Page 75 - Universal

acceptance, but Mother would be able to come, although Mother was much puzzled as
to why Nancy Lee was so insistent she be at school on that particular Friday morning.

When something is happening, something new and fine, something that will change your
very life, it is hard to go to sleep at night for thinking about it, and hard to keep your

heart from pounding, or a strange little knot of joy from gathering in your throat. Nancy
Lee had taken her bath, brushed her hair until it glowed, and had gone to bed thinking
about the next day, the big day when, before three thousand students, she would be the
one student honored, her painting the one painting to be acclaimed as the best of the
year from all the art classes of the city. Her short speech of gratitude was ready. She

went over it in her mind, not word for word (because she didn’t want it to sound as if
she had learned it by heart), but she let the thoughts flow simply and sincerely through
her consciousness many times.

When the president of the Artist Club presented her with the medal and scroll of the
scholarship award, she would say:

“Judges and members of the Artist Club. I want to thank you for this award that means
so much to me personally and through me to my people, the colored people of this city
who, sometimes, are discouraged and bewildered, thinking that color and poverty are

against them. I accept this award with gratitude and pride, not for myself alone, but for
my race that believes in American opportunity and American fairness—and the bright
stars in our flag. I thank Miss Dietrich and the teachers who made it possible for me to
have the knowledge and training that lie behind this honor you have conferred upon my

painting. When I came here from the South a few years ago, I was not sure how you
would receive me. You received me well. You have given me a chance and helped me
along the road I wanted to follow. I suppose the judges know that every week here at
assembly the students of this school pledge allegiance to the flag. I shall try to be worthy
of that pledge, and of the help and friendship and understanding of my fellow citizens
of whatever race or creed, and of our American dream of ‘Liberty and justice for all!’”

That would be her response before the students in the morning. How proud and happy

the Negro pupils would be, perhaps almost as proud as they were of the one colored
star on the football team. Her mother would probably cry with happiness. Thus Nancy
Lee went to sleep dreaming of a wonderful tomorrow.

The bright sunlight of an April morning woke her. There was breakfast with her
parents—their half-amused and puzzled faces across the table, wondering what could
be this secret that made her eyes so bright. The swift walk to school; the clock in the

tower almost nine; hundreds of pupils streaming into the long, rambling old building
that was the city’s largest high school; the sudden quiet of the homeroom after the bell
rang; then the teacher opening her record book to call the roll. But just before she began,

73
The English Carnival-7