The people of Toomsville started in their beds and listened. A new song
was rising on the air: a harsh, low, murmuring croon that shook the
village ranged around its old square of dilapadated stores. It was not a
song of joy; it was not a song of sorrow; it was not a song at all,
perhaps, but a confused whizzing and murmuring, as of a thousand
ill-tuned, busy voices. Some of the listeners wondered; but most of the
town cried joyfully, "It's the new cotton-mill!"
John Taylor's head teemed with new schemes. The mill trust of the North
was at last a fact. The small mills had not been able to buy cotton when
it was low because Cresswell was cornering it in the name of the
Farmers' League; now that it was high they could not afford to, and many
surrendered to the trust.
"Next thing," wrote Taylor to Easterly, "is to reduce cost of
production. Too much goes in wages. Gradually transfer mills South."
Easterly argued that the labor was too unskilled in the South and that
to send Northern spinners down would spread labor troubles. Taylor
replied briefly: "Never fear; we'll scare them with a vision of niggers
in the mills!"
Colonel Cresswell was not so easily won over to the new scheme. In the
first place he was angry because the school, which he had come to regard
as on its last legs, somehow still continued to flourish. The
ten-thousand-dollar mortgage had but three more years, and that would
end all; but he had hoped for a crash even earlier. Instead of this,
Miss Smith was cheerfully expanding the work, hiring new teachers, and
especially she had brought to help her two young Negroes whom he
suspected. Colonel Cresswell had prevented the Tolliver land sale, only
to be inveigled himself into Zora's scheme which now began to worry him.
He must evict Zora's tenants as soon as the crops were planted and
harvested. There was nothing unjust about such a course, he argued, for
Negroes anyway were too lazy and shiftless to buy the land. They would
not, they could not, work without driving. All this he imparted to John
Taylor, to which that gentleman listened carefully.
"H'm, I see," he owned. "And I know the way out."
"How?"
"A cotton mill in Toomsville."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Bring in whites."
"But I don't want poor white trash; I'd sooner have niggers."
"Now, see here," argued Taylor, "you can't have everything you
want--day's gone by for aristocracy of old kind. You must have
neighbors: choose, then, white or black. I say white."
"But they'll rule us--out-vote us--marry our daughters," warmly objected
the Colonel.
"Some of them may--most of them won't. A few of them with brains will
help us rule the rest with money. We'll plant cotton mills beside the
cotton fields, use whites to keep niggers in their place, and the fear
of niggers to keep the poorer whites in theirs."
The Colonel looked thoughtful.
"There's something in that," he confessed after a while; "but it's a
mighty big experiment, and it may go awry."
"Not with brains and money to guide it. And at any rate, we've got to
try it; it's the next logical step, and we must take it."
"But in the meantime, I'm not going to give up good old methods; I'm
going to set the sheriff behind these lazy niggers," said the Colonel;
"and I'm going to stop that school putting notions into their heads."
In three short months the mill at Toomsville was open and its wheels
whizzing to the boundless pride of the citizens.
"Our enterprise, sir!" they said to the strangers on the strength of the
five thousand dollars locally invested.
Once it had vigor to sing, the song of the mill knew no resting; morning
and evening, day and night it crooned its rhythmic tune; only during the
daylight Sundays did its murmur die to a sibilant hiss. All the week its
doors were filled with the coming and going of men and women and
children: many men, more women, and greater and greater throngs of
children. It seemed to devour children, sitting with its myriad eyes
gleaming and its black maw open, drawing in the pale white mites,
sucking their blood and spewing them out paler and ever paler. The face
of the town began to change, showing a ragged tuberculous looking side
with dingy homes in short and homely rows.
There came gradually a new consciousness to the town. Hitherto town and
country had been ruled by a few great landlords but at the very first
election, Colton, an unknown outsider, had beaten the regular candidate
for sheriff by such a majority that the big property owners dared not
count him out. They had, however, an earnest consultation with John
Taylor.
"It's just as I said," growled Colonel Cresswell, "if you don't watch
out our whole plantation system will be ruined and we'll be governed by
this white trash from the hills."
"There's only one way," sighed Caldwell, the merchant; "we've got to
vote the niggers."
John Taylor laughed. "Nonsense!" he spurned the suggestion. "You're
old-fashioned. Let the mill-hands have the offices. What good will it
do?"
"What good! Why, they'll do as they please with us."
"Bosh! Don't we own the mill? Can't we keep wages where we like by
threatening to bring in nigger labor?"
"No, you can't, permanently," Maxwell disputed, "for they sometime will
call your bluff."
"Let 'em call," said Taylor, "and we'll put niggers in the mills."
"What!" ejaculated the landlords in chorus. Only Maxwell was silent.
"And kill the plantation system?"
"Oh, maybe some time, of course. But not for years; not until you've
made your pile. You don't really expect to keep the darkies down
forever, do you?"
"No, I don't," Maxwell slowly admitted. "This system can't last
always--sometimes I think it can't last long. It's wrong, through and
through. It's built on ignorance, theft, and force, and I wish to God we
had courage enough to overthrow it and take the consequences. I wish it
was possible to be a Southerner and a Christian and an honest man, to
treat niggers and dagoes and white trash like men, and be big enough to
say, 'To Hell with consequences!'"
Colonel Cresswell stared at his neighbor, speechless with bewilderment
and outraged traditions. Such unbelievable heresy from a Northerner or a
Negro would have been natural; but from a Southerner whose father had
owned five hundred slaves--it was incredible! The other landlords
scarcely listened; they were dogged and impatient and they could suggest
no remedy. They could only blame the mill for their troubles.
John Taylor left the conference blithely. "No," he said to the
committee from the new mill-workers' union. "Can't raise wages,
gentlemen, and can't lessen hours. Mill is just started and not yet
paying expenses. You're getting better wages than you ever got. If you
don't want to work, quit. There are plenty of others, white and black,
who want your jobs."
The mention of black people as competitors for wages was like a red rag
to a bull. The laborers got together and at the next election they made
a clean sweep, judge, sheriff, two members of the legislature, and the
registrars of votes. Undoubtedly the following year they would capture
Harry Cresswell's seat in Congress.
The result was curious. From two sides, from landlord and white laborer,
came renewed oppression of black men. The laborers found that their
political power gave them little economic advantage as long as the
threatening cloud of Negro competition loomed ahead. There was some talk
of a strike, but Colton, the new sheriff, discouraged it.
"I tell you, boys, where the trouble lies: it's the niggers. They live
on nothing and take any kind of treatment, and they keep wages down. If
you strike, they'll get your jobs, sure. We'll just have to grin and
bear it a while, but get back at the darkies whenever you can. I'll
stick 'em into the chain-gang every chance I get."
On the other hand, inspired by fright, the grip of the landlords on the
black serfs closed with steadily increasing firmness. They saw one class
rising from beneath them to power, and they tightened the chains on the
other. Matters simmered on in this way, and the only party wholly
satisfied with conditions was John Taylor and the few young Southerners
who saw through his eyes. He was making money. The landlords, on the
contrary, were losing power and prestige, and their farm labor, despite
strenuous efforts, was drifting to town attracted by new and incidental
work and higher wages. The mill-hands were more and more overworked and
underpaid, and hated the Negroes for it in accordance with their
leaders' directions.
At the same time the oppressed blacks and scowling mill-hands could not
help recurring again and again to the same inarticulate thought which no
one was brave enough to voice. Once, however, it came out flatly. It was
when Zora, crowding into the village courthouse to see if she could not
help Aunt Rachel's accused boy, found herself beside a gaunt, overworked
white woman. The woman was struggling with a crippled child and Zora,
turning, lifted him carefully for the weak mother, who thanked her half
timidly. "That mill's about killed him," she said.
At this juncture the manacled boy was led into court, and the woman
suddenly turned again to Zora.
"Durned if I don't think these white slaves and black slaves had ought
ter git together," she declared.
"I think so, too," Zora agreed.
Colonel Cresswell himself caught the conversation and it struck him with
a certain dismay. Suppose such a conjunction should come to pass? He
edged over to John Taylor and spoke to him; but Taylor, who had just
successfully stopped a suit for damages to the injured boy, merely
shrugged his shoulders.
"What's this nigger charged with?" demanded the Judge when the first
black boy was brought up before him.
"Breaking his labor contract."
"Any witnesses?"
"I have the contract here," announced the sheriff. "He refuses to work."
"A year, or one hundred dollars."
Colonel Cresswell paid his fine, and took him in charge.
"What's the charge here?" said the Judge, pointing to Aunt Rachel's boy.
"Attempt to kill a white man."
"Any witnesses?"
"None except the victim."
"And I," said Zora, coming forward.
Both the sheriff and Colonel Cresswell stared at her. Of course, she was
simply a black girl but she was an educated woman, who knew things about
the Cresswell plantations that it was unnecessary to air in court. The
newly elected Judge had not yet taken his seat, and Cresswell's word was
still law in the court. He whispered to the Judge.
"Case postponed," said the Court.
The sheriff scowled.
"Wait till Jim gets on the bench," he growled.
The white bystanders, however, did not seem enthusiastic and one man--he
was a Northern spinner--spoke out plainly.
"It's none o' my business, of course. I've been fired and I'm damned
glad of it. But see here: if you mutts think you're going to beat these
big blokes at their own game of cheating niggers you're daffy. You take
this from me: get together with the niggers and hold up this whole
capitalist gang. If you don't get the niggers first, they'll use 'em as
a club to throw you down. You hear me," and he departed for the train.
Colton was suspicious. The sentiment of joining with the Negroes did not
seem to arouse the bitter resentment he expected. There even came
whispers to his ears that he had sold out to the landlords, and there
was enough truth in the report to scare him. Thus to both parties came
the uncomfortable spectre of the black men, and both sides went to work
to lay the ghost.
Particularly was Colonel Cresswell stirred to action. He realized that
in Bles and Zora he was dealing with a younger class of educated black
folk, who were learning to fight with new weapons. They were, he was
sure, as dissolute and weak as their parents, but they were shrewder and
more aspiring. They must be crushed, and crushed quickly. To this end he
had recourse to two sources of help--Johnson and the whites in town.
Johnson was what Colonel Cresswell repeatedly called "a faithful
nigger." He was one of those constitutionally timid creatures into whom
the servility of his fathers had sunk so deep that it had become
second-nature. To him a white man was an archangel, while the
Cresswells, his father's masters, stood for God. He served them with
dog-like faith, asking no reward, and for what he gave in reverence to
them, he took back in contempt for his fellows--"niggers!" He applied
the epithet with more contempt than the Colonel himself could express.
To the Negroes he was a "white folk's nigger," to be despised and
feared.
To him Colonel Cresswell gave a few pregnant directions. Then he rode to
town, and told Taylor again of his fears of a labor movement which would
include whites and blacks. Taylor could not see any great danger.
"Of course," he conceded, "they'll eventually get together; their
interests are identical. I'll admit it's our game to delay this as long
possible."
"It must be delayed forever, sir."
"Can't be," was the terse response. "But even if they do ally
themselves, our way is easy: separate the leaders, the talented, the
pushers, of both races from their masses, and through them rule the rest
by money."
But Colonel Cresswell shook his head. "It's precisely these leaders of
the Negroes that we mush crush," he insisted. Taylor looked puzzled.
"I thought it was the lazy, shiftless, and criminal Negroes, you
feared?"
"Hang it, no! We can deal with them; we've got whips, chain-gangs,
and--mobs, if need be--no, it's the Negro who wants to climb up that
we've got to beat to his knees."
Taylor could not follow this reasoning. He believed in an aristocracy of
talent alone, and secretly despised Colonel Cresswell's pretensions of
birth. If a man had ability and push Taylor was willing and anxious to
open the way for him, even though he were black. The caste way of
thinking in the South, both as applied to poor whites and to Negroes,
he simply could not understand. The weak and the ignorant of all races
he despised and had no patience with them. "But others--a man's a man,
isn't he?" he persisted. But Colonel Cresswell replied:
"No, never, if he's black, and not always when he's white," and he
stalked away.
Zora sensed fully the situation. She did not anticipate any immediate
understanding with the laboring whites, but she knew that eventually it
would be inevitable. Meantime the Negro must strengthen himself and
bring to the alliance as much independent economic strength as possible.
For the development of her plans she needed Bles Alwyn's constant
cooperation. He was business manager of the school and was doing well,
but she wanted to point out to him the larger field. So long as she was
uncertain of his attitude toward her, it was difficult to act; but now,
since the flash of the imminent tragedy at Cresswell Oaks had cleared
the air, with all its hurt a frank understanding had been made possible.
The very next day Zora chose to show Bles over her new home and grounds,
and to speak frankly to him. They looked at the land, examined the
proposed farm sites, and viewed the living-room and dormitory in the
house.
"You haven't seen my den," said Zora.
"No."
"Miss Smith is in there now; she often hides there. Come."
He went into the large central house and into the living-room, then out
on the porch, beyond which lay the kitchen. But to the left, and at the
end of the porch, was a small building. It was ceiled in dark yellow
pine, with figured denim on the walls. A straight desk of rough hewn
wood stood in the corner by the white-curtained window, and a couch and
two large easy-chairs faced a tall narrow fireplace of uneven stone. A
thick green rag-carpet covered the floor; a few pictures were on the
walls--a Madonna, a scene of mad careering horses, and some sad baby
faces. The room was a unity; things fitted together as if they belonged
together. It was restful and beautiful, from the cheerful pine blaze
before which Miss Smith was sitting, to the square-paned window that let
in the crimson rays of gathering night. All round the room, stopping
only at the fireplace, ran low shelves of the same yellow pine, filled
with books and magazines. He scanned curiously Plato's Republic, Gorky's
"Comrades," a Cyclopædia of Agriculture, Balzac's novels, Spencer's
"First Principles," Tennyson's Poems.
"This is my university," Zora explained, smiling at his interested
survey. They went out again and wandered down near the old lagoon.
"Now, Bles," she began, "since we understand each other, can we not work
together as good friends?" She spoke simply and frankly, without
apparent effort, and talked on at length of her work and vision.
Somehow he could not understand. His mental attitude toward Zora had
always been one of guidance, guardianship, and instruction. He had been
judging and weighing her from on high, looking down upon her with
thoughts of uplift and development. Always he had been holding her dark
little hands to lead her out of the swamp of life, and always, when in
senseless anger he had half forgotten and deserted her, this vision of
elder brotherhood had still remained. Now this attitude was being
revolutionized. She was proposing to him a plan of wide scope--a bold
regeneration of the land. It was a plan carefully studied out, long
thought of and read about. He was asked to be co-worker--nay, in a sense
to be a follower, for he was ignorant of much.
He hesitated. Then all at once a sense of his utter unworthiness
overwhelmed him. Who was he to stand and judge this unselfish woman? Who
was he to falter when she called? A sense of his smallness and
narrowness, of his priggish blindness, rose like a mockery in his soul.
One thing alone held him back: he was not unwilling to be simply human,
a learner and a follower; but would he as such ever command the love and
respect of this new and inexplicable woman? Would not comradeship on the
basis of the new friendship which she insisted on, be the death of love
and thoughts of love?
Thus he hesitated, knowing that his duty lay clear. In her direst need
he had deserted her. He had left her to go to destruction and expected
that she would. By a superhuman miracle she had risen and seated herself
above him. She was working; here was work to be done. He was asked to
help; he would help. If it killed his old and new-born dream of love,
well and good; it was his punishment.
Yet the sacrifice, the readjustment was hard; he grew to it gradually,
inwardly revolting, feeling always a great longing to take this woman
and make her nestle in his arms as she used to; catching himself again
and again on the point of speaking to her and urging, yet ever again
holding himself back and bowing in silent respect to the dignity of her
life. Only now and then, when their eyes met suddenly or unthinkingly, a
great kindling flash of flame seemed struggling behind showers of tears,
until in a moment she smiled or spoke, and then the dropping veil left
only the frank open glance, unwavering, soft, kind, but nothing more.
Then Alwyn would go wearily away, vexed or disappointed, or merely sad,
and both would turn to their work again.
_Thirty-six_