_Thirty-two_
ZORA'S WAY
Zora was looking on her world with the keener vision of one who, blindfrom very seeing, closes the eyes a space and looks again with widerclearer vision. Out of a nebulous cloudland she seemed to step; a landwhere all things floated in strange confusion, but where one thing stoodsteadfast, and that was love. When love was shaken all things moved, butnow, at last, for the first time she seemed to know the real and mightyworld that stood behind that old and shaken dream.
So she looked on the world about her with new eyes. These men and womenof her childhood had hitherto walked by her like shadows; today theylived for her in flesh and blood. She saw hundreds and thousands ofblack men and women: crushed, half-spirited, and blind. She saw how highand clear a light Sarah Smith, for thirty years and more, had carriedbefore them. She saw, too, how that the light had not simply shone indarkness, but had lighted answering beacons here and there in these dullsouls.
There were thoughts and vague stirrings of unrest in this mass of blackfolk. They talked long about their firesides, and here Zora began to sitand listen, often speaking a word herself. All through the countrysideshe flitted, till gradually the black folk came to know her and, insilent deference to some subtle difference, they gave her the title ofwhite folk, calling her "Miss" Zora.
Today, more than ever before, Zora sensed the vast unorganized power inthis mass, and her mind was leaping here and there, scheming andtesting, when voices arrested her.
It was a desolate bit of the Cresswell manor, a tiny cabin, new-boardedand bare, in front of it a blazing bonfire. A white man was tossing intothe flames different household articles--a feather bed, a bedstead, tworickety chairs. A young, boyish fellow, golden-faced and curly, stoodwith clenched fists, while a woman with tear-stained eyes clung to him.The white man raised a cradle to dash it into the flames; the womancried, and the yellow man raised his arm threateningly. But Zora's handwas on his shoulder.
"What's the matter, Rob?" she asked.
"They're selling us out," he muttered savagely. "Millie's been sicksince the last baby died, and I had to neglect my crop to tend her andthe other little ones--I didn't make much. They've took my mule, nowthey're burning my things to make me sign a contract and be a slave. Butby--"
"There, Rob, let Millie come with me--we'll see Miss Smith. We must getland to rent and arrange somehow."
The mother sobbed, "The cradle--was baby's!"
With an oath the white man dashed the cradle into the fire, and the redflame 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 growledinsolently.
Zora's eyelids drooped, her upper lip quivered.
"Nothing," she answered softly. "But I hope your soul will burn in hellforever and forever."
They proceeded down the plantation road, but Zora could not speak. Shepushed them slowly on, and turned aside to let the anger, the impotent,futile anger, rage itself out. Alone in the great broad spaces, she knewshe could fight it down, and come back again, cool and in calm anddeadly earnest, to lead these children to the light.
The sorrow in her heart was new and strange; not sorrow for herself, forof that she had tasted the uttermost; but the vast vicarious sufferingfor the evil of the world. The tumult and war within her fled, and asense of helplessness sent the hot tears streaming down her cheeks. Shelonged for rest; but the last plantation was yet to be passed. Far offshe heard the yodle of the gangs of peons. She hesitated, looking forsome way of escape: if she passed them she would see something--shealways saw something--that would send the red blood whirling madly.
"Here, you!--loafing again, damn you!" She saw the black whip writhe andcurl across the shoulders of the plough-boy. The boy crouched andsnarled, and again the whip hissed and cracked.
Zora stood rigid and gray.
"My God!" her silent soul was shrieking within, "why doesn't thecoward--"
And then the "coward" did. The whip was whirring in the air again; butit never fell. A jagged stone in the boy's hand struck true, and theoverseer 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 overthe fields, with hue and cry behind him.
"Poor child!--running to the penitentiary--to shame and hunger anddamnation!"
She remembered the rector in Mrs. Vanderpool's library, and hisquestion that revealed unfathomable depths of ignorance: "Really, now,how do you account for the distressing increase in crime among yourpeople?"
She swung into the great road trembling with the woe of the world in hereyes. Cruelty, poverty, and crime she had looked in the face thatmorning, and the hurt of it held her heart pinched and quivering. Amoment the mists in her eyes shut out the shadows of the swamp, and theroaring in her ears made a silence of the world.
Before she found herself again she dimly saw a couple sauntering alongthe road, but she hardly noticed their white faces until the littlevoice of the girl, raised timidly, greeted her.
"Howdy, Zora."
Zora looked. The girl was Emma, and beside her, smiling, stood ahalf-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 dawningwoman.
And she saw, too, the white man. Suddenly the horror of the swamp wasupon her. She swept between the couple like a gust, gripping the child'sarm 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 frightshining in the child's eyes. Her own eyes softened, her grip became acaress, but her heart was hard.
The young man laughed awkwardly and strolled away. Zora looked back athim and the paramount mission of her life formed itself in her mind. Shewould protect this girl; she would protect all black girls. She wouldmake it possible for these poor beasts of burden to be decent in theirtoil. Out of protection of womanhood as the central thought, she mustbuild ramparts against cruelty, poverty, and crime. All this inturn--but now and first, the innocent girlhood of this daughter of shamemust be rescued from the devil. It was her duty, her heritage. She mustoffer this unsullied soul up unto God in mighty atonement--but how? Herenow was no protection. Already lustful eyes were in wait, and the childwas too ignorant to protect herself. She must be sent toboarding-school, somewhere far away; but the money? God! it was money,money, always money. Then she stopped suddenly, thrilled with therecollection of Mrs. Vanderpool's check.
She dismissed the girl with a kiss, and stood still a momentconsidering. Money to send Emma off to school; money to buy a schoolfarm; money to "buy" tenants to live on it; money to furnish themrations; 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 hadit! But perhaps Zora was the chosen one. She reached up and took down awell-worn book.
"Zora," she said slowly, "I've been going to tell you ever since youcame, but I hadn't the courage. Zora," Miss Smith hesitated and grippedthe book with thin white fingers, "I'm afraid--I almost know that thisschool is doomed."
There lay a silence in the room while the two women stared into eachother's souls with startled eyes. Swallowing hard, Miss Smith spoke.
"When I thought the endowment sure, I mortgaged the school in order tobuy Tolliver's land. The endowment failed, as you know, because--perhapsI 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, butTolliver kept putting me off, and finally I learned that ColonelCresswell had bought it. It seems that Tolliver got caught tight in thecotton corner, and that Cresswell, through John Taylor, offered himtwice what he had agreed to sell to me for, and he took it. I don'tsuppose Taylor knew what he w
as doing; I hope he didn't.
"Well, there I was with ten thousand dollars idle on my hands, payingten per cent on it and getting less than three per cent. I tried to getthe bank to take the money back, but they refused. Then I wastempted--and fell." She paused, and Zora took both her hands in her own.
"You see," continued Miss Smith, "just as soon as the announcement ofthe prospective endowment was sent broadcast by the press, the donationsfrom the North fell off. Letter after letter came from old friends ofthe school full of congratulations, but no money. I ought to have cutdown the teaching force to the barest minimum, and gone Northbegging--but I couldn't. I guess my courage was gone. I knew how I'dhave to explain and plead, and I just could not. So I used the tenthousand 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 twilightsilence. Zora sat stroking the lined hands.
"Not the end," she spoke confidently. "It cannot end like this. I've gota little money that Mrs. Vanderpool gave me, and somehow we must getmore. Perhaps I might go North and--beg." She shivered. Then she sat upresolutely 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 calculationof money. Credit and not cash is the currency of the Black Belt. She hadbeen pleased to receive the check, but she had not examined it.
"I really don't know," she presently confessed. "I think it was onethousand dollars; but I was so hurried in leaving that I didn't lookcarefully," and the wild thought surged in her, suppose it was more!
She ran into the other room and plunged into her trunk; beneath theclothes, beneath the beauty of the Silver Fleece, till her fingersclutched and tore the envelope. A little choking cry burst from herthroat, her knees trembled so that she was obliged to sit down.
In her fingers fluttered a check for--_ten thousand dollars!_
It was not until the next day that the two women were sufficientlycomposed to talk matters over sanely.
"What is your plan?" asked Zora.
"To put the money in a Northern savings bank at three per cent interest;to supply the rest of the interest, and the deficit in the runningexpenses, from our balance, and to send you North to beg."
Zora shook her head. "It won't do," she objected. "I'd make a poorbeggar; I don't know human nature well enough, and I can't talk to richwhite folks the way they expect us to talk."
"It wouldn't be hypocrisy, Zora; you would be serving in a great cause.If you don't go, I--"
"Wait! You sha'n't go. If any one goes it must be me. But let's think itout: we pay off the mortgage, we get enough to run the school as it hasbeen run. Then what? There will still be slavery and oppression allaround us. The children will be kept in the cotton fields; the men willbe cheated, and the women--" Zora paused and her eyes grew hard.
She began again rapidly: "We must have land--our own farm with our owntenants--to be the beginning of a free community."
Miss Smith threw up her hands impatiently.
"But sakes alive! Where, Zora? Where can we get land, with Cresswellowning every inch and bound to destroy us?"
Zora sat hugging her knees and staring out the window toward the sombreramparts of the swamp. In her eyes lay slumbering the madness of longago; in her brain danced all the dreams and visions of childhood.
"I'm thinking," she murmured, "of buying the swamp."
The Quest of the Silver Fleece: A Novel Page 33