The road to Sampson County lay for the most part over the pine-clad
sandhills,--an alternation of gentle rises and gradual descents, with
now and then a swamp of greater or less extent. Long stretches of the
highway led through the virgin forest, for miles unbroken by a clearing
or sign of human habitation.
They traveled slowly, with frequent pauses in shady places, for the
weather was hot. The journey, made leisurely, required more than a
day, and might with slight effort be prolonged into two. They stopped
for the night at a small village, where Wain found lodging for Rena
with an acquaintance of his, and for himself with another, while a
third took charge of the horse, the accommodation for travelers being
limited. Rena's appearance and manners were the subject of much
comment. It was necessary to explain to several curious white people
that Rena was a woman of color. A white woman might have driven with
Wain without attracting remark,--most white ladies had negro coachmen.
That a woman of Rena's complexion should eat at a negro's table, or
sleep beneath a negro's roof, was a seeming breach of caste which only
black blood could excuse. The explanation was never questioned. No
white person of sound mind would ever claim to be a negro.
They resumed their journey somewhat late in the morning. Rena would
willingly have hastened, for she was anxious to plunge into her new
work; but Wain seemed disposed to prolong the pleasant drive, and
beguiled the way for a time with stories of wonderful things he had
done and strange experiences of a somewhat checkered career. He was
shrewd enough to avoid any subject which would offend a modest young
woman, but too obtuse to perceive that much of what he said would not
commend him to a person of refinement. He made little reference to his
possessions, concerning which so much had been said at Patesville; and
this reticence was a point in his favor. If he had not been so much
upon his guard and Rena so much absorbed by thoughts of her future
work, such a drive would have furnished a person of her discernment a
very fair measure of the man's character. To these distractions must be
added the entire absence of any idea that Wain might have amorous
designs upon her; and any shortcomings of manners or speech were
excused by the broad mantle of charity which Rena in her new-found zeal
for the welfare of her people was willing to throw over all their
faults. They were the victims of oppression; they were not responsible
for its results.
Toward the end of the second day, while nearing their destination, the
travelers passed a large white house standing back from the road at the
foot of a lane. Around it grew widespreading trees and well-kept
shrubbery. The fences were in good repair. Behind the house and
across the road stretched extensive fields of cotton and waving corn.
They had passed no other place that showed such signs of thrift and
prosperity.
"Oh, what a lovely place!" exclaimed Rena. "That is yours, isn't it?"
"No; we ain't got to my house yet," he answered. "Dat house b'longs
ter de riches' people roun' here. Dat house is over in de nex' county.
We're right close to de line now."
Shortly afterwards they turned off from the main highway they had been
pursuing, and struck into a narrower road to the left.
"De main road," explained Wain, "goes on to Clinton, 'bout five miles
er mo' away. Dis one we're turnin' inter now will take us to my place,
which is 'bout three miles fu'ther on. We'll git dere now in an hour
er so."
Wain lived in an old plantation house, somewhat dilapidated, and
surrounded by an air of neglect and shiftlessness, but still preserving
a remnant of dignity in its outlines and comfort in its interior
arrangements. Rena was assigned a large room on the second floor. She
was somewhat surprised at the make-up of the household. Wain's
mother--an old woman, much darker than her son--kept house for him. A
sister with two children lived in the house. The element of surprise
lay in the presence of two small children left by Wain's wife, of whom
Rena now heard for the first time. He had lost his wife, he informed
Rena sadly, a couple of years before.
"Yas, Miss Rena," she sighed, "de Lawd give her, an' de Lawd tuck her
away. Blessed be de name er de Lawd." He accompanied this sententious
quotation with a wicked look from under his half-closed eyelids that
Rena did not see.
The following morning Wain drove her in his buggy over to the county
town, where she took the teacher's examination. She was given a seat
in a room with a number of other candidates for certificates, but the
fact leaking out from some remark of Wain's that she was a colored
girl, objection was quietly made by several of the would-be teachers to
her presence in the room, and she was requested to retire until the
white teachers should have been examined. An hour or two later she was
given a separate examination, which she passed without difficulty. The
examiner, a gentleman of local standing, was dimly conscious that she
might not have found her exclusion pleasant, and was especially polite.
It would have been strange, indeed, if he had not been impressed by her
sweet face and air of modest dignity, which were all the more striking
because of her social disability. He fell into conversation with her,
became interested in her hopes and aims, and very cordially offered to
be of service, if at any time he might, in connection with her school.
"You have the satisfaction," he said, "of receiving the only
first-grade certificate issued to-day. You might teach a higher grade
of pupils than you will find at Sandy Run, but let us hope that you may
in time raise them to your own level."
"Which I doubt very much," he muttered to himself, as she went away
with Wain. "What a pity that such a woman should be a nigger! If she
were anything to me, though, I should hate to trust her anywhere near
that saddle-colored scoundrel. He's a thoroughly bad lot, and will
bear watching."
Rena, however, was serenely ignorant of any danger from the
accommodating Wain. Absorbed in her own thoughts and plans, she had
not sought to look beneath the surface of his somewhat overdone
politeness. In a few days she began her work as teacher, and sought to
forget in the service of others the dull sorrow that still gnawed at
her heart.