Eleven

THE FLOWERING OF THE FLEECE

"Zora," observed Miss Smith, "it's a great blessing not to need spectacles, isn't it?"

Zora thought that it was; but she was wondering just what spectacles had to do with the complaint she had brought to the office from Miss Taylor.

"I'm always losing my glasses and they get dirty and—Oh, dear! now where is that paper?"

Zora pointed silently to the complaint.

"No, not that—another paper. It must be in my room. Don't you want to come up and help me look?"

They went up to the clean, bare room, with its white iron bed, its cool, spotless shades and shining windows. Zora walked about softly and looked, while Miss Smith quietly searched on desk and bureau, paying no attention to the girl. For the time being she was silent.

"I sometimes wish," she began at length, "I had a bright-eyed girl like you to help me find and place things."

Zora made no comment.

"Sometimes Bles helps me," added Miss Smith, guilefully.

Zora looked sharply at her. "Could I help?" she asked, almost timidly.

"Why, I don't know,"—the answer was deliberate. "There are one or two little things perhaps—"

Placing a hand gently upon Zora's shoulder, she pointed out a few odd tasks, and left the girl busily doing them; then she returned to the office, and threw Miss Taylor's complaint into the waste-basket.

For a week or more Zora slipped in every day and performed the little tasks that Miss Smith laid out: she sorted papers, dusted the bureau, hung a curtain; she did not do the things very well, and she broke some china, but she worked earnestly and quickly, and there was no thought of pay. Then, too, did not Bles praise her with a happy smile, as together, day after day, they stood and watched the black dirt where the Silver Fleece lay planted? She dreamed and sang over that dark field, and again and again appealed to him: "S'pose it shouldn't come up after all?" And he would laugh and say that of course it would come up.

One day, when Zora was helping Miss Smith in the bedroom, she paused with her arms full of clothes fresh from the laundry.

"Where shall I put these?"

Miss Smith looked around. "They might go in there," she said, pointing to a door. Zora opened it. A tiny bedroom was disclosed, with one broad window looking toward the swamp; white curtains adorned it, and white hangings draped the plain bureau and wash-stand and the little bed. There was a study table, and a small bookshelf holding a few books, all simple and clean. Zora paused uncertainly, and surveyed the room.

"Sometimes when you're tired and want to be alone you can come up here, Zora," said Miss Smith carelessly. "No one uses this room."

Zora caught her breath sharply, but said nothing. The next day Miss Smith said to her when she came in:

"I'm busy now, dear, but you go up to your little room and read and I'll call."

Zora quietly obeyed. An hour later Miss Smith looked in, then she closed the door lightly and left. Another hour flew by before Zora hurried down.

"I was reading, and I forgot," she said.

"It's all right," returned Miss Smith. "I didn't need you. And any day, after you get all your lessons, I think Miss Taylor will excuse you and let you go to your room and read." Miss Taylor, it transpired, was more than glad.

Day after day Bles and Zora visited the field; but ever the ground lay an unrelieved black beneath the bright sun, and they would go reluctantly home again, today there was much work to be done, and Zora labored steadily and eagerly, never pausing, and gaining in deftness and care.

In the afternoon Bles went to town with the school wagon. A light shower flew up from the south, lingered a while and fled, leaving a fragrance in the air. For a moment Zora paused, and her nostrils quivered; then without a word she slipped down-stairs, glided into the swamp, and sped away to the island. She swung across the tree and a low, delighted cry bubbled on her lips. All the rich, black ground was sprinkled with tender green. She bent above the verdant tenderness and kissed it; then she rushed back, bursting into the room.

"It's come! It's come!—the Silver Fleece!"

Miss Smith was startled.

"The Silver Fleece!" she echoed in bewilderment.

Zora hesitated. It came over her all at once that this one great all-absorbing thing meant nothing to the gaunt tired-look woman before her.

"Would Bles care if I told?" she asked doubtfully.

"No," Miss Smith ventured.

And then the girl crouched at her feet and told the dream and the story. Many factors were involved that were quite foreign to the older woman's nature and training. The recital brought to her New England mind many questions of policy and propriety. And yet, as she looked down upon the dark face, hot with enthusiasm, it all seemed somehow more than right. Slowly and lightly Miss Smith slipped her arm about Zora, and nodded and smiled a perfect understanding. They looked out together into the darkening twilight.

"It is so late and wet and you're tired tonight—don't you think you'd better sleep in your little room?"

Zora sat still. She thought of the noisy flaming cabin and the dark swamp; but a contrasting thought of the white bed made her timid, and slowly she shook her head. Nevertheless Miss Smith led her to the room.

"Here are things for you to wear," she pointed out, opening the bureau, "and here is the bath-room." She left the girl standing in the middle of the floor.

In time Zora came to stay often at Miss Smith's cottage, and to learn new and unknown ways of living and dressing. She still refused to board, for that would cost more than she could pay yet, and she would accept no charity. Gradually an undemonstrative friendship sprang up between the pale old gray-haired teacher and the dark young black-haired girl. Delicately, too, but gradually, the companionship of Bles and Zora was guided and regulated. Of mornings Zora would hurry through her lessons and get excused to fly to the swamp, to work and dream alone. At noon Bles would run down, and they would linger until he must hurry back to dinner. After school he would go again, working while she was busy in Miss Smith's office, and returning later, would linger awhile to tell Zora of his day while she busied herself with her little tasks. Saturday mornings they would go to the swamp and work together, and sometimes Miss Smith, stealing away from curious eyes, would come and sit and talk with them as they toiled.

In those days, for these two souls, earth came very near to heaven. Both were in the midst of that mighty change from youth to womanhood and manhood. Their manner toward each other by degrees grew shyer and more thoughtful. There was less of comradeship, but the little meant more. The rough good fellowship was silently put aside; they no longer lightly clasped hands; and each at times wondered, in painful self-consciousness, if the other cared.

Then began, too, that long and subtle change wherein a soul, until now unmindful of its wrappings, comes suddenly to consciousness of body and clothes; when it gropes and tries to adjust one with the other, and through them to give to the inner deeper self, finer and fuller expression. One saw it easily, almost suddenly, in Alwyn's Sunday suit, vivid neckties, and awkward fads.

Slower, subtler, but more striking was the change in Zora, as she began to earn bits of pin money in the office and to learn to sew. Dresses hung straighter; belts served a better purpose; stockings were smoother; underwear was daintier. Then her hair—that great dark mass of immovable infinitely curled hair—began to be subdued and twisted and combed until, with steady pains and study, it lay in thick twisted braids about her velvet forehead, like some shadowed halo. All this came much more slowly and spasmodically than one tells it. Few noticed the change much; none noticed all; and yet there came a night—a student's social—when with a certain suddenness the whole school, teachers and pupils, realized the newness of the girl, and even Bles was startled.

He had bought her in town, at Christmas time, a pair of white satin slippers, partly to test the smallness of her feet on which in younger days he had rallied her, and partly because she had mentioned a possible white dress. They were a cheap, plain pair but dainty, and they fitted well.

When the evening came and the students were marching and the teachers, save Miss Smith, were sitting rather primly apart and commenting, she entered the room. She was a little late, and a hush greeted her. One boy, with the inimitable drawl of the race, pushed back his ice-cream and addressed it with a mournful head-shake:

"Go way, honey, yo' los' yo' tas'e!"

The dress was plain and fitted every curving of a healthy girlish form. She paused a moment white-bodied and white-limbed but dark and velvet-armed, her full neck and oval head rising rich and almost black above, with its deep-lighted eyes and crown of silent darkling hair.

To some, such a revelation of grace and womanliness in this hoyden, the gentle swelling of lankness to beauty, of lowliness to shy self-poise, was a sudden joy, to others a mere blindness. Mary Taylor was perplexed and in some indefinite way amazed; and many of the other teachers saw no beauty, only a strangeness that brought a smile. They were such as know beauty by convention only, and find it lip-ringed, hoop-skirted, tattooed, or corsetted, as time and place decree.

The change in Zora, however, had been neither cataclysmic nor revolutionary and it was yet far—very far—from complete. She still ran and romped in the woods, and dreamed her dreams; she still was passionately independent and "queer." Tendencies merely had become manifest, some dominant. She would, unhindered, develop to a brilliant, sumptuous womanhood; proud, conquering, full-blooded, and deep bosomed—a passionate mother of men. Herein lay all her early wildness and strangeness. Herein lay, as yet half hidden, dimly sensed and all unspoken, the power of a mighty all-compelling love for one human soul, and, through it, for all the souls of men. All this lay growing and developing; but as yet she was still a girl, with a new shyness and comeliness and a bold, searching heart.

In the field of the Silver Fleece all her possibilities were beginning to find expression. These new-born green things hidden far down in the swamp, begotten in want and mystery, were to her a living wonderful fairy tale come true. All the latent mother in her brooded over them; all her brilliant fancy wove itself about them. They were her dream-children, and she tended them jealously; they were her Hope, and she worshipped them. When the rabbits tried the tender plants she watched hours to drive them off, and catching now and then a pulsing pink-eyed invader, she talked to it earnestly:

"Brer Rabbit—poor little Brer Rabbit, don't you know you mustn't eat Zora's cotton? Naughty, naughty Brer Rabbit." And then she would show it where she had gathered piles of fragrant weeds for it and its fellows.

The golden green of the first leaves darkened, and the plants sprang forward steadily. Never before was such a magnificent beginning, a full month ahead of other cotton. The rain swept down in laughing, bubbling showers, and laved their thirsty souls, and Zora held her beating breast day by day lest it rain too long or too heavily. The sun burned fiercely upon the young cotton plants as the spring hastened, and they lifted their heads in darker, wilder luxuriance; for the time of hoeing was at hand.

These days were days of alternate hope and doubt with Bles Alwyn. Strength and ambition and inarticulate love were fighting within him. He felt, in the dark thousands of his kind about him, a mighty calling to deeds. He was becoming conscious of the narrowness and straightness of his black world, and red anger flashed in him ever and again as he felt his bonds. His mental horizon was broadening as he prepared for the college of next year; he was faintly grasping the wider, fuller world, and its thoughts and aspirations.

But beside and around and above all this, like subtle, permeating ether, was—Zora. His feelings for her were not as yet definite, expressed, or grasped; they were rather the atmosphere in which all things occurred and were felt and judged. From an amusing pastime she had come to be a companion and thought-mate; and now, beyond this, insensibly they were drifting to a silenter, mightier mingling of souls. But drifting, merely—not arrived; going gently, irresistibly, but not yet at the realized goal.

He felt all this as the stirring of a mighty force, but knew not what he felt. The teasing of his fellows, the common love-gossip of the school yard, seemed far different from his plight. He laughed at it and indignantly denied it. Yet he was uncomfortable, restless, unhappy. He fancied Zora cared less for his company, and he gave her less, and then was puzzled to find time hanging so empty, so wretchedly empty, on his hands. When they were together in these days they found less to talk about, and had it not been for the Silver Fleece which in magic wilfulness opened both their mouths, they would have found their companionship little more than a series of awkward silences. Yet in their silences, their walks, and their sittings there was a companionship, a glow, a satisfaction, as came to them nowhere else on earth, and they wondered at it.

They were both wondering at it this morning as they watched their cotton. It had seemingly bounded forward in a night and it must be hoed forthwith. Yet, hoeing was murder—the ruthless cutting away of tenderer plants that the sturdier might thrive the more and grow.

"I hate it, Bles, don't you?"

"Hate what?"

"Killing any of it; it's all so pretty."

"But it must be, so that what's left will be prettier, or at least more useful."

"But it shouldn't be so; everything ought to have a chance to be beautiful and useful."

"Perhaps it ought to be so," admitted Bles, "but it isn't."

"Isn't it so—anywhere?"

"I reckon not. Death and pain pay for all good things."

She hoed away silently, hesitating over the choice of the plants, pondering this world-old truth, saddened by its ruthless cruelty.

"Death and pain," she murmured; "what a price!"

Bles leaned on his hoe and considered. It had not occurred to him till now that Zora was speaking better and better English: the idioms and errors were dropping away; they had not utterly departed, however, but came crowding back in moments of excitement. At other times she clothed Miss Smith's clear-cut, correct speech in softer Southern accents. She was drifting away from him in some intangible way to an upper world of dress and language and deportment, and the new thought was pain to him.

So it was that the Fleece rose and spread and grew to its wonderful flowering; and so these two children grew with it into theirs. Zora never forgot how they found the first white flower in that green and billowing sea, nor her low cry of pleasure and his gay shout of joy. Slowly, wonderfully the flowers spread—white, blue, and purple bells, hiding timidly, blazing luxuriantly amid the velvet leaves; until one day—it was after a southern rain and the sunlight was twinkling through the morning—all the Fleece was in flower—a mighty swaying sea, darkling rich and waving, and upon it flecks and stars of white and purple foam. The joy of the two so madly craved expression that they burst into singing; not the wild light song of dancing feet, but a low, sweet melody of her fathers' fathers, whereunto Alwyn's own deep voice fell fitly in minor cadence.

Miss Smith and Miss Taylor, who were sorting the mail, heard them singing as they came up out of the swamp. Miss Taylor looked at them, then at Miss Smith.

But Miss Smith sat white and rigid with the first opened letter in her hand.

Twelve

THE PROMISE

Miss Smith sat with her face buried in her hands while the tears trickled silently through her thin fingers. Before her lay the letter, read a dozen times:

"Old Mrs. Grey has been to see me, and she has announced her intention of endowing five colored schools, yours being one. She asked if $500,000 would do it. She has plenty of money, so I told her $750,000 would be better—$150,000 apiece. She's arranging for a Board of Trust, etc. You'll probably hear from her soon. You've been so worried about expenses that I thought I'd send this word on; I knew you'd be glad."

Glad? Dear God, how flat the word fell! For thirty years she had sown the seed, planting her life-blood in this work, that had become the marrow of her soul.

Successful? No, it had not been successful; but it had been human. Through yonder doorway had trooped an army of hundreds upon hundreds of bright and dull, light and dark, eager and sullen faces. There had been good and bad, honest and deceptive, frank and furtive. Some had caught, kindled and flashed to ambition and achievement; some, glowing dimly, had plodded on in a slow, dumb faithful work worth while; and yet others had suddenly exploded, hurtling human fragments to heaven and to hell. Around this school home, as around the centre of some little universe, had whirled the sorrowful, sordid, laughing, pulsing drama of a world: birth pains, and the stupor of death; hunger and pale murder; the riot of thirst and the orgies of such red and black cabins as Elspeth's, crouching in the swamp.

She groaned as she read of the extravagances of the world and saw her own vanishing revenues; but the funds continued to dwindle until Sarah Smith asked herself: "What will become of this school when I die?" With trembling fingers she had sat down to figure how many teachers must be dropped next year, when her brother's letter came, and she slipped to her knees and prayed.

Mrs. Grey's decision was due in no little way to Mary Taylor's reports. Slowly but surely the girl had begun to think that she had found herself in this new world. She would never be attuned to it thoroughly, for she was set for different music. The veil of color and race still hung thickly between her and her pupils; and yet she seemed to see some points of penetration. No one could meet daily a hundred or more of these light-hearted, good-natured children without feeling drawn to them. No one could cross the thresholds of the cabins and not see the old and well-known problems of life and striving. More and more, therefore, the work met Miss Taylor's approval and she told Mrs. Grey so.

At the same time Mary Taylor had come to some other definite conclusions: she believed it wrong to encourage the ambitions of these children to any great extent; she believed they should be servants and farmers, content to work under present conditions until those conditions could be changed; and she believed that the local white aristocracy, helped by Northern philanthropy, should take charge of such gradual changes.

These conclusions she did not pretend to have originated; but she adopted them from reading and conversation, after hesitating for a year before such puzzling contradictions as Bles Alwyn and Harry Cresswell. For her to conclude to treat Bles Alwyn as a man despite his color was as impossible as to think Mr. Cresswell a criminal. Some compromise was imperative which would save her the pleasure of Mr. Cresswell's company and at the same time leave open a way of fulfilling the world's duty to this black boy. She thought she had found this compromise and she wrote Mrs. Grey suggesting a chain of endowed Negro schools under the management of trustees composed of Northern business men and local Southern whites. Mrs. Grey acquiesced gladly and announced her plan, eventually writing Miss Smith of her decision "to second her noble efforts in helping the poor colored people," and she hoped to have the plan under way before next fall.

The sharpness of Miss Smith's joy did not let her dwell on the proposed "Board of Trust"; of course, it would be a board of friends of the school.

She sat in her office looking out across the land. School had closed for the year and Bles with the carryall was just taking Miss Taylor to the train with her trunk and bags. Far up the road she could see dotted here and there the little dirty cabins of Cresswell's tenants—the Cresswell domain that lay like a mighty hand around the school, ready at a word to squeeze its life out. Only yonder, to the eastward, lay the way out; the five hundred acres of the Tolliver plantation, which the school needed so sadly for its farm and community. But the owner was a hard and ignorant white man, hating "niggers" only a shade more than he hated white aristocrats of the Cresswell type. He had sold the school its first land to pique the Cresswells; but he would not sell any more, she was sure, even now when the promise of wealth faced the school.

She lay back and closed her eyes and fell lightly asleep. As she slept an old woman came toiling up the hill northward from the school, and out of the eastward spur of the Cresswell barony. She was fat and black, hooded and aproned, with great round head and massive bosom. Her face was dull and heavy and homely, her old eyes sorrowful. She moved swiftly, carrying a basket on her arm. Opposite her, to the southward, but too far for sight, an old man came out of the lower Cresswell place, skirting the swamp. He was tall, black, and gaunt, part bald with tufted hair, and a cowed and furtive look was in his eyes. One leg was crippled, and he hobbled painfully.

Up the road to the eastward that ran past the school, with the morning sun at his back, strode a young man, yellow, crisp-haired, strong-faced, with darkly knit brows. He greeted Bles and the teacher coldly, and moved on in nervous haste. A woman, hurrying out of the westward swamp up the path that led from Elspeth's, saw him and shrank back hastily. She turned quickly into the swamp and waited, looking toward the school. The old woman hurried into the back gate just as the old man appeared to the southward on the road. The young man greeted him cordially and they stopped a moment to talk, while the hiding woman watched.

"Howdy, Uncle Jim."

"Howdy, son. Hit's hot, ain't it? How is you?"

"Tolerable, how are you?"

"Poorly, son, poorly—and worser in mind. I'se goin' up to talk to old Miss."

"So am I, but I just see Aunt Rachel going in. We'd better wait."

Miss Smith started up at the timid knocking, and rubbed her eyes. It was long since she had slept in the daytime and she was annoyed at such laziness. She opened the back door and led the old woman to the office.

"Now, what have you got there?" she demanded, eyeing the basket.

"Just a little chicken fo' you and a few aigs."

"Oh, you are so thoughtful!" Sarah Smith's was a grateful heart.

"Go 'long now—hit ain't a thing."

Then came a pause, the old woman sliding into the proffered seat, while over her genial, dimpled smile there dropped a dull veil of care. Her eyes shifted uneasily. Miss Smith tried not to notice the change.

"Well, are you all moved, Aunt Rachel?" she inquired cheerfully.

"No'm, and we ain't gwine to move."

"But I thought it was all arranged."

"It was," gloomily, "but de ole Cunnel, he won't let us go."

The listener was instantly sympathetic. "Why not?" she asked.

"He says we owes him."

"But didn't you settle at Christmas?"

"Yas'm; but when he found we was goin' away, he looked up some more debts."

"How much?"

"I don't know 'zactly—more'n a hundred dollars. Den de boys done got in dat trouble, and he paid their fines."

"What was the trouble?"

"Well, one was a-gambling, and the other struck the overseer what was a-whippin' him."

"Whipping him!"—in horrified exclamation, quite as much at Aunt Rachel's matter-of-fact way of regarding the matter as at the deed itself.

"Yas'm. He didn't do his work right and he whipped him. I speck he needed it."

"But he's a grown man," Miss Smith urged earnestly.

"Yas'm; he's twenty now, and big."

"Whipped him!" Miss Smith repeated. "And so you can't leave?"

"No'm, he say he'll sell us out and put us in de chain-gang if we go. The boys is plumb mad, but I'se a-pleadin' with 'em not to do nothin' rash."

"But—but I thought they had already started to work a crop on the Tolliver place?"

"Yes'm, dey had; but, you see, dey were arrested, and then Cunnel Cresswell took 'em and 'lowed they couldn't leave his place. Ol' man Tolliver was powerful mad."

"Why, Aunt Rachel, it's slavery!" cried the lady in dismay. Aunt Rachel did not offer to dispute her declaration.

"Yas'm, hit's slavery," she agreed. "I hates it mighty bad, too, 'cause I wanted de little chillens in school; but—" The old woman broke down and sobbed.

A knocking came at the door; hastily wiping her eyes Aunt Rachel rose.

"I'll—I'll see what I can do, Aunt Rachel—I must do something," murmured Miss Smith hastily, as the woman departed, and an old black man came limping in. Miss Smith looked up in surprise.

"I begs pardon, Mistress—I begs pardon. Good-morning."

"Good-morning—" she hesitated.

"Sykes—Jim Sykes—that's me."

"Yes, I've heard of you, Mr. Sykes; you live over south of the swamp."

"Yes, ma'am, that's me; and I'se got a little shack dar and a bit of land what I'se trying to buy."

"Of Colonel Cresswell?"

"Yas'm, of de Cunnel."

"And how long have you been buying it?"

"Going on ten year now; and dat's what I comes to ask you about."

"Goodness me! And how much have you paid a year?"

"I gen'rally pays 'bout three bales of cotton a year."

"Does he furnish you rations?"

"Only sugar and coffee and a little meat now and then."

"What does it amount to a year?"

"I doesn't rightly know—but I'se got some papers here."

Miss Smith looked them over and sighed. It was the same old tale of blind receipts for money "on account"—no items, no balancing. By his help she made out that last year his total bill at Cresswell's store was perhaps forty dollars.

"An' last year's bill was bigger'n common 'cause I hurt my leg working at the gin and had to have some medicine."

"Why, as far as I can see, Mr. Sykes, you've paid Cresswell about a thousand dollars in the last ten years. How large is your place?"

"About twenty acres."

"And what were you to pay for it?"

"Four hundred."

"Have you got the deed?"

"Yes'm, but I ain't finished paying yet; de Cunnel say as how I owes him two hundred dollars still, and I can't see it. Dat's why I come over here to talk wid you."

"Where is the deed?"

He handed it to her and her heart sank. It was no deed, but a complicated contract binding the tenant hand and foot to the landlord. She sighed, he watching her eagerly.

"I'se getting old," he explained, "and I ain't got nobody to take care of me. I can't work as I once could, and de overseers dey drives me too hard. I wants a little home to die in."

Miss Smith's throat swelled. She couldn't tell him that he would never get one at the present rate; she only said:

"I'll—look this up. You come again next Saturday."

Then sadly she watched the ragged old slave hobble away with his cherished "papers." He greeted the young man at the gate and passed out, while the latter walked briskly up to the door and knocked.

"Why, how do you do, Robert?"

"How do you do, Miss Smith?"

"Well, are you getting things in shape so as to enter school early next year?"

Robert looked embarrassed.

"That's what I came to tell you, Miss Smith. Mr. Cresswell has offered me forty acres of good land."

Miss Smith looked disheartened.

"Robert, here you are almost finished, and my heart is set on your going to Atlanta University and finishing college. With your fine voice and talent for drawing—"

A dogged look settled on Robert's young bright face, and the speaker paused.

"What's the use, Miss Smith—what opening is there for a—a nigger with an education?"

Miss Smith was shocked.

"Why—why, every chance," she protested, "and where there's none make a chance!"

"Miss Taylor says"—Miss Smith's heart sank; how often had she heard that deadening phrase in the last year!—"that there's no use. That farming is the only thing we ought to try to do, and I reckon she thinks there ain't much chance even there."

"Robert, farming is a noble calling. Whether you're suited to it or not, I don't yet know, but I'd like nothing better than to see you settled here in a decent home with a family, running a farm. But, Robert, farming doesn't call for less intelligence than other things; it calls for more. It is because the world thinks any training good enough for a farmer that the Southern farmer is today practically at the mercy of his keener and more intelligent fellows. And of all people, Robert, your people need trained intelligence to cope with this problem of farming here. Without intelligence and training and some capital it is the wildest nonsense to think you can lead your people out of slavery. Look round you." She told him of the visitors. "Are they not hard working honest people?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Yet they are slaves—dumb driven cattle."

"But they have no education."

"And you have a smattering; therefore are ready to pit yourself against the organized plantation system without capital or experience. Robert, you may succeed; you may find your landlord honest and the way clear; but my advice to you is—finish your education, develop your talents, and then come to your life work a full-fledged man and not a half-ignorant boy."

"I'll think of it," returned the boy soberly. "I reckon you're right. I know Miss Taylor don't think much of us. But I'm tired of waiting; I want to get to work."

Miss Smith laid a kindly hand upon his shoulder.

"I've been waiting thirty years, Robert," she said, with feeling, and he hung his head.

"I wanted to talk about it," he awkwardly responded, turning slowly away. But Miss Smith stopped him.

"Robert, where is the land Cresswell offers you?"

"It's on the Tolliver place."

"The Tolliver place?"

"Yes, he is going to buy it."

Miss Smith dismissed the boy absently and sat down. The crisis seemed drawing near. She had not dreamed the Tolliver place was for sale. The old man must be hard pressed to sell to the Cresswells.

She started up. Why not go see him? Perhaps a mortgage on the strength of the endowment? It was dangerous—but—

She threw a veil over her hair, and opened the door. A woman stood there, who shrank and cowered, as if used to blows. Miss Smith eyed her grimly, then slowly stepped back.

"Come in," she commanded briefly, motioning the woman to a chair.

But she stood, a pathetic figure, faded, worn, yet with unmistakable traces of beauty in her golden face and soft brown hair. Miss Smith contemplated her sadly. Here was her most haunting failure, this girl whom she first had seen twelve years ago in her wonderful girlish comeliness. She had struggled and fought for her, but the forces of the devil had triumphed. She caught glimpses of her now and then, but today was the first time she had spoken to her for ten years. She saw the tears that gathered but did not fall; then her hands quivered.

"Bertie," she began brokenly. The girl shivered, but stood aloof.

"Miss Smith," she said. "No—don't talk—I'm bad—but I've got a little girl, Miss Smith, ten years old, and—and—I'm afraid for her; I want you to take her."

"I have no place for one so young. And why are you afraid for her?"

"The men there are beginning to notice her."

"Where?"

"At Elspeth's."

"Do you stay there now?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He wants me to."

"Must you do as he wants?"

"Yes. But I want the child—different."

"Don't you want to be different?"

The woman quivered again but she answered steadily: "No."

Miss Smith sank into a chair and moistened her dry lips.

"Elspeth's is an awful place," she affirmed solemnly.

"Yes."

"And Zora?"

"She is not there much now, she stays away."

"But if she escapes, why not you?"

"She wants to escape."

"And you?"

"I don't want to."

This stubborn depravity was so distressing that Sarah Smith was at an utter loss what to say or do.

"I can do nothing—" she began.

"For me," the woman quickly replied; "I don't ask anything; but for the child,—she isn't to blame."

The older woman wavered.

"Won't you try?" pleaded the younger.

"Yes—I'll try, I'll try; I am trying all the time, but there are more things than my weak strength can do. Good-bye."

Miss Smith stood a long time in the doorway, watching the fading figure and vaguely trying to remember what it was that she had started to do, when the sharp staccato step of a mule drew her attention to a rider who stopped at the gate. It was her neighbor, Tolliver—a gaunt, yellow-faced white man, ragged, rough, and unkempt; one of the poor whites who had struggled up and failed. He spent no courtesy on the "nigger" teacher, but sat in his saddle and called her to the gate, and she went.

"Say," he roughly opened up, "I've got to sell some land and them damn Cresswells are after it. You can have it for five thousand dollars if you git the cash in a week." With a muttered oath he rode abruptly off; but not before she had seen the tears in his eyes.

All night Sarah Smith lay thinking, and all day she thought and dreamed. Toward dark she walked slowly out the gate and up the highway toward the Cresswell oaks. She had never been within the gates before, and she looked about thoughtfully. The great trees in their regular curving rows must have been planted more than half a century ago. The lawn was well tended and the flowers. Yes, there were signs of taste and wealth. "But it was built on a moan," cried Miss Smith to herself, passionately, and she would not look round any more, but stared straight ahead where she saw old Colonel Cresswell smoking and reading on the verandah.

The Colonel saw her, too, and was uneasy, for he knew that Miss Smith had a sharp tongue and a most disconcerting method of argument, which he, as a Southern gentleman, courteous to all white females, even if they did eat with "niggers," could not properly answer. He received her with courtesy, offered a chair, laid aside his cigar, and essayed some general remarks on cotton weather. But Miss Smith plunged into her subject:

"Colonel Cresswell, I'm thinking of raising some money from a mortgage on our school property."

The Colonel's face involuntarily lighted up. He thought he saw the beginning of the end of an institution which had been a thorn in his flesh ever since Tolliver, in a fit of rage, had sold land for a Negro school.

"H'm," he reflected deprecatingly, wiping his brow.

"I need some ready money," she continued, "to keep from curtailing our work."

"Indeed?"

"I have good prospects in a year or so"—the Colonel looked up sharply, but said nothing—"and so I thought of a mortgage."

"Money is pretty tight," was the Colonel's first objection.

"The land is worth, you know, at least fifty dollars an acre."

"Not more than twenty-five dollars, I fear."

"Why, you wanted seventy-five dollars for poorer land last year! We have two hundred acres." It was not for nothing that this lady had been born in New England.

"I wouldn't reckon it as worth more than five thousand dollars," insisted the Colonel.

"And ten thousand dollars for improvements."

But the Colonel arose. "You had better talk to the directors of the Jefferson Bank," he said politely. "They may accommodate you—how much would you want?"

"Five thousand dollars," Miss Smith replied. Then she hesitated. That would buy the land, to be sure; but money was needed to develop and run it; to install tenants; and then, too, for new teachers. But she said nothing more, and, nodding to his polite bow, departed. Colonel Cresswell had noticed her hesitation, and thought of it as he settled to his cigar again.

Bles Alwyn arose next morning and examined the sky critically. He feared rain. The season had been quite wet enough, particularly down on the swamp land, and but yesterday Bles had viewed his dykes with apprehension for the black pool scowled about them. He dared not think what a long heavy rain might do to the wonderful island of cotton which now stood fully five feet high, with flowers and squares and budding bolls. It might not rain, but the safest thing would be to work at those dykes, so he started for spade and hoe. He heard Miss Smith calling, however.

"Bles—hitch up!"

He was vexed. "Are you—in a hurry, Miss Smith?" he asked.

"Yes, I am," she replied, with unmistakable positiveness.

He started off, and hesitated. "Miss Smith, would Jim do to drive?"

"No," sharply. "I want you particularly." At another time she might have observed his anxiety, but today she was agitated. She knew she was taking a critical step.

Slowly Bles hitched up. After all it might not rain, he argued as they jogged toward town. In silence they rode on. Bles kept looking at the skies. The south was getting darker and darker. It might rain. It might rain only an hour or so, but, suppose it should rain a day—two days—a week?

Miss Smith was looking at her own skies and despite the promised sunrise they loomed darkly. Five thousand was needed for the land and at least another thousand for repairs. Two thousand would "buy" a half dozen desirable tenants by paying their debts to their present landlords. Then two thousand would be wanted for new teachers and a carpenter shop—ten thousand dollars!

It was a great temptation. And yet, once in the hands of these past-masters of debt-manipulation, would her school be safe? Suppose, after all, this Grey gift—but she caught her breath sharply just as a wet splash of rain struck upon her forehead. No. God could not be so cruel. She pushed her bonnet back: how good and cool the water felt! But on Bles as he raised the buggy top it felt hot and fiery.

He felt the coming of some great calamity, the end of a dream. This rain might stay for days; it looked like such a downpour; and that would mean the end of the Silver Fleece; the end of Zora's hopes; the end of everything. He gulped in despairing anger and hit the staid old horse the smartest tap she had known all summer.

"Why, Bles, what's the matter?" called Miss Smith, as the horse started forward. He murmured something about getting wet and drew up at the Toomsville bank.

Miss Smith was invited politely into the private parlor. She explained her business. The President was there and Colonel Cresswell and one other local director.

"I have come for a mortgage. Our land is, as you know, gentlemen, worth at least ten thousand dollars; the buildings cost fifteen thousand dollars; our property is, therefore, conservatively valued at twenty-five thousand dollars. Now I want to mortgage it for"—she hesitated—"five thousand dollars."

Colonel Cresswell was silent, but the president said:

"Money is rather scarce just now, Miss Smith; but it happens that I have ten thousand dollars on hand, which we prefer, however, to loan in one lump sum. Now, if the security were ample, I think perhaps you might get this ten thousand dollars."

Miss Smith grew white; it was the sum she wanted. She tried to escape the temptation, yet the larger amount was more than twice as desirable to her as the smaller, and she knew that they knew it. They were trying to tempt her; they wanted as firm a hold on the school property as possible. And yet, why should she hesitate? It was a risk, but the returns would be enormous—she must do it. Besides, there was the endowment; it was certain; yes—she felt forced to close the bargain.

"Very well," she declared her decision, and they handed her the preliminary papers. She took the pen and glanced at Mr. Cresswell; he was smiling slightly, but nevertheless she signed her name grimly, in a large round hand, "Sarah Smith."

Thirteen

MRS. GREY GIVES A DINNER

The Hon. Charles Smith, Miss Sarah's brother, was walking swiftly uptown from Mr. Easterly's Wall Street office and his face was pale. At last the Cotton Combine was to all appearances an assured fact and he was slated for the Senate. The price he had paid was high: he was to represent the interests of the new trust and sundry favorable measures were already drafted and reposing in the safe of the combine's legal department. Among others was one relating to child labor, another that would effect certain changes in the tariff, and a proposed law providing for a cotton bale of a shape and dimensions different from the customary—the last constituting a particularly clever artifice which, under the guise of convenience in handling, would necessitate the installation of entirely new gin and compress machinery, to be supplied, of course, by the trust.

As Mr. Smith drew near Mrs. Grey's Murray Hill residence his face had melted to a cynical smile. After all why should he care? He had tried independence and philanthropy and failed. Why should he not be as other men? He had seen many others that very day swallow the golden bait and promise everything. They were gentlemen. Why should he pose as better than his fellows? There was young Cresswell. Did his aristocratic air prevent his succumbing to the lure of millions and promising the influence of his father and the whole Farmer's League to the new project? Mr. Smith snapped his fingers and rang the bell. The door opened softly. The dark woodwork of the old English wainscoting glowed with the crimson flaming of logs in the wide fireplace. There was just the touch of early autumn chill in the air without, that made both the fire and the table with its soft linen, gold and silver plate, and twinkling glasses a warming, satisfying sight.

Mrs. Grey was a portly woman, inclined to think much of her dinner and her clothes, both of which were always rich and costly. She was not herself a notably intelligent woman; she greatly admired intelligence or whatever looked to her like intelligence in others. Her money, too, was to her an ever worrying mystery and surprise, which she found herself always scheming to husband shrewdly and spend philanthropically—a difficult combination.

As she awaited her guests she surveyed the table with both satisfaction and disquietude, for her social functions were few, tonight there were—she checked them off on her fingers—Sir James Creighton, the rich English manufacturer, and Lady Creighton, Mr. and Mrs. Vanderpool, Mr. Harry Cresswell and his sister, John Taylor and his sister, and Mr. Charles Smith, whom the evening papers mentioned as likely to be United States Senator from New Jersey—a selection of guests that had been determined, unknown to the hostess, by the meeting of cotton interests earlier in the day.

Mrs. Grey's chef was high-priced and efficient, and her butler was the envy of many; consequently, she knew the dinner would be good. To her intense satisfaction, it was far more than this. It was a most agreeable couple of hours; all save perhaps Mr. Smith unbent, the Englishman especially, and the Vanderpools were most gracious; but if the general pleasure was owing to any one person particularly it was to Mr. Harry Cresswell. Mrs. Grey had met Southerners before, but not intimately, and she always had in mind vividly their cruelty to "poor Negroes," a subject she made a point of introducing forthwith. She was therefore most agreeably surprised to hear Mr. Cresswell express himself so cordially as approving of Negro education.

"Why, I thought," said Mrs. Grey, "that you Southerners rather disapproved—or at least—"

Mr. Cresswell inclined his head courteously.

"We Southerners, my dear Mrs. Grey, are responsible for a variety of reputations." And he told an anecdote that set the table laughing. "Seriously, though," he continued, "we are not as black as the blacks paint us, although on the whole I prefer that Helen should marry—a white man."

They all glanced at Miss Cresswell, who lay softly back in her chair like a white lily, gleaming and bejewelled, her pale face flushing under the scrutiny; Mrs. Grey was horrified.

"Why—why the idea!" she sputtered. "Why, Mr. Cresswell, how can you conceive of anything else—no Northerner dreams—"

Mr. Cresswell sipped his wine slowly.

"No—no—I do not think you do mean that—" He paused and the Englishman bent forward.

"Really, now, you do not mean to say that there is a danger of—of amalgamation, do you?" he sang.

Mr. Cresswell explained. No, of course there was no immediate danger; but when people were suddenly thrust beyond their natural station, filled with wild ideas and impossible ambitions, it meant terrible danger to Southern white women.

"But you believe in some education?" asked Mary Taylor.

"I believe in the training of people to their highest capacity." The Englishman here heartily seconded him.

"But," Cresswell added significantly, "capacity differs enormously between races."

The Vanderpools were sure of this and the Englishman, instancing India, became quite eloquent. Mrs. Grey was mystified, but hardly dared admit it. The general trend of the conversation seemed to be that most individuals needed to be submitted to the sharpest scrutiny before being allowed much education, and as for the "lower races" it was simply criminal to open such useless opportunities to them.

"Why, I had a colored servant-girl once," laughed Mrs. Vanderpool by way of climax, "who spent half her wages in piano lessons."

Then Mary Taylor, whose conscience was uncomfortable, said:

"But, Mr. Cresswell, you surely believe in schools like Miss Smith's?"

"Decidedly," returned Mr. Cresswell, with enthusiasm, "it has done great good."

Mrs. Grey was gratified and murmured something of Miss Smith's "sacrifice."

"Positively heroic," added Cresswell, avoiding his sister's eyes.

"Of course," Mary Taylor hastened to encourage this turn of the conversation, "there are many points on which Miss Smith and I disagree, but I think everybody admires her work."

Mrs. Grey wanted particulars. "What did you disagree about?" she asked bluntly.

"I may be responsible for some of the disagreement," interrupted Mr. Cresswell, hesitatingly; "I'm afraid Miss Smith does not approve of us white Southerners."

"But you mean to say you can't even advise her?"

"Oh, no; we can. But—we're not—er—exactly welcomed. In fact," said Cresswell gravely, "the chief criticism I have against your Northerners' schools for Negroes is, that they not only fail to enlist the sympathy and aid of the best Southerners, but even repel it."

"That is very wrong—very wrong," commented the Englishman warmly, a sentiment in which Mrs. Grey hastened to agree.

"Of course," continued Cresswell, "I am free to confess that I have no personal desire to dabble in philanthropy, or conduct schools of any kind; my hands are full of other matters."

"But it's precisely the advice of such disinterested men that philanthropic work needs," Mr. Vanderpool urged.

"Well, I volunteered advice once in this case and I sha'n't repeat the experiment soon," said Cresswell laughing. Mrs. Grey wanted to hear the incident, but the young man was politely reluctant. Mary Taylor, however, related the tale of Zora to Mrs. Grey's private ear later.

"Fortunately," said Mr. Vanderpool, "Northerners and Southerners are arriving at a better mutual understanding on most of these matters."

"Yes, indeed," Cresswell agreed. "After all, they never were far apart, even in slavery days; both sides were honest and sincere."

All through the dinner Mr. Smith had been preoccupied and taciturn. Now he abruptly shot a glance at Cresswell.

"I suppose that one was right and one was wrong."

"No," said Cresswell, "both were right."

"I thought the only excuse for fighting was a great Right; if Right is on neither side or simultaneously on both, then War is not only Hell but Damnation."

Mrs. Grey looked shocked and Mrs. Vanderpool smiled.

"How about fighting for exercise?" she suggested.

"At any rate," said Cresswell, "we can all agree on helping these poor victims of our quarrel as far as their limited capacity will allow—and no farther, for that is impossible."

Very soon after dinner Charles Smith excused himself. He was not yet inured to the ways of high finance, and the programme of the cotton barons, as unfolded that day, lay heavy on his mind, despite all his philosophy.

"I have had a—full day," he explained to Mrs. Grey.

Fourteen

LOVE

The rain was sweeping down in great thick winding sheets. The wind screamed in the ancient Cresswell oaks and swirled across the swamp in loud, wild gusts. The waters roared and gurgled in the streams, and along the roadside. Then, when the wind fell murmuring away, the clouds grew blacker and blacker and rain in long slim columns fell straight from Heaven to earth digging itself into the land and throwing back the red mud in angry flashes.

So it rained for one long week, and so for seven endless days Bles watched it with leaden heart. He knew the Silver Fleece—his and Zora's—must be ruined. It was the first great sorrow of his life; it was not so much the loss of the cotton itself—but the fantasy, the hopes, the dreams built around it. If it failed, would not they fail? Was not this angry beating rain, this dull spiritless drizzle, this wild war of air and earth, but foretaste and prophecy of ruin and discouragement, of the utter futility of striving? But if his own despair was great his pain at the plight of Zora made it almost unbearable. He did not see her in these seven days. He pictured her huddled there in the swamp in the cheerless leaky cabin with worse than no companions. Ah! the swamp, the cruel swamp! It was a fearful place in the rain. Its oozing mud and fetid vapors, its clinging slimy draperies,—how they twined about the bones of its victims and chilled their hearts. Yet here his Zora,—his poor disappointed child—was imprisoned.

Child? He had always called her child—but now in the inward illumination of these dark days he knew her as neither child nor sister nor friend, but as the One Woman. The revelation of his love lighted and brightened slowly till it flamed like a sunrise over him and left him in burning wonder. He panted to know if she, too, knew, or knew and cared not, or cared and knew not. She was so strange and human a creature. To her all things meant something—nothing was aimless, nothing merely happened. Was this rain beating down and back her love for him, or had she never loved? He walked his room, gripping his hands, peering through the misty windows toward the swamp—rain, rain, rain, nothing but rain. The world was water veiled in mists.

Then of a sudden, at midday, the sun shot out, hot and still; no breath of air stirred; the sky was like blue steel; the earth steamed. Bles rushed to the edge of the swamp and stood there irresolute. Perhaps—if the water had but drained from the cotton!—it was so strong and tall! But, pshaw! Where was the use of imagining? The lagoon had been level with the dykes a week ago; and now? He could almost see the beautiful Silver Fleece, bedraggled, drowned, and rolling beneath the black lake of slime. He went back to his work, but early in the morning the thought of it lured him again. He must at least see the grave of his hope and Zora's, and out of it resurrect new love and strength.

Perhaps she, too, might be there, waiting, weeping. He started at the thought. He hurried forth sadly. The rain-drops were still dripping and gleaming from the trees, flashing back the heavy yellow sunlight. He splashed and stamped along, farther and farther onward until he neared the rampart of the clearing, and put foot upon the tree-bridge. Then he looked down. The lagoon was dry. He stood a moment bewildered, then turned and rushed upon the island. A great sheet of dazzling sunlight swept the place, and beneath lay a mighty mass of olive green, thick, tall, wet, and willowy. The squares of cotton, sharp-edged, heavy, were just about to burst to bolls! And underneath, the land lay carefully drained and black! For one long moment he paused, stupid, agape with utter amazement, then leaned dizzily against a tree.

The swamp, the eternal swamp, had been drained in its deepest fastness; but, how?—how? He gazed about, perplexed, astonished. What a field of cotton! what a marvellous field! But how had it been saved?

He skirted the island slowly, stopping near Zora's oak. Here lay the reading of the riddle: with infinite work and pain, some one had dug a canal from the lagoon to the creek, into which the former had drained by a long and crooked way, thus allowing it to empty directly. The canal went straight, a hundred yards through stubborn soil, and it was oozing now with slimy waters.

He sat down weak, bewildered, and one thought was uppermost—Zora! And with the thought came a low moan of pain. He wheeled and leapt toward the dripping shelter in the tree. There she lay—wet, bedraggled, motionless, gray-pallid beneath her dark-drawn skin, her burning eyes searching restlessly for some lost thing, her lips a-moaning.

In dumb despair he dropped beside her and gathered her in his arms. The earth staggered beneath him as he stumbled on; the mud splashed and sunlight glistened; he saw long snakes slithering across his path and fear-struck beasts fleeing before his coming. He paused for neither path nor way but went straight for the school, running in mighty strides, yet gently, listening to the moans that struck death upon his heart. Once he fell headlong, but with a great wrench held her from harm, and minded not the pain that shot through his ribs. The yellow sunshine beat fiercely around and upon him, as he stumbled into the highway, lurched across the mud-strewn road, and panted up the porch.

"Miss Smith—!" he gasped, and then—darkness.

The years of the days of her dying were ten. The boy that entered the darkness and the shadow of death emerged a man, a silent man and grave, working furiously and haunting, day and night, the little window above the door. At last, of one gray morning when the earth was stillest, they came and told him, "She will live!" And he went out under the stars, lifted his long arms and sobbed: "Curse me, O God, if I let me lose her again!" And God remembered this in after years.

The hope and dream of harvest was upon the land. The cotton crop was short and poor because of the great rain; but the sun had saved the best, and the price had soared. So the world was happy, and the face of the black-belt green and luxuriant with thickening flecks of the coming foam of the cotton.

Up in the sick room Zora lay on the little white bed. The net and web of endless things had been crawling and creeping around her; she had struggled in dumb, speechless terror against some mighty grasping that strove for her life, with gnarled and creeping fingers; but now at last, weakly, she opened her eyes and questioned.

Bles, where was he? The Silver Fleece, how was it? The Sun, the Swamp? Then finding all well, she closed her eyes and slept. After some days they let her sit by the window, and she saw Bles pass, but drew back timidly when he looked; and he saw only the flutter of her gown, and waved.

At last there came a day when they let her walk down to the porch, and she felt the flickering of her strength again. Yet she looked different; her buxom comeliness was spiritualized; her face looked smaller, and her masses of hair, brought low about her ears, heightened her ghostly beauty; her skin was darkly transparent, and her eyes looked out from velvet veils of gloom. For a while she lay in her chair, in happy, dreamy pleasure at sun and bird and tree. Bles did not know yet that she was down; but soon he would come searching, for he came each hour, and she pressed her little hands against her breast to still the beating of her heart and the bursting wonder of her love.

Then suddenly a panic seized her. He must not find her here—not here; there was but one place in all the earth for them to meet, and that was yonder in the Silver Fleece. She rose with a fleeting glance, gathered the shawl round her, then gliding forward, wavering, tremulous, slipped across the road and into the swamp. The dark mystery of the Swamp swept over her; the place was hers. She had been born within its borders; within its borders she had lived and grown, and within its borders she had met her love. On she hurried until, sweeping down to the lagoon and the island, lo! the cotton lay before her! A great white foam was spread upon its brown and green; the whole field was waving and shivering in the sunlight. A low cry of pleasure burst from her lips; she forgot her weakness, and picking her way across the bridge, stood still amid the cotton that nestled about her shoulders, clasping it lovingly in her hands.

He heard that she was down-stairs and ran to meet her with beating heart. The chair was empty; but he knew. There was but one place then for these two souls to meet. Yet it was far, and he feared, and ran with startled eyes.

She stood on the island, ethereal, splendid, like some tall, dark, and gorgeous flower of the storied East. The green and white of the cotton billowed and foamed about her breasts; the red scarf burned upon her neck; the dark brown velvet of her skin pulsed warm and tremulous with the uprushing blood, and in the midnight depths of her great eyes flamed the mighty fires of long-concealed and new-born love.

He darted through the trees and paused, a tall man strongly but slimly made. He threw up his hands in the old way and hallooed; happily she crooned back a low mother-melody, and waited. He came down to her slowly, with fixed, hungry eyes, threading his way amid the Fleece. She did not move, but lifted both her dark hands, white with cotton; and then, as he came, casting it suddenly to the winds, in tears and laughter she swayed and dropped quivering in his arms. And all the world was sunshine and peace.

Fifteen

REVELATION

Harry Cresswell was scowling over his breakfast. It was not because his apartment in the New York hotel was not satisfactory, or his breakfast unpalatable; possibly a rather bewildering night in Broadway was expressing its influence; but he was satisfied that his ill-temper was due to a paragraph in the morning paper:

"It is stated on good authority that the widow of the late multimillionaire, Job Grey, will announce a large and carefully planned scheme of Negro education in the South, and will richly endow schools in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas."

Cresswell finally thrust his food away. He knew that Mrs. Grey helped Miss Smith's school, and supposed she would continue to do so; with that in mind he had striven to impress her, hoping that she might trust his judgment in later years. He had no idea, however, that she meant to endow the school, or entertained wholesale plans for Negro education. The knowledge made him suspicious. Why had neither Mary nor John Taylor mentioned this? Was there, after all, some "nigger-loving" conspiracy back of the cotton combine? He took his hat and started down-town.

Once in John Taylor's Broadway office, he opened the subject abruptly—the more so perhaps because he felt a resentment against Taylor for certain unnamed or partially voiced assumptions. Here was a place, however, for speech, and he spoke almost roughly.

"Taylor, what does this mean?" He thrust the clipping at him.

"Mean? That Mrs. Grey is going to get rid of some of her surplus cash—is going to endow some nigger schools," Taylor drily retorted.

"It must be stopped," declared Cresswell.

The other's brows drew up.

"Why?" in a surprised tone.

"Why? Why? Do you think the plantation system can be maintained without laborers? Do you think there's the slightest chance of cornering cotton and buying the Black Belt if the niggers are unwilling to work under present conditions? Do you know the man that stands ready to gobble up every inch of cotton land in this country at a price which no trust can hope to rival?"

John Taylor's interest quickened.

"Why, no," he returned sharply. "Who?"

"The Black Man, whose woolly head is filled with ideas of rising. We're striving by main force to prevent this, and here come your damned Northern philanthropists to plant schools. Why, Taylor, it'll knock the cotton trust to hell."

"Don't get excited," said Taylor, judicially. "We've got things in our hands; it's the Grey money, you know, that is back of us."

"That's just what confounds me," declared the perplexed young man. "Are you men fools, or rascals? Don't you see the two schemes can't mix? They're dead opposite, mutually contradictory, absolutely—" Taylor checked him; it was odd to behold Harry Cresswell so disturbed.

"Well, wait a moment. Let's see. Sit down. Wish I had a cigar for you, but I don't smoke."

"Do you happen to have any whiskey handy?"

"No, I don't drink."

"Well, what the devil—Oh, well, fire away."

"Now, see here. We control the Grey millions. Of course, we've got to let her play with her income, and that's considerable. Her favorite game just now is Negro education, and she's planning to go in heavy. Her adviser in this line, however, is Smith, and he belongs to us."

"What Smith?"

"Why, the man who's going to be Senator from New Jersey. He has a sister teaching in the South—you know, of course; it's at your home where my sister Mary taught."

"Great Scott! Is that woman's brother going to spend this money? Why, are you daft? See here! American cotton-spinning supremacy is built on cheap cotton; cheap cotton is built on cheap niggers. Educating, or rather trying to educate niggers, will make them restless and discontented—that is, scarce and dear as workers. Don't you see you're planning to cut off your noses? This Smith School, particularly, has nearly ruined our plantation. It's stuck almost in our front yard; you are planning to put our plough-hands all to studying Greek, and at the same time to corner the cotton crop—rot!"

John Taylor caressed his lean jaw.

"New point of view to me; I sort of thought education would improve things in the South," he commented, unmoved.

"It would if we ran it."

"We?"

"Yes—we Southerners."

"Um!—I see—there's light. See here, let's talk to Easterly about this." They went into the next office, and after a while got audience with the trust magnate. Mr. Easterly heard the matter carefully and waved it aside.

"Oh, that doesn't concern us, Taylor; let Cresswell take care of the whole thing. We'll see that Smith does what Cresswell wants."

But Taylor shook his head.

"Smith would kick. Mrs. Grey would get suspicious, and the devil be to pay. This is better. Form a big committee of Northern business men like yourself—philanthropists like Vanderpool, and Southerners like Cresswell; let them be a sort of Negro Education steering-committee. We'll see that on such committee you Southerners get what you want—control of Negro education."

"That sounds fair. But how about the Smith School? My father writes me that they are showing signs of expecting money right off—is that true? If it is, I want it stopped; it will ruin our campaign for the Farmers' League."

John Taylor looked at Cresswell. He thought he saw something more than general policy, or even racial prejudice—something personal—in his vehemence. The Smith School was evidently a severe thorn in the flesh of this man. All the more reason for mollifying him. Then, too, there was something in his argument. It was not wise to start educating these Negroes and getting them discontented just now. Ignorant labor was not ideal, but it was worth too much to employers to lose it now. Educated Negro labor might be worth more to Negroes, but not to the cotton combine. "H'm—well, then—" and John Taylor went into a brown study, while Cresswell puffed impatiently at a cigarette.

"I have it," said Taylor. Cresswell sat up. "First, let Mr. Easterly get Smith." Easterly turned to the telephone.

"Is that you, Smith?"

"Well, this is Easterly.... Yes—how about Mrs. Grey's education schemes?... Yes.... h'm—well,—see here Smith, we must go a little easy there.... Oh, no, no,—but to advertise just now a big scheme of Negro Education would drive the Cresswells, the Farmers' League, and the whole business South dead against us.... Yes, yes indeed; they believe in education all right, but they ain't in for training lawyers and professors just yet.... No, I don't suppose her school is.... Well, then; see here. She'll be reasonable, won't she, and placate the Cresswells?... No, I mean run the school to suit their ideas.... No, no, but in general along the lines which they could approve.... Yes, I thought so ... of course ... good-bye."

"Inclined to be a little nasty?" asked Taylor.

"A little sharp—but tractable. Now, Mr. Cresswell, the thing is in your hands. We'll get this committee which Taylor suggests appointed, and send it on a junket to Alabama; you do the rest—see?"

"Who'll be the committee?" asked Cresswell.

"Name it."

Mr. Cresswell smiled and left.

The winter started in severely, and it was easy to fill two private cars with members of the new Negro Education Board right after Thanksgiving. Cresswell had worked carefully and with caution. There was Mrs. Grey, comfortable and beaming, Mr. Easterly, who thought this a good business opportunity, and his family. Mrs. Vanderpool liked the South and was amused at the trip, and had induced Mr. Vanderpool to come by stories of shooting.

"Ah!" said Mr. Vanderpool.

Mr. Charles Smith and John Taylor were both too busy to go, but bronchial trouble induced the Rev. Dr. Boldish of St. Faith's rich parish to be one of the party, and at the last moment Temple Bocombe, the sociologist, consented to join.

"Awfully busy," he said, "but I've been reading up on the Negro problem since you mentioned the matter to me last week, Mr. Cresswell, and I think I understand it thoroughly. I may be able to help out."

The necessary spice of young womanhood was added to the party by Miss Taylor and Miss Cresswell, together with the silent Miss Boldish. They were a comfortable and sometimes merry party. Dr. Boldish pointed out the loafers at the stations, especially the black ones; Mr. Bocombe counted them and estimated the number of hours of work lost at ten cents an hour.

"Do they get that—ten cents an hour?" asked Miss Taylor.

"Oh, I don't know," replied Mr. Bocombe; "but suppose they do, for instance. That is an average wage today."

"They look lazy," said Mrs. Grey.

"They are lazy," said Mr. Cresswell.

"So am I," added Mrs. Vanderpool, suppressing a yawn.

"It is uninteresting," murmured her husband, preparing for a nap.

On the whole the members of the party enjoyed themselves from the moment they drew out of Jersey City to the afternoon when, in four carriages, they rolled beneath the curious eyes of all Toomsville and swept under the shadowed rampart of the swamp.

"The Christmas" was coming and all the Southern world was busy. Few people were busier than Bles and Zora. Slowly, wonderfully for them, heaven bent in these dying days of the year and kissed the earth, and the tremor thrilled all lands and seas. Everything was good, all things were happy, and these two were happiest of all. Out of the shadows and hesitations of childhood they had stepped suddenly into manhood and womanhood, with firm feet and uplifted heads. All the day that was theirs they worked, picking the Silver Fleece—picking it tenderly and lovingly from off the brown and spent bodies which had so utterly yielded life and beauty to the full fruition of this long and silken tendril, this white beauty of the cotton. November came and flew, and still the unexhausted field yielded its frothing fruit.

Today seemed doubly glorious, for Bles had spoken of their marriage; with twined hands and arms, and lips ever and again seeking their mates, they walked the leafy way.

Unconscious, rapt, they stepped out into the Big Road skirting the edge of the swamp. Why not? Was it not the King's Highway? And Love was King. So they talked on, unknowing that far up the road the Cresswell coaches were wheeling along with precious burdens. In the first carriage were Mrs. Grey and Mrs. Vanderpool, Mr. Cresswell and Miss Taylor. Mrs. Vanderpool was lolling luxuriously, but Mrs. Grey was a little stiff from long travel and sat upright. Mr. Cresswell looked clean-cut and handsome, and Miss Taylor seemed complacent and responsible. The dying of the day soothed them all insensibly. Groups of dark little children passed them as they neared the school, staring with wide eyes and greeting timidly.

"There seems to be marrying and giving in marriage," laughed Mrs. Vanderpool.

"Not very much," said Mr. Cresswell drily.

"Well, at least plenty of children."

"Plenty."

"But where are the houses?" asked Mrs. Grey.

"Perhaps in the swamp," said Mrs. Vanderpool lightly, looking up at the sombre trees that lined the left.

"They live where they please and do as they please," Cresswell explained; to which Mrs. Vanderpool added: "Like other animals."

Mary Taylor opened her lips to rebuke this levity when suddenly the coachman called out and the horses swerved, and the carriage's four occupants faced a young man and a young woman embracing heartily.

Out through the wood Bles and Zora had come to the broad red road; playfully he celebrated all her beauty unconscious of time and place.

"You are tall and bend like grasses on the swamp," he said.

"And yet look up to you," she murmured.

"Your eyes are darkness dressed in night."

"To see you brighter, dear," she said.

"Your little hands are much too frail for work."

"They must grow larger, then, and soon."

"Your feet are far too small to travel on."

"They'll travel on to you—that's far enough."

"Your lips—your full and purple lips—were made alone for kissing, not for words."

"They'll do for both."

He laughed in utter joy and touched her hair with light caressing hands.

"It does not fly with sunlight," she said quickly, with an upward glance.

"No," he answered. "It sits and listens to the night."

But even as she nestled to him happily there came the harsh thunder of horses' hoofs, beating on their ears. He drew her quickly to him in fear, and the coach lurched and turned, and left them facing four pairs of eyes. Miss Taylor reddened; Mrs. Grey looked surprised; Mrs. Vanderpool smiled; but Mr. Cresswell darkened with anger. The couple unclasped shamefacedly, and the young man, lifting his hat, started to stammer an apology; but Cresswell interrupted him:

"Keep your—your philandering to the woods, or I shall have you arrested," he said slowly, his face colorless, his lips twitching with anger. "Drive on, John."

Miss Taylor felt that her worst suspicions had been confirmed; but Mrs. Vanderpool was curious as to the cause of Cresswell's anger. It was so genuine that it needed explanation.

"Are kisses illegal here?" she asked before the horses started, turning the battery of her eyes full upon him. But Cresswell had himself well in hand.

"No," he said. "But the girl is—notorious."

On the lovers the words fell like a blow. Zora shivered, and a grayish horror mottled the dark burning of her face. Bles started in anger, then paused in shivering doubt. What had happened? They knew not; yet involuntarily their hands fell apart; they avoided each other's eyes.

"I—I must go now," gasped Zora, as the carriage swept away.

He did not hold her, he did not offer the farewell kiss, but stood staring at the road as she walked into the swamp. A moment she paused and looked back; then slowly, almost painfully, she took the path back to the field of the Fleece, and reaching it after long, long minutes, began mechanically to pick the cotton. But the cotton glowed crimson in the failing sun.

Bles walked toward the school. What had happened? he kept asking. And yet he dared not question the awful shape that sat somewhere, cold and still, behind his soul. He heard the hoofs of horses again. It was Miss Taylor being brought back to the school to greet Miss Smith and break the news of the coming of the party. He raised his hat. She did not return the greeting, but he found her pausing at the gate. It seemed to her too awful for this foolish fellow thus to throw himself away. She faced him and he flinched as from some descending blow.

"Bles," she said primly, "have you absolutely no shame?"

He braced himself and raised his head proudly.

"I am going to marry her; it is no crime." Then he noted the expression on her face, and paused.

She stepped back, scandalized.

"Can it be, Bles Alwyn," she said, "that you don't know the sort of girl she is?"

He raised his hands and warded off her words, dumbly, as she turned to go, almost frightened at the havoc she saw. The heavens flamed scarlet in his eyes and he screamed.

"It's a lie! It's a damned lie!" He wheeled about and tore into the swamp.

"It's a damned lie!" he shouted to the trees. "Is it?—is it?" chirped the birds. "It's a cruel falsehood!" he moaned. "Is it?—is it?" whispered the devils within.

It seemed to him as though suddenly the world was staggering and faltering about him. The trees bent curiously and strange breathings were upon the breezes. He unbuttoned his collar that he might get more air. A thousand things he had forgotten surged suddenly to life. Slower and slower he ran, more and more the thoughts crowded his head. He thought of that first red night and the yelling and singing and wild dancing; he thought of Cresswell's bitter words; he thought of Zora telling how she stayed out nights; he thought of the little bower that he had built her in the cotton field. A wild fear struggled with his anger, but he kept repeating, "No, no," and then, "At any rate, she will tell me the truth." She had never lied to him; she would not dare; he clenched his hands, murder in his heart.

Slowly and more slowly he ran. He knew where she was—where she must be, waiting. And yet as he drew near huge hands held him back, and heavy weights clogged his feet. His heart said: "On! quick! She will tell the truth, and all will be well." His mind said: "Slow, slow; this is the end." He hurled the thought aside, and crashed through the barrier.

She was standing still and listening, with a huge basket of the piled froth of the field upon her head. One long brown arm, tender with curvings, balanced the cotton; the other, poised, balanced the slim swaying body. Bending she listened, her eyes shining, her lips apart, her bosom fluttering at the well-known step.

He burst into her view with the fury of a beast, rending the wood away and trampling the underbrush, reeling and muttering until he saw her. She looked at him. Her hands dropped, she stood very still with drawn face, grayish-brown, both hands unconsciously out-stretched, and the cotton swaying, while deep down in her eyes, dimly, slowly, a horror lit and grew. He paused a moment, then came slowly onward doggedly, drunkenly, with torn clothes, flying collar, and red eyes. Then he paused again, still beyond arm's-length, looking at her with fear-struck eyes. The cotton on her head shivered and dropped in a pure mass of white and silvery snow about her limbs. Her hands fell limply and the horror flamed in her wet eyes. He struggled with his voice but it grated and came hoarse and hard from his quivering throat.

"Zora!"

"Yes, Bles."

"You—you told me—you were—pure."

She was silent, but her body went all a-tremble. He stepped forward until she could almost touch him; there standing straight and tall he glared down upon her.

"Answer me," he whispered in a voice hard with its tight held sobs. A misery darkened her face and the light died from her eyes, yet she looked at him bravely and her voice came low and full as from afar.

"I asked you what it meant to be pure, Bles, and—and you told—and I told you the truth."

"What it meant!—what it meant!" he repeated in the low, tense anguish.

"But—but, Bles—" She faltered; there came an awful pleading in her eyes; her hand groped toward him; but he stepped slowly back—"But, Bles—you said—willingly—you said—if—if she knew—"

He thundered back in livid anger:

"Knew! All women know! You should have died!"

Sobs were rising and shaking her from head to foot, but she drove them back and gripped her breasts with her hands.

"No, Bles—no—all girls do not know. I was a child. Not since I knew you, Bles—never, never since I saw you."

"Since—since," he groaned—"Christ! But before?"

"Yes, before."

"My God!"

She knew the end had come. Yet she babbled on tremblingly:

"He was our master, and all the other girls that gathered there did his will; I—I—" she choked and faltered, and he drew farther away—"I began running away, and they hunted me through the swamps. And then—then I reckon I'd have gone back and been—as they all are—but you came, Bles—you came, and you—you were a new great thing in my life, and—and—yet, I was afraid I was not worthy until you—you said the words. I thought you knew, and I thought that—that purity was just wanting to be pure."

He ground his teeth in fury. Oh, he was an innocent—a blind baby—the joke and laughing-stock of the country around, with yokels grinning at him and pale-faced devils laughing aloud. The teachers knew; the girls knew; God knew; everybody but he knew—poor blind, deaf mole, stupid jackass that he was. He must run—run away from this world, and far off in some free land beat back this pain.

Then in sheer weariness the anger died within his soul, leaving but ashes and despair. Slowly he turned away, but with a quick motion she stood in his path.

"Bles," she cried, "how can I grow pure?"

He looked at her listlessly.

"Never—never again," he slowly answered her.

Dark fear swept her drawn face.

"Never?" she gasped.

Pity surged and fought in his breast; but one thought held and burned him. He bent to her fiercely:

"Who?" he demanded.

She pointed toward the Cresswell Oaks, and he turned away. She did not attempt to stop him again, but dropped her hands and stared drearily up into the clear sky with its shining worlds.

"Good-bye, Bles," she said slowly. "I thank God he gave you to me—just a little time." She hesitated and waited. There came no word as the man moved slowly away. She stood motionless. Then slowly he turned and came back. He laid his hand a moment, lightly, upon her head.

"Good-bye—Zora," he sobbed, and was gone.

She did not look up, but knelt there silent, dry-eyed, till the last rustle of his going died in the night. And then, like a waiting storm, the torrent of her grief swept down upon her; she stretched herself upon the black and fleece-strewn earth, and writhed.

Sixteen

THE GREAT REFUSAL

All night Miss Smith lay holding the quivering form of Zora close to her breast, staring wide-eyed into the darkness—thinking, thinking. In the morning the party would come. There would be Mrs. Grey and Mary Taylor, Mrs. Vanderpool, who had left her so coldly in the lurch before, and some of the Cresswells. They would come well fed and impressed with the charming hospitality of their hosts, and rather more than willing to see through those host's eyes. They would be in a hurry to return to some social function, and would give her work but casual attention.

It seemed so dark an ending to so bright a dream. Never for her had a fall opened as gloriously. The love of this boy and girl, blossoming as it had beneath her tender care, had been a sacred, wonderful history that revived within her memories of long-forgotten days. But above lay the vision of her school, redeemed and enlarged, its future safe, its usefulness broadened—small wonder that to Sarah Smith the future had seemed in November almost golden.

Then things began to go wrong. The transfer of the Tolliver land had not yet been effected; the money was ready, but Mr. Tolliver seemed busy or hesitating. Next came this news of Mrs. Grey's probable conditions. So here it was Christmas time, and Sarah Smith's castles lay almost in ruins about her.

The girl moaned in her fitful sleep and Miss Smith soothed her. Poor child! here too was work—a strange strong soul cruelly stricken in her youth. Could she be brought back to a useful life? How she needed such a strong, clear-eyed helper in this crisis of her work! Would Zora make one or would this blow send her to perdition? Not if Sarah Smith could save her, she resolved, and stared out the window where the pale red dawn was sending its first rays on the white-pillared mansion of the Cresswells.

Mrs. Grey saw the light on the columns, too, as she lay lazily in her soft white bed. There was a certain delicious languor in the late lingering fall of Alabama that suited her perfectly. Then, too, she liked the house and its appointments; there was not, to be sure, all the luxury that she was used to in her New York mansion, but there was a certain finish about it, an elegance and staid old-fashioned hospitality that appealed to her tremendously. Mrs. Grey's heart warmed to the sight of Helen in her moments of spasmodic caring for the sick and afflicted on the estate. No better guardian of her philanthropies could be found than these same Cresswells. She must, of course, go over and see dear Sarah Smith; but really there was not much to say or to look at.

The prospects seemed most alluring. Later, Mr. Easterly talked a while on routine business, saying, as he turned away:

"I am more and more impressed, Mrs. Grey, with your wisdom in placing large investments in the South. With peaceful social conditions the returns will be large."

Mrs. Grey heard this delicate flattery complacently. She had her streak of thrift, and wanted her business capacity recognized. She listened attentively.

"For this reason, I trust you will handle your Negro philanthropies judicially, as I know you will. There's dynamite in this race problem for amateur reformers, but fortunately you have at hand wise and sympathetic advisers in the Cresswells."

Mrs. Grey agreed entirely.

Mary Taylor, alone of the committee, took her commission so seriously as to be anxious to begin work.

"We are to visit the school this morning, you know," she reminded the others, looking at her watch; "I'm afraid we're late already."

The remark created mild consternation. It seemed that Mr. Vanderpool had gone hunting and his wife had not yet arisen. Dr. Boldish was very hoarse, Mr. Easterly was going to look over some plantations with Colonel Cresswell, and Mr. Bocombe was engrossed in a novel.

"Clever, but not true to life," he said.

Finally the clergyman and Mr. Bocombe, Mrs. Grey and Mrs. Vanderpool and Miss Taylor started for the school, with Harry Cresswell, about an hour after lunch. The delay and suppressed excitement among the little folks had upset things considerably there, but at the sight of the visitors at the gate Miss Smith rang the bell.

The party came in, laughing and chatting. They greeted Miss Smith cordially. Dr. Boldish was beginning to tell a good story when a silence fell.

The children had gathered, quietly, almost timidly, and before the distinguished company realized it, they turned to meet that battery of four hundred eyes. A human eye is a wonderful thing when it simply waits and watches. Not one of these little things alone would have been worth more than a glance, but together, they became mighty, portentous. Mr. Bocombe got out his note-book and wrote furiously therein. Dr. Boldish, naturally the appointed spokesman, looked helplessly about and whispered to Mrs. Vanderpool:

"What on earth shall I talk about?"

"The brotherhood of man?" suggested the lady.

"Hardly advisable," returned Dr. Boldish, seriously, "in our friend's presence,"—with a glance toward Cresswell. Then he arose.

"My friends," he said, touching his finger-tips and using blank verse in A minor. "This is an auspicious day. You should be thankful for the gifts of the Lord. His bounty surrounds you—the trees, the fields, the glorious sun. He gives cotton to clothe you, corn to eat, devoted friends to teach you. Be joyful. Be good. Above all, be thrifty and save your money, and do not complain and whine at your apparent disadvantages. Remember that God did not create men equal but unequal, and set metes and bounds. It is not for us to question the wisdom of the Almighty, but to bow humbly to His will.

"Remember that the slavery of your people was not necessarily a crime. It was a school of work and love. It gave you noble friends, like Mr. Cresswell here." A restless stirring, and the battery of eyes was turned upon that imperturbable gentleman, as if he were some strange animal. "Love and serve them. Remember that we get, after all, little education from books; rather in the fields, at the plough and in the kitchen. Let your ambition be to serve rather than rule, to be humble followers of the lowly Jesus."

With an upward glance the Rev. Dr. Boldish sat down amid a silence a shade more intense than that which had greeted him. Then slowly from the far corner rose a thin voice, tremulously. It wavered on the air and almost broke, then swelled in sweet, low music. Other and stronger voices gathered themselves to it, until two hundred were singing a soft minor wail that gripped the hearts and tingled in the ears of the hearers. Mr. Bocombe groped with a puzzled expression to find the pocket for his note-book; Harry Cresswell dropped his eyes, and on Mrs. Vanderpool's lips the smile died. Mary Taylor flushed, and Mrs. Grey cried frankly:

"Poor things!" she whispered.

"Now," said Mrs. Grey, turning about, "we haven't but just a moment and we want to take a little look at your work." She smiled graciously upon Miss Smith.

Mrs. Grey thought the cooking-school very nice.

"I suppose," she said, "that you furnish cooks for the county."

"Largely," said Miss Smith. Mrs. Vanderpool looked surprised, but Miss Smith added: "This county, you know, is mostly black." Mrs. Grey did not catch the point.

The dormitories were neat and the ladies expressed great pleasure in them.

"It is certainly nice for them to know what a clean place is," commented Mrs. Grey. Mr. Cresswell, however, looked at a bath-room and smiled.

"How practical!" he said.

"Can you not stop and see some of the classes?" Sarah Smith knew in her heart that the visit was a failure, still she would do her part to the end.

"I doubt if we shall have time," Mrs. Grey returned, as they walked on. "Mr. Cresswell expects friends to dinner."

"What a magnificent intelligence office," remarked Mr. Bocombe, "for furnishing servants to the nation. I saw splendid material for cooks and maids."

"And plough-boys," added Cresswell.

"And singers," said Mary Taylor.

"Well, now that's just my idea," said Mrs. Grey, "that these schools should furnish trained servants and laborers for the South. Isn't that your idea, Miss Smith?"

"Not exactly," the lady replied, "or at least I shouldn't put it just that way. My idea is that this school should furnish men and women who can work and earn an honest living, train up families aright, and perform their duties as fathers, mothers, and citizens."

"Yes—yes, precisely," said Mrs. Grey, "that's what I meant."

"I think the whites can attend to the duties of citizenship without help," observed Mr. Cresswell.

"Don't let the blacks meddle in politics," said Dr. Boldish.

"I want to make these children full-fledged men and women, strong, self-reliant, honest, without any 'ifs' and 'ands' to their development," insisted Miss Smith.

"Of course, and that is just what Mr. Cresswell wants. Isn't it, Mr. Cresswell?" asked Mrs. Grey.

"I think I may say yes," Mr. Cresswell agreed. "I certainly want these people to develop as far as they can, although Miss Smith and I would differ as to their possibilities. But it is not so much in the general theory of Negro education as in its particular applications where our chief differences would lie. I may agree that a boy should learn higher arithmetic, yet object to his loafing in plough-time. I might want to educate some girls but not girls like Zora."

Mrs. Vanderpool glanced at Mr. Cresswell, smiling to herself.

Mrs. Grey broke in, beaming:

"That's just it, dear Miss Smith,—just it. Your heart is good, but you need strong practical advice. You know we weak women are so impractical, as my poor Job so often said. Now, I'm going to arrange to endow this school with at least—at least a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. One condition is that my friend, Mr. Cresswell here, and these other gentlemen, including sound Northern business men like Mr. Easterly, shall hold this money in trust, and expend it for your school as they think best."

"Mr. Cresswell would be their local representative?" asked Miss Smith slowly with white face.

"Why yes—yes, of course."

There was a long, tense silence. Then the firm reply,

"Mrs. Grey, I thank you, but I cannot accept your offer."

Sarah Smith's voice was strong, the tremor had left her hands. She had expected something like this, of course; yet when it came—somehow it failed to stun. She would not turn over the direction of the school, or the direction of the education of these people, to those who were most opposed to their education. Therefore, there was no need to hesitate; there was no need to think the thing over—she had thought it over—and she looked into Mrs. Grey's eyes and with gathering tears in her own said:

"Again, I thank you very much, Mrs. Grey."

Mrs. Grey was a picture of the most emphatic surprise, and Mr. Cresswell moved to the window. Mrs. Grey looked helplessly at her companions.

"But—I don't understand, Miss Smith—why can't you accept my offer?"

"Because you ask me to put my school in control of those who do not wish for the best interests of black folk, and in particular I object to Mr. Cresswell," said Miss Smith, slowly but very distinctly, "because his relation to the forces of evil in this community has been such that he can direct no school of mine." Mrs. Vanderpool moved toward the door and Mr. Cresswell bowing slightly followed. Dr. Boldish looked indignant and Mr. Bocombe dove after his note-book. Mary Taylor, her head in a whirl, came forward. She felt that in some way she was responsible for this dreadful situation and she wanted desperately to save matters from final disaster.

"Come," she said, "Mrs. Grey, we'll talk this matter over again later. I am sure Miss Smith does not mean quite all she says—she is tired and nervous. You join the others and don't wait for me and I will be along directly."

Mrs. Grey was only too glad to escape and Mr. Bocombe got a chance to talk. He drew out his note-book.

"Awfully interesting," he said, "awfully. Now—er—let's see—oh, yes. Did you notice how unhealthy the children looked? Race is undoubtedly dying out; fact. No hope. Weak. No spontaneity either—rather languid, did you notice? Yes, and their heads—small and narrow—no brain capacity. They can't concentrate; notice how some slept when Dr. Boldish was speaking? Mr. Cresswell says they own almost no land here; think of it? This land was worth only ten dollars an acre a decade ago, he says. Negroes might have bought all and been rich. Very shiftless—and that singing. Now, I wonder where they got the music? Imitation, of course." And so he rattled on, noting not the silence of the others.

As the carriage drove off Mary turned to Miss Smith.

"Now, Miss Smith," she began—but Miss Smith looked at her, and said sternly, "Sit down."

Mary Taylor sat down. She had been so used to lecturing the older woman that the sudden summoning of her well known sternness against herself took her breath, and she sat awkwardly like the school girl that she was waiting for Miss Smith to speak. She felt suddenly very young and very helpless—she who had so jauntily set out to solve this mighty problem by a waving of her wand. She saw with a swelling of pity the drawn and stricken face of her old friend and she started up.

"Sit down," repeated Miss Smith harshly. "Mary Taylor, you are a fool. You are not foolish, for the foolish learn; you are simply a fool. You will never learn; you have blundered into this life work of mine and well nigh ruined it. Whether I can yet save it God alone knows. You have blundered into the lives of two loving children, and sent one wandering aimless on the face of the earth and the other moaning in yonder chamber with death in her heart. You are going to marry the man that sought Zora's ruin when she was yet a child because you think of his aristocratic pose and pretensions built on the poverty, crime, and exploitation of six generations of serfs. You'll marry him and—"

But Miss Taylor leapt to her feet with blazing cheeks.

"How dare you?" she screamed, beside herself.

"But God in heaven help you if you do," finished Miss Smith, calmly.

Seventeen

THE RAPE OF THE FLEECE

When slowly from the torpor of ether, one wakens to the misty sense of eternal loss, and there comes the exquisite prick of pain, then one feels in part the horror of the ache when Zora wakened to the world again. The awakening was the work of days and weeks. At first in sheer exhaustion, physical and mental, she lay and moaned. The sense of loss—of utter loss—lay heavy upon her. Something of herself, something dearer than self, was gone from her forever, and an infinite loneliness and silence, as of endless years, settled on her soul. She wished neither food nor words, only to be alone. Then gradually the pain of injury stung her when the blood flowed fuller. As Miss Smith knelt beside her one night to make her simple prayer Zora sat suddenly upright, white-swathed, dishevelled, with fury in her midnight eyes.

"I want no prayers!" she cried, "I will not pray! He is no God of mine. He isn't fair. He knows and won't tell. He takes advantage of us—He works and fools us." All night Miss Smith heard mutterings of this bitterness, and the next day the girl walked her room like a tigress,—to and fro, to and fro, all the long day. Toward night a dumb despair settled upon her. Miss Smith found her sitting by the window gazing blankly toward the swamp. She came to Miss Smith, slowly, and put her hands upon her shoulders with almost a caress.

"You must forgive me," she pleaded plaintively. "I reckon I've been mighty bad with you, and you always so good to me; but—but, you see—it hurts so."

"I know it hurts, dear; I know it does. But men and women must learn to bear hurts in this world."

"Not hurts like this; they couldn't."

"Yes, even hurts like this. Bear and stand straight; be brave. After all, Zora, no man is quite worth a woman's soul; no love is worth a whole life."

Zora turned away with a gesture of impatience.

"You were born in ice," she retorted, adding a bit more tenderly, "in clear strong ice; but I was born in fire. I live—I love; that's all." And she sat down again, despairingly, and stared at the dull swamp. Miss Smith stood for a moment and closed her eyes upon a vision.

"Ice!" she whispered. "My God!"

Then, at length, she said to Zora:

"Zora, there's only one way: do something; if you sit thus brooding you'll go crazy."

"Do crazy folks forget?"

"Nonsense, Zora!" Miss Smith ridiculed the girl's fantastic vagaries; her sound common sense rallied to her aid. "They are the people who remember; sane folk forget. Work is the only cure for such pain."

"But there's nothing to do—nothing I want to do—nothing worth doing—now."

"The Silver Fleece?"

The girl sat upright.

"The Silver Fleece," she murmured. Without further word, slowly she arose and walked down the stairs, and out into the swamp. Miss Smith watched her go; she knew that every step must be the keen prickle of awakening flesh. Yet the girl walked steadily on.

It was the Christmas—not Christmas-tide of the North and West, but Christmas of the Southern South. It was not the festival of the Christ Child, but a time of noise and frolic and license, the great Pay-Day of the year when black men lifted their heads from a year's toiling in the earth, and, hat in hand, asked anxiously: "Master, what have I earned? Have I paid my old debts to you? Have I made my clothes and food? Have I got a little of the year's wage coming to me?" Or, more carelessly and cringingly: "Master, gimme a Christmas gift."

The lords of the soil stood round, gauging their cotton, measuring their men. Their stores were crowded, their scales groaned, their gins sang. In the long run public opinion determines all wage, but in more primitive times and places, private opinion, personal judgment of some man in power, determines. The Black Belt is primitive and the landlord wields the power.

"What about Johnson?" calls the head clerk.

"Well, he's a faithful nigger and needs encouragement; cancel his debt and give him ten dollars for Christmas." Colonel Cresswell glowed, as if he were full of the season's spirit.

"And Sanders?"

"How's his cotton?"

"Good, and a lot of it."

"He's trying to get away. Keep him in debt, but let him draw what he wants."

"Aunt Rachel?"

"H'm, they're way behind, aren't they? Give her a couple of dollars—not a cent more."

"Jim Sykes?"

"Say, Harry, how about that darky, Sykes?" called out the Colonel.

Excusing himself from his guests, Harry Cresswell came into the office.

To them this peculiar spectacle of the market place was of unusual interest. They saw its humor and its crowding, its bizarre effects and unwonted pageantry. Black giants and pigmies were there; kerchiefed aunties, giggling black girls, saffron beauties, and loafing white men. There were mules and horses and oxen, wagons and buggies and carts; but above all and in all, rushing through, piled and flying, bound and baled—was cotton. Cotton was currency; cotton was merchandise; cotton was conversation.

All this was "beautiful" to Mrs. Grey and "unusually interesting" to Mrs. Vanderpool. To Mary Taylor it had the fascination of a puzzle whose other side she had already been partially studying. She was particularly impressed with the joy and abandon of the scene—light laughter, huge guffaws, handshakes, and gossipings.

"At all events," she concluded, "this is no oppressed people." And sauntering away from the rest she noted the smiles of an undersized smirking yellow man who hurried by with a handful of dollar bills. At a side entrance liquor was evidently on sale—men were drinking and women, too; some were staggering, others cursing, and yet others singing. Then suddenly a man swung around the corner swearing in bitter rage:

"The damned thieves, they'se stole a year's work—the white—" But some one called, "Hush up, Sanders! There's a white woman." And he threw a startled look at Mary and hurried by. She was perplexed and upset and stood hesitating a moment when she heard a well-known voice:

"Why, Miss Taylor, I was alarmed for you; you really must be careful about trusting yourself with these half drunken Negroes."

"Wouldn't it be better not to give them drink, Mr. Cresswell?"

"And let your neighbor sell them poison at all hours? No, Miss Taylor." They joined the others, and all were turning toward the carriage when a figure coming down the road attracted them.

"Quite picturesque," observed Mrs. Vanderpool, looking at the tall, slim girl swaying toward them with a piled basket of white cotton poised lightly on her head. "Why," in abrupt recognition, "it is our Venus of the Roadside, is it not?"

Mary saw it was Zora. Just then, too, Zora caught sight of them, and for a moment hesitated, then came on; the carriage was in front of the store, and she was bound for the store. A moment Mary hesitated, too, and then turned resolutely to greet her. But Zora's eyes did not see her. After one look at that sorrow-stricken face, Mary turned away.

Colonel Cresswell stood by the door, his hat on, his hands in his pockets.

"Well, Zora, what have you there?" he asked.

"Cotton, sir."

Harry Cresswell bent over it.

"Great heavens! Look at this cotton!" he ejaculated. His father approached. The cotton lay in silken handfuls, clean and shimmering, with threads full two inches long. The idlers, black and white, clustered round, gazing at it, and fingering it with repeated exclamations of astonishment.

"Where did this come from?" asked the Colonel sharply. He and Harry were both eying the girl intently.

"I raised it in the swamp," Zora replied quietly, in a dead voice. There was no pride of achievement in her manner, no gladness; all that had flown.

"Is that all?"

"No, sir; I think there's two bales."

"Two bales! Where is it? How the devil—" The Colonel was forgetting his guests, but Harry intervened.

"You'll need to get it picked right off," he suggested.

"It's all picked, sir."

"But where is it?"

"If you'll send a wagon, sir—"

But the Colonel hardly waited.

"Here you, Jim, take the big mules and drive like—Where's that wench?"

But Zora was already striding on ahead, and was far up the red road when the great mules galloped into sight and the long whip snapped above their backs. The Colonel was still excited.

"That cotton must be ours, Harry—all of it. And see that none is stolen. We've got no contract with the wench, so don't dally with her." But Harry said firmly, quietly:

"It's fine cotton, and she raised it; she must be paid well for it." Colonel Cresswell glanced at him with something between contempt and astonishment on his face.

"You go along with the ladies," Harry added; "I'll see to this cotton." Mary Taylor's smile had rewarded him; now he must get rid of his company—before Zora returned.

It was dark when the cotton came; such a load as Cresswell's store had never seen before. Zora watched it weighed, received the cotton checks, and entered the store. Only the clerk was there, and he was closing. He pointed her carelessly to the office in the back part. She went into the small dim room, and laying the cotton-check on the desk, stood waiting. Slowly the hopelessness and bitterness of it all came back in a great whelming flood. What was the use of trying for anything? She was lost forever. The world was against her, and again she saw the fingers of Elspeth—the long black claw-like talons that clutched and dragged her down—down. She did not struggle—she dropped her hands listlessly, wearily, and stood but half conscious as the door opened and Mr. Harry Cresswell entered the dimly lighted room. She opened her eyes. She had expected his father. Somewhere way down in the depths of her nature the primal tiger awoke and snarled. She was suddenly alive from hair to finger tip. Harry Cresswell paused a second and swept her full length with his eye—her profile, the long supple line of bosom and hip, the little foot. Then he closed the door softly and walked slowly toward her. She stood like stone, without a quiver; only her eye followed the crooked line of the Cresswell blue blood on his marble forehead as she looked down from her greater height; her hand closed almost caressingly on a rusty poker lying on the stove nearby; and as she sensed the hot breath of him she felt herself purring in a half heard whisper.

"I should not like—to kill you."

He looked at her long and steadily as he passed to his desk. Slowly he lighted a cigarette, opened the great ledger, and compared the cotton-check with it.

"Three thousand pounds," he announced in a careless tone. "Yes, that will make about two bales of lint. It's extra cotton—say fifteen cents a pound—one hundred fifty dollars—seventy-five dollars to you—h'm." He took a note-book out of his pocket, pushed his hat back on his head, and paused to relight his cigarette.

"Let's see—your rent and rations—"

"Elspeth pays no rent," she said slowly, but he did not seem to hear.

"Your rent and rations with the five years' back debt,"—he made a hasty calculation—"will be one hundred dollars. That leaves you twenty-five in our debt. Here's your receipt."

The blow had fallen. She did not wince nor cry out. She took the receipt, calmly, and walked out into the darkness.

They had stolen the Silver Fleece.

What should she do? She never thought of appeal to courts, for Colonel Cresswell was Justice of the Peace and his son was bailiff. Why had they stolen from her? She knew. She was now penniless, and in a sense helpless. She was now a peon bound to a master's bidding. If Elspeth chose to sign a contract of work for her to-morrow, it would mean slavery, jail, or hounded running away. What would Elspeth do? One never knew. Zora walked on. An hour ago it seemed that this last blow must have killed her. But now it was different. Into her first despair had crept, in one fierce moment, grim determination. Somewhere in the world sat a great dim Injustice which had veiled the light before her young eyes, just as she raised them to the morning. With the veiling, death had come into her heart.

And yet, they should not kill her; they should not enslave her. A desperate resolve to find some way up toward the light, if not to it, formed itself within her. She would not fall into the pit opening before her. Somehow, somewhere lay The Way. She must never fall lower; never be utterly despicable in the eyes of the man she had loved. There was no dream of forgiveness, of purification, of re-kindled love; all these she placed sadly and gently into the dead past. But in awful earnestness, she turned toward the future; struggling blindly, groping in half formed plans for a way.

She came thus into the room where sat Miss Smith, strangely pallid beneath her dusky skin. But there lay a light in her eyes.

Eighteen

THE COTTON CORNER

All over the land the cotton had foamed in great white flakes under the winter sun. The Silver Fleece lay like a mighty mantle across the earth. Black men and mules had staggered beneath its burden, while deep songs welled in the hearts of men; for the Fleece was goodly and gleaming and soft, and men dreamed of the gold it would buy. All the roads in the country had been lined with wagons—a million wagons speeding to and fro with straining mules and laughing black men, bearing bubbling masses of piled white Fleece. The gins were still roaring and spitting flames and smoke—fifty thousand of them in town and vale. Then hoarse iron throats were filled with fifteen billion pounds of white-fleeced, black-specked cotton, for the whirling saws to tear out the seed and fling five thousand million pounds of the silken fibre to the press.

And there again the black men sang, like dark earth-spirits flitting in twilight; the presses creaked and groaned; closer and closer they pressed the silken fleece. It quivered, trembled, and then lay cramped, dead, and still, in massive, hard, square bundles, tied with iron strings. Out fell the heavy bales, thousand upon thousand, million upon million, until they settled over the South like some vast dull-white swarm of birds. Colonel Cresswell and his son, in these days, had a long and earnest conversation perforated here and there by explosions of the Colonel's wrath. The Colonel could not understand some things.

"They want us to revive the Farmers' League?" he fiercely demanded.

"Yes," Harry calmly replied.

"And throw the rest of our capital after the fifty thousand dollars we've already lost?"

"Yes."

"And you were fool enough to consent—"

"Wait, Father—and don't get excited. Listen. Cotton is going up—"

"Of course it's going up! Short crop and big demand—"

"Cotton is going up, and then it's going to fall."

"I don't believe it."

"I know it; the trust has got money and credit enough to force it down."

"Well, what then?" The Colonel glared.

"Then somebody will corner it."

"The Farmers' League won't stand—"

"Precisely. The Farmers' League can do the cornering and hold it for higher prices."

"Lord, son! if we only could!" groaned the Colonel.

"We can; we'll have unlimited credit."

"But—but—" stuttered the bewildered Colonel, "I don't understand. Why should the trust—"

"Nonsense, Father—what's the use of understanding. Our advantage is plain, and John Taylor guarantees the thing."

"Who's John Taylor?" snorted the Colonel. "Why should we trust him?"

"Well," said Harry slowly, "he wants to marry Helen—"

His father grew apopletic.

"I'm not saying he will, Father; I'm only saying that he wants to," Harry made haste to placate the rising tide of wrath.

"No Southern gentleman—" began the Colonel. But Harry shrugged his shoulders.

"Which is better, to be crushed by the trust or to escape at their expense, even if that escape involves unwarranted assumptions on the part of one of them? I tell you, Father, the code of the Southern gentleman won't work in Wall Street."

"And I'll tell you why—there are no Southern gentlemen," growled his father.

The Silver Fleece was golden, for its prices were flying aloft. Mr. Caldwell told Colonel Cresswell that he confidently expected twelve-cent cotton.

"The crop is excellent and small, scarcely ten million bales," he declared. "The price is bound to go up."

Colonel Cresswell was hesitant, even doubtful; the demand for cotton at high prices usually fell off rapidly and he had heard rumors of curtailed mill production. While, then, he hoped for high prices he advised the Farmers' League to be on guard.

Mr. Caldwell seemed to be right, for cotton rose to ten cents a pound—ten and a half—eleven—and then the South began to see visions and to dream dreams.

"Yes, my dear," said Mr. Maxwell, whose lands lay next to the Cresswells' on the northwest, "yes, if cotton goes to twelve or thirteen cents as seems probable, I think we can begin the New House"—for Mrs. Maxwell's cherished dream was a pillared mansion like the Cresswells'.

Mr. Tolliver looked at his house and barns. "Well, daughter, if this crop sells at twelve cents, I'll be on my feet again, and I won't have to sell that land to the nigger school after all. Once out of the clutch of the Cresswells—well, I think we can have a coat of paint." And he laughed as he had not laughed in ten years.

Down in the bottoms west of the swamp a man and woman were figuring painfully on an old slate. He was light brown and she was yellow.

"Honey," he said tremblingly, "I b'lieve we can do it—if cotton goes to twelve cents, we can pay the mortgage."

Two miles north of the school an old black woman was shouting and waving her arms. "If cotton goes to twelve cents we can pay out and be free!" and she threw her apron over her head and wept, gathering her children in her arms.

But even as she cried a flash and tremor shook the South. Far away to the north a great spider sat weaving his web. The office looked down from the clouds on lower Broadway, and was soft with velvet and leather. Swift, silent messengers hurried in and out, and Mr. Easterly, deciding the time was ripe, called his henchman to him.

"Taylor, we're ready—go South."

And John Taylor rose, shook hands silently, and went.

As he entered Cresswell's plantation store three days later, a colored woman with a little boy turned sadly away from the counter.

"No, aunty," the clerk was telling her, "calico is too high; can't let you have any till we see how your cotton comes out."

"I just wanted a bit; I promised the boy—"

"Go on, go on—Why, Mr. Taylor!" And the little boy burst into tears while he was hurried out.

"Tightening up on the tenants?" asked Taylor.

"Yes; these niggers are mighty extravagant. Besides, cotton fell a little today—eleven to ten and three-fourths; just a flurry, I reckon. Had you heard?"

Mr. Taylor said he had heard, and he hurried on. Next morning the long shining wires of that great Broadway web trembled and flashed again and cotton went to ten cents.

"No house this year, I fear," quoth Mr. Maxwell, bitterly.

The next day nine and a half was the quotation, and men began to look at each other and asked questions.

"Paper says the crop is larger than the government estimate," said Tolliver, and added, "There'll be no painting this year." He looked toward the Smith School and thought of the five thousand dollars waiting; but he hesitated. John Taylor had carefully mentioned seven thousand dollars as a price he was willing to pay and "perhaps more." Was Cresswell back of Taylor? Tolliver was suspicious and moved to delay matters.

"It's manipulation and speculation in New York," said Colonel Cresswell, "and the Farmers' League must begin operations."

The local paper soon had an editorial on "our distinguished fellow citizen, Colonel Cresswell," and his efforts to revive the Farmers' League. It was understood that Colonel Cresswell was risking his whole private fortune to hold the price of cotton, and some effort seemed to be needed, for cotton dropped to nine cents within a week. Swift negotiations ensued, and a meeting of the executive committee of the Farmers' League was held in Montgomery. A system of warehouses and warehouse certificates was proposed.

"But that will cost money," responded each of the dozen big landlords who composed the committee; whereupon Harry Cresswell introduced John Taylor, who represented thirty millions of Southern bank stock.

"I promise you credit to any reasonable amount," said Mr. Taylor, "I believe in cotton—the present price is abnormal." And Mr. Taylor knew whereof he spoke, for when he sent a cipher despatch North, cotton dropped to eight and a half. The Farmers' League leased three warehouses at Savannah, Montgomery, and New Orleans.

Then silently the South gripped itself and prepared for battle. Men stopped spending, business grew dull, and millions of eyes were glued to the blackboards of the cotton-exchange. Tighter and tighter the reins grew on the backs of the black tenants.

"Miss Smith, is yo' got just a drap of coffee to lend me? Mr. Cresswell won't give me none at the store and I'se just starving for some," said Aunt Rachel from over the hill. "We won't git free this year, Miss Smith, not this year," she concluded plaintively.

Cotton fell to seven and a half cents and the muttered protest became angry denunciation. Why was it? Who was doing it?

Harry Cresswell went to Montgomery. He was getting nervous. The thing was too vast. He could not grasp it. It set his head in a whirl. Harry Cresswell was not a bad man—are there any bad men? He was a man who from the day he first wheedled his black mammy into submission, down to his thirty-sixth year, had seldom known what it was voluntarily to deny himself or curb a desire. To rise when he would, eat what he craved, and do what the passing fancy suggested had long been his day's programme. Such emptiness of life and aim had to be filled, and it was filled; he helped his father sometimes with the plantations, but he helped spasmodically and played at work.

The unregulated fire of energy and delicacy of nervous poise within him continually hounded him to the verge of excess and sometimes beyond. Cool, quiet, and gentlemanly as he was by rule of his clan, the ice was thin and underneath raged unappeased fires. He craved the madness of alcohol in his veins till his delicate hands trembled of mornings. The women whom he bent above in languid, veiled-eyed homage, feared lest they love him, and what work was to others gambling was to him.

The Cotton Combine, then, appealed to him overpoweringly—to his passion for wealth, to his passion for gambling. But once entered upon the game it drove him to fear and frenzy: first, it was a long game and Harry Cresswell was not trained to waiting, and, secondly, it was a game whose intricacies he did not know. In vain did he try to study the matter through. He ordered books from the North, he subscribed for financial journals, he received special telegraphic reports only to toss them away, curse his valet, and call for another brandy. After all, he kept saying to himself, what guarantee, what knowledge had he that this was not a "damned Yankee trick"?

Now that the web was weaving its last mesh in early January he haunted Montgomery, and on this day when it seemed that things must culminate or he would go mad, he hastened again down to the Planters' Hotel and was quickly ushered to John Taylor's room. The place was filled with tobacco smoke. An electric ticker was drumming away in one corner, a telephone ringing on the desk, and messenger boys hovered outside the door and raced to and fro.

"Well," asked Cresswell, maintaining his composure by an effort, "how are things?"

"Great!" returned Taylor. "League holds three million bales and controls five. It's the biggest corner in years."

"But how's cotton?"

"Ticker says six and three-fourths."

Cresswell sat down abruptly opposite Taylor, looking at him fixedly.

"That last drop means liabilities of a hundred thousand to us," he said slowly.

"Exactly," Taylor blandly admitted.

Beads of sweat gathered on Cresswell's forehead. He looked at the scrawny iron man opposite, who had already forgotten his presence. He ordered whiskey, and taking paper and pencil began to figure, drinking as he figured. Slowly the blood crept out of his white face leaving it whiter, and went surging and pounding in his heart. Poverty—that was what those figures spelled. Poverty—unclothed, wineless poverty, to dig and toil like a "nigger" from morning until night, and to give up horses and carriages and women; that was what they spelled.

"How much—farther will it drop?" he asked harshly.

Taylor did not look up.

"Can't tell," he said, "'fraid not much though." He glanced through a telegram. "No—damn it!—outside mills are low; they'll stampede soon. Meantime we'll buy."

"But, Taylor—"

"Here are one hundred thousand offered at six and three-fourths."

"I tell you, Taylor—" Cresswell half arose.

"Done!" cried Taylor. "Six and one-half," clicked the machine.

Cresswell arose from his chair by the window and came slowly to the wide flat desk where Taylor was working feverishly. He sat down heavily in the chair opposite and tried quietly to regain his self-control. The liabilities of the Cresswells already amounted to half the value of their property, at a fair market valuation. The cotton for which they had made debts was still falling in value. Every fourth of a cent fall meant—he figured it again tremblingly—meant one hundred thousand more of liabilities. If cotton fell to six he hadn't a cent on earth. If it stayed there—"My God!" He felt a faintness stealing over him but he beat it back and gulped down another glass of fiery liquor.

Then the one protecting instinct of his clan gripped him. Slowly, quietly his hand moved back until it grasped the hilt of the big Colt's revolver that was ever with him—his thin white hand became suddenly steady as it slipped the weapon beneath the shadow of the desk.

"If it goes to six," he kept murmuring, "we're ruined—if it goes to six—if—"

"Tick," sounded the wheel and the sound reverberated like sudden thunder in his ears. His hand was iron, and he raised it slightly. "Six," said the wheel—his finger quivered—"and a half."

"Hell!" yelled Taylor. "She's turned—there'll be the devil to pay now." A messenger burst in and Taylor scowled.

"She's loose in New York—a regular mob in New Orleans—and—hark!—By God! there's something doing here. Damn it—I wish we'd got another million bales. Let's see, we've got—" He figured while the wheel whirred—"7—7-1/2—8—8-1/2."

Cresswell listened, staggered to his feet, his face crimson and his hair wild.

"My God, Taylor," he gasped. "I'm—I'm a half a million ahead—great heavens!"

The ticker whirred, "8¾—9—9½—10." Then it stopped dead.

"Exchange closed," said Taylor. "We've cornered the market all right—cornered it—d'ye hear, Cresswell? We got over half the crop and we can send prices to the North Star—you—why, I figure it you Cresswells are worth at least seven hundred and fifty thousand above liabilities this minute," and John Taylor leaned back and lighted a big black cigar.

"I've made a million or so myself," he added reflectively.

Cresswell leaned back in his chair, his face had gone white again, and he spoke slowly to still the tremor in his voice.

"I've gambled—before; I've gambled on cards and on horses; I've gambled—for money—and—women—but—"

"But not on cotton, hey? Well, I don't know about cards and such; but they can't beat cotton."

"And say, John Taylor, you're my friend." Cresswell stretched his hand across the desk, and as he bent forward the pistol crashed to the floor.

Nineteen

THE DYING OF ELSPETH

Rich! This was the thought that awakened Harry Cresswell to a sense of endless well-being. Rich! No longer the mirage and semblance of wealth, the memory of opulence, the shadow of homage without the substance of power—no; now the wealth was real, cold hard dollars, and in piles. How much? He laughed aloud as he turned on his pillow. What did he care? Enough—enough. Not less than half a million; perhaps three-quarters of a million; perhaps—was not cotton still rising?—a whole round million! That would mean from twenty-five to fifty thousand a year. Great heavens! and he'd been starving on a bare couple of thousand and trying to keep up appearances! today the Cresswells were almost millionaires; aye, and he might be married to more millions.

He sat up with a start. Today Mary was going North. He had quite forgotten it in the wild excitement of the cotton corner. He had neglected her. Of course, there was always the hovering doubt as to whether he really wanted her or not. She had the form and carriage; her beauty, while not startling, was young and fresh and firm. On the other hand there was about her a certain independence that he did not like to associate with women. She had thoughts and notions of the world which were, to his Southern training, hardly feminine. And yet even they piqued him and spurred him like the sight of an untrained colt. He had not seen her falter yet beneath his glances or tremble at his touch. All this he desired—ardently desired. But did he desire her as a wife? He rather thought that he did. And if so he must speak today.

There was his father, too, to reckon with. Colonel Cresswell, with the perversity of the simple-minded, had taken the sudden bettering of their fortunes as his own doing. He had foreseen; he had stuck it out; his credit had pulled the thing through; and the trust had learned a thing or two about Southern gentlemen.

Toward John Taylor he perceptibly warmed. His business methods were such as a Cresswell could never stoop to; but he was a man of his word, and Colonel Cresswell's correspondence with Mr. Easterly opened his eyes to the beneficent ideals of Northern capital. At the same time he could not consider the Easterlys and the Taylors and such folk as the social equals of the Cresswells, and his prejudice on this score must still be reckoned with.

Below, Mary Taylor lingered on the porch in strange uncertainty. Harry Cresswell would soon be coming downstairs. Did she want him to find her? She liked him frankly, undisguisedly; but from the love she knew to be so near her heart she recoiled in perturbation. He wooed her—whether consciously or not, she was always uncertain—with every quiet attention and subtle deference, with a devotion seemingly quite too delicate for words; he not only fetched her flowers, but flowers that chimed with day and gown and season—almost with mood. He had a woman's premonitions in fulfilling her wishes. His hands, if they touched her, were soft and tender, and yet he gave a curious impression of strength and poise and will.

Indeed, in all things he was in her eyes a gentleman in the fine old-fashioned aristocracy of the term; her own heart voiced all he did not say, and pleaded for him to her own confusion.

And yet, in her heart, lay the awful doubt—and the words kept ringing in her ears! "You will marry this man—but heaven help you if you do!"

So it was that on this day when she somehow felt he would speak, his footsteps on the stairs filled her with sudden panic. Without a word she slipped behind the pillars and ran down among the oaks and sauntered out upon the big road. He caught the white flutter of her dress, and smiled indulgently as he watched and waited and lightly puffed his cigarette.

The morning was splendid with that first delicious languor of the spring which breathes over the Southland in February. Mary Taylor filled her lungs, lifted her arms aloft, and turning, stepped into the deep shadow of the swamp.

Abruptly the air, the day, the scene about her subtly changed. She felt a closeness and a tremor, a certain brooding terror in the languid sombre winds. The gold of the sunlight faded to a sickly green, and the earth was black and burned. A moment she paused and looked back; she caught the man's silhouette against the tall white pillars of the mansion and she fled deeper into the forest with the hush of death about her, and the silence which is one great Voice. Slowly, and mysteriously it loomed before her—that squat and darksome cabin which seemed to fitly set in the centre of the wilderness, beside its crawling slime.

She paused in sudden certainty that there lay the answer to her doubts and mistrust. She felt impelled to go forward and ask—what? She did not know, but something to still this war in her bosom. She had seldom seen Elspeth; she had never been in her cabin. She had felt an inconquerable aversion for the evil hag; she felt it now, and shivered in the warm breeze.

As she came in full view of the door, she paused. On the step of the cabin, framed in the black doorway, stood Zora. Measured by the squat cabin she seemed in height colossal; slim, straight as a pine, motionless, with one long outstretched arm pointing to where the path swept onward toward the town.

It was too far for words but the scene lay strangely clear and sharp-cut in the green mystery of the sunlight. Before that motionless, fateful figure crouched a slighter, smaller woman, dishevelled, clutching her breast; she bent and rose—hesitated—seemed to plead; then turning, clasped in passionate embrace the child whose head was hid in Zora's gown. Next instant she was staggering along the path whither Zora pointed.

Slowly the sun was darkened, and plaintive murmurings pulsed through the wood. The oppression and fear of the swamp redoubled in Mary Taylor.

Zora gave no sign of having seen her. She stood tall and still, and the little golden-haired girl still sobbed in her gown. Mary Taylor looked up into Zora's face, then paused in awe. It was a face she did not know; it was neither the beautifully mischievous face of the girl, nor the pain-stricken face of the woman. It was a face cold and mask-like, regular and comely; clothed in a mighty calm, yet subtly, masterfully veiling behind itself depths of unfathomed misery and wild revolt. All this lay in its darkness.

"Good-morning, Miss Taylor."

Mary, who was wont to teach this woman—so lately a child—searched in vain for words to address her now. She stood bare-haired and hesitating in the pale green light of the darkened morning. It seemed fit that a deep groan of pain should gather itself from the mysterious depths of the swamp, and drop like a pall on the black portal of the cabin. But it brought Mary Taylor back to a sense of things, and under a sudden impulse she spoke.

"Is—is anything the matter?" she asked nervously.

"Elspeth is sick," replied Zora.

"Is she very sick?"

"Yes—she has been called," solemnly returned the dark young woman.

Mary was puzzled. "Called?" she repeated vaguely.

"We heard the great cry in the night, and Elspeth says it is the End."

It did not occur to Mary Taylor to question this mysticism; she all at once understood—perhaps read the riddle in the dark, melancholy eyes that so steadily regarded her.

"Then you can leave the place, Zora?" she exclaimed gladly.

"Yes, I could leave."

"And you will."

"I don't know."

"But the place looks—evil."

"It is evil."

"And yet you will stay?"

Zora's eyes were now fixed far above the woman's head, and she saw a human face forming itself in the vast rafters of the forest. Its eyes were wet with pain and anger.

"Perhaps," she answered.

The child furtively uncovered her face and looked at the stranger. She was blue-eyed and golden-haired.

"Whose child is this?" queried Mary, curiously.

Zora looked coldly down upon the child.

"It is Bertie's. Her mother is bad. She is gone. I sent her. She and the others like her."

"But where have you sent them?"

"To Hell!"

Mary Taylor started under the shock. Impulsively she moved forward with hands that wanted to stretch themselves in appeal.

"Zora! Zora! You mustn't go, too!"

But the black girl drew proudly back.

"I am there," she returned, with unmistakable simplicity of absolute conviction.

The white woman shrank back. Her heart was wrung; she wanted to say more—to explain, to ask to help; there came welling to her lips a flood of things that she would know. But Zora's face again was masked.

"I must go," she said, before Mary could speak. "Good-bye." And the dark groaning depths of the cabin swallowed her.

With a satisfied smile, Harry Cresswell had seen the Northern girl disappear toward the swamp; for it is significant when maidens run from lovers. But maidens should also come back, and when, after the lapse of many minutes, Mary did not reappear, he followed her footsteps to the swamp.

He frowned as he noted the footprints pointing to Elspeth's—what did Mary Taylor want there? A fear started within him, and something else. He was suddenly aware that he wanted this woman, intensely; at the moment he would have turned Heaven and earth to get her. He strode forward and the wood rose darkly green above him. A long, low, distant moan seemed to sound upon the breeze, and after it came Mary Taylor.

He met her with tender solicitude, and she was glad to feel his arm beneath hers.

"I've been searching for you," he said after a silence. "You should not wander here alone—it is dangerous."

"Why, dangerous?" she asked.

"Wandering Negroes, and even wild beasts, in the forest depths—and malaria—see, you tremble now."

"But not from malaria," she slowly returned.

He caught an unfamiliar note in his voice, and a wild desire to justify himself before this woman clamored in his heart. With it, too, came a cooler calculating intuition that frankness alone would win her now. At all hazards he must win, and he cast the die.

"Miss Taylor," he said, "I want to talk to you—I have wanted to for—a year." He glanced at her: she was white and silent, but she did not tremble. He went on:

"I have hesitated because I do not know that I have a right to speak or explain to—to—a good woman."

He felt her arm tighten on his and he continued:

"You have been to Elspeth's cabin; it is an evil place, and has meant evil for this community, and for me. Elspeth was my mother's favorite servant and my own mammy. My mother died when I was ten and left me to her tender mercies. She let me have my way and encouraged the bad in me. It's a wonder I escaped total ruin. Her cabin became a rendezvous for drinking and carousing. I told my father, but he, in lazy indifference, declared the place no worse than all Negro cabins, and did nothing. I ceased my visits. Still she tried every lure and set false stories going among the Negroes, even when I sought to rescue Zora. I tell you this because I know you have heard evil rumors. I have not been a good man—Mary; but I love you, and you can make me good."

Perhaps no other appeal would have stirred Mary Taylor. She was in many respects an inexperienced girl. But she thought she knew the world; she knew that Harry Cresswell was not all he should be, and she knew too that many other men were not. Moreover, she argued he had not had a fair chance. All the school-ma'am in her leaped to his teaching. What he needed was a superior person like herself. She loved him, and she deliberately put her arms about his neck and lifted her face to be kissed.

Back by the place of the Silver Fleece they wandered, across the Big Road, up to the mansion. On the steps stood John Taylor and Helen Cresswell hand in hand and they all smiled at each other. The Colonel came out, smiling too, with the paper in his hands.

"Easterly's right," he beamed, "the stock of the Cotton Combine—" he paused at the silence and looked up. The smile faded slowly and the red blood mounted to his forehead. Anger struggled back of surprise, but before it burst forth silently the Colonel turned, and muttering some unintelligible word, went slowly into the house and slammed the door.

So for Harry Cresswell the day burst, flamed, and waned, and then suddenly went out, leaving him dull and gray; for Mary and her brother had gone North, Helen had gone to bed, and the Colonel was in town. Outside the weather was gusty and lowering with a chill in the air. He paced the room fitfully.

Well, he was happy. Or, was he happy?

He gnawed his mustache, for already his quick, changeable nature was feeling the rebound from glory to misery. He was a little ashamed of his exaltation; a bit doubtful and uncertain. He had stooped low to this Yankee school-ma'am, lower than he had ever stooped to a woman. Usually, while he played at loving, women grovelled; for was he not a Cresswell? Would this woman recognize that fact and respect him accordingly?

Then there was Zora; what had she said and hinted to Mary? The wench was always eluding and mocking him, the black devil! But, pshaw!—he poured himself a glass of brandy—was he not rich and young? The world was his.

His valet knocked.

"Gentleman is asking if you forgits it's Saturday night, sir?" said Sam.

Cresswell walked thoughtfully to the window, swept back the curtain, and looked toward the darkness and the swamp. It lowered threateningly; behind it the night sky was tinged with blood.

"No," he said; "I'm not going." And he shut out the glow.

Yet he grew more and more restless. The devil danced in his veins and burned in his forehead. His hands shook. He heard a rustle of departing feet beneath his window, then a pause and a faint halloo.

"All right," he called, and in a moment went downstairs and out into the night. As he closed the front door there seemed to come faintly up from the swamp a low ululation, like the prolonged cry of some wild bird, or the wail of one's mourning for his dead.

Within the cabin, Elspeth heard. Tremblingly, she swayed to her feet, a haggard, awful sight. She motioned Zora away, and stretching her hands palms upward to the sky, cried with dry and fear-struck gasp:

"I'se called! I'se called!"

On the bed the child smiled in its dreaming; the red flame of the firelight set the gold to dancing in her hair. Zora shrank back into the shadows and listened. Then it came. She heard the heavy footsteps crashing through the underbrush—coming, coming, as from the end of the world. She shrank still farther back, and a shadow swept the door.

He was a mighty man, black and white-haired, and his eyes were the eyes of death. He bent to enter the door, and then uplifting himself and stretching his great arms, his palms touched the blackened rafters.

Zora started forward. Thick memories of some forgotten past came piling in upon her. Where had she known him? What was he to her?

Slowly Elspeth, with quivering hands, unwound the black and snake-like object that always guarded her breast. Without a word, he took it, and again his hands flew heavenward. With a low and fearful moan the old woman lurched sideways, then crashed, like a fallen pine, upon the hearthstone. She lay still—dead.

Three times the man passed his hands, wave-like, above the dead. Three times he murmured, and his eyes burned into the shadows, where the girl trembled. Then he turned and went as he had come, his heavy feet crashing through the underbrush, on and on, fainter and fainter, as to the end of the world.

Zora shook herself from the trance-like horror and passed her hands across her eyes to drive out the nightmare. But, no! there lay the dead upon the hearth with the firelight flashing over her, a bloated, hideous, twisted thing, distorted in the rigor of death. A moment Zora looked down upon her mother. She felt the cold body whence the wandering, wrecked soul had passed. She sat down and stared death in the face for the first time. A mighty questioning arose within, a questioning and a yearning.

Was Elspeth now at peace? Was Death the Way—the wide, dark Way? She had never thought of it before, and as she thought she crept forward and looked into the fearful face pityingly.

"Mammy!" she whispered—with bated breath—"Mammy Elspeth!" Out of the night came a whispered answer: "Elspeth! Elspeth!"

Zora sprang to her feet, alert, fearful. With a swing of her arm, she pulled the great oaken door to and dropped the bar into its place. Over the dead she spread a clean white sheet. Into the fire she thrust pine-knots. They glared in vague red, and shadowy brilliance, waving and quivering and throwing up thin swirling columns of black smoke. Then standing beside the fireplace with the white, still corpse between her and the door, she took up her awful vigil.

There came a low knocking at the door; then silence and footsteps wandering furtively about. The night seemed all footsteps and whispers. There came a louder knocking, and a voice:

"Elspeth! Elspeth! Open the door; it's me."

Then muttering and wandering noises, and silence again.

The child on the bed turned itself, murmuring uneasily in its dreams. And then they came. Zora froze, watching the door, wide-eyed, while the fire flamed redder. A loud quick knock at the door—a pause—an oath and a cry.

"Elspeth! Open this door, damn you!"

A moment of waiting and then the knocking came again, furious and long continued. Outside there was much trampling and swearing. Zora did not move; the child slept on. A tugging and dragging, a dull blow that set the cabin quivering; then,—

"Bang! Crack! Crash!"—the door wavered, splintered, and dropped upon the floor.

With a snarl, a crowd of some half-dozen white faces rushed forward, wavered and stopped. The awakened child sat up and stared with wide blue eyes. Slowly, with no word, the intruders turned and went silently away, leaving but one late comer who pressed forward.

"What damned mummery is this?" he cried, and snatching at the sheet, dragged it from the black distorted countenance of the corpse. He shuddered but for a moment he could not stir. He felt the midnight eyes of the girl—he saw the twisted, oozing mouth of the hag, blue-black and hideous.

Suddenly back behind there in the darkness a shriek split the night like a sudden flash of flame—a great ringing scream that cracked and swelled and stopped. With one wild effort the man hurled himself out the door and plunged through the darkness. Panting and cursing, he flashed his huge revolver—"bang! bang! bang!" it cracked into the night. The sweat poured from his forehead; the terror of the swamp was upon him. With a struggling and tearing in his throat, he tripped and fell fainting under the silent oaks.

Twenty

THE WEAVING OF THE SILVER FLEECE

The Silver Fleece, darkly cloaked and girded, lay in the cotton warehouse of the Cresswells, near the store. Its silken fibres, cramped and close, shone yellow-white in the sunlight; sadly soiled, yet beautiful. Many came to see Zora's twin bales, as they lay, handling them and questioning, while Colonel Cresswell grew proud of his possession.

The world was going well with the Colonel. Freed from money cares, praised for his generalship in the cotton corner, able to entertain sumptuously, he was again a Southern gentleman of the older school, and so in his envied element. Yet today he frowned as he stood poking absently with his cane at the baled Fleece.

This marriage—or, rather, these marriages—were not to his liking. It was a mesalliance of a sort that pricked him tenderly; it savored grossly of bargain and sale. His neighbors regarded it with disconcerting equanimity. They seemed to think an alliance with Northern millions an honor for Cresswell blood, and the Colonel thumped the nearer bale vigorously. His cane slipped along the iron bands suddenly, and the old man lurching forward, clutched in space to save himself and touched a human hand.

Zora, sitting shadowed on the farther bale, drew back her hand quickly at the contact, and started to move away.

"Who's that?" thundered the Colonel, more angry at his involuntary fright than at the intrusion. "Here, boys!"

But Zora had come forward into the space where the sunlight of the wide front doors poured in upon the cotton bales.

"It's me, Colonel," she said.

He glared at her. She was taller and thinner than formerly, darkly transparent of skin, and her dark eyes shone in strange and dusky brilliance. Still indignant and surprised, the Colonel lifted his voice sharply.

"What the devil are you doing here?—sleeping when you ought to be at work! Get out! And see here, next week cotton chopping begins—you'll go to the fields or to the chain-gang. I'll have no more of your loafing about my place."

Awaiting no reply, the Colonel, already half ashamed of his vehemence, stormed out into the sunlight and climbed upon his bay mare.

But Zora still stood silent in the shadow of the Silver Fleece, hearing and yet not hearing. She was searching for the Way, groping for the threads of life, seeking almost wildly to understand the foundations of understanding, piteously asking for answer to the puzzle of life. All the while the walls rose straight about her and narrow. To continue in school meant charity, yet she had nowhere to go and nothing to go with. To refuse to work for the Cresswells meant trouble for the school and perhaps arrest for herself. To work in the fields meant endless toil and a vista that opened upon death.

Like a hunted thing the girl turned and twisted in thought and faced everywhere the blank Impossible. Cold and dreamlike without, her shut teeth held back seething fires within, and a spirit of revolt that gathered wildness as it grew. Above all flew the dream, the phantasy, the memory of the past, the vision of the future. Over and over she whispered to herself: "This is not the End; this can not be the End."

Somehow, somewhere, would come salvation. Yet what it would be and what she expected she did not know. She sought the Way, but what way and whither she did not know, she dared not dream.

One thing alone lay in her wild fancy like a great and wonderful fact dragging the dream to earth and anchoring it there. That was the Silver Fleece. Like a brooding mother, Zora had watched it. She knew how the gin had been cleaned for its pressing and how it had been baled apart and carefully covered. She knew how proud Colonel Cresswell was of it and how daily he had visitors to see it and finger the wide white wound in its side.

"Yes, sir, grown on my place, by my niggers, sir!" he assured them; and they marvelled.

To Zora's mind, this beautiful baled fibre was hers; it typified happiness; it was an holy thing which profane hands had stolen. When it came back to her (as come it must, she cried with clenched hands) it would bring happiness; not the great Happiness—that was gone forever—but illumination, atonement, and something of the power and the glory. So, involuntarily almost, she haunted the cotton storehouse, flitting like a dark and silent ghost in among the workmen, greeting them with her low musical voice, warding them with the cold majesty of her eyes; each day afraid of some last parting, each night triumphant—it was still there!

The Colonel—Zora already forgotten—rode up to the Cresswell Oaks, pondering darkly. It was bad enough to contemplate Helen's marriage in distant prospect, but the sudden, almost peremptory desire for marrying at Eastertide, a little less than two months away, was absurd. There were "business reasons arising from the presidential campaign in the fall," John Taylor had telegraphed; but there was already too much business in the arrangement to suit the Colonel. With Harry it was different. Indeed it was his own quiet suggestion that made John Taylor hurry matters.

Harry trusted to the novelty of his father's new wealth to make the latter complacent; he himself felt an impatient longing for the haven of a home. He had been too long untethered. He distrusted himself. The devil within was too fond of taking the bit in his teeth. He would remember to his dying day one awful shriek in the night, as of a soul tormenting and tormented. He wanted the protection of a good woman, and sometimes against the clear whiteness of her letters so joyous and generous, even if a bit prim and didactic, he saw a vision of himself reflected as he was, and he feared.

It was distinctively disconcerting to Colonel Cresswell to find Harry quite in favor of early nuptials, and to learn that the sole objection even in Helen's mind was the improbability of getting a wedding-gown in time. Helen had all a child's naive love for beautiful and dainty things, and a wedding-gown from Paris had been her life dream. On this point, therefore, there ensued spirited arguments and much correspondence, and both her brother and her lover evinced characteristic interest in the planning.

Said Harry: "Sis, I'll cable to Paris today. They can easily hurry the thing along."

Helen was delighted; she handed over a telegram just received from John Taylor. "Send me, express, two bales best cotton you can get."

The Colonel read the message. "I don't see the connection between this and hurrying up a wedding-gown," he growled. None of them discerned the handwriting of Destiny.

"Neither do I," said Harry, who detected yielding in his father's tone. "But we'd better send him the two prize bales; it will be a fine advertisement of our plantation, and evidently he has a surprise in store for us."

The Colonel affected to hesitate, but next morning the Silver Fleece went to town.

Zora watched it go, and her heart swelled and died within her. She walked to town, to the station. She did not see Mrs. Vanderpool arriving from New Orleans; but Mrs. Vanderpool saw her, and looked curiously at the tall, tragic figure that leaned so dolorously beside the freight car. The bales were loaded into the express car; the train pulled away, its hoarse snorting waking vague echoes in the forest beyond. But to the girl who stood at the End, looking outward to darkness, those echoes roared like the crack of doom. A passing band of contract hands called to her mockingly, and one black giant, laughing loudly, gripped her hand.

"Come, honey," he shouted, "you'se a'dreaming! Come on, honey!"

She turned abruptly and gripped his hand, as one drowning grips anything offered—gripped till he winced. She laughed a loud mirthless laugh, that came pouring like a sob from her deep lungs.

"Come on!" she mocked, and joined them.

They were a motley crowd, ragged, swaggering, jolly. There were husky, big-limbed youths, and bold-faced, loud-tongued girls. To-morrow they would start up-country to some backwoods barony in the kingdom of cotton, and work till Christmas time. Today was the last in town; there was craftily advanced money in their pockets and riot in their hearts. In the gathering twilight they marched noisily through the streets; in their midst, wide-eyed and laughing almost hysterically, marched Zora.

Mrs. Vanderpool meantime rode thoughtfully out of town toward Cresswell Oaks. She was returning from witnessing the Mardi Gras festivities at New Orleans and at the urgent invitation of the Cresswells had stopped off. She might even stay to the wedding if the new plans matured.

Mrs. Vanderpool was quite upset. Her French maid, on whom she had depended absolutely for five years or more, had left her.

"I think I want to try a colored maid," she told the Cresswells, laughingly, as they drove home. "They have sweet voices and they can't doff their uniform. Helene without her cap and apron was often mistaken for a lady, and while I was in New Orleans a French confectioner married her under some such delusion. Now, haven't you a girl about here who would do?"

"No," declared Harry decisively, but his sister suggested that she might ask Miss Smith at the colored school.

Again Mrs. Vanderpool laughed, but after tea she wandered idly down the road. The sun behind the swamp was crimsoning the world. Mrs. Vanderpool strolled alone to the school, and saw Sarah Smith. There was no cordiality in the latter's greeting, but when she heard the caller's errand her attention was at once arrested and held. The interests of her charges were always uppermost in her mind.

"Can't I have the girl Zora?" Mrs. Vanderpool at last inquired.

Miss Smith started, for she was thinking of Zora at that very instant. The girl was later than usual, and she was momentarily expecting to see her tall form moving languidly up the walk.

She gave Mrs. Vanderpool a searching look. Mrs. Vanderpool glanced involuntarily at her gown and smiled as she did it.

"Could I trust you with a human soul?" asked Miss Smith abruptly.

Mrs. Vanderpool looked up quickly. The half mocking answer that rose involuntarily to her lips was checked. Within, Mrs. Vanderpool was a little puzzled at herself. Why had she asked for this girl? She had felt a strange interest in her—a peculiar human interest since she first saw her and as she saw her again this afternoon. But would she make a satisfactory maid? Was it not a rather dangerous experiment? Why had she asked for her? She certainly had not intended to when she entered the house.

In the silence Miss Smith continued: "Here is a child in whom the fountains of the great deep are suddenly broken up. With peace and care she would find herself, for she is strong. But here there is no peace. Slavery of soul and body awaits her and I am powerless to protect her. She must go away. That going away may make or ruin her. She knows nothing of working for wages and she has not the servant's humility; but she has loyalty and pluck. For one she loves there is nothing she would not do; but she cannot be driven. Or rather, if she is driven, it may rouse in her the devil incarnate. She needs not exactly affection—she would almost resent that—but intelligent interest and care. In return for this she will gradually learn to serve and serve loyally. Frankly, Mrs. Vanderpool, I would not have chosen you for this task of human education. Indeed, you would have been my last thought—you seem to me—I speak plainly—a worldly woman. Yet, perhaps—who can tell?—God has especially set you to this task. At any rate, I have little choice. I am at my wits' end. Elspeth, the mother of this child, is not long dead; and here is the girl, beautiful, unprotected; and here am I, almost helpless. She is in debt to the Cresswells, and they are pressing the claim to her service. Take her if you can get her—it is, I fear, her only chance. Mind you—if you can persuade her; and that may be impossible."

"Where is she now?"

Miss Smith glanced out at the darkening landscape, and then at her watch.

"I do not know; she's very late. She's given to wandering, but usually she is here before this time."

"I saw her in town this afternoon," said Mrs. Vanderpool.

"Zora? In town?" Miss Smith rose. "I'll send her to you tomorrow," she said quietly. Mrs. Vanderpool had hardly reached the Oaks before Miss Smith was driving toward town.

A small cabin on the town's ragged fringe was crowded to suffocation. Within arose noisy shouts, loud songs, and raucous laughter; the scraping of a fiddle and whine of an accordion. Liquor began to appear and happy faces grew red-eyed and sodden as the dances whirled. At the edge of the orgy stood Zora, wild-eyed and bewildered, mad with the pain that gripped her heart and hammered in her head, crying in tune with the frenzied music—"the End—the End!"

Abruptly she recognized a face despite the wreck and ruin of its beauty.

"Bertie!" she cried as she seized the mother of little Emma by the arm.

The woman staggered and offered her glass.

"Drink," she cried, "drink and forget."

In a moment Zora sprang forward and seized the burning liquid in both hands. A dozen hands clapped a devil's tattoo. A score of voices yelled and laughed. The shriek of the music was drowned beneath the thunder of stamping feet. Men reeled to singing women's arms, but above the roar rose the song of the voice of Zora—she glided to the middle of the room, standing tip-toed with skirts that curled and turned; she threw back her head, raised the liquor to her lips, paused and looked into the face of Miss Smith.

A silence fell like a lightning flash on the room as that white face peered in at the door. Slowly Zora's hands fell and her eyes blinked as though waking from some awful dream. She staggered toward the woman's outstretched arms....

Late that night the girl lay close in Miss Smith's motherly embrace.

"I was going to hell!" she whispered, trembling.

"Why, Zora?" asked Miss Smith calmly.

"I couldn't find the Way—and I wanted to forget."

"People in hell don't forget," was the matter-of-fact comment. "And, Zora, what way do you seek? The way where?"

Zora sat up in bed, and lifted a gray and stricken face.

"It's a lie," she cried, with hoarse earnedstness, "the way nowhere. There is no Way! You know—I want him—I want nothing on earth but him—and him I can't ever have."

The older woman drew her down tenderly.

"No, Zora," she said, "there's something you want more than him and something you can have!"

"What?" asked the wondering girl.

"His respect," said Sarah Smith, "and I know the Way."

Twenty-one

THE MARRIAGE MORNING

Mrs. Vanderpool watched Zora as she came up the path beneath the oaks. "She walks well," she observed. And laying aside her book, she waited with a marked curiosity.

The girl's greeting was brief, almost curt, but unintentionally so, as one could easily see, for back in her eyes lurked an impatient hunger; she was not thinking of greetings. She murmured a quick word, and stood straight and tall with her eyes squarely on the lady.

In the depths of Mrs. Vanderpool's heart something strange—not new, but very old—stirred. Before her stood this tall black girl, quietly returning her look. Mrs. Vanderpool had a most uncomfortable sense of being judged, of being weighed,—and there arose within her an impulse to self-justification.

She smiled and said sweetly, "Won't you sit?" But despite all this, her mind seemed leaping backward a thousand years; back to a simpler, primal day when she herself, white, frail, and fettered, stood before the dusky magnificence of some bejewelled barbarian queen and sought to justify herself. She shook off the phantasy,—and yet how well the girl stood. It was not every one that could stand still and well.

"Please sit down," she repeated with her softest charm, not dreaming that outside the school white persons did not ask this girl to sit in their presence. But even this did not move Zora. She sat down. There was in her, walking, standing, sitting, a simple directness which Mrs. Vanderpool sensed and met.

"Zora, I need some one to help me—to do my hair and serve my coffee, and dress and take care of me. The work will not be hard, and you can travel and see the world and live well. Would you like it?"

"But I do not know how to do all these things," returned Zora, slowly. She was thinking rapidly—Was this the Way? It sounded wonderful. The World, the great mysterious World, that stretched beyond the swamp and into which Bles and the Silver Fleece had gone—did it lead to the Way? But if she went there what would she see and do, and would it be possible to become such a woman as Miss Smith pictured?

"What is the world like?" asked Zora.

Mrs. Vanderpool smiled. "Oh, I meant great active cities and buildings, myriads of people and wonderful sights."

"Yes—but back of it all, what is it really? What does it look like?"

"Heavens, child! Don't ask. Really, it isn't worth while peering back of things. One is sure to be disappointed."

"Then what's the use of seeing the world?"

"Why, one must live; and why not be happy?" answered Mrs. Vanderpool, amused, baffled, spurred for the time being from her chronic ennui.

"Are you happy?" retorted Zora, looking her over carefully, from silken stockings to garden hat. Mrs. Vanderpool laid aside her little mockery and met the situation bravely.

"No," she replied simply. Her eyes grew old and tired.

Involuntarily Zora's hand crept out protectingly and lay a moment over the white jewelled fingers. Then quickly recovering herself, she started hastily to withdraw it, but the woman's fingers closed around the darker ones, and Mrs. Vanderpool's eyes became dim.

"I need you, Zora," she said; and then, seeing the half-formed question, "Yes, and you need me; we need each other. In the world lies opportunity, and I will help you."

Zora rose abruptly, and Mrs. Vanderpool feared, with a tightening of heart, that she had lost this strangely alluring girl.

"I will come to-morrow," said Zora.

As Mrs. Vanderpool went in to lunch, reaction and lingering doubts came trouping back. To replace the daintiest of trained experts with the most baffling semi-barbarian, well!

"Have you hired a maid?" asked Helen.

"I've engaged Zora," laughed Mrs. Vanderpool, lightly; "and now I'm wondering whether I have a jewel or—a white elephant."

"Probably neither," remarked Harry Cresswell, drily; but he avoided the lady's inquiring eyes.

Next morning Zora came easily into Mrs. Vanderpool's life. There was little she knew of her duties, but little, too, that she could not learn with a deftness and divination almost startling. Her quietness, her quickness, her young strength, were like a soothing balm to the tired woman of fashion, and within a week she had sunk back contentedly into Zora's strong arms.

"It's a jewel," she decided.

With this verdict, the house agreed. The servants waited on "Miss Zora" gladly; the men scarcely saw her, and the ladies ran to her for help in all sorts. Harry Cresswell looked upon this transformation with an amused smile, but the Colonel saw in it simply evidence of dangerous obstinacy in a black girl who hitherto had refused to work.

Zora had been in the house but a week when a large express package was received from John Taylor. Its unwrapping brought a cry of pleasure from the ladies. There lay a bolt of silken-like cambric of wondrous fineness and lustre, marked: "For the wedding-dress." The explanation accompanied the package, that Mary Taylor had a similar piece in the North.

Helen and Harry said nothing of the cablegram to the Paris tailor, and Helen took no steps toward having the cambric dress made, not even when the wedding invitations appeared.

"A Cresswell married in cotton!" Helen was almost in tears lest the Paris gown be delayed, and sure enough a cablegram came at last saying that there was little likelihood of the gown being ready by Easter. It would be shipped at the earliest convenience, but it could hardly catch the necessary boat. Helen had a good cry, and then came a wild rush to get John Taylor's cloth ready. Still, Helen was querulous. She decided that silk embroidery must embellish the skirt. The dressmaker was in despair.

"I haven't a single spare worker," she declared.

Helen was appealing to Mrs. Vanderpool.

"I can do it," said Zora, who was in the room.

"Do you know how?" asked the dressmaker.

"No, but I want to know."

Mrs. Vanderpool gave a satisfied nod. "Show her," she said. The dressmaker was on the edge of rebellion. "Zora sews beautifully," added Mrs. Vanderpool.

Thus the beautiful cloth came to Zora's room, and was spread in a glossy cloud over her bed. She trembled at its beauty and felt a vague inner yearning, as if some subtle magic of the woven web were trying to tell her its story.

She worked over it faithfully and lovingly in every spare hour and in long nights of dreaming. Wilfully she departed from the set pattern and sewed into the cloth something of the beauty in her heart. In new and intricate ways, with soft shadowings and coverings, she wove in that white veil her own strange soul, and Mrs. Vanderpool watched her curiously, but in silence.

Meantime all things were arranged for a double wedding at Cresswell Oaks. As John and Mary Taylor had no suitable home, they were to come down and the two brides to go forth from the Cresswell mansion. Accordingly the Taylors arrived a week before the wedding and the home took on a festive air. Even Colonel Cresswell expanded under the genial influences, and while his head still protested his heart was glad. He had to respect John Taylor's undoubted ability; and Mary Taylor was certainly lovely, in spite of that assumption of cleverness of which the Colonel could not approve.

Mary returned to the old scenes with mingled feelings. Especially was she startled at seeing Zora a member of the household and apparently high in favor. It brought back something of the old uneasiness and suspicion.

All this she soon forgot under the cadence of Harry Cresswell's pleasant voice and the caressing touch of his arm. He seemed handsomer than ever; and he was, for sleep and temperance and the wooing of a woman had put a tinge in his marble face, smoothed the puffs beneath his eyes, and given him a more distinguished bearing and a firmer hand. And Mary Taylor was very happy. So was her brother, only differently; he was making money; he was planning to make more, and he had something to pet which seemed to him extraordinarily precious and valuable.

Taylor eagerly inquired after the cloth, and followed the ladies to Zora's room, adjoining Mrs. Vanderpool's, to see it. It lay uncut and shimmering, covered with dim silken tracery of a delicacy and beauty which brought an exclamation to all lips.

"That's what we can do with Alabama cotton," cried John Taylor in triumph.

They turned to him incredulously.

"But—"

"No 'buts' about it; these are the two bales you sent me, woven with a silk woof." No one particularly noticed that Zora had hastily left the room. "I had it done in Easterly's New Jersey mills according to an old plan of mine. I'm going to make cloth like that right in this county some day," and he chuckled gayly.

But Zora was striding up and down the halls, the blood surging in her ears. After they were gone she came back and closed the doors. She dropped on her knees and buried her face in the filmy folds of the Silver Fleece.

"I knew it! I knew it!" she whispered in mingled tears and joy. "It called and I did not understand."

It was her talisman new-found; her love come back, her stolen dream come true. Now she could face the world; God had turned it straight again. She would go into the world and find—not Love, but the thing greater than Love. Outside the door came voices—the dressmaker's tones, Helen's soft drawl, and Mrs. Vanderpool's finished accents. Her face went suddenly gray. The Silver Fleece was not hers! It belonged—She rose hastily. The door opened and they came in. The cutting must begin at once, they all agreed.

"Is it ready, Zora?" inquired Helen.

"No," Zora quietly answered, "not quite, but tomorrow morning, early." As soon as she was alone again, she sat down and considered. By and by, while the family was at lunch, she folded the Silver Fleece carefully and locked it in her new trunk. She would hide it in the swamp. During the afternoon she sent to town for oil-cloth, and bade the black carpenter at Miss Smith's make a cedar box, tight and tarred. In the morning she prepared Mrs. Vanderpool's breakfast with unusual care. She was sorry for Mrs. Vanderpool, and sorry for Miss Smith. They would not, they could not, understand. What would happen to her? She did not know; she did not care. The Silver Fleece had returned to her. Soon it would be buried in the swamp whence it came. She had no alternative; she must keep it and wait.

She heard the dressmaker's voice, and then her step upon the stair. She heard the sound of Harry Cresswell's buggy, and a scurrying at the front door. On came the dressmaker's footsteps—then her door was unceremoniously burst open.

Helen Cresswell stood there radiant; the dressmaker, too, was wreathed in smiles. She carried a big red-sealed bundle.

"Zora!" cried Helen in ecstasy. "It's come!" Zora regarded her coldly, and stood at bay. The dressmaker was ripping and snipping, and soon there lay revealed before them—the Paris gown!

Helen was in raptures, but her conscience pricked her. She appealed to them. "Ought I to tell? You see, Mary's gown will look miserably common beside it."

The dressmaker was voluble. There was really nothing to tell; and besides, Helen was a Cresswell and it was to be expected, and so forth. Helen pursed her lips and petulantly tapped the floor with her foot.

"But the other gown?"

"Where is it?" asked the dressmaker, looking about. "It would make a pretty morning-dress—"

But Helen had taken a sudden dislike to the thought of it.

"I don't want it," she declared. "And besides, I haven't room for it in my trunks."

Of a sudden she leaned down and whispered to Zora: "Zora, hide it and keep it if you want it. Come," to the dressmaker, "I'm dying to try this on—now.... Remember, Zora—not a word." And all this to Zora seemed no surprise; it was the Way, and it was opening before her because the talisman lay in her trunk.

So at last it came to Easter morning. The world was golden with jasmine, and crimson with azalea; down in the darker places gleamed the misty glory of the dogwood; new cotton shook, glimmered, and blossomed in the black fields, and over all the soft Southern sun poured its awakening light of life. There was happiness and hope again in the cabins, and hope and—if not happiness, ambition, in the mansions.

Zora, almost forgetting the wedding, stood before the mirror. Laying aside her dress, she draped her shimmering cloth about her, dragging her hair down in a heavy mass over ears and neck until she seemed herself a bride. And as she stood there, awed with the mystical union of a dead love and a living new born self, there came drifting in at the window, faintly, the soft sound of far-off marriage music.

"'Tis thy marriage morning, shining in the sun!"

Two white and white-swathed brides were coming slowly down the great staircase of Cresswell Oaks, and two white and black-clothed bridegrooms awaited them. Either bridegroom looked gladly at the flow of his sister's garments and almost darkly at his bride's. For Helen was decked in Parisian splendor, while Mary was gowned in the Fleece.

"'Tis thy marriage morning, shining in the sun!"

Up floated the song of the little dark-faced children, and Zora listened.