she had cried, between dabs at her already cologne-choked nose, “it a dam' pity shame.”
Another girl, the eldest of the lot (Miss Buckner had had seven in all), had oh! ages before given birth to a pretty, gray-eyed baby boy, when she was but seventeen, and, much to Miss Buckner's disgrace, had later taken up with a willing young mulatto, a Christian in the Moravian church, and brutishly undertaken the burdens of concubinage. He was able, honest, industrious and wore shoes, but Miss Buckner nearly went mad—groaned at the pain her wayward daughters were bringing her. "Oh, Gahd," she cried, “Oh, Gahd, dem ah send me to de dawgs . . . dem ah send me to de dawgs!” Clerk in the cold storage; sixty dollars a month . . . wages of an accursed “Silver” employee. Silver is nigger; nigger is silver. Nigger-silver . . . blah! Why, debated Miss Buckner, stockings couldn't be bought with that, much more take care of a woman accustomed to "foxy clothes an' such” and a dazzling baby boy. Silver employee! Why couldn't he be a "Gold” employee . . . and get $125 a month, like "de fella nex' tarrim, he?” He did not get coal and fuel free, besides. He had to dig down and pay extra for them. He was not, alas! white. And that hurt, worried Miss Buckner. Caused her nights of anxious sleeplessness. Wretch! “To tink dat a handsome gal like dat would-ah tek up with a dam' black neygah man like him, he? Now, wa' you tink o dat? H' answer me, no!” Oh, how her poor little ones were going to the dogs!
And so, to dam the flow of tears, Miss Buckner and the remaining ones of her flamingo-like brood, drew up at The Palm Porch. Sense-picture. All day Miss Buckner's brunettes would be there on the veranda posturing nude, half-nude. Exposed to the subdued warmth, sublimated by the courting of fans and shadow-implements, they'd be there, galore. Gorgeous slippers, wrought by some color-drunk Latin, rested on the tips of toes—toes blushing, hungering to be loved and kissed. Brown and silver ones. Purple and orange-colored kimonos fell away from excitably harmless anatomies. Inexhaustible tresses of night-gloss hair, hair—echoes of Miss Buckner's views on the subject—hair the color of a golden
