And Sarah felt her toes curling, as if to anchor herself from floating away.
“Lelia? What in the world you doin’ standin’ out in this cold—” Sadie began, then she gasped as she opened her door wider and saw Lelia standing in the lamplight from her house. “Oh, my …”
Lelia clutched her side from laughing so hard. “Mama, come see her face!”
Sure enough, Sadie was staring at Lelia wide-eyed, her mouth dragging to her chin. Her eyes were riveted to Lelia’s hair.
After more than two hours, Sarah had finally finished combing through Lelia’s hair with the hot steel comb. She’d accidentally burned the top of her daughter’s earlobe (not once, but twice) and probably a spot or two on her scalp, but after her initial painful exclamations, Lelia hadn’t complained. She’d never once let go of the looking glass, so she’d watched every moment of her mother’s progress, seeing her hair emerge sizzling from the comb, lengthened and glistening, falling against her neck. After some impromptu barbering with the household scissors to even up a few places, Sarah had styled Lelia’s hair so that it had a bang in front and hung midway to her shoulders, jet black and as close to straight as it had ever been.
Sarah barely noticed the frigid air that turned her breath to fog while she waited for Sadie’s reaction. Lelia couldn’t contain her giggles, posing her head from one side to the other, dramatically tossing her hair back with her hand.
Tentatively, Sadie reached up to touch the end of Lelia’s hair. “Your hair grower did this?”
“No, this is different,” Sarah told her. “I jus’ put on some rod wax to grease it. Then I combed it out with a hot steel comb, an’ jus’ look at it. It’s all pressed out! That hair won’t give her no trouble brushin’ through. An’ she could plait it, or pin it up… .”
“Sarah, you’re gonna put Poro to shame!” Sadie said, clasping her hands together tightly. “Ooh, Lord, where’d my coat go? We have to go show Rosetta, too. She’ll faint dead away!”
“I almost don’t believe it my own self,” Sarah said. Her cheeks were nearly numb from the cold, but she still felt them flushing. It was the day before her birthday, three days before Christmas, and it seemed that the world had just laid itself at her feet.
Walking quickly toward Rosetta’s house three blocks away, the group was like a miniature parade in the darkened street, with Lelia in the lead. Their chatter bounced off the houses they passed, lighting them up in their excitement. A wagon driver with a horse draped in blankets ambled past them on the cobblestone street, slowing as he passed them. “Merry Christmas, ladies!” he called, and they answered him in a heartfelt chorus.
It felt like a Merry Christmas, all right.
“First chance I get, I’ma quit Poro,” Sarah said, breathing harder from walking so fast.
“Oh, girl, yes. You’re through with that. Then we got to mix some more grower!”
“That’s right. An’ I’ll start tellin’ folks ’bout what that comb can do,” Sarah said.
“No, Mama, not just telling,” Lelia said. “Show them! Do their heads like mine.”
“That’s right, Sarah. And I’m next. I’m comin’ first thing in the morning, so you better fix an extra plate at breakfast! I don’t care how much Rosetta begs, she can’t go before me.”
“Mama, do you know how much money you’ll make?” Lelia said, nearly shouting the words. Her voice lingered in the night air like a bird coasting on the chilled wind above them. “You could buy a motorcar!”
“What would your mama want with one of those broke-down, horse-scarin’ machines?” Sadie dismissed her. “You can’t hardly drive ’em through a mud puddle. What she needs to buy is a house, and stop paying all that rent.”
Listening to Lelia and Sadie arguing about her imaginary riches, Sarah laughed, nearly slipping on a black patch of ice as she tried to walk faster to keep up with them. A horseless carriage! A house! After the burglary, she could hardly get by week to week. Even now, she was wearing a fraying old coat because she’d decided she couldn’t afford to buy a new one this winter. And it was well and good to think about making more hair formula, but the sulfur and petrolatum cost money, not to mention her other ingredients. The more time she worked on her hair formula, the less time she would have for washing. And she would definitely need more than one steel comb, if she was going to teach Sadie how to do demonstrations on potential customers. Hell, she’d want to teach Rosetta, too… .
Sarah’s mind was in full roar. Without realizing it, she’d stopped listening to the conversation around her, forgetting where she was going and why, not noticing how numb her toes felt as her shoes sank into the crushed, icy snow on the sidewalk.
Sarah Breedlove McWilliams was far away, already making bigger plans.
Chapter Seventeen
MAY 1905
FIVE MONTHS LATER
Sarah knew that the spring church-school picnic would be an affair to remember as soon as she woke up and saw the sunlight streaming through her window, bathing the blooming branches of her white hickory tree. It was the first picnic of the year—signaling the start of a string of summertime picnics and socials that were Sarah’s only real leisure.
But this year summer picnics wouldn’t mean just pleasure, no, sir. They would provide the new customers she’d need for the batches of formula she had been mixing up with Lelia, Sadie, and Rosetta. Winter had been slow, but spring would be different. She now had twenty customers who regularly used her hair formula, not even counting Sadie and Rosetta; all of them came with tin cups to scoop out their portion of the remedy from the washtub she mixed it in, and more than half of them also got their hair pressed with the comb in Sarah’s kitchen whenever Sarah’s schedule could allow it. So far Sarah was the only one who could press customers’ heads; Rosetta had pressed Sarah’s head only once, and she’d burned her so badly with that comb Sarah couldn’t bring herself to let her friend practice on her again.
Because she had so many more hair customers, Sarah had been able to afford to let most of her washing customers go. She washed only two days a week, and her weekends were finally her own. But this was only the beginning, Sarah knew. She wasn’t making more money than she’d made before, just the same money. She needed more customers. She wanted to be like Annie T. Malone, who was probably making more money with Poro than she could count.
Sarah fixed Quaker Oats from a box for breakfast, quickly finished her morning chores, then dressed herself in a long skirt and a clean white shirtwaist with long puffed sleeves she’d starched especially for today. Once she was ready, Sarah tentatively knocked on Lela’s door. When she didn’t hear a response, she knocked again. “Lela, you comin’ to the picnic?”
A groan emerged from Lela’s closed door, but nothing else. All the girl did on the weekends was sleep! Sarah feared Lelia was growing up to be too much like Etta for her own good. It was ten o’clock exactly. What decent woman stayed in bed all day?
“I’m goin’ on by myself, then.” She sighed, resigned. Only a mumble came in response.
Quickly Sarah brushed through her hair, which now grew more than halfway to her shoulders when it was treated with the comb. Papa had always claimed he had some Indian blood in him, and now that seemed apparent to Sarah. Or maybe it was all the African in her, and in another life she might have had long braids running down her back; after all, her hair was still full and textured, not limp and flat like an Indian’s or like most white women’s hair. And she didn’t want it to look like anyone else’s hair, either. Sarah liked what she had. Her hair had been breaking off most of her life, so she’d never been able to appreciate it properly. Until now.
And she wasn’t alone, she thought as she pinned up her hair so she could put on her flat white spring hat, which was adorned with artificial flowers. There were hundreds, probably thousands of black women just like her who had no idea how much their hair could offer them, who wore kerchiefs all day long and barely let their hair even peek out.
Well, not a
nymore, Sarah told herself. She was never going to wear a kerchief again. And if she had her way, other colored women would be taking theirs off for good, too.
Today, as was the custom at many picnics, the morning was reserved for speakers. Sarah’s blanket was almost smack in the center of the picnic group, so she was close enough to hear the people who stood atop a wide crate beside the old oak tree to address them, a light spring breeze carrying their voices while bicyclists sped past them on the park’s twisting paths. The messages were often repetitive, but Sarah enjoyed the spirit of uplift at picnics nearly as much as when she’d heard Booker T. Washington and Margaret Murray Washington. Everything the speakers said bolstered ideas she already held dear, just like a good sermon, and every once in a while she even learned something new.
Work hard. Save your money. Avoid the sins of alcohol and tobacco. She’d heard the messages many times before, and lived by most of them as well as she could.
As she picked through her basket to find some corn bread to nibble on, an introduction caught her ear: “… Here to talk about the wonders of the advertising age, visiting us all the way from Denver, Colorado, Mr. Charles Walker …”
“Good-ness gracious,” Sadie breathed, a voice Sarah knew well: It meant a handsome man was in her sight. Sadie would never openly admire a man with anyone except Sarah, but as Sadie had told her many times, she was married, not blind. “Will you look here?”
Sarah didn’t need any prompting. When she looked up, her first glimpse of the grinning man shaking the hand of the deacon who introduced him was enough to make her forget the advertising notion that had originally caught her attention, at least for a moment. Mr. Charles Walker of Denver, Colorado, was a honey-complexioned man wearing a stylish gray mohair suit and vest, a crimson bow tie, and a finely braided flat white straw hat with a crimson band. His gold watch chain dangled from his vest, gleaming. He gave a bow, his grin wider.
“He’s a dandy, ain’t he? Sure seems impressed with himself,” Sadie muttered.
He’s got reason to be, Sarah thought. The man was striking, with broad shoulders and a smoothly contoured jawline and chin that made his face so handsome it would have been pretty if not for his well-groomed mustache. His curly hair was dark, with reddish gleams in the sunlight. Sarah guessed he had likely spent more time fussing over himself to get dressed that morning than she had. He prob’ly smells like honey soap, she thought, and her face flushed warm.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls …” the man began, raising his voice loudly enough to carry above the squawking of the ducks at the nearby pond. “How many of y’all know we’re in the middle of a revolution this very minute?” He sounded like one of the barkers from the fair.
But at least he had the audience’s attention. Sarah didn’t blink.
“That’s right! As I speak to you today, all across the country, we are smack in the middle of an ad-ver-ti-sing revolution. Advertising is changing the way we live our lives more than any other time in this nation’s whole history. And folks, I’m tellin’ you, we need to be a part of it before it passes us on by. How many of y’all eat Uneeda Biscuits? Come on, now, ’fess up.”
About forty hands went up. A few children cheered, recognizing the name of their favorite soda crackers. “Can’t stand them dry, nasty things …” Sadie muttered to Sarah.
“I only see a few hands up, but I know more of you have at least tried ’em, too!” Mr. Walker said, assessing the group. Sarah cast Sadie a look, and they both laughed. “Now, what’s so special about Uneeda Biscuits? They usin’ some new kind of flour? They taste any different than any other kind of soda cracker? I ain’t tried ’em all myself, but I wager they don’t. So how come all you folks are eating ’em? I’ll tell you why: Because you see the posters at the train depot. Because they got Uneeda salesmen everywhere you look. Even your dang shopkeeper is wearing Uneeda Biscuits cuff links, ain’t he?” He was speaking so fast, he was nearly breathless.
Sarah, joining the audience, murmured in agreement. He was right! She’d never bought any Uneeda Biscuits, but she’d bought Quaker Oats because she’d seen the ads on billboards and painted on brick walls on the buildings downtown. Mr. Walker went on: “Now, listen to this here: That company spent a million dollars—and lemme say it again, a million dollars—on advertising alone. Know why?”
“ ’Cause they crazy!” a man shouted, and the audience laughed.
“Naw, sir, they ain’t crazy,” Mr. Walker said, still grinning good-naturedly. “No more crazy than Sears Roebuck. Or Heinz 57 Varieties. Or Egg-O-See Cereal. Those companies all know advertising works. Now, how many of y’all got some kind of business of your own? I ain’t even talkin’ about a big one—whether you’re making brooms, selling sweet-potato pies, or if you’ve got your own barbershop or mortuary, how many of y’all out there are in some kind of business tryin’ to make some money?”
Quickly, Sarah raised her hand high, rising to her knees. Several others raised their hands, too, but Sarah was almost certain she had caught Mr. Walker’s eye. When he spoke, he seemed to be looking directly at her. “That’s good! Lots of folks in business! Now, how many of y’all with these businesses ever done any advertising in a colored newspaper?”
Sarah lowered her hand, glancing around to look at the others. Only two or three hands remained high; and all of those raised, Sarah noticed, belonged to folks rich enough to afford it.
Mr. Walker shook his head, making a clucking sound. “Good people, businessmen, I am begging you … you need to ad-ver-tise. Reverend, I hope you won’t mind me saying it, but Jesus Christ himself could come give a speech at the lecture hall, and every seat in there would be empty unless somebody told folks the blessed son of God was coming today. Better be up on a poster somewhere, or better be a big ol’ ad in the St. Louis Palladium, or the Argus, or somewhere. Now, ain’t that right?”
The audience laughed. As Charles Walker spoke, Sarah felt her heart pounding. He had the same faith in his message a preacher would have in God’s word, and his faith radiated from his face. If she did nothing else today, she decided, she had to talk to Charles Walker.
“Whew! That man could sell milk to a cow,” Sadie said. “He’s talkin’ sense, though.”
“I know he is.”
It was more than what he said, Sarah realized as she listened to him and watched his eyes move from face to face; it was the way he said it. His voice was lulling, entertaining, and persuasive, all at once. He sounded as smart as a university graduate, yet as folksy as anyone she might meet on the street. Even Reverend Simms was smiling as he listened, despite Mr. Walker’s off-color remark about Jesus at the lecture hall. The man was up there weaving magic.
And Sarah wasn’t the only one who noticed.
The instant Charles Walker bowed to signal the end of his speech, half a dozen men walked up to seek him out, shaking his hand and patting his back. A few young women also scurried to the edge of the huddle, listening to the men’s banter with interest; they were high-yellow women dressed in their nicest spring dresses, and Sarah was sure they wanted to meet Mr. Walker for reasons other than business. Whether or not Mr. Walker was married, those kind of ladies had a way of making men forget everything else on their minds, Sarah thought.
“You go on and eat, Sadie,” Sarah said, picking up the long, thin box of samples she’d brought in an assortment of rusting tin cups. “I’ma go see if I can’t talk to Mr. Walker.”
“Shoot, girl, no tellin’ how long he’ll be tied up. You should eat first. That’s what folks do at picnics, you know.”
Sarah sighed, pursing her lips. Mr. Walker had been the last scheduled speaker, so the rest of the picnickers were busily unwrapping their lunches, laughing and socializing. At the other end of the park, Sarah noticed, some men and women from their group were setting up a game of croquet. She’d never played croquet in her life, or lawn tennis, either. And she could count on one hand the times she’d played whist with her friends in the past year. Wa
tching them, Sarah wondered for a moment why she couldn’t just eat and play like everyone else. Why didn’t she ever sit still and catch her breath? Lela had asked her that question many times, and she didn’t know the answer. There were always so many other things to think about, so many things to do.
“You know me better than that, Sadie,” Sarah told her friend.
The men surrounding Mr. Walker were rattling excitedly while the women clustered behind them in silence. “… been advertising for ten years, Mr. Walker, and you ain’t lyin’ …”
“… Now, which paper did you say you work for in Denver? I have an enterprise …”
Sarah waited patiently as long as she could, then she slowly began to nudge her way past the ladies. She heard one of the women snort behind her, but she didn’t have time to address that kind of foolishness. Sarah was standing no more than two feet from him now, so close she could see the slightly discolored razor bumps on his neck and smell the freshness of his clothes. Streaks of gray hair in his sideburns gave him a distinguished air, but he didn’t look like he had reached forty. He’s probably ’bout thirty-seven, the same age as me, then, Sarah thought.
Finally the men stopped talking for a moment to share a laugh.
Sarah spoke up quickly. “Mr. Walker,” she said, extending her hand to shake the way a man would. “My name is Sarah McWilliams, and I have a business, too. I sell a hair formula I make in my own …”
“Is that right? Best of luck, madam!” Mr. Walker said, squeezing her hand warmly with both of his, but Sarah’s spirits fell when she realized how empty his grin was. His copper-colored eyes had passed across her so quickly, she wondered if he had seen her at all. He was once again gazing up at one of the gentlemen, swallowed in conversation.
Sarah glanced back, annoyed, when one of the women tittered behind her. “It’s not easy to get C.J.’s attention,” the woman said with a strained smile, cooling herself with a lacy fan. “And harder still to keep it.”