The Signature of All Things

Harrington, his wife, Sadie, and their three children. They areimpoverished, and thus they struggle. We see to it that we live no richer than they. We see to it that our house is no finer than theirs. Often the Harringtons work alongside us in our home, and we work in theirs. I scrub my hearth alongside Sadie Harrington. My husband cuts wood alongside John Harrington. My children learn their letters and numbers alongside the Harringtons’ children. They often dine with us at our own table. We eat the same fare they eat, and we wear the same clothing they wear. In the winters, if the Harringtons have no heat, we ourselves go without heat. We are kept warm by our absence of shame, and by our knowledge that Christ would have done the same. On Sundays, we attend the same services as the Harringtons do, at their humble Negro Methodist church. Their church has no comforts—so why should ours? Their children sometimes have no shoes—why should ours?”
    Here, Prudence had gone too far.
    Over the following days, the newspaper had been flooded with angry responses to Prudence’s words. Some of these letters came from appalled mothers (“Henry Whittaker’s daughter keeps her children without shoes!”), but most came from enraged men (“If Mrs. Dixon loves Black Africans as much as she claims, let her marry off her prettiest little white daughter to her neighbor’s inkiest-skinned son—I stand eager to see it done!”).
    As for Alma, she could not help but find the article irritating. There was something about Prudence’s manner of living that looked, to Alma’s eyes, suspiciously like pride, or even vanity. It was not that Prudence possessed the vanity of normal mortals (Alma had never even caught her peeking in a mirror), but Alma felt Prudence was being vain in some other way here—in a more subtle way, through these excessive demonstrations of austerity and sacrifice.
    Look how little I need , Prudence seemed to be saying. Behold my goodness.
    What’s more, Alma could not help but wonder if perhaps Prudence’s black neighbors, the Harringtons, might wish to eat something more than cornbread and molasses one night—and why couldn’t the Dixons simply buy it for them, instead of also going hungry themselves in such an empty gesture of solidarity?
    The newspaper exposure brought trouble. Philadelphia may have been a free city, but this did not mean its citizens loved the mingling of poor Negroes and fine white ladies. At first, there were threats and attacks on theHarringtons, who were so harassed that they were forced to move. Then Arthur Dixon was pelted with horse dung on his way to work at the University of Pennsylvania. Mothers refused to allow their children to play any longer with the Dixon children. Strips of South Carolina cotton kept appearing on the Dixons’ front gate, and small piles of sugar on their doorstep—strange and inventive warnings, indeed. And then one day in mid-1838, Henry Whittaker had received an unsigned letter in the post, which read, “You’d best stop up your daughter’s mouth, Mr. Whittaker, or you will soon see your warehouses burned to the ground.”
    Well, Henry could not stand for this. It was insult enough that his daughter had squandered her generous dowry, but now his commercial property was in danger. He’d summoned Prudence up to White Acre, where he intended to drive some sense into her.
    “Be gentle with her, Father,” Alma had warned, in advance of the encounter. “Prudence is likely shaken and anxious. She has been much plagued by the events of recent weeks, and she is probably more concerned for the safety of her children than you are for the safety of your warehouses.”
    “I doubt it,” Henry had growled.
    But Prudence did not seem cowed or dismayed. Rather, she strode into Henry’s study like Joan of Arc, and stood before her father undaunted. Alma tried for a pleasant greeting, but Prudence showed no interest in pleasantries. Nor did Henry. He launched into the conversation with an immediate charge. “See what you have done! You have brought disgrace to this family, and now you bring a lynch mob to your father’s doorstep? That’s the reward you offer me, for all that I have given you?”
    “Pardon me, but I see no lynch mob,” Prudence said evenly.
    “Well, there may be one soon!” Henry thrust the threatening letter to Prudence, who read it without reaction. “I tell you, Prudence, I will not be happy, operating my business from the