The Quest of the Silver Fleece Part 49

"Now, what's his game?" he asked helplessly.

"He may be honest," offered Senator Smith, contemplating the door almost wistfully.

The campaign progressed. The National Republican Committee said little about the Negro revolt and affected to ignore it. The papers were silent. Underneath this calm, however, the activity was redoubled. The prominent Negroes were carefully catalogued, written to, and put under personal influence. The Negro papers were quietly subsidized, and they began to ridicule and reproach the new leaders.

As the Fall progressed, ma.s.s-meetings were held in Washington and the small towns. Larger and larger ones were projected, and more and more Alwyn was pushed to the front. He was developing into a most effective speaker. He had the voice, the presence, the ideas, and above all he was intensely in earnest. There were other colored orators with voice, presence, and eloquence; but their people knew their record and discounted them. Alwyn was new, clear, and sincere, and the black folk hung on his words. Large and larger crowds greeted him until he was the central figure in a half dozen great negro ma.s.s-meetings in the chief cities of the country, culminating in New York the night before election. Perhaps the secret newspaper work, the personal advice of employers and friends, and the liberal distribution of cash, would have delivered a large part of the Negro vote to the Republican candidate.

Perhaps--but there was a doubt. With the work of Alwyn, however, all doubt disappeared, and there was little reason for denying that the new President walked into the White House through the instrumentality of an unknown Georgia Negro, little past his majority. This is what Senator Smith said to Mr. Easterly; what Miss Wynn said to herself; and it was what Mrs. Vanderpool remarked to Zora as Zora was combing her hair on the Wednesday after election.

Zora murmured an indistinct response. As already something of the beauty of the world had found question and answer in her soul, and as she began to realize how the world had waxed old in thought and stature, so now in their last days a sense of the power of men, as set over against the immensity and force of their surroundings, became real to her. She had begun to read of the lives and doing of those called great, and in her mind a plan was forming. She saw herself standing dim within the shadows, directing the growing power of a man: a man who would be great as the world counted greatness, rich, high in position, powerful--wonderful because his face was black. He would never see her; never know how she worked and planned, save perhaps at last, in that supreme moment as she pa.s.sed, her soul would cry to his, "Redeemed!" And he would understand.

All this she was thinking and weaving; not clearly and definitely, but in great blurred clouds of thought of things as she said slowly:

"He should have a great position for this."

"Why, certainly," Mrs. Vanderpool agreed, and then curiously: "What?"

Zora considered. "Negroes," she said, "have been Registers of the Treasury, and Recorders of Deeds here in Washington, and Douglas was Marshal; but I want Bles--" she paused and started again. "Those are not great enough for Mr. Alwyn; he should have an office so important that Negroes would not think of leaving their party again."

Mrs. Vanderpool took pains to repeat Zora's words to Mr. Easterly. He considered the matter.

"In one sense, it's good advice," he admitted; "but there's the South to reckon with. I'll think it over and speak to the President. Oh, yes; I'm going to mention France at the same time."

Mrs. Vanderpool smiled and leaned back in her carriage. She noted with considerable interest the young colored woman who was watching her from the sidewalk: a brown, well-appearing young woman of notable self-possession. Caroline Wynn scrutinized Mrs. Vanderpool because she had been speaking with Mr. Easterly, and Mr. Easterly was a figure of political importance. That very morning Miss Wynn had telegraphed Bles Alwyn. Alwyn arrived at Washington just as the morning papers heralded the sweeping Republican victory. All about he met new deference and new friends; strangers greeted him familiarly on the street; Sam Stillings became his shadow; and when he reported for work his chief and fellow clerks took unusual interest in him.

"Have you seen Senator Smith yet?" Miss Wynn asked after a few words of congratulation.

"No. What for?"

"What for?" she answered. "Go to him today; don't fail. I shall be at home at eight tonight."

It seemed to Bles an exceedingly silly thing to do--calling on a busy man with no errand; but he went. He decided that he would just thank the Senator for his interest, and get out; or, if the Senator was busy, he would merely send in his card. Evidently the Senator was busy, for his waiting-room was full. Bles handed the card to the secretary with a word of apology, but the secretary detained him.

"Ah, Mr. Alwyn," he said affably; "glad to see you. The Senator will want to see you, I know. Wait just a minute." And soon Bles was shaking Senator Smith's hand.

"Well, Mr. Alwyn," said the Senator heartily, "you delivered the goods."

"Thank you, sir. I tried to."

Senator Smith thoughtfully looked him over and drew out the letters.

"Your friends, Mr. Alwyn," he said, adjusting his gla.s.ses, "have a rather high opinion of you. Here now is Stillings, who helped on the campaign. He suggests an eighteen-hundred-dollar clerkship for you." The Senator glanced up keenly and omitted to state what Stillings suggested for himself. Alwyn was visibly grateful as well as surprised.

"I--I hoped," he began hesitatingly, "that perhaps I might get a promotion, but I had not thought of a first-cla.s.s clerkship."

"H'm." Senator Smith leaned back and twiddled his thumbs, staring at Alwyn until the hot blood darkened his cheeks. Then Bles sat up and stared politely but steadily back. The Senator's eyes dropped and he put out his hand for the second note.

"Now, your friend, Miss Wynn"--Alwyn started--"is even more ambitious."

He handed her letter to the young man, and pointed out the words.

"Of course, Senator," Bles read, "we expect Mr. Alwyn to be the next Register of the Treasury."

Bles looked up in amazement, but the Senator reached for a third letter.

The room was very still. At last he found it. "This," he announced quietly, "is from a man of great power and influence, who has the ear of the new President." He smoothed out the letter, paused briefly, then read aloud:

"'It has been suggested to me by'"--the Senator did not read the name; if he had "Mrs. Vanderpool" would have meant little to Alwyn--"'It has been suggested to me by blank that the future allegiance of the Negro vote to the Republican Party might be insured by giving to some prominent Negro a high political position--for instance, Treasurer of the United States'--salary, six thousand dollars," interpolated Senator Smith--"'and that Alwyn would be a popular and safe appointment for that position.'"

The Senator did not read the concluding sentence, which ran: "Think this over; we can't touch political conditions in the South; perhaps this sop will do."

For a long time Alwyn sat motionless, while the Senator said nothing.

Then the young man rose unsteadily.

"I don't think I quite grasp all this," he said as he shook hands.

"I'll think it over," and he went out.

When Caroline Wynn heard of that extraordinary conversation her amazement knew no bounds. Yet Alwyn ventured to voice doubts:

"I'm not fitted for either of those high offices; there are many others who deserve more, and I don't somehow like the idea of seeming to have worked hard in the campaign simply for money or fortune. You see, I talked against that very thing."

Miss Wynn's eyes widened.

"Well, what else--" she began and then changed. "Mr. Alwyn, the line between virtue and foolishness is dim and wavering, and I should hate to see you lost in that marshy borderland. By a streak of extraordinary luck you have gained the political leadership of Negroes in America.

Here's your chance to lead your people, and here you stand blinking and hesitating. Be a man!"

Alwyn straightened up and felt his doubts going. The evening pa.s.sed very pleasantly.

"I'm going to have a little dinner for you," said Miss Wynn finally, and Alwyn grew hot with pleasure. He turned to her suddenly and said:

"Why, I'm rather--black." She expressed no surprise but said reflectively:

"You _are_ dark."

"And I've been given to understand that Miss Wynn and her set rather--well, preferred the lighter shades of colored folk."

Miss Wynn laughed lightly.

"My parents did," she said simply. "No dark man ever entered their house; they were simply copying the white world. Now I, as a matter of aesthetic beauty, prefer your brown-velvet color to a jaundiced yellow, or even an uncertain cream; but the world doesn't."

"The world?"

"Yes, the world; and especially America. One may be Chinese, Spaniard, even Indian--anything white or dirty white in this land, and demand decent treatment; but to be Negro or darkening toward it unmistakably means perpetual handicap and crucifixion."

"Why not, then, admit that you draw the color-line?"

"Because I don't; but the world does. I am not prejudiced as my parents were, but I am foresighted. Indeed, it is a deep ethical query, is it not, how far one has the right to bear black children to the world in the Land of the Free and the home of the brave. Is it fair--to the children?"

"Yes, it is!" he cried vehemently. "The more to take up the fight, the surer the victory."

She laughed at his earnestness.