With an oath the white man dashed the cradle into the fire, and the red
flame spurted aloft.
The crimson fire flashed in Zora's eyes as she passed the overseer.
"Well, nigger, what are you going to do about it?" he growled
insolently.
Zora's eyelids drooped, her upper lip quivered.
"Nothing," she answered softly. "But I hope your soul will burn in hell
forever and forever."
They proceeded down the plantation road, but Zora could not speak. She
pushed them slowly on, and turned aside to let the anger, the impotent,
futile anger, rage itself out. Alone in the great broad spaces, she knew
she could fight it down, and come back again, cool and in calm and
deadly earnest, to lead these children to the light.
The sorrow in her heart was new and strange; not sorrow for herself, for
of that she had tasted the uttermost; but the vast vicarious suffering
for the evil of the world. The tumult and war within her fled, and a
sense of helplessness sent the hot tears streaming down her cheeks. She
longed for rest; but the last plantation was yet to be passed. Far off
she heard the yodle of the gangs of peons. She hesitated, looking for
some way of escape: if she passed them she would see something--she
always saw something--that would send the red blood whirling madly.
"Here, you!--loafing again, damn you!" She saw the black whip writhe and
curl across the shoulders of the plough-boy. The boy crouched and
snarled, and again the whip hissed and cracked.
Zora stood rigid and gray.
"My God!" her silent soul was shrieking within, "why doesn't the
coward--"
And then the "coward" did. The whip was whirring in the air again; but
it never fell. A jagged stone in the boy's hand struck true, and the
overseer plunged with a grunt into the black furrow. In blank dismay,
Zora came back to her senses.
"Poor child!" she gasped, as she saw the boy flying in wild terror over
the fields, with hue and cry behind him.
"Poor child!--running to the penitentiary--to shame and hunger and
damnation!"
She remembered the rector in Mrs. Vanderpool's library, and his
question that revealed unfathomable depths of ignorance: "Really, now,
how do you account for the distressing increase in crime among your
people?"
She swung into the great road trembling with the woe of the world in her
eyes. Cruelty, poverty, and crime she had looked in the face that
morning, and the hurt of it held her heart pinched and quivering. A
moment the mists in her eyes shut out the shadows of the swamp, and the
roaring in her ears made a silence of the world.
Before she found herself again she dimly saw a couple sauntering along
the road, but she hardly noticed their white faces until the little
voice of the girl, raised timidly, greeted her.
"Howdy, Zora."
Zora looked. The girl was Emma, and beside her, smiling, stood a
half-grown white man. It was Emma, Bertie's child; and yet it was not,
for in the child of other days Zora saw for the first time the dawning
woman.
And she saw, too, the white man. Suddenly the horror of the swamp was
upon her. She swept between the couple like a gust, gripping the child's
arm till she paled and almost whimpered.
"I--I was just going on an errand for Miss Smith!" she cried.
Looking down into her soul, Zora discerned its innocence and the fright
shining in the child's eyes. Her own eyes softened, her grip became a
caress, but her heart was hard.
The young man laughed awkwardly and strolled away. Zora looked back at
him and the paramount mission of her life formed itself in her mind. She
would protect this girl; she would protect all black girls. She would
make it possible for these poor beasts of burden to be decent in their
toil. Out of protection of womanhood as the central thought, she must
build ramparts against cruelty, poverty, and crime. All this in
turn--but now and first, the innocent girlhood of this daughter of shame
must be rescued from the devil. It was her duty, her heritage. She must
offer this unsullied soul up unto God in mighty atonement--but how? Here
now was no protection. Already lustful eyes were in wait, and the child
was too ignorant to protect herself. She must be sent to
boarding-school, somewhere far away; but the money? God! it was money,
money, always money. Then she stopped suddenly, thrilled with the
recollection of Mrs. Vanderpool's check.
She dismissed the girl with a kiss, and stood still a moment
considering. Money to send Emma off to school; money to buy a school
farm; money to "buy" tenants to live on it; money to furnish them
rations; money--
She went straight to Miss Smith.
"Miss Smith, how much money have you?" Miss Smith's hand trembled a bit.
Ah, that splendid strength of young womanhood--if only she herself had
it! But perhaps Zora was the chosen one. She reached up and took down a
well-worn book.
"Zora," she said slowly, "I've been going to tell you ever since you
came, but I hadn't the courage. Zora," Miss Smith hesitated and gripped
the book with thin white fingers, "I'm afraid--I almost know that this
school is doomed."
There lay a silence in the room while the two women stared into each
other's souls with startled eyes. Swallowing hard, Miss Smith spoke.
"When I thought the endowment sure, I mortgaged the school in order to
buy Tolliver's land. The endowment failed, as you know, because--perhaps
I was too stubborn."
But Zora's eyes snapped "No!" and Miss Smith continued:
"I borrowed ten thousand dollars. Then I tried to get the land, but
Tolliver kept putting me off, and finally I learned that Colonel
Cresswell had bought it. It seems that Tolliver got caught tight in the
cotton corner, and that Cresswell, through John Taylor, offered him
twice what he had agreed to sell to me for, and he took it. I don't
suppose Taylor knew what he was doing; I hope he didn't.
"Well, there I was with ten thousand dollars idle on my hands, paying
ten per cent on it and getting less than three per cent. I tried to get
the bank to take the money back, but they refused. Then I was
tempted--and fell." She paused, and Zora took both her hands in her own.
"You see," continued Miss Smith, "just as soon as the announcement of
the prospective endowment was sent broadcast by the press, the donations
from the North fell off. Letter after letter came from old friends of
the school full of congratulations, but no money. I ought to have cut
down the teaching force to the barest minimum, and gone North
begging--but I couldn't. I guess my courage was gone. I knew how I'd
have to explain and plead, and I just could not. So I used the ten
thousand dollars to pay its own interest and help run the school.
Already it's half gone, and when the rest goes then will come the end."
Without, the great red sun paused a moment over the edge of the swamp,
and the long, low cry of night birds broke sadly on the twilight
silence. Zora sat stroking the lined hands.
"Not the end," she spoke confidently. "It cannot end like this. I've got
a little money that Mrs. Vanderpool gave me, and somehow we must get
more. Perhaps I might go North and--beg." She shivered. Then she sat up
resolutely and turned to the book.
"Let's go over matters carefully," she proposed.
Together they counted and calculated.
"The balance is four thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight dollars,"
said Miss Smith.
"Yes, and then there's Mrs. Vanderpool's check."
"How much is that?"
Zora paused; she did not know. In her world there was little calculation
of money. Credit and not cash is the currency of the Black Belt. She had
been pleased to receive the check, but she had not examined it.
"I really don't know," she presently confessed. "I think it was one
thousand dollars; but I was so hurried in leaving that I didn't look
carefully," and the wild thought surged in her, suppose it was more!
She ran into the other room and plunged into her trunk; beneath the
clothes, beneath the beauty of the Silver Fleece, till her fingers
clutched and tore the envelope. A little choking cry burst from her
throat, her knees trembled so that she was obliged to sit down.