was taking his ease after the fashion of a true gentleman. But his eyes roamed widely, and his glance rested now on the blue-green sweep of the great lawn, again on the bright blades of the growing corn, and anon on the waving fields of tobacco, and he sighed a sigh of ineffable content. The breath had hardly died on his lips...
Short Stories - Post by : mastew9 - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 1880
It was a beautiful day in balmy May and the sun shone pleasantly on Mr. Cornelius Johnson's very spruce Prince Albert suit of grey as he alighted from the train in Washington. He cast his eyes about him, and then gave a sigh of relief and satisfaction as he took his bag from the porter and started for the gate. As he went along, he looked with splendid complacency upon the less fortunate mortals who were streaming out of the day coaches. It was a Pullman sleeper on which he had come in. Out on the pavement he hailed a cab,...
Short Stories - Post by : metprezi - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 2826
When the holidays came round the thoughts of 'Liza Ann Lewis always turned to the good times that she used to have at home when, following the precedent of anti-bellum days, Christmas lasted all the week and good cheer held sway. She remembered with regret the gifts that were given, the songs that were sung to the tinkling of the banjo and the dances with which they beguiled the night hours. And the eating! Could she forget it? The great turkey, with the fat literally bursting from him; the yellow yam melting into deliciousness in the mouth; or in some more...
Short Stories - Post by : eheyoka - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 3048
It was because the Democratic candidate for Governor was such an energetic man that he had been able to stir Little Africa, which was a Republican stronghold, from centre to circumference. He was a man who believed in carrying the war into the enemy's country. Instead of giving them a chance to attack him, he went directly into their camp, leaving discontent and disaffection among their allies. He believed in his principles. He had faith in his policy for the government of the State, and, more than all, he had a convincing way of making others see as he saw. No...
Short Stories - Post by : martyr - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 2115
Polly Jackson was a model woman. She was practical and hard-working. She knew the value of a dollar, could make one and keep one, sometimes--fate permitting. Fate was usually Sam and Sam was Polly's husband. Any morning at six o'clock she might be seen, basket on arm, wending her way to the homes of her wealthy patrons for the purpose of bringing in their washing, for by this means did she gain her livelihood. She had been a person of hard common sense, which suffered its greatest lapse when she allied herself with the man whose name she bore. After that...
Short Stories - Post by : chris26 - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 3113
It was a drizzly, disagreeable April night. The wind was howling in a particularly dismal and malignant way along the valleys and hollows of that part of Central Kentucky in which the rural settlement of Three Forks is situated. It had been "trying to rain" all day in a half-hearted sort of manner, and now the drops were flying about in a cold spray. The night was one of dense, inky blackness, occasionally relieved by flashes of lightning. It was hardly a night on which a girl should be out. And yet one was out, scudding before the storm, with clenched...
Short Stories - Post by : John_Cabral - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 1954
The rooms of the "Banner" Club--an organization of social intent, but with political streaks--were a blaze of light that Christmas Eve night. On the lower floor some one was strumming on the piano, and upstairs the "ladies" sat, and where the Sunday smokers were held, a man was singing one of the latest coon songs. The "Banner" always got them first, mainly because the composers went there, and often the air of the piece itself had been picked out or patched together, with the help of the "Banner's" piano, before the song was taken out for somebody to set the...
Short Stories - Post by : mare2 - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 2943
Now any one will agree with me that it is entirely absurd for two men to fall out about their names; but then, circumstances alter cases. It had its beginning in 1863, and it has just ended. In the first place, Ike and Jim had been good friends on the plantation, but when the time came for them to leave and seek homes for themselves each wanted a name. The master's name was Johnson, and they both felt themselves entitled to it. When Ike went forth to men as Isaac Johnson, and Jim, not to be outdone, became James Johnsonham, the...
Short Stories - Post by : dswanger - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 1456
Hope is tenacious. It goes on living and working when science has dealt it what should be its deathblow. In the close room at the top of the old tenement house little Lucy lay wasting away with a relentless disease. The doctor had said at the beginning of the winter that she could not live. Now he said that he could do no more for her except to ease the few days that remained for the child. But Martha Benson would not believe him. She was confident that doctors were not infallible. Anyhow, this one wasn't, for she saw life and...
Short Stories - Post by : gregw - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 1382
PART I Luther Hamilton was a great political power. He was neither representative in Congress, senator nor cabinet minister. When asked why he aspired to none of these places of honor and emolument he invariably shrugged his shoulders and smiled inscrutably. In fact, he found it both more pleasant and more profitable simply to boss his party. It gave him power, position and patronage, and yet put him under obligations to no narrow constituency. As he sat in his private office this particular morning there was a smile upon his face, and his little eyes looked out beneath the heavy grey...
Short Stories - Post by : bandit1030 - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 1521
I Silas Jackson was a young man to whom many opportunities had come. Had he been a less fortunate boy, as his little world looked at it, he might have spent all his days on the little farm where he was born, much as many of his fellows did. But no, Fortune had marked him for her own, and it was destined that he should be known to fame. He was to know a broader field than the few acres which he and his father worked together, and where he and several brothers and sisters had spent their youth. Mr. Harold...
Short Stories - Post by : demenev - Date : April 2011 - Author : Paul Laurence Dunbar - Read : 1667
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The Strength Of Gideon
