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ADDRESSING ENVIRONMENTAL AND
FOOD JUSTICE TOWARD DISMANTLING
THE SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE

POISONING AND IMPRISONING YOUTH

EDITED BY ANTHONY J. NOCELLA II,
K. ANIMASHAUN DUCRE,
AND JOHN LUPINACCI
 Addressing Environmental and Food Justice
toward Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Anthony J. Nocella II • K. Animashaun Ducre • John Lupinacci
Editors

Addressing
Environmental and
Food Justice toward
Dismantling the
School-to-Prison
Pipeline
Poisoning and Imprisoning Youth
Editors
Anthony J. Nocella II John Lupinacci
Fort Lewis College Washington State University
Durango, Colorado, USA Pullman, Washington, USA

K. Animashaun Ducre
Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York, USA

ISBN 978-1-137-50824-9 ISBN 978-1-137-50822-5 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50822-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016940565

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover image © moodboard / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Nature America Inc. New York
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A.
This book is dedicated to all youth around the world that have been forced
to live in a polluted community and eat unhealthy food as a result of
oppression, exploitation, colonialism, and capitalism.
 CONTENTS

Foreword xix

Preface xxiii

Acknowledgments xxv

1 Introduction: From Addressing the Problems

to the Solutions of the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Through a Food and Environmental Justice Perspective 1
Anthony J. Nocella II, K. Animashaun Ducre,
and John Lupinacci

Part I Transforming the School System 13

2 They Got Me Trapped: Structural Inequality and Racism

in Space and Place Within Urban School System Design 15
Travis T. Harris and Daniel White Hodge

3 The Rochester River School: Humane Education to

Confront Educational Injustice and the
School-to-Prison Pipeline in Rochester, New York 35
Joel T. Helfrich

vii
viii CONTENTS

4 Where We Live, Play, and Study: Assessing Multiple

Adverse Impacts of Schools Near Environmental Hazards 53
K. Animashaun Ducre

5 Race and Access to Green Space 71

Carol Mendoza Fisher

6 Education that Supports All Students: Food Sovereignty

and Urban Education in Detroit 93
John Lupinacci

Part II Transforming the Criminal Justice System 113

7 An Environmental Justice Critique of Carceral Anti-ecology 115

Shamelle Richards and Devon G. Peña

8 Industrialized Bodies: Women, Food, and

Environmental Justice in the Criminal Justice System 137
Caitlin Watkins

9 Mothers, Toxicity, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline 161

Sarah Conrad

10 Hip Hop, Food Justice, and Environmental Justice 177

Anthony J. Nocella II, Priya Parmar, Don C. Sawyer III,
and Michael Cermak

Afterword 193

Index 197
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Michael Cermak is an urban environmental educator, scholar, and activist. His

pedagogy and research explore the role of race and culture in teaching about envi-
ronmental issues in urban schools (K-12). His dissertation research entitled “Hip
Hop Ecology: Investigating the connection between creative cultural movements,
education and urban sustainability,” explored how youth learned environmental
science when taught with environmentally themed hip hop music. He is a profes-
sor at Middlesex Community College and is co-founder and instructor for The
Green Dragons, an organization that combines food justice and martial arts in the
Boston area.
Sarah Conrad holds a degree in Philosophy from the department of Philosophy
and Religion Studies’ interdisciplinary environmental ethics program at the
University of North Texas. She teaches applied ethics at St. Cloud State University.
Her areas of specialization are social and political philosophy and applied ethics,
especially as they relate to environmental justice studies and critical theories of
race, gender, sexuality, and ability. She is preparing a manuscript that recommends
a restorative environmental justice for women harmed by work programs in prison.
Her first findings on the issue were published in Peace Review: a Journal of Social
Justice.
K. Animashaun Ducre is Associate Professor in the Department of African
American Studies (AAS) at Syracuse University and author of A Place We Call
Home: Gender, Race, and Justice in Syracuse. She also served as 2011 Fulbright
Scholar in Trinidad and Tobago. She received her PhD from the University of
Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment in 2005. Ducre has
been a committed advocate for environmental justice for over two decades, start-
ing with Greenpeace in the 1990s.

ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Carol Mendoza Fisher grew up in various cities in two urban Americas, Central
and North. Educated in public schools with all ethnic and socioeconomic classes,
she learned to navigate double consciousness early on. Her background formed
her interest in animal rights, environmental and social justice; activism solidified it.
She works for the Greater Edward’s Aquifer Alliance, advocating for one of the
largest aquifers in the USA. Previous work as a consultant enabled her to travel to
Europe and Asia and gain multicultural perspectives. Research areas are Global
Neoliberalism, green space, structural violence, and race, both independently and
their intersections.
Travis T. Harris is a graduate student in William and Mary’s American Studies
program. He has a vast array of research interest including Race, African American
Studies, Black Popular Culture, Performance Theory, and African American
Religion. His dissertation will examine the manifestation of institutional racism in
Williamsburg by examining Williamsburg—James City County Public Schools, the
College of William and Mary, local government, churches, businesses, and other
institutions. Travis also serves as the lead organizer of Black Lives Matter—
Williamsburg. He recognizes his scholarly work as life work with the goal of
empowering the “least of these” to thrive.
Joel Helfrich is a father, educator, and an activist who lives in Rochester,
New York. He teaches at Monroe Community College and Rochester Institute
of Technology. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Minnesota.
His dissertation is a historical investigation of Western Apache struggles over a
sacred and ecologically unique mountain in Arizona from 1871 to 2002. He
has worked on animal rights; environmental, historic, and sacred sites preserva-
tion; and other social justice issues. He holds the conviction that a myopic
focus defeats the most important work any historian does—being an informed
and informative member of society.
Frank Hernandez, during his 15 years in public education, has served as a class-
room teacher, an assistant principal, a principal, and a district coordinator of mul-
ticultural programming throughout several Midwestern urban school districts. His
research interests include the intersection of identity and school leadership and
teaching, leadership for equity and social justice, and Latinos and schools leader-
ship. Dr. Hernandez’ work has been published in journals such as Educational
Administration Quarterly, Journal of School Leadership, and Education and the
Urban Society. He holds a PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi

Daniel White Hodge is the Director of the Center for Youth Ministry Studies and
Associate Professor of Youth Culture at North Park University in Chicago. His
research interests include social justice issues at the intersection of religion and
popular culture. His two current books are Heaven Has A Ghetto: The Missiological
Gospel and Theology of Tupac Amaru Shakur (VDM 2009), and The Soul Of Hip
Hop: Rimbs, Timbs, and A Cultural Theology (IVP 2010). He is working on a book
titled The Hostile Gospel: Finding Religion In The Post Soul Theology of Hip Hop
(Brill Academic late 2015).
John Lupinacci teaches pre-service teachers and graduate students in the Cultural
Studies and Social Thought in Education (CSSTE) program using an anarchist
approach that advocates for the development of scholar-activist educators. He has
taught at the secondary level in Detroit and is co-author of the book EcoJustice
Education: Toward Diverse, Democratic, and Sustainable Communities. His experi-
ences as a high school math and science teacher, an outdoor environmental educa-
tor, and a community activist, all contribute to examining the relationships
between schools and the reproduction of the cultural roots of social suffering and
environmental degradation.
Anthony J. Nocella II is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at
Fort Lewis College, Executive Director of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies,
National Co-Coordinator of Save the Kids, Co-Editor of the Critical Animal
Studies and Theory Book Series with Lexington Books, Editor of the Peace Studies
Journal, and Coordinator of the International Hip Hop Activism Conference.
Nocella has published more than 50 scholarly articles/chapters and 20 books
including co-editing: From Education to Incarceration: Dismantling the School-to-
Prison Pipeline (2014), and The End of Prisons: Reflections from the Decarceration
Movement (2013). Visit him at www.anthonynocella.org.
lauren Ornelas is the founder/director of Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.),
a vegan food justice nonprofit seeking to create a more just world by helping con-
sumers recognize the power of their food choices. F.E.P. works in solidarity with
farm workers, advocates for chocolate not sourced from the worst forms of child
labor, and focuses on access to healthy foods in Communities of Color and low-
income communities. lauren also served as campaign director with the Silicon
Valley Toxics Coalition for six years. Watch her TEDx talk on The Power of Our
Food Choices. Learn more about F.E.P.’s work at www.foodispower.org and www.
veganmexicanfood.com.
Priya Parmar is an Associate Professor of Secondary Education and Program
Head of English Education at Brooklyn College-CUNY. Her scholarly publica-
tions center around critical literacies, youth and Hip Hop culture, and other
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

contemporary issues in the field of Cultural Studies in which economic, political,

and social justice issues are addressed. Dr. Parmar is the co-founder (with Bryonn
Bain) of the “Lyrical Minded: Enhancing Literacy through Popular Culture &
Spoken Word Poetry” program working with NYC high school teachers and
administrators in creating and implementing critical literacy units using popular
culture, critical media literacy, and spoken-word poetry into individual classrooms
across the disciplines.
David N. Pellow is the Dehlsen Chair of Environmental Studies at the University
of California, Santa Barbara. His teaching and research focus on ecological justice
in the USA and globally. His books include Total Liberation: The Power and
Promise of Animal Rights and the Radical Earth Movement, The Slums of Aspen:
Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden (with Lisa Sun-Hee Park),
Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice; and
Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago. He works with
numerous organizations focused on improving the living and working environ-
ments for People of Color and other marginalized communities.
Devon G. Peña is Full Professor in American Ethnic Studies, Anthropology, and
Environmental Studies at the University of Washington. He is the Co-Founder
and President of The Acequia Institute, a charitable foundation supporting
research and education for environmental and food justice movements. Peña is
author of several award-winning books on environmental justice, ethnoecology,
agroecology, and labor studies. His forthcoming books include the edited volume,
Mexican-Origin Food, Foodways, and Social Movements: A Decolonial Reader
(2016, University of Arkansas Press).
Shamelle Richards studied anthropology at the University of Washington with
specializations in Medical Anthropology and Global Health and Human
Evolutionary Biology. As a student in the University of Washington Honors
Program and a Mary Gates Scholar, she conducted research mapping the migra-
tion patterns and reproductive health outcomes of women from the English-
speaking Caribbean. Her interest in migrant justice encompasses issues such as
food, health, and environmental justice, decarceration, health disparities, and
discrimination. She plans to pursue a Juris Doctorate and Masters of Public Health,
and hopes to work as an attorney and health policy advocate for migrant
populations.
Don C. Sawyer III is a faculty member in the department of sociology at
Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, where he is teaching the univer-
sity’s first sociology course dedicated to Hip Hop culture. His scholarly focus is on
race, urban education, Hip Hop culture, and youth critical media literacy. His
research adds to the work of scholars interested in finding solutions to the plight
of Students of Color in failing school districts and aims to center the often-silenced
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii

voices of urban youth as experts with the ability to understand and articulate their
lived experiences.
Caitlin Watkins is a nonprofit professional living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
She has worked for a number of organizations focused on social and economic
justice, including Insight Garden Program, Consumers Union, and Renaissance
Entrepreneurship Center. In 2013, she launched Fallen Fruit from Rising Women,
a social enterprise benefitting Crossroads, a transitional facility for previously incar-
cerated women. She graduated from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, where she
completed her honors thesis in Environmental Analysis entitled “Cultivating
Resistance: Food Justice in the Criminal Justice System.”
 LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1.1 Elements of a conflict (designed by Anthony J. Nocella II) 6

xv
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 5.1 Urban pollutant sources by Zipcode 80

Table 5.2 Suburban pollutant sources by Zipcode 80

xvii
 FOREWORD

David Pellow

Addressing Environmental and Food Justice toward Dismantling the School-

to-Prison Pipeline: Poisoning and Imprisoning Youth is one of the most
innovative, ambitious, and important books I have read in a long time.
That’s because this is a project that works to achieve two broad critical
goals that few others have even attempted to address: (1) a rigorous anal-
ysis of the social forces driving multiple forms of social inequality and
injustice, including environmental racism, food injustice, and the school-
to-prison pipeline and (2) the issuance of a call to action that embraces
a transformative, caring, revolutionary strategy that seeks to link thriv-
ing, safe, and nurturing schools with environmental justice, food justice,
decriminalization, an end to mass incarceration, and, ultimately, the aboli-
tion of the Prison Industrial Complex itself. This is a bold, beautiful, and
extraordinary vision.
The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) is a concept that scholars and
activists often use to describe the ways that social institutions track and
narrow the freedoms, options, and life chances of Youth of Color who are
frequently pushed from the highly segregated and underfunded public
school system into the “criminal justice” system. I have recently come
across the work of some scholars who argue that the STPP idea may be too
narrow a framework because it could be read to suggest that while these
two institutions are linked, the STPP does not pay sufficient attention
to the role of other social institutions that contribute to the domination
of People of Color on an everyday basis. Nothing could be further from
the truth in this volume. If one actually takes seriously the metaphor or
image of a pipeline in the industrial extractive sense (as the editors and

xix
xx FOREWORD

contributors to this book do), then one may come to an understand-

ing that it is a metaphor that works quite well. Specifically, pipelines are
extractive and productive in the sense that they withdraw indispensable
“resources” (e.g. oil and people) from ecosystems and communities, not
just for use in a particular industry, but for the purpose of fueling of a
way of life: they support an entire cultural, economic, and political system.
When we think of the STPP in that way, we engage its generative pos-
sibilities since it reveals how the PIC is so deeply rooted in shaping and
structuring society as a whole from our homes and neighborhoods, to
our schools and places of employment, and to the media and civil society
and back. We have become a society marked and shaped through and
through by mass incarceration, mass probation, surveillance, containment,
control, data mining, and other forms of state-corporate violence. The
school-to-prison pipeline is not just one dimension of that apparatus; it
is indispensable to supporting it and reproducing the carceral society as a
cultural reality.
The contributors to this volume have moved the debate around envi-
ronmental and food justice and schools and prisons forward by leaps and
bounds through exploring and articulating the linkages among these
issues and the movements organizing around them. To put it simply, pris-
ons disproportionately harm the same communities that are confronting
environmental and food injustice and low-quality schools: Communities
of Color, working-class communities, and immigrant and indigenous
communities. Prisons produce widespread damage to our ecosystems as
well; so when we raise our voices and place our bodies on the line in the
struggle against mass incarceration and for prison abolition, we can also
begin to see how we can link that struggle with the movements for food
and environmental justice and high quality education for all. The coali-
tional possibilities that this volume presents and suggests are limitless and
could redefine, reimagine, and remake the present configurations of a host
of social change movements. The USA imprisons more people than any
other nation, has some of the world’s most highly unequal and racially
segregated school systems, and produces more toxic chemicals and haz-
ardous wastes per capita than any other nation. The USA is also a space
where lively, creative, and powerful social change movements have often
emerged and raised a ruckus to paint, sing, rap, shout, dance, speak, and
live out dreams of freedom for people and the more-than-human com-
munities we share this planet with. These two historic and contemporary
trends are coming together to force a confrontation between peoples’
 FOREWORD xxi

movements and the neoliberal structures that seek to contain, manage,

manipulate, and destroy life, and that collision will shape the futures of
Communities of Color, working-class communities, immigrant communi-
ties, Indigenous peoples, and the ecosystems we depend upon for decades
to come. The editors and contributors to this important book are among
the folks I’m counting on to help chart that path and I’m joining them on
the front lines of the struggle. After reading this book I am hopeful that
you will as well.
Santa Barbara, CA
 PREFACE

lauren Ornelas

More and more it seems that people in the USA want easy answers and
solutions to very complex issues. There seem to be very few who are look-
ing at the roots of problems to gain a deeper understanding of where
problems stem from. Poisoning and Imprisoning Youth: The Politics of
Environmental and Food Justice in the School-to-Prison Pipelines seeks to
not only look at the roots of the problems but how they are connected.
In our work at Food Empowerment Project, we see this when we look
at the lack of access to healthy foods in Communities of Color and low-
income communities. Instead of addressing the root problems of no fresh
fruits and vegetables in some communities (or the lack of living wages paid
to workers today, and greedy corporations that put unethical deeds on old
properties), so-called solutions too often involve bringing Wal-Mart or
other “big box” stores to communities.
So many issues involving food access are connected, and yet society
fails to unweave this web and to be critical enough to acknowledge the
complexities of the issues. Instead, we find a constant cycle of reliving
yesterday’s problems.
The Free Breakfast for School Children Program, started by the Black
Panther Party in 1969, was part of the range of social programs instituted
by the party at the time to directly address the services lacking in Black and
poor communities. Particularly important was their Ten-Point Program:
approached self-defense in terms of political empowerment, encompass-
ing protection against joblessness and the circumstances that excluded
Blacks from equal employment opportunities; against predatory business
practices intended to exploit the needs of the poor; against homelessness

xxiii
xxiv PREFACE

and inferior housing conditions; against educational systems that deni-

grate and miscast the histories of oppressed peoples; against a prejudiced
judiciary that convicts African Americans and other People of Color by
all-white juries; and, finally, against the lawlessness of law enforcement
agencies that harass, abuse, and murder Blacks with impunity (Hilliard
and Weise 2002, p. 11–12)
Unfortunately, all these concerns still face Communities of Color in
the USA. In January 1969, the Black Panthers began cooking for and
serving breakfast to poor inner city youth in the area—part of a program
they eventually set up in cities across the country. Through this program,
the Panthers fed thousands of kids across the country. According to the
Black Panther Party (1969), “Children cannot reach their full academic
potential if they have empty stomachs” (p. n.a.). The US food system was
never created to benefit everyone.
Poisoning and Imprisoning Youth provides an essential critique of these
systems that the Panthers challenged in the 1960s and 70s. By looking
critically at how food justice issues overlap with racial and economic issues,
we at last have a starting point at which we can derive answers to complex
questions surrounding domination and oppression. Indeed, we can begin
to end the STPP.
When as a society we seem to be attracted to sound bites and think that
having true discussions can be done within 140 characters and where the
angriest voice wins, Poisoning and Imprisoning Youth is a breath of fresh
air in which readers find a strong dose of reality and important connec-
tions to critical issues that face our youth and therefore our future.

References

Black Panther Party. (1969). The free breakfast for school children. Oakland, CA:
The Black Panther Party Newspaper.
Hilliard, D., & Weise, D. (2002). The Huey P. Newton reader. New York, NY:
Seven Stories Press.

lauren Ornelas
Cotati, CA
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Anthony, John, and Kishi would like to thank first and foremost our fami-
lies who have supported us. We would also like to honor the Earth and all
the elements and living creatures on it. We also would like to thank every-
one with Palgrave, especially Mara Berkoff, Sarah Nathan, and Milana
Vernikova who have been supportive, detailed, and flexible during the
process of finishing this book. This book would not be possible without
the outstanding contributions and authors of the foreword, preface, and
afterword—David Pellow, lauren Ornelas, Joel Helfrich, Carol Mendoza
Fisher, Daniel White Hodge, Travis Harris, Priya Parmar, Don Sawyer,
Michael Cermak, Devon G. Peña, Caitlin Watkins, Sarah Conrad, and
Frank Hernandez. We would also like to thank those that wrote blurbs
for the book—Rebecca J. Clausen, Jason Del Gandio, David Gabbard,
Four Arrows, Joy James, William Ayers, David Stovall, Joel Kovel, César
A. Rossatto, Richard Kahn, Peter McLaren, and Richard White.

xxv
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: From Addressing

the Problems to the Solutions of the School-
to-Prison Pipeline Through a Food
and Environmental Justice Perspective

Anthony J. Nocella II, K. Animashaun Ducre,

and John Lupinacci

This book emerged out of the book From Education to Incarceration:

Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline (Nocella et al. 2014) and the
work of Save the Kids, a national grassroots organization dedicated to alter-
natives to and the end of the incarceration of all youth and the school-to-
prison pipeline (STPP), grounded in Hip Hop and transformative justice.
Save the Kids was founded in 2009 by four African American boys in a
New York juvenile detention facility. Save the Kids, along with other youth

A.J. Nocella II ()

Department of Sociology, Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive, Durango, CO
81301, USA
K.A. Ducre
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
J. Lupinacci
College of Education, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA

© The Author(s) 2017 1

A.J. Nocella II et al. (eds.), Addressing Environmental and
Food Justice toward Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50822-5_1
2 A.J. NOCELLA II ET AL.

justice activists saw a lack of discussion on environmental and food justice

when discussing the causes of the STPP. The STPP is a systematic socio-
political process that pushes selected youth out of school and on to the
streets to be targeted by law enforcement, where they end up in juvenile
detention. According to Save the Kids, there are five common elements
of the STPP: (1) criminalization, (2) policing, (3) punitive discipline, (4)
oppressive/rigid education, and (5) cultural incompetent personnel.

1. The first element, criminalization refers to the stigmatization of tar-

geted youth through laws and norms that are based on their behav-
ior, dress, ability, socializing, identity, and community in which they
live in. A prime example includes the current public shaming of
young Men of Color who wear large pants without belts. A Memphis
businessman and a state senator in Brooklyn have used funds to
purchase billboard space to highlight their concern with “sagging
pants.” In Memphis, residents would have seen a billboard featuring
an African American man wearing a graduation gown and holding a
diploma with the slogan, “Show your mind, not your behind.” In
Brooklyn, there were no faces on their billboard; it featured the
picture of a man from the waist down, with the slogan, “We are bet-
ter than this.” In the aftermath of the murder of Trayvon Martin,
there was dialogue about the presumed threat of young Black men
wearing hooded sweatshirts.
2. The second element includes the policing of youth. This refers to
the surveillance and social control of youth by law enforcement and
those in disciplinary roles. Notable examples of this type of surveil-
lance include New York City’s infamous “Stop and Frisk” law and
other aggressive policing policies that result in a heavy police pres-
ence in poor neighborhoods and Communities of Color.
3. The third element, punitive discipline, refers to the punishment of
youth which includes detention, sitting in the hall or corner, invol-
untary labor, in- and out-of school suspension, incarceration, home
arrest, and probation. The punitive actions have become the result
of the ever-expanding adoption of zero tolerance policies by school
systems.
4. An oppressive monolithic education system is the fourth element in
the formation of the STPP. This element refers to the curriculum,
pedagogy, and practices that promote and are grounded in the dom-
inant identity and culture. This type of education distances itself
 INTRODUCTION: FROM ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS TO THE SOLUTIONS ... 3

from the history and experiences of some of its students. When this
element is combined with the final factor, the cultural incompetence
of those who serve our youth, they become intractable obstacles to
learning and catalysts for the rise in push-out rates.
5. Cultural incompetence refers to non-diverse, miseducated, or non-
representative personnel in both the juvenile justice and school sys-
tems that do not relate, understand, or identify with marginalized
identities (Save the Kids 2015).

The Campaign for Youth Justice, Center for Community Alternatives,

Dignity in Schools, American Civil Liberties Union, Advancement Project,
Youth Justice Coalition, National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, Children’s
Defense Fund, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Families and Friends of
Louisiana Incarcerated Children, and Save the Kids, among others, have
offered and/or provide solutions to the problems associated with the
STPP. The five general solutions to parallel the problems noted above
include

1. inclusionary policies and practices that challenge stigmatization;

2. providing freedom, trust, and independence from authority and law
enforcement rather than surveillance;
3. supporting and adopting restorative and transformative justice,
mediation, and conflict management/resolution/transformation to
replace punitive practices;
4. allowing the communities culture and marginalized groups history
and culture to reflect the curriculum which should be developed by
each school rather than a national standardization movement and
corporate textbooks; and
5. insisting that all personnel within the criminal justice and school
systems must reflect and come from the community they are
serving.

The overall goal of the STPP is absolute control and punishment when
needed, while re-educating the future population (i.e., youth) that rein-
forces the dominant and dominated binary within society. As such, the
STPP is a tool of repressive governments; it is about social control through
the criminal justice system and propagation through the school system. A
historic example is the early Christian boarding schools for native youth
4 A.J. NOCELLA II ET AL.

in the USA. Those who did not cut their hair, learn English, and become
Christian found themselves as identified by the US government as “bad
Indians” and law enforcement would soon find a way to lock them up
through racist laws. Racist laws today include the banning in schools and
making it illegal to sag one’s pants in cities such as New Orleans, Chicago,
Atlanta, Detroit, Miami, and Jacksonville (Ferris 2014).
This book speaks to the rights that many people around the world
should have, like the rights to drinking clean water, eating healthy, and
living in a pollution-free environment. This book also speaks about the
disadvantages that youth, primarily low-income and Youth of Color, face
prior to their entrance into school. While some youth are fed a healthy
meal prior to a test or quiz, others are fed a highly processed sugar-filled
breakfast which often makes the child hyper, unable to focus, and shaking
and as a result of this daily reoccurrence the child is diagnosed, hyperac-
tive, attention deficient disorder, and behavior disorder. More and more
children in urban communities are exposed to toxins and getting asthma
because of the air pollution they live in. Furthermore, this planet is chang-
ing and growing warmer by the decade, not because of natural causes,
but by the hands of transnational corporations. These corporations try to
greenwash their activities by donating to non-profits, establishing envi-
ronmental foundations, and buying land. Many of these corporations have
their factories, refineries, and processing plants in the backyard of poor
neighborhoods and Communities of Color. Until we eradicate these cor-
porations and capitalism, they will continue to flatten the forests, destroy
diverse ecosystems, eliminate forever thousands of species, violate the
rights to clean air, water, and public health of communities, and leave
toxic pollution for generations to come (Best and Nocella 2006).
Oppression can appear in many forms; in this book, we will discuss in
detail how youth, specifically youth that are economically disadvantaged
and Youth of Color are targeted through the environment they live and
what they consume. This section of the introduction is dedicated to pro-
viding the reader solutions to the STPP and the pollution that youth have
to consume daily, while expected to succeed. This section will put the
reader on the path of being an effective activist and social change agent
(Del Gandio and Nocella 2014). There are many tactics to fight back
against these polluters such as rallies, sit-ins, die-ins, marches, rallies, hun-
ger strikes, banner drops, petitions, vigils, blockades, occupations, strikes,
boycotts, lobbying, memes, writing blogs, articles, books, and op-eds; and
developing websites, documentaries, social media activism, stickers, shirts,
 INTRODUCTION: FROM ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS TO THE SOLUTIONS ... 5

buttons, building coalitions; and hosting lectures, conferences, debates,

film screens, teach-ins, and workshops. When selecting tactics, the ques-
tion is not, what is the best tactic, but what tactic do you feel comfortable
and want to perform? When you answer that question, adopt the tactics,
build a strategy, which is an organized step process built by a diversity of
tactics. Martin L. King Jr. is credited with the development of six steps of
non-violent social change (The King Center, n.a.): information gathering,
education, personal commitment, discussion/negotiation, direct action,
and reconciliation.

1. Information gathering includes doing research and finding every-

thing you can about your opposition and issue.
2. Education entails educating the community and people in your
group or organization about the information you and others found
through your research.
3. Personal commitment refers to the idea that all those involved in the
cause and effort should affirm the amount of time, energy, and
resources, and legally they are willing to risk/give.
4. Discussion/negotiation means that once you have a critical mass of
committed folk, a meeting is setup with the opposition to discuss
your demands and alternatives. At this point, you are hoping they
change without escalation tactics.
5. Direct action results when the opposition does not change, and
escalating activist tactics are employed to pressure the opposition to
meet your demands.
6. Finally, reconciliation is a result after escalated pressure on the oppo-
sition wherein the opposition is compelled to comply with the
demands.

While Martin L. King Jr. had six micro-steps for social change, Mahatma
Gandhi had four macro-step activists for social change: (1) endure igno-
rance/avoidance; (2) stigmatization/dehumanization; (3) repression;
and finally (4) acceptance, where you explicitly address your concerns into
law, rules, and/or socially. No matter the issue, all social changes center
on a specific conflict. It is important to know how to analyze a conflict,
because it will allow those working for social change to understand all the
elements involved. All conflicts have three elements, which include the
following:
6 A.J. NOCELLA II ET AL.

1. Relationship: These are the specific individuals, groups, and com-

munities involved.
2. Subject: Is the topic that brings the individuals, groups, and com-
munities together.
3. Process: This includes the history, present, and future interactions of
the individuals, groups, and communities involved (Fig. 1.1).

Each of these three elements can be broken down by developing a

flow chart which links all the direct and indirect relationships such as the
corporations, lobby groups, government representatives and agencies, and
political parties, or by developing multiple lists of why all the groups,
individuals, and communities are interested in the topic, or by making a
timeline of when all the relationships interacted and why. It is important to
discuss how to create social change for this book because too often theo-
rists, teachers, authors, activists, politicians, spiritual leaders, and profes-
sors inform you about a socio-political problem, but do not provide you
any ways on how to solve the problem. That is why we thought it would
be important to note these practical skills at the beginning of the book.
We hope you share this introduction with others and work with us directly
and indirectly by ending the STPP that is targeting youth around the
world. No more can educators argue that there is an achievement gap and
Youth of Color are not successful, while these youth are poisoned through
the water they drink, the air they breathe, or the food they eat.

Fig. 1.1 Elements of a conflict (designed by Anthony J. Nocella II)

 INTRODUCTION: FROM ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS TO THE SOLUTIONS ... 7

In compiling chapters for this volume, we could not help thinking

about the powerful quote from Black feminist lesbian writer Audre
Lorde: “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”
(Lorde in Guy-Sheftall 1995, p. 291). She harkens to the work of Paolo
Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2002). Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the
Oppressed (2002) can be conceptualized as an existential companion to
Marx’s theory on class struggle. While Marx describes conflict and rebel-
lion from a macro- and materialist perspective, Friere attempts to address
the same theme on an individual, subjective level. Freire suggests that
once the oppressed understand that they possess valued knowledge (or,
are able to articulate critiques against established knowledge created by
their oppressors), they take the first step in their struggle for liberation.
Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2002) does not suffer the strictures of
Marx’s Capital; his perspective allows for what Black feminism theorist
Kimberle Crenshaw framed as intersectionality. In the Introduction of
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire 2002), authored by Donaldo Machedo,
it states:

In it [Ideology Matters] Freire argues that whereas, for example, “one

cannot reduce the analysis of racism to social class, one cannot understand
racism fully without a class analysis, for to do one at the expense of the other
to fall prey into a sectarianist position, which is as despicable as the racism
that we need to reject.” In essence, Friere’s later works make it clear that
what is important is to approach the analysis of oppression through a con-
vergent theoretical framework where the object of oppression is cut across
by such factors as race, class, gender, culture, language, and ethnicity. Thus,
he would reject any theoretical analysis that would collapse the multiplicity
of factors into a monolithic entry, including class (p. 15).

OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK

This book is made of a diversity of scholars in academia and in the com-
munity and from around the country, with different genders, abilities,
races, social economic statuses, and educational qualifications. We felt
that since there are already leading scholars working to contribute to our
understandings of environmental justice as inextricable from increasing
violences of racism, classism, sexism, and ableism—and likewise, scholars
working to examine the STPP in connection with the North American
prison industrial complex—this book intentionally assembles chapters
from a truly diverse group of voices from the margins and movements
8 A.J. NOCELLA II ET AL.

that address directly, and in some cases indirectly, the interconnectedness

of environmental racism and STPP. This book is a movement book to
be read, shared, and used as a blueprint to dismantle the STPP targeting
youth from birth to higher education. In a market where there are books
on women’s rights or environmental justice or the STPP or food justice or
mass incarceration, this book engages all of these seemingly disparate fields
of inquiry and reflection. The contributors seamlessly link these ideologies
and social movements under the rubric of justice with the underlying goals
of equality in access and opportunity. These contributions challenge the
existence of silos, leaving readers with a keen sense of connection among
today’s highly visible movements for human rights.
In Chap. 2, “They Got Me Trapped: Structural Inequality and Racism
in Space and Place Within Urban School System Design,” Travis T. Harris
and Daniel White Hodge providectural inequality and racism in schools
and communities. Recognizing the challenges of hyper-militarized school
zones and capitalist policies that support schools sorting children into
prisons, Harris and Hodge share a visionary way forward for what school
could be for our urban youth.
In Chap. 3, “The Rochester River School: Humane Education to
Confront Educational Injustice and the School-to-Prison Pipeline in
Rochester, New York,” Joel T. Helfrich illuminates the deep connec-
tions between urban industrial living, schooling, and the possibilities of
new hopes from education. Helfrich details how and why educators in
Rochester decided enough was enough and got together to organize
a school as a form of direct action against increasing environmental
racism and a school system that was failing children, families, and the
community.
In Chap. 4, “Where We Live, Play and Study: Assessing Multiple Adverse
Impacts of Schools near Environmental Hazards,” K. Animashaun Ducre
samples words of the late Dana Alston, one of the primary architects in
the ascension of the modern environmental justice movement. Using case
studies of the Moton Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana, and
the La Croft Elementary School in East Liverpool, Ohio, she reveals the
unique circumstances of children in environmental justice communities,
particularly those who attend schools that are located near environmental
hazards: Her review of literature revealed one school to every six schools
is located with a half-mile of polluting industry.
In Chap. 5, “Race and Access to Green Space: School Yards, Gardens,
and Community Parks,” Carol Mendoza Fisher takes readers into San
 INTRODUCTION: FROM ADDRESSING THE PROBLEMS TO THE SOLUTIONS ... 9

Antonio, Texas. In this chapter, Fischer highlights the racism surround-

ing everyday access to parks and greenspace for Black and Brown children
and families. Fischer examines San Antonio’s history of racial segregation
and racist policies in connection with environmental risks endured by
Communities of Color.
In Chap. 6, “Education that Supports all Students: Food Sovereignty
and Urban Education in Detroit,” John Lupinacci explores what hap-
pened when radical activist–educators in Detroit were faced with address-
ing the exploitation and systemic violence of the Eurocentric industrial
culture. Lupinacci examines how Western industrial culture is rationalized,
justified, and/or ignored in Detroit and what could be done to begin
to build a healthy and autonomous community? This chapter shares an
embedded story within a larger story of resistance; that is, a story of how
schools—more specifically education—can play a significant role in orga-
nizing food sovereignty in Detroit, Michigan.
Part two of this book is dedicated to examining the problems of the
current US criminal justice system and providing solutions to its punitive
nature. More than two million adults are incarcerated in the US and most
of them are People of Color, while most people arrested are people who
are white (Davis 2003; Gilmore 2007). The US criminal justice system
was and is always racist and classist because of how it was constructed
(Alexander 2012). Who is and who is not a criminal, deviant, delinquent,
or a terrorist is subject and determined by those in dominant positions
controlled by a system. The clearest example of how the US criminal jus-
tice system is racist is the Thirteenth Amendment that was signed into
law on December 18, 1865, the same year the American Civil War ended,
which was fought mostly over the issue of slavery. The Amendment does
not abolish slavery, but rather institutionalizes it only “as a punishment for
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within
the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Therefore,
the government just needed to make laws that would target Blacks. A per-
fect example of this today is the cities banning the sagging of pants, which
if convicted a person can face paying a fine of a thousand dollars or sen-
tenced to six months in jail. Cities have even put signs and billboards up
about this law, with most often Black youths used as the image of sagging
their pants. The American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People, and Save the Kids have come out
publicly in press conferences, rallies, and press releases stating how this
law racial profiles youth. This book is not about reforming the criminal
Another random document with
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were never coming down. We’ve had breakfast ages ago; and Uncle Bexley
and the others, all except Mr. Karne, are already out on the moors.”
“How is it Mr. Karne has not gone?” Lady Marjorie asked wonderingly;
for Herbert was an enthusiastic sportsman.
“I don’t know. He is having a smoke in the lounge. P’raps he’s waiting to
give you your present. I mustn’t tell you what it is—it’s a surprise, you
know,—but I’m sure you will like it awf’lly. Uncle says it’s a very striking
likeness of me.”
“Tut-tut, Master Bobbie,” put in Janet, warningly. “You are letting the
cat out of the bag;” and the boy promptly clapped his hand to his lips.
Lady Marjorie found Karne deep in thought, watching with half-closed
eyes the smoke as it curled upwards from his cigar.
He rose at her approach, and having wished her many happy returns of
the day, presented her with a beautifully painted pastel of her boy.
Her face lit up with pleasure as she thanked him, for the gift had
evidently occasioned him much thought.
“I shall hang it up in my boudoir at Durlston,” she said, when she had
expressed her admiration of the portrait, “next to the one you painted of
Bobbie as a baby. Heigho, how time flies! I feel dreadfully old to-day—
because it is my birthday, I suppose.”
“One is never old whilst the heart is young,” he answered, with a swift
glance from his deep eyes. He was just thinking how delightfully fresh and
young she looked.
Lady Marjorie met his eyes and blushed. Then she sat down at a small
table and, unfolding a daily paper, glanced through the morning’s news.
“Are you tired of the shooting?” she inquired presently. “I was quite
surprised when Bobbie informed me that you were still indoors.”
“I am afraid there will be no more shooting for me this year,” he replied
regretfully, taking up a time-table which had recently occupied his attention.
“I have just packed my traps previous to taking my departure. This
morning’s post brought me two letters containing news which makes it
necessary for me to go to Brighton immediately. I am more sorry than I can
say to have to bring this enjoyable visit to such an abrupt termination.”
Lady Marjorie’s face fell perceptibly. “Then you are going away!” she
exclaimed in dismay. “You have not received bad news, I hope?”
 “Well, that depends on how one looks at it,” he answered, noting her
crestfallen expression with a vague pang of self-reproach. “Celia’s visit to
Woodruffe has cost her dear; it has probably been the means of making her
lose her entire fortune.”
Lady Marjorie gave vent to an ejaculation of amazement.
“How could that possibly be?” she asked, her eyes distended in surprise.
The announcement almost took her breath away.
“She has decided to become a Christian,” he replied, as if apprising her
of some calamity. “And by doing so, according to the terms of her father’s
will, forfeits all claim to his wealth, which will go to build a Jewish hospital
in South Africa.”
Lady Marjorie stared at him blankly. “The little goose!” she exclaimed.
Then she corrected herself. “No, I didn’t mean that. Of course she must act
according to her belief. But I wonder what made her father insert such a
nonsensical stipulation in his will. I suppose she is aware of it?”
“No; judging by her letter, I do not think she is,” the artist answered,
with troubled brow. “I blame myself very much that I did not inform her of
it when I received the copy of the will, but I never dreamt of such a thing as
this happening. Her fiancé knows, however—Bernie Franks must have told
him himself,—and he is in a dreadful way about it. He is staying at Mrs.
Rosen’s house in Brighton, and begs me to join him there without delay.
Celia’s baptism is fixed for next Sunday; and, of course, if that is allowed to
take place, nothing can be done. Salmon writes that we must prevent that at
all costs, but I don’t see how we can if the girl has thoroughly made up her
mind to it.”
“No, I suppose not, as she is of age. But you may be able to persuade her
to postpone her baptism for a few months or so. It is possible that her
opinions may yet undergo another change. Does she seem very enthusiastic
over the matter?”
For answer Herbert handed her Celia’s letter to read. It consisted of eight
closely written pages; and judging by the frequent erasures, had evidently
been a difficult one to indite.
Lady Marjorie perused it carefully, reading several passages two or three
times in order to fully comprehend their meaning. At length she replaced it
in the envelope, and returned it without comment.
“Well?” interrogated Karne, briefly. “What do you think about it?”
 “I hardly know. You see, I’m a Christian myself—though not a good
one, I’m afraid,—and I can understand how Celia feels about it. Religion is
a strange and fascinating subject; and it has evidently taken strong hold of
her. I do not think you will be able to deter her from carrying out her
intention. She seems to take it for granted that you will not blame her for
what she is doing. But I should not think she is aware of the loss of fortune
her conversion entails.”
“Oh, I do not blame her,” he said quickly. “If she imagines she can be
happier as a Christian, let her be one by all means. I do not suppose there
will be anything gained by attempting to argue the question with her. She
will probably prefer to be guided by the instinct she calls faith than to
consider any reasoning of mine.”
A clock in the adjoining hall struck eleven. Herbert glanced at his watch.
“I suppose you will go by the 12.50?” Lady Marjorie said, with a sigh.
“We must have an early luncheon; and then I will drive down to the station
to see you off. I shall miss you when you are gone,” she added regretfully.
“We’ve had a nice time up here together, haven’t we? Do you know, of all
Bexley’s guests, you are the only one whose society I have really enjoyed.
If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t think I should have stayed in Scotland all
this time. I am terribly outspoken, am I not? But one cannot always bottle
up one’s feelings.”
Again a touch of self-reproach smote Karne’s breast. He glanced into
Lady Marjorie’s eyes—such blue eyes, as clear and innocent as a child’s;
then feeling that he was expected to say something, expressed the pleasure
his visit had given him, and thanked her for her own and Bexley’s kindness.
He did not respond, however, in the way she had hoped he would; and
his words struck coldly upon her ears. Why did he always repel her
whenever she tried to make their friendship a little closer, she wondered,
with a vague feeling of disappointment at her heart.
It was the same at the railway station, where she lingered until the train
moved off. She gave him plenty of opportunity for pretty farewell speeches,
but he didn’t make them; and as she drove home again with Bobbie, tears of
mortification welled up into her eyes. It was quite ridiculous of her to care
so much, she told herself, as she choked them down.
Bobbie noticing her emotion, endeavoured to console her.
 “Don’t cry, mother dear,” he said sympathetically. “We shall see Mr.
Karne again in Durlston next month. If you cry on your birthday, you’ll cry
all the year round, you know.”
Lady Marjorie thought she detected amusement in the expression of the
footman’s broad back.
“Nonsense!” she exclaimed, with a feeble smile. “Crying, indeed! It’s a
speck of dust in my eye.”
And another white lie was added to the list on her conscience.

CHAPTER VIII

THE RING RETURNED

“Well, what do you think of this d——d nonsense about Celia?” was
David Salmon’s polite greeting when he met Herbert Karne in the King’s
Road, Brighton, the next day.
He was so full of his grievance that he did not trouble to exchange the
customary civilities with the artist. Instead, he broke into a torrent of abuse
against the Wiltons, Lady Marjorie Stonor, and even Karne himself, for
having combined to lead his fiancée astray. He had been up to Woodruffe
that morning, he said, in order to give the Wiltons a piece of his mind, and
to implore Celia not to persist in her tomfoolery; but the girl was as
obstinate as a mule.
“Did you tell her what the consequence of her act will be, so far as
money is concerned?” asked Karne, who was not favourably impressed
with Salmon’s blustering manner.
“Yes, of course; but that didn’t seem to make the slightest difference.
She just went a bit white, and looked at me in a queer sort of way; then said
some stuff about ‘renunciation,’ and that was all. It’s my opinion that those
Wiltons must have worked upon her until her mind has become diseased;
and the sooner she gets away from them, the better. I have never heard of
such an idiotic affair in my life.”
Celia did not look, however, as if she possessed a morbid or diseased
mind. Her brother went over to Woodruffe in the afternoon, and found her
playing tennis. The exercise had lent a healthy glow to her cheeks; and she
looked much better and brighter than when he had last seen her in London.
The Wiltons received him kindly, although they were not sure whether
his visit were hostile as Mr. Salmon’s had been, or whether he was disposed
to be friendly; but their doubts were set at rest when he cordially invited
Enid to accompany Celia back to the Towers for the fortnight before her
rehearsals for the Haviland play began, and the invitation was accepted with
alacrity.
After tea they tactfully left the brother and sister alone, thinking, with
kindly consideration, that the two would have much to say to each other.
They were not mistaken. Herbert immediately began to ply Celia with a
volley of questions; and was some little time in eliciting all the information
he desired. Then he bade her consider well the gravity of her intended
action—an action that would cut her adrift from her own people, and make
her, for ever, an outcast in Israel.
“Do you know what your father would do, if he were alive?” he said
seriously. “He would sit shiva,[15] and mourn for you as one dead.”
But he did not blame her, nor did he cavil at her faith. He was kind, even
sympathetic; and all he asked her to do, for the present, was to wait awhile.
Celia, however, would not hear of procrastination in this matter; for the
Rev. Ralph Wilton was about to return to his parish, and she particularly
desired him to assist at the baptismal ceremony before he left. Besides,
there was nothing to be gained by waiting, she declared; her mind was fully
made up, her determination taken.
Herbert then advanced the monetary consideration, urging her not to
yield to a rash impulse she would probably live to regret; but, as he had
expected, this plea influenced her not at all.
“If the early Christians had allowed themselves to be guided by social
expediency, there would probably be little Christianity in the world to-day,”
she returned convincingly. “I must do what I feel to be my duty. But you
need not fear for me, Herbert. I am young and strong; and I have my voice.”
“And what of David Salmon? Have you considered him at all? You
know, it comes rather hardly upon him, after having been led to expect that
you would bring him a fortune.”
 Celia’s eyes fell. “If he really loved me, he would be just as willing to
marry me poor as rich,” she rejoined.
“True; but I am afraid that he is not so unworldly as yourself. Tell me, sis
dear, would it hurt you very much if he were to give you up?”
Her heart beat fast; she had never thought of such a possibility.
“Do you think he would do that?” she asked, evading his question; and
her brother did not omit to notice the eager light in her eyes.
“Well, I had a lengthy conversation with him this morning,” he answered
slowly. “And it appears to me that this affair has brought out a new side to
his character; not a very commendable one, either, I am afraid. Of course
he, in common with the Friedbergs and Rosens, is shocked and disgusted;
not so much because of your change of faith—although the idea of his
marrying a converted Jewess is repugnant to them all—but because, by so
doing, you are deliberately throwing away a fortune. He informed me that,
on his marriage, Mr. Rosen intended taking him into partnership; but were
he to marry you without your money, the scheme would, of necessity, fall
through. Then he asked me what dowry I would give you, in the event of
your losing your inheritance. Now, you may be sure, dear sis, that I shall
always do my best to make ample provision for you; and you shall never
want, I trust, whilst I am alive; but I thought I would just meet Salmon on
his own ground. So I told him that I lived up to my income, pretty well—
which is quite true,—and that, having never foreseen this contingency, I
found myself utterly unable to provide you with a marriage portion. I don’t
think he quite believed that; anyway, he suggested my raising a mortgage
on the Towers, or something of that sort. Then, when he saw that I was
obdurate, he said that, much as he likes you, he could not afford to marry a
girl without money; so that, if you persist in what he calls your madness,
the engagement will have to be broken off. Finally, he asked me to persuade
you to reconsider your decision; and sincerely hoped that I would bring him
back good news.”
Celia was filled with indignation; but, because she had never really
loved him, the avariciousness of her fiancé occasioned her no grief. Rather,
she was relieved that his true nature was thus manifested before it was too
late.
“It is a wonder he did not suggest my singing or acting as a means of
support,” she said.
 “He did; but I told him that I did not believe in a woman working to
keep her husband, unless he happened to be incapacitated by illness, or
there were some other urgent necessity. So it remains with you to decide
whether you will marry him or not. From what Marjie—Lady Marjorie, I
mean—has told me, I do not think your affections were deeply involved, so
that I can guess pretty well what your answer will be—eh, Celia?”
The girl slowly drew off her engagement ring. “Yes,” she replied
seriously, “I do not think I could marry him now, even were I to retain my
inheritance. My respect for him seems to have been suddenly obliterated.
Will you take him back this ring, please? And tell him that the man I marry
must love me for myself alone. Say, also, that, as I mean to carry out my
intention of joining the Christian Church, I am sure that there would often
be contention between us on that account; therefore the best thing—the only
thing—that I can do, is to dissolve our engagement.”
“And your decision is final?”
“Absolutely.”
Herbert made a wry face. “I cannot say I relish being the bearer of such a
message,” he said, placing the ring in his pocket-book. “Still, as you have
given it to me, I suppose I had better deliver it. I dare say Salmon will
round on me for having incensed you against him; and perhaps he will
prefer to receive your refusal from your own lips. I am afraid there will be a
mauvais quart d’heure for me when I get back to Brunswick Terrace.”
There was. David Salmon received the news with an oath, and broke into
a fit of passionate rage. After having cursed women in general, and Celia
Franks in particular, he declared that he would take to drink. When he had
calmed down, however, he thought better of it, and decided to console
himself with Dinah Friedberg. Dinah, so he said, besides being madly in
love with him, possessed no silly notions about religion, and her father,
although he did not make a pretence of being well off—as did Karne—
would at least endeavour to provide his daughter with a suitable marriage
dowry.
The next morning he presented himself at Woodruffe as though nothing
had happened. Celia would have preferred not to see him, but could not
very well refuse him the interview.
It was a painful one for both of them; and Celia, at least, felt relieved
when it was over. David implored, beseeched, and entreated her to
reconsider her decision, and refused at first to take back the few presents he
had given her, although he accepted them in the end. Finding that all his
pleading was of no avail, he revenged himself by indulging in cheap sneers
at her new-found faith, taunting her in the way best calculated to wound her
feelings. Finally, he encountered Ralph Wilton just as he was going out, and
told the clergyman what he thought of him in no measured terms.
Wilton himself was calm and unresentful, and his demeanour had the
effect of making Salmon a little bit ashamed of himself. He had the grace to
attempt an apology, at any rate, and even went so far as to shake hands
when he left.
Mr. Wilton accompanied him as far as the gate; then returned to the
drawing-room, to find Celia in tears.
The sight filled him with dismay. “Miss Franks!” he exclaimed, hardly
knowing how to express himself. “I—I am so sorry. I wish I could help you.
All this has been too much for you, I am afraid.”
Celia dried her eyes and smiled at him through her tears, reminding the
young clergyman of a burst of sunshine after a shower of rain.
“It—was—dreadfully weak of me!” she murmured in a small voice.
“But I couldn’t help it. Mr. Salmon did say such cruel things; and although I
know it’s foolish, they—they rankle. He made me feel as if I were about to
commit a crime.”
Ralph Wilton looked at her with deep sympathy in his eyes.
“The crown of thorns does indeed press hard upon your brow,” he said
compassionately. “You are being deprived of your fortune and your lover at
one blow. But do not lose heart, Miss Franks; I feel sure there is much
sunshine in store for you yet. Who can tell? Your self-sacrifice may lead to
happiness you know not of. Only trust and believe, and all will yet be well.”
“Oh, I am not at all unhappy,” she responded hastily, not wishing him to
be falsely impressed. “There is really no self-sacrifice in what I am doing.”
She did not add that the breaking of her engagement came as an unexpected
and not unwelcome release. Nevertheless, she felt it to be such, although it
was some little time before she could altogether realize that she was indeed
free.
The news of her conversion and its pecuniary consequence spread with
astonishing rapidity, even leaking into the Jewish and society papers.
Jewish people criticized her action as disgraceful, non-Jews as quixotic; and
both unanimously agreed that by foregoing a public confession of faith—
meaning the ceremony of baptism—she might have retained her fortune.
But public opinion caused Celia no concern, for she knew that no other
course than the one she had taken would have been possible to her for any
length of time. If she had acted foolishly according to the world’s standard,
she had at least done what she had felt to be her duty in the sight of God.
If she left Woodruffe the poorer in one way for her visit there, she was
richer in another; and never, during the whole course of her life, did she
ever wish her action undone.

CHAPTER IX

AN OUTCAST IN ISRAEL

“An outcast in Israel!” The words recurred to Celia with persistent

frequency during the next few weeks; for she went back to Durlston to find
herself ostracized by the little Jewish colony in whom she had taken interest
for so long a time.
Almost the first day after her return she went among them, as was her
custom when at home, taking with her toys for the children, articles of
adornment for the women, tobacco pouches for the men—all little
evidences of her thought for them whilst away. Never dreaming that her
conversion would make the slightest difference to them, the reception they
gave her stung her to the quick. The kindly greetings with which she was
wont to accost them died on her lips as she detected the look of scorn on
their faces. Mothers drew their little ones away from her, as though her very
touch meant contamination. Her gifts they regarded as so many briberies to
retain their good will, and therefore refused them with disdain.
Almost dumbfounded, and grieved to the heart, the girl sought refuge in
Mrs. Strelitzki’s cottage. Surely Anna would not turn against her, she
thought confidently, remembering the many kindnesses she had performed
for her in bygone days.
But even Anna Strelitzki, although she did not slam the door in her face,
as some of the others had done, received her without the slightest display of
cordiality. With embarrassment plainly discernible in her manner, she
offered her a seat by the fire, and then bolted the cottage door—a
proceeding which struck Celia as decidedly strange. Then, without
speaking, she went on with her washing, occasionally glancing furtively at
the window, apparently apprehensive of some unpleasant interruption.
“What is the meaning of all this, Anna?” Celia asked passionately. “Why
do they shun me as if I were some evil creature? I have done them no
harm!”
Mrs. Strelitzki trifled nervously with the corner of her apron, refusing to
meet the steady gaze from the girl’s clear eyes.
“M’shumadas!”[16] she exclaimed laconically, evidently deeming the
word sufficient explanation in itself, for she relapsed into silence, and went
on with her washing. Her manner was certainly strange.
Celia did not quite catch the meaning of the epithet; and, with tightly
clenched hands and compressed lips, waited for more. But no sound broke
the stillness save the ticking of the clock, and the measured breathing of a
sleeping child.
Suddenly the shrill toot of the factory horn, announcing the acquittal of
the workers, broke upon their ears. The child woke up with a fretful cry;
and the mother, drying her hands, came forward to quiet him.
“Oh, miss, I wish you would go home, if you don’t mind,” she said,
turning towards her visitor with an air of apology. “It’s getting near Jacob’s
dinner-time; and I dunno what ’ud happen if he were to coom back and find
you here. He’d half kill me, I think. He told me to have nowt to do with
you.”
“But why? I have done no harm,” the girl repeated, almost piteously. “Is
it because I have become a Christian?”
The woman nodded. “M’shumadas—traitress to the Faith,” she said in
the tone of one who repeats a watchword. “The people here are all good
Jews. They despise m’shumadim. They don’t want you to come and convert
their children, or give them tracts out of a black bag.”
“But I have no black bag,” Celia put in, with a faint smile, although there
were tears in her eyes. “And I have brought toys—not tracts. It is very
unkind of you all to treat me like this. I should not have thought it of you,
especially, Anna.”
“Good Jews despise m’shumadim,” the woman reiterated half sullenly,
and unbolted the door.
 Celia drew on her gloves, and took her leave. With flaming cheeks and
quivering lips she hurried past the factory and down the high road. The men
were pouring out of the workshops, most of them wending their way
homewards. A few months ago they would have lifted their caps with a
courteous “Good morning, miss.” Now, they passed her with a scowl. Some
of the recently-arrived workers were informed as to her identity, and Celia
caught the word m’shumadas as it passed from lip to lip.
Arrived at the Towers, she burst into the library, where her brother and
Enid Wilton were writing, and impetuously told them of the insult she had
received. It was so uncalled-for, so nonsensical, so absolutely absurd, she
declared tremulously. She had done nothing to merit such treatment.
Enid Wilton listened with sympathy. Herbert Karne flung down his pen
with annoyance.
“So they mean war, do they?—the blockheads!” he exclaimed, with an
angry laugh. “I ought to have prepared you for this, Celia: you must not go
near them any more.”
“But why?” the girl asked quickly, as she threw her hat down on the
couch, and lifted Souvie up to be petted. “Do they not know that by
insulting me, they offend you also?”
The artist shrugged his shoulders. “They don’t much care if they do. For
some unaccountable reason I have lost my popularity amongst them. You
cannot imagine how terribly those people have disappointed me,” he added,
turning towards Enid Wilton with a touch of bitterness. “After having spent
much thought, time, and money on their education and the improvement of
their surroundings, I find them, in spite of it all, still dominated by the
instincts of the untutored savage: unprincipled, ungrateful, uncouth,
irresponsible, ignorant and superstitious in the extreme. The first few
batches of men I had down here responded admirably, and appreciated to
the full my efforts for them, but these present ones are absolutely
incorrigible. It is disheartening, is it not?—for I was confident of success in
my undertaking.”
“But what has happened to turn them against you?” asked his sister with
surprise. “Have you offended them also?”
“It seems like it. For the last six months there seems to have been an evil
influence among them; sometimes I think the poison of anarchy lurks in
their veins. They have taken a violent and senseless dislike to all the
influential men in the neighbourhood; they grudge them their wealth and
position, I suppose. Latterly, I have myself been included under the ban.”
“How strange!” exclaimed Celia, deeply interested, but vexed withal.
“A little while ago,” Karne continued, “I was commissioned to paint two
pictures for the Duke of Downshire’s private chapel, one on the subject of
the Annunciation, the other on the Crucifixion. I do not go in for religious
paintings as a rule, you know, but for several reasons I undertook these.
Well, these people from Mendel’s factory happened to see the pictures
through the studio window when they visited my grounds on the Sunday
after their completion, and took it into their stupid heads to imagine that
because I painted pictures on those subjects, I must of necessity be trending
towards Christianity myself. The news of Celia’s conversion coming on top
of that must have strengthened that idea, hence our unpopularity.”
“How narrow-minded they must be,” said Enid Wilton, thoughtfully.
“But surely it is against their own interest to offend you and your equals, is
it not?”
“Decidedly,” Herbert assented. “That is where their madness comes in;
they spite themselves, not us. However, I intend to close the night-school,
the dispensary, and the club for a few weeks. I must do something to bring
them to their senses.”
“What a pity!” Celia said, regretfully. “Enid and I were going to get up
such a nice concert for them next week; and Lady Marjorie had promised to
allow Bobbie to dance the hornpipe. The little fellow will be so
disappointed.”
She was disappointed herself—more keenly than she cared to confess—
and brooded on the inimical attitude of Mendel’s people, until the thought
of it quite distressed her. Had it not been for Enid Wilton’s companionship
she would have felt inclined to give way to depression; but Enid was bright
and entertaining, and did her best to divert her friend’s mind into other
channels.
The two girls avoided the vicinity of the factory as much as possible, but
were obliged to pass it on their way to Durlston House, whither Lady
Marjorie had recently returned. Occasionally they met some of the
workpeople or their relatives; but Celia always passed them without a sign
of recognition, for she knew that to speak to them would be to invite an
insult.
 One day they came across a small Jewish maiden who was sitting by the
road-side alone in a sorry plight. She was some distance from the factory,
and had evidently been sent on an errand, for clutched in her grasp was a
basket of provisions. A bottle of olive oil, too unwieldy for her to manage,
had accidentally fallen out. She was surrounded by broken pieces of glass,
and her thinly-clad feet had been painfully cut and scratched. Judging by
her appearance, one might have credited her with having taken an oil bath,
for, from her curly black ringlets down to her toes, she was literally covered
with the greasy fluid.
The girls’ kind hearts were touched by the sight. Celia, forgetting all
strife in her compassion for the little one, bent down and inquired her name.
After some amount of coaxing, she discovered that it was “Blume
Horwitz;” that her feet hurt her so much that she could not walk; that her
mother was waiting for the oil to fry the fish, and that she would be
welcomed with a beating when she did arrive home. Her tale of woe ended
in a fit of sobbing and gulping pitiful to behold.
The girls consulted as to what they should do. They could not leave her
there, on the chance of one of her people picking her up, nor could they
carry her home, saturated with oil as she was.
At length Celia decided to go home as quickly as she could for the pony-
chaise, leaving her friend to stay with the child. This she accordingly did,
and in less than twenty minutes was back again with the conveyance.
The coachman gingerly covered the little girl with an overall belonging
to the stable-boy, and lifted her into the chaise. Celia had brought some lint
back with her, and between them the two girls skilfully bound up her
wounds, which were not so severe as they had at first supposed. When they
arrived at the Towers, a messenger was immediately despatched to inform
Mrs. Horwitz of the accident, and to procure a change of clothing for
Blume. Meanwhile the child’s wants were attended to in Celia’s pretty
bedroom.
An hour later, the coachman, Roberts, drove her home; clean,
comfortable, and well-fed. He found the cottage shut up, for Mrs. Horwitz
was always out at that time of the day; but a man was waiting at the wicket
in anticipation of Blume’s arrival. Possessing small cunning eyes with an
unpleasant leer in them, an aquiline nose, heavy jaw, and cruel mouth, his
countenance was decidedly unattractive; and his burly form suggested an
ample reserve of brute force. He was Anna’s husband, Jacob Strelitzki, who
had recently returned after a year’s absence from the factory, spent no one
knew where. Roberts pulled up at the wicket, and alighting from the chaise,
eyed the man with disfavour.
“Hello!” he said bluntly. “Strelitzki, is it? Thought I’d seen that ugly
face before. So you’ve come back, have you? Been in quod, I suppose?
Lost your curly wig, anyhow. Where is this kid’s mother?”
If looks could kill, the coachman would have been exterminated on the
spot. Scowling savagely, Strelitzki bade him hold his tongue, for the child
had fallen asleep, and he did not wish her to be awakened. With more
gentleness than was his custom, he lifted her out of the chaise, and,
unlocking the cottage door, laid her carefully down on the couch.
Then he returned to the wicket, and informed the coachman that he
might consider himself dismissed. Roberts, however, was apparently not
quite satisfied.
“ ’Ere, where’s the kid’s mother?” he asked again. “My mistress said I
was to see that the little girl was all right. She has cut her foot, and has got
to lay up. You ain’t any relation, are you?”
“Yes; I am her uncle,” the man replied briefly. “Rachael Horwitz has told
me all about the accident. She ought not to have sent such a little thing so
far on an errand. She’s got slipper-work at the factory, so you’ll have to
leave the child with me.” And without further remark, Roberts drove away.
Strelitzki bolted the door after him, and quietly moved to where the child
lay. She was still fast asleep, but stirred uneasily as he watched her. Fearing
that the light might awaken her, Jacob carefully shut the lattice. His
movement suggested mystery; but all his caution was for the purpose of
performing an apparently trivial action.
Taking a small packet out of his coat-pocket, he cut the string and
unfolded the tissue-paper. Inside lay a tiny crucifix composed of black
wood and nickel silver—truly a strange emblem to be in his possession.
From another pocket he produced a piece of slightly-faded blue ribbon.
Then twisting the ribbon through the ring at the top of the crucifix, he tied it
securely round Blume’s neck, tucking it under her pinafore. This
accomplished, he gave a sigh—which was almost a chuckle—of relief.
The action disturbed the child, who awoke with a feeble cry of pain. For
the moment she could not quite take in her surroundings, and blinked at the
daylight in bewilderment. When she recollected what had happened, she
began to cry, fearing her mother’s anger on account of the broken bottle of
oil; but her uncle assured her that the accident had been explained, and that
her mother would be back directly, grieved to find her in pain.
Strelitzki lit his pipe and professed to read the newspaper; at the same
time watching the little girl out of the corner of his eye. Her feet still
smarted painfully, and she moved her position frequently in order to obtain
greater ease. In doing so, the crucifix slipped out, and hung suspended from
her neck above her pinafore.
“Hello!” exclaimed Strelitzki. “Where did you get that?”
Blume examined it with wide-open eyes. She had not the faintest idea of
the meaning of the symbol, or, indeed, that it was a symbol at all; but the
blue ribbon and silver figure pleased her, and in her childish mind she
considered it a fine ornament, to be put on a par with her mother’s lozenge-
shaped earrings, and only to be worn on Shabbos[17] and Yomtov.[18]
“I don’t know,” she replied truthfully, wishing it had escaped her uncle’s
observation.
“Nonsense!” said Jacob Strelitzki. “Of course, you must know. I expect
Miss Celia—the lady with the carroty-golden hair—gave it to you when she
changed your things, didn’t she?”
That seemed very likely, so Blume agreed to it. She did not remember
Miss Celia giving it to her, it is true; but she had given her a box of
chocolates and a “Cinderella” picture-book, so no doubt the ornament came
from her as well.
“Yes,” she assented, readily. “Miss Celia gave it to me.”
Strelitzki grunted satisfaction. “Well, tuck it under your frock,” he
advised. “Or some one may want to take it off you. If your mammy should
find it when she puts you to bed, say that Miss Celia said you were to keep
it and not give it away.”
The child acquiesced; and Strelitzki went on reading his paper. He
seemed to find it difficult to concentrate his thoughts, however, for he soon
tossed it aside, and stared into the fire with his shaggy brows contracted,
and an evil smile on his heavy face.
“So—so, Herbert Karne,” he muttered softly in his native jargon. “You
and I hate each other; and we have a long-standing account to settle.
Revenge grows keener with delay. It shall be settled soon!”

CHAPTER X

STRELITZKI PAVES THE WAY FOR HIS REVENGE

The yard at Mendel’s factory was filled to its utmost capacity. Men jostled
each other’s elbows, and trod on each other’s corns with good-natured
indiscrimination. A jargon of Polish, Yiddish, Roumanian, and English of
the Lancashire dialect smote the air with Babel-like confusion; and as each
man spoke to his neighbour at the precise moment that his neighbour spoke
to him, the amount of comprehension on either side was reduced to nil.
They had met for the discussion of a grievance. Herbert Karne, after
further provocation, had put his threat into execution: the night-school, the
dispensary, and the club were closed. A notice was pasted on the doors
stating that they would remain closed until he received, signed by each one
of the men, a full and satisfactory apology for the gratuitous insults levelled
at his sister and himself; together with a promise of better behaviour in
future.
The news produced a sensation, some of the men utterly refusing to
believe it until they saw the notice for themselves. The club had been
opened so long, and occupied such a prominent position in the recreative
part of their work-a-day lives, that they had lost sight of the fact that it was
kept up entirely at Herbert Karne’s expense. Nearly every evening they
repaired thither to while away an hour or two in the comfortable reading or
smoke rooms; which were always well heated in winter, well ventilated in
summer. Here they could chat, or schmooze,[19] as they called it, to their
heart’s content. They were also at liberty to play solo-whist, so long as they
played for nominal stakes only, gambling being strictly prohibited; and in
the winter evenings, Herbert Karne arranged numerous entertainments for
their benefit, to which their women folks, in their Sabbath clothes, came as
well.
The club closed, they would be obliged to have recourse to the bar-
parlours of the public-houses; for the gregarious instinct was strong within
them, and their home-life more or less unattractive. But they knew that,
being foreigners and abstemious, they would not receive a cordial welcome
there; nor, indeed, did they desire the society of public-house frequenters.
They had the greatest respect for the British workman when sober; but they
were aware that having waxed convivial by the aid of beer, he was apt to
indulge in uncomplimentary remarks concerning “them furriners;” and
being extremely sensitive, they did not care for jocularity at their own
expense.
It became evident, therefore, that they must endeavour to get the club re-
opened; and it was in order to effect this end, that the meeting was being
held.
In the centre of the yard a number of heavy boxes had been piled up to
serve as a rostrum; and from this a slender olive-skinned man addressed his
fellow-workers. He was Emil Blatz, the foreman of the factory and manager
of the club.
Their present attitude to their benefactor, he told them—when he could
command silence—was senseless to the last degree. They had been
indulging in foolish spleen, and incurring serious harm to themselves, as the
closing of the club and dispensary testified. They were simply running their
heads against a brick wall when they imagined they could go against a man
in Mr. Karne’s position. He advised them to sign an apology which he
himself would prepare; and voted that they should do all in their power to
renew their former friendly relations with Herbert Karne.
His address was received with expressions of mingled approval and
dissent. The majority of them were half inclined to think that it would be
wiser in the end to cease hostility, especially as the winter was approaching.
They remembered the numerous creature comforts which had been
provided every year at the artist’s expense.
Jacob Strelitzki, with a wild light in his eyes, elbowed his way through
the crowd and sprang on to the platform.
“Mates!” he shouted energetically, “do you want to be turned into bacon-
eating m’shumadim by Herbert Karne and his sister?”
A vigorous reply in the negative rolled towards him like the answer of
one man.
“Well, then, don’t apologize, don’t play into their hands! Herbert Karne
is no true friend of ours! He has taken an interest in our welfare simply that
he might convert us all in the end! Four years ago he did his best to make a
m’shumad of me, but I resisted before it was too late. We have our wives
and children to consider—suppose he converts them against our will? Let
us make a firm stand against it, and swear that that shall never be!”
Murmurs of indignation and applause came from every throat; but the
foreman Blatz held up his hand to still them.
“It is false!” he cried in a voice that could be heard at the furthermost
corner of the yard. “Mr. Karne is our true friend, and he is not a m’shumad.
He has told us over and over again that he wishes us to be good Jews and
upright men; he has never attempted to teach us any creed but our own.
What right, then, have we to say that he is not a good Jew?”
“Every right!” replied the dark-bearded man vehemently. “If Herbert
Karne were a good Jew, he would not have received his sister into his house
after she became a Christian. He should have treated her as Bernie Franks
would have done had he lived; he ought to have cast her adrift. Listen here,
friends, Strelitzki is right. If we allow ourselves to be ruled by the people at
the Towers, we shall find our wives and children being led astray. Only
yesterday my little girl Blume met with a slight accident whilst out on an
errand. Miss Celia Franks used it as an excuse to entice her to the Towers,
where she kept her for some time. What she said to the child I do not know,
but when my wife undressed Blume at night, she discovered this”—lifting a
crucifix high above their heads—“hung round her neck. Comrades, are we
to stand by without protest in the face of an insult such as this?”
“No, no!” responded the angry crowd, their ire aroused at the sight of the
offending emblem. “Stamp on it! Crush the trumpery thing! Down with
those who dare to tamper with our religion! Down with m’shumadim!”
A crucifix around a Jewish child’s neck! It was the worst indignity that
could have been offered to them, for nothing could have shocked them
more. Here was proof positive of Celia Franks’ intention to convert their
children by force; here was virtually their call to arms.
Even the foreman Blatz knew not what to think; like the rest of them he
was amazed and shocked. In vain now did he urge them to establish peace;
the incident of the crucifix decided what their course of action should be.
They accused Blatz himself of apostasy when he again pleaded in favour
of the artist. They would do without Mr. Karne’s gifts rather than be robbed
of the faith of their forefathers. They would ask one of the Rothschilds or
Montefiores to build them a club; they would accept nothing more from
Herbert Karne.
 The meeting broke up in noisy confusion, a motion being carried to
arrange further proceedings the following night. The men dispersed in twos
and threes, each discoursing volubly with his neighbour in whatever his
native language happened to be.
Emil Blatz went on his way alone, with heavy heart and thoughtful brow.
Usually he himself, as foreman, took the lead in factory affairs, but to-night
he had been superseded. The men had been swayed by Strelitzki and
Horwitz, who by common consent had established themselves as leaders,
and their temper boded no good towards Herbert Karne.
Blatz possessed a strong admiration for the artist, who had done him
many a good turn. He could not forget a certain eventful night, when his
boy lay dying, and Karne had kept vigil with him for eight weary hours,
until, at dawn, the little soul had fled into the dim unknown. He felt he
owed him a debt of gratitude for that, which, if it were in his power, he must
repay.
Almost involuntarily his steps turned towards the Towers, although he
had only a vague idea as to what he intended to do. Without giving himself
time for thought he pressed the visitors’ bell. Noiselessly the gate swung
back, gaining him admittance to the grounds. The coachman’s wife peered
out at him as he drew near the lodge, but offered no resistance: and with
careful steps he passed along the gravelled path which bounded the lawn,
until the house with its ornamental turrets loomed clear against the
blackness of the night.
Presently the sound of music made him pause; the mellow tones of a
piano, and then a woman’s voice, full, rich, and clear. Blatz listened with
eager attention, for he was a musician born. Softly and sweetly the notes
floated towards him through the half-open windows. He recognized the
melody; it was an aria from Elijah.
Moving a few steps to the right he found himself in full view of the
drawing-room. The blinds had not been lowered; and through the
transparent curtains he could see the interior of the room.
The scene struck him strangely, being in such marked contrast to the one
he had just left. It was as if, in the midst of turbulent strife, he had suddenly
come upon a haven of rest. Here for one short moment he might breathe the
atmosphere of peace and refinement. Although but a humble factory
worker, Blatz possessed a passionate love of the beautiful; and this
luxurious apartment, with its dainty touches of femininity, awakened a keen
thrill of pleasure within his breast.
There were five occupants of the room, all of whom were known to the
foreman, except the dark-haired girl at the piano. Herbert Karne stood with
his back to the fireplace exhibiting a book of sketches to the white-haired
vicar of Durlston. Seated on a low chair in the roseate glow of the lamp was
the vicar’s daughter, her fingers busily plying a piece of fancy-work; and
facing her, by the side of the grand piano, stood Celia Franks, singing with
all her heart.
“Hear ye, Israel! hear what the Lord speaketh: Oh, hadst thou heeded,
heeded My commandments!”
Sweetly and half reproachfully she sang the words to their melodious
accompaniment. Her eyes were dimly fixed on the dark swaying trees in the
garden; her thoughts were far from the lighted room.
Then more solemnly she enunciated the question: “Who hath believed
our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” Afterwards
recurring to the exhortation, “Hear ye!” and closing with the pathetic appeal
in the minor key, “Israel!... Israel!”
A wave of emotion swept over Emil Blatz as he listened; the mellifluous
beauty of the melody almost carried him away. He knew not whom he
envied the more: Mendelssohn for having composed such music, or the
young singer for her power to interpret it in that way.
The words, too, sounded in his ear with peculiar significance; they
seemed like a justification of the singer’s faith.
Suddenly the voice ceased its tender note of appeal; and after a few bars
of recitative, burst forth into a triumphant assurance of divine protection,
followed by the sublime meditation:—
“Say, who art thou, that art afraid of a man that shall die? And forgettest
the Lord thy Maker, Who hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the
earth’s foundations? Be not afraid, for I, thy God, will strengthen thee!”
To Blatz there was a note of defiance in the girl’s rendering of the
dramatic music: the very poise of her head, as she sang the “Be not afraid,”
seemed like a challenge to those who were her enemies. In his simplicity he
forgot that she was quite unconscious of her uninvited listener, and that the
words were not her own.