When she went south this time, she first placed herself "in the hands of the whites," as she detachedly puts it: that is to say, she became the guest of a white family on one of the more civilized islands. This was a mistake. They were interested in her plans, and they didn't in the least mean to block them, but they felt it was necessary for them to go around with her everywhere. They wanted to be sure nothing happened,--and Elsie wanted to be sure something did. "They guarded me," she exclaimed, over and over, when she told me this part of it. I got an impression of her tramping off into the wilds, after breakfast, to look around for what she was after, in her business-like way; and of worried hostesses panting along, following her,--in spite of the cold looks they got.
There were also a number of small difficulties. Her smoking, for instance. Her hostesses didn't mind--much; but they had a brother, a clergyman, just back from France, where he had been in the Y. M. C. A. service; and it would upset _him_, they said. So instead of smoking downstairs, by the fire, she had to do it up in her room; and also burn Chinese incense after each smoke, by request.
This clergyman held family prayer-meetings, regularly, which everybody was supposed to attend; but Elsie did not object. She is always interested in ritual. And the singing was often of negro spirituals, which she is collecting. She has a recording phonograph nowadays, that she takes around with her, to get them.
This wasn't what she had come down for, however. It wasn't enough. And not being able to explore without being "guarded" made the country no use to her. The game was too shy to be stalked with a whole crowd of whites. So in order to make a new entrance, she decided on a preliminary retreat. She left the islands, went back to the mainland, and took a room in a boarding-house.
There was a lady in the neighborhood who once had collected a few negro tales, but who told Elsie that the colored folk around there didn't tell them now. The lady wanted to be obliging, and called in her cook to make sure; but the cook corroborated her statement: didn't know any, no ma'am.
Elsie formed the opinion that the cook probably knew plenty of stories, but would not talk freely to whites. Few or none of them will. She kept on making inquiries, however, as to possible sources, and finally heard about one old negro who was said to be chock-full of folk-lore. Elsie got on his trail. She found him one day in the street, and she soon won him over. He not only told her all he knew, but he stopped a one-armed man going by,--a dirty man with a wheel-barrow full of old bottles--who, the old man said, knew other stories, and who promptly made good, telling several that Elsie took down, while she sat on the curb.