A TRIP BY TROLLEY
It was on the New Jersey Avenue line, and though the day was bitterly cold, Camilla and I found ourselves off on another of Aunt Pearl's strongly recommended 'culture' tours, this one to look at the fine decorations the White people had put up on their houses for Christmas. We had waited for the streetcar for almost ten minutes, and I had been so happy to see it that I had gotten on as quickly as possible and run to the back. Maybe it was so cold that people's cars weren't working right, but by Military Road there was a crowd of White people on the streetcar, so many that some had to stand. That there were plenty of empty seats in the back where the Colored people sat mattered little to these White people. They would never have sat there anyway, though some of them eyed the seats, as if wondering what anyone else would say if they sat in the Colored section for just a minute. Maybe if one person had been brave enough (or tired enough!) to sit down, like Miss Rosa Parks would be in a couple of years, the whole crowd of them would have done it and been comfortable, and bus integration would have started right before my eyes. But as it was, the White people just shifted their packages around and held on to their leather straps all the tighter, eyeing those empty, inviting seats in the Colored section.
I saw her from the window. She looked more like a confection than a child. She was all in pink. Her little jacket was made of mouton with a hood that framed her angel-face in white, and she wore a pink-and-white muff. Even her leggings were pink. She was shod in little white boots for tramping in the snow. Her eyes were brilliant blue and the cold had pinched her cheeks pink. Her little Cupid's bow mouth was red, with pearly teeth behind. She looked to be about my age. She pulled off her cap as her father carried her onto the streetcar, and a cascade of blonde corkscrew curls poured out. She had a pink ribbon in her hair, and I could see the edge of a white angora sweater. She was cuter than Shirley Temple in Heidi.
A man moved aside, so that her father could prop her up on the metal covering that housed the rear door mechanism that served as the demarcation between the White and Colored sections. She sat with her little legs dangling over the platform, looking intently at the two brown girls right across from her.
I felt self-conscious that she was staring at me. My own hair, ironed painfully straight and larded down by Aunt Pearl, felt brittle from the cold. I was sure it was untidy by now. I had a hat, but I had lost it at Sunday school two weeks ago, and now I wore a castoff knitted wool cap that had belonged to one of Aunt Pearl's Ladies' children on her job. It was red. Not that my original hat had matched my coat, which was a kind of dull blue, and had known some winters before I had been born, probably. Some White lady had probably said to Aunt Pearl, Here, Pearl. Take this home to those gals of yours. And Aunt Pearl had probably smiled and smiled and thanked her and thanked her. I remembered having to write a 'thank you' card to that lady for this beat-up old coat that didn't keep me warm. I had on one glove. It was pink. Camilla had lost one of hers, and she had my other one on. The expanse from my knees to my ankles was open for the wind to whip, with only a thin layer of Vaseline between me and the elements. One of my socks had retreated to the space under the instep of my too-big shoes. I had been bending to pull it up when the streetcar came, and Camilla, who was five full years older than I, would brook no fidgeting, so there it had stayed.
What such a beautiful and perfect little girl must have thought, that she had nothing to look at but me in my mismatched, shabby clothes, sitting so close to her in the Colored section I dared not even think. Surely she wasn't used to looking at anybody who looked as bad as I did. I bet she went to school with other wealthy little girls and got driven home by their chauffeurs in long black cars. Probably their car was in the shop for repairs today, or maybe her mother had gone someplace with the chauffeur, and so she and her father had to take the streetcar. I tried not to stare at the little girl, but she was such a treasure to look at that I just could not help it. Our eyes met.
And then the extraordinary thing happened.
The little girl smiled.
Not a smirky, Wow, look at you, you're Colored and I'll bet you smell kind of smile, but a genuine, open, Hi, how are you and isn't it a great day for both of us to be alive kind of smile. I smiled back. It's what you do when someone smiles at you. Camilla caught the look and hunched me in the ribs. What is the matter with you? she hissed. You're grinning like a hyena. Stop it. I lowered my eyes, but the other child smiled, and waved.
Her father saw the wave. He looked at Camilla and me and said something in his daughter's ear. The sun in her little face went behind a cloud for an instant, but then burst forth with even more radiance. She smiled again, and stretched out two little pink-mittened hands toward me. Her father turned her around, so that she was facing forward. She wriggled around until she could see me again, and smiled again. I raised my hand to wave, but Camilla slapped my hand down.
You wanna get us killed? she asked under her breath. Stop it, right now!
I had never asked the question, but it was worth a try:
Why?
Camilla gave the only answer she could think of at the moment. I'll tell Aunt Pearl. No, I'll tell Uncle Bliley. And he'll kill you! I looked down. Camilla was watching me, but so was the little girl. I drew my lips up into a bow. The child beamed brighter. The father scowled at us. Camilla swallowed hard and smacked my leg. I looked down at my hands in my lap. I determined not to look at the little girl anymore. After a moment I stole a look, just to see if the little girl was still looking.
She was. And when I looked up, she smiled again, and I smiled back.
The father rang the bell. He lifted his daughter off the platform and left by the front door. As the streetcar passed, she smiled and waved, and I waved back.
Just as soon as we got home, Camilla seized the moment to report my actions, and to say she would not take me to the White neighborhood again, where I could make her look bad or even put her in danger. She didn't think I should be allowed to go again, and (though she was depriving herself), she knew Aunt Pearl would not want us in that kind of a pre-dic-a-ment for all those White people, and maybe even the ones Aunt Pearl worked for, to see. Why, what if one of her Ladies would have been on the streetcar and seen what I did?
Aunt Pearl was quite convinced. It was our last streetcar ride to look at White people's houses.