Overview
- Female: 1
- Male: 2
Context
Lucy and her brother, Dan are waiting for their brother Chris to get home from work. Chris supports the three of them since their parents died because both Lucy and Dan are crippled, Dan being paralyzed from the waist down. As Lucy and Dan wait and discuss their lives and their history, we find out that their father was lynched and their mother died of pneumonia and heartbreak, leaving the children, now young adults, to struggle through a racist world by themselves. When Chris comes in and
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DAN: Isn't it most time for him to come home, Lucy? LUCY: It's hard to tell, Danny, dear; Chris doesn't come home on time anymore. It's half-past twelve, and he ought to be here by the clock, but you can't tell any more--you can't tell. DAN: Where does he go? LUCY: I know where he doesn't go, Dan, but where he does, I can't say. He's not going to Julia's any more lately. I'm afraid, Dan, I'm afraid! DAN: Of what, Little Sister? LUCY: Of everything; oh, Dan, it's too big, too much for me--the world outside, the street--Chris going and coming home nights moody-eyed; I don't understand. DAN: And so you're afraid? That's been the trouble from the beginning of time--we're afraid because we don't understand. LUCY: [coming down front, with a dish cloth in her hand] Oh, Dan, wasn't it better in the old days when we were back home--in the little house with the garden, and you and father coming home nights and mother getting supper, and Chris and I studying lessons in the dining-room at the table--we didn't have to eat and live in the kitchen then, and-- DAN: [grimly] --And the notices posted on the fence for us to leave town because niggers had no business having such a decent home. LUCY: [unheeding the interruption] --And Chris and I reading the wonderful books and laying our plans-- DAN: --To see them go up in the smoke of our burned home. LUCY: [continuing, her back to DAN, her eyes lifted, as if seeing a vision of retrospect] --And everyone petting me because I had hurt my foot when I was little, and father-- DAN: --Shot down like a dog for daring to defend his home-- LUCY: --Calling me "Little Brown Princess," and telling mother-- DAN: --Dead of pneumonia and heartbreak in this bleak climate. LUCY: --That when you-- DAN: --Maimed for life in a factory of hell! Useless--useless--broken on the wheel. [His voice breaks in a dry sob.] LUCY: [Coming out of her trance, she throws aside the dish-cloth, and running to DAN, lays her cheek against his and strokes his hair.] Poor Danny, poor Danny, forgive me, I'm selfish. DAN: Not selfish, Little Sister, merely natural. [Enter roughly and unceremoniously CHRIS. He glances at the two with their arms about each other, shrugs his shoulders, hangs up his rough cap and mackinaw on a nail, then seats himself at the table, his shoulders hunched up; his face dropping on his hand. LUCY approaches him timidly.] LUCY: Tired, Chris? CHRIS: No. LUCY: Ready for dinner? CHRIS: If it's ready for me. LUCY: [busies herself bringing dishes to the table] You're late today. CHRIS: I have bad news. My number was posted today. LUCY: Number? Posted? [Pauses with a plate in her hand.] CHRIS: I'm drafted. LUCY: [Drops plate with a crash. DAN leans forward tensely, his hands grasping the arms of his chair.] Oh, it can't be! They won't take you from us! And shoot you down, too? What will Dan do? DAN: Never mind about me, Sister. And you're drafted, boy? CHRIS: Yes--yes--but-- [He rises and strikes the table heavily with his hand.] I'm not going. DAN: Your duty-- CHRIS: --Is here with you. I owe none elsewhere, I'll pay none. LUCY: Chris! Treason! I'm afraid! CHRIS: Yes, of course, you're afraid, Little Sister, why shouldn't you be? Haven't you had your soul shrivelled with fear since we were driven like dogs from our home? And for what? Because we were living like Christians. Must I go and fight for the nation that let my father's murder go unpunished? That killed my mother--that took away my chances for making a man out of myself? Look at us--you--Dan, a shell of a man-- DAN: Useless--useless-- LUCY: Hush, Chris! CHRIS: --And me, with a fragment of an education, and no chance--only half a man. And you, poor Little Sister, there's no chance for you; what is there in life for you? No, if others want to fight, let them. I'll claim exemption. DAN: On what grounds? CHRIS: You--and Sister. I am all you have; I support you. DAN: [half rising in his chair] Hush! Have I come to this, that I should be the excuse, the woman's skirts for a slacker to hide behind? CHRIS: [clenching his fists] You call me that? You, whom I'd lay down my life for? I'm no slacker when I hear the real call of duty. Shall I desert the cause that needs me--you--Sister--home? For a fancied glory? Am I to take up the cause of a lot of kings and politicians who play with men's souls, as if they are cards--dealing them out, a hand here, in the Somme--a hand there, in Palestine--a hand there, in the Alps--a hand there, in Russia--and because the cards don't match well, call it a misdeal, gather them up, throw them in the discard, and call for a new deal of a million human, suffering souls? And I must be the Deuce of Spades?
Dunbar-Nelson, Alice, Mine Eyes Have Seen, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1989, pp. 271-272
Links
Read the original published version of Mine Eyes Have Seen in the 1918 issue of The Crisis
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