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?"