Mr. Sitwell, the Groundskeeper
1914
Nothing seemed more absurd than to see a colored man making himself ridiculous in order to portray himself.
—GEORGE W. WALKER
1
The Current Orphans
Mr. Sitwell had finished work and was passing through the garden on his way to Prescott Avenue when he happened to look up at the house and see something he shouldn’t have. One of the Barclays’ current orphans was standing in the main hall. Dressed in a gray shirt and dark blue knee pants, black stockings sagging above his brown shoes. The boy had his hands on his hips and head cocked to one side as he stared, transfixed by the antique starter pistol on the third shelf of Mrs. Barclay’s cabinet d’objets.
Mr. Sitwell frowned. The child had arrived from the asylum with two others five months before and Miss Mamie, the cook who was in charge of their apprenticeship, told them the very first day that scullery boys were forbidden from loitering in the front of the house. Yet there the child was, just inside the window, for all the world to see. Mr. Sitwell watched him reach into the cabinet and pull the pistol out. He peeked inside the chamber, then spun around and pointed it three times: left toward the velvet drapes, right toward the side table, and straight above him toward the chandelier. Then he smiled and mimicked the gesture of sliding the gun into an imaginary holster. When his game was finished he put the pistol back and then turned and continued walking down the hall. But instead of heading toward the kitchen where he belonged he moved farther away from it, toward the conservatory.
Mr. Sitwell cocked his head and looked around the hall, trying to find the other two. The Barclays always brought orphans home in batches of three and, following the example of the industrial college, always between the ages of fourteen and fifteen, making them old enough to work but not so old that, in Mr. Barclay’s view, “the clay had so far hardened that it could not be reformed.” For the past twenty years they had been brought in at regular intervals to learn a trade under the supervision of the cook. Mostly they washed dishes but by doing so fulfilled Mrs. Barclay’s sense of charitable obligation. The current orphans were extremely close and Mr. Sitwell knew that if he saw one the other two were sure to be nearby. They did everything together and in fact so favored one another that the first time he saw them, standing in a row on the kitchen porch with their hands clasped behind their backs for Miss Mamie’s inspection, he’d had a hard time telling them apart.
He’d soon realized that the easiest way to distinguish between them was to look for their scars. Frederick was the one with the three nasty welts running in parallel lines down his left cheek, a memento of a frantic fork slashing from a south side butcher with whom he’d had an unfortunate run-in when he was seven. Mac was the one who’d lost part of his right ear to a stockyard dog when he was eight. The one loitering in the hall now was Bart; Mr. Sitwell knew it as soon as he started walking. Bart had a peculiar way of moving, a staggered hop-step caused by the fact that, due to circumstances he claimed he no longer remembered, he was missing the toes of his right foot.
Bart hopped down the hall for a few moments and then stopped when he reached the door to the conservatory. Something, it seemed, was amiss with his trousers, and he reached down to make some adjustment to his buttons. When he was satisfied he swung his arm behind him, grabbed a fistful of fabric from his rear, and lifted his right foot to shake out his pant leg. He set his foot down again and, after a couple more hops, disappeared through the conservatory door.
Bart seemed awfully foolish. Mr. Sitwell’s first thought was relief that he was not responsible for him, that all three boys were, technically, Miss Mamie’s problem. But of course, Mr. Sitwell was the one who’d seen Bart and, having seen him, realized he had to make a choice. Either he would continue walking toward his streetcar stop as planned or he would go back inside and drag Bart to the safety of the kitchen before any of the Barclays saw him too, in which case he would no doubt be sent packing.
Then the door to Mr. Barclay’s study opened, unleashing a wide swath of light just inside the window where Mr. Sitwell stood. He ducked down as a woman’s voice called out, “Fine, Herbert. But remember this is not the Monte Carlo. We have not been to the Monte Carlo in a very long time.” Mrs. Barclay appeared in the window, skirt swishing and heels clicking as she moved down the hall toward the stairs and the upper chambers. Without thinking, Mr. Sitwell found himself jogging along the side of the house, headed for the kitchen.
It wasn’t until he’d reached the back porch that it occurred to him why he was doing it. He liked these boys, cared about them, wanted them to do well. In the twenty years he’d worked for the Barclays he’d seen dozens of orphans come and go and always thought it a shame that Miss Mamie’s predecessor, Mr. Boudreaux, never did much to help them. He wasn’t certain if it was something about these particular children or simply the fact that Miss Mamie handled her orphans so differently than Mr. Boudreaux had handled his that had made such an impression on him. He’d noticed how careful they were not to tramp on his flowers when they walked through the garden and he liked that they asked a lot of questions about herbs; he also liked that, when they did ask questions, instead of scolding them for slacking the way Mr. Boudreaux would have done, Miss Mamie seemed pleased they took an interest in something she considered useful. She was determined to actually teach them something and wanted them to leave the house knowing more than they had when they arrived. It was clear that she cared for them and, because of that, Mr. Sitwell found he couldn’t help but care for them too.
He stepped inside the house. Also, of course, there was the fact that he had started out like them: waterfront orphan, beneficiary of the peculiar mingling of the Barclays’ need for cheap labor and their relatively liberal views on children’s reform. Mr. Sitwell was only fourteen when he was plucked from the yard of the asylum. He’d started in the kitchen and, while other orphans came and went, had managed to stay on, gaining more and more of the Barclays’ confidence through a combination of talent, wit, and fealty.
He passed through the pantry, pushed into the dark kitchen, then stopped when he saw Jennie, the new chambermaid, standing by the window next to a large stack of napkins set out on the worktable, all tucked into three corner folds. She had her back to him and was looking out at the yard, a cigarette in her hand. When she heard him come in she turned around and smiled.
“Evening.”
Mr. Sitwell nodded. He could feel the muscles in his face tighten and was glad the room was dark. He’d been practicing talking to Jennie in his mirror at the rooming house where he lived; he knew he had an unfortunate habit of frowning at pretty women and also that he looked ugly when he did. “You’re here late.”
“Had to finish these.” She nodded to the stack.
Mr. Sitwell struggled to fit his face into a smile as calm and cool as hers. “Miss Mamie making you stay to do all that?”
“Honestly? She told me to do it this morning. I forgot,” Jennie said, one arm wrapped in front of her waist, the other hand holding the cigarette. “Don’t tell her.”
Mr. Sitwell arched his eyebrows in an effort to keep his brow from furrowing over.
“How you getting home, Jennie?”