It never occurred to her that the note told the truth and that she looked twice as bad with paint and powder as she would without it. She interpreted it as being a means of making fun of her because she was darker than any one of the other colored girls. She grew more haughty, more acid, and more distant than ever. She never spoke to any one except as a matter of business. Then she discovered. that her pupils had nicknamed her . . . “Blacker’n me.”
What made her still more miserable was the gossip and comments of the woman in the next room. Lying in bed nights or else sitting at her table preparing her lesson plans, she could hear her telling every one who chanced in
“You know that fellow in the next room? Well, let me tell you. His wife left him, yes-sireee, left him flat on his back in the bed, him and the baby, too. Yes, she did. Walked out of here just as big as you please to go to work one morning and she ain’t come back yet. Then up comes this little black wench. I heard her when she knocked on the door that very night his wife left. At first he was mighty s’prised to see her, then started laying it on, kissed her and hugged her, a-tellin’ her how much he loved her, and she crying like a fool all the time. I never heard the likes of it in my life. The next morning in she moves an’ she’s been here ever since. And you oughter see how
