The Quest of the Silver Fleece Part 67

The Colonel smiled grimly.

"It will cost you fifty dollars an acre," he said finally. Zora looked disappointed and figured out the matter slowly.

"That would be one thousand down and nine thousand to pay--"

"With interest," said Cresswell.

Zora shook her head doubtfully.

"What would the interest be?" she asked.

"Ten per cent."

She stood silent a moment and Colonel Cresswell spoke up:

"It's the best land about here and about the only land you can buy--I wouldn't sell it to anybody else."

She still hesitated.

"The trouble is, you see, Colonel Cresswell, the price is high and the interest heavy. And after all I may not be able to get as many tenants as I'd need. I think though, I'd try it if--if I could be sure you'd treat me fairly, and that I'd get the land if I paid for it."

Colonel Cresswell reddened a little, and John Taylor looked away.

"Well, if you don't want to undertake it, all right."

Zora looked thoughtfully across the field--

"Mr. Maxwell has a bit of land," she began meditatively.

"Worked out, and not worth five dollars an acre!" snapped the Colonel.

But he did not propose to hand Maxwell a thousand dollars. "Now, see here, I'll treat you as well as anybody, and you know it."

"I believe so, sir," acknowledged Zora in a tone that brought a sudden keen glance from Taylor; but her face was a mask. "I reckon I'll make the bargain."

"All right. Bring the money and we'll fix the thing up."

"The money is here," said Zora, taking an envelope out of her bosom.

"Well, leave it here, and I'll see to it."

"But you see, sir, Miss Smith is so methodical; she expects some papers or receipts."

"Well, it's too late tonight."

"Possibly you could sign a sort of receipt and later--"

Cresswell laughed. "Well, write one," he indulgently a.s.sented. And Zora wrote.

When Zora left Colonel Cresswell's about noon that Sunday she knew her work had just begun, and she walked swiftly along the country roads, calling here and there. Would Uncle Isaac help her build a log home?

Would the boys help her some time to clear some swamp land? Would Rob become a tenant when she asked? For this was the idle time of the year.

Crops were laid by and planting had not yet begun.

This too was the time of big church meetings. She knew that in her part of the country on that day the black population, man, woman, and child, were gathered in great groups; all day they had been gathering, streaming in snake-like lines along the country roads, in well-brushed, brilliant attire, half fantastic, half crude. Down where the Toomsville-Montgomery highway dipped to the stream that fed the Cresswell swamp squatted a square barn that slept through day and weeks in dull indifference. But on the First Sunday it woke to sudden mighty life. The voices of men and children mingled with the snorting of animals and the cracking of whips. Then came the long drone and sing-song of the preacher with its sharp wilder climaxes and the answering "amens" and screams of the worshippers. This was the shrine of the Baptists--shrine and oracle, centre and source of inspiration--and hither Zora hurried.

The preacher was Jones, a big man, fat, black, and greasy, with little eyes, unctuous voice, and three manners: his white folks manner, soft, humble, wheedling; his black folks manner, voluble, important, condescending; and above all, his pulpit manner, loud, wild, and strong.

He was about to don this latter cloak when Zora approached with a request briefly to address the congregation. Remembering some former snubs, his manner was lordly.

"I doesn't see," he returned reflectively, wiping his brows, "as how I can rightly spare you any time; the brethren is a-gettin' mighty onpatient to hear me." He pulled down his cuffs, regarding her doubtfully.

"I might speak after you're through," she suggested. But he objected that there was the regular collection and two or three other collections, a baptism, a meeting of the trustees; there was no time, in short; but--he eyed her again.

"Does you want--a collection?" he questioned suspiciously, for he could imagine few other reasons for talking. Then, too, he did not want to be too inflexible, for all of his people knew Zora and liked her.

"Oh, no, I want no collection at all. I only want a little voluntary work on their part." He looked relieved, frowned through the door at the audience, and looked at his bright gold watch. The whole crowd was not there yet--perhaps--

"You kin say just a word before the sermont," he finally yielded; "but not long--not long. They'se just a-dying to hear me."

So Zora spoke simply but clearly: of neglect and suffering, of the sins of others that bowed young shoulders, of the great hope of the children's future. Then she told something of what she had seen and read of the world's newer ways of helping men and women. She talked of cooperation and refuges and other efforts; she praised their way of adopting children into their own homes; and then finally she told them of the land she was buying for new tenants and the helping hands she needed. The preacher fidgeted and coughed but dared not actually interrupt, for the people were listening breathless to a kind of straightforward talk which they seldom heard and for which they were hungering.

And Zora forgot time and occasion. The moments flew; the crowd increased until the wonderful spell of those dark and upturned faces pulsed in her blood. She felt the wild yearning to help them beating in her ears and blinding her eyes.

"Oh, my people!" she almost sobbed. "My own people, I am not asking you to help others; I am pleading with you to help yourselves. Rescue your own flesh and blood--free yourselves--free yourselves!" And from the swaying sobbing hundreds burst a great "Amen!" The minister's dusky face grew more and more sombre, and the angry sweat started on his brow. He felt himself hoaxed and cheated, and he meant to have his revenge. Two hundred men and women rose and pledged themselves to help Zora; and when she turned with overflowing heart to thank the preacher he had left the platform, and she found him in the yard whispering darkly with two deacons. She realized her mistake, and promised to retrieve it during the week; but the week was full of planning and journeying and talking.

Sat.u.r.day dawned cool and clear. She had dinner prepared for cooking in the yard: sweet potatoes, hoe-cake, and b.u.t.termilk, and a hog to be barbecued. Everything was ready by eight o'clock in the morning. Emma and two other girl helpers were on the tip-toe of expectancy. Nine o'clock came and no one with it. Ten o'clock came, and eleven. High noon found Zora peering down the highway under her shading hand, but no soul in sight. She tried to think it out: what could have happened? Her people were slow, tardy, but they would not thus forget her and disappoint her without some great cause. She sent the girls home at dusk and then seated herself miserably under the great oak; then at last one half-grown boy hurried by.

"I wanted to come, Miss Zora, but I was afeared. Preacher Jones has been talking everywhere against you. He says that your mother was a voodoo woman and that you don't believe in G.o.d, and the deacons voted that the members mustn't help you."

"And do the people believe that?" she asked in consternation.

"They just don't know what to say. They don't 'zactly believe it, but they has to 'low that you didn't say much 'bout religion when you talked. You ain't been near Big Meetin'--and--and--you ain't saved." He hurried on.

Zora leaned her head back wearily, watching the laced black branches where the star-light flickered through--as coldly still and immovable as she had watched them from those gnarled roots all her life--and she murmured bitterly the world-old question of despair: "What's the use?"

It seemed to her that every breeze and branch was instinct with sympathy, and murmuring, "What's the use?" She wondered vaguely why, and as she wondered, she knew.

For yonder where the black earth of the swamp heaved in a formless mound she felt the black arms of Elspeth rising from the sod--gigantic, mighty. They stole toward her with stealthy hands and claw-like talons.

They clutched at her skirts. She froze and could not move. Down, down she slipped toward the black slime of the swamp, and the air about was horror--down, down, till the chilly waters stung her knees; and then with one grip she seized the oak, while the great hand of Elspeth twisted and tore her soul. Faint, afar, nearer and nearer and ever mightier, rose a song of mystic melody. She heard its human voice and sought to cry aloud. She strove again and again with that gripping, twisting pain--that awful hand--until the shriek came and she awoke.

She lay panting and sweating across the bent and broken roots of the oak. The hand of Elspeth was gone but the song was still there. She rose trembling and listened. It was the singing of the Big Meeting in the church far away. She had forgotten this religious revival in her days of hurried preparation, and the preacher had used her absence and apparent indifference against her and her work. The hand of Elspeth was reaching from the grave to pull her back; but she was no longer dreaming now.

Drawing her shawl about her, she hurried down the highway.

The meeting had overflowed the church and spread to the edge of the swamp. The tops of young trees had been bent down and interlaced to form a covering and benches twined to their trunks. Thus a low and wide cathedral, all green and silver in the star-light, lay packed with a living ma.s.s of black folk. Flaming pine torches burned above the devotees; the rhythm of their stamping, the shout of their voices, and the wild music of their singing shook the night. Four hundred people fell upon their knees when the huge black preacher, uncoated, red-eyed, frenzied, stretched his long arms to heaven. Zora saw the throng from afar, and hesitated. After all, she knew little of this strange faith of theirs--had little belief in its mummery. She herself had been brought up almost without religion save some few mystic remnants of a half-forgotten heathen cult. The little she had seen of religious observance had not moved her greatly, save once yonder in Washington.

There she found G.o.d after a searching that had seared her soul; but He had simply pointed the Way, and the way was human.

Humanity was near and real. She loved it. But if she talked again of mere men would these devotees listen? Already the minister had spied her tall form and feared her power. He set his powerful voice and the frenzy of his hearers to crush her.

"Who is dis what talks of doing the Lord's work for Him? What does de good Book say? Take no thought 'bout de morrow. Why is you trying to make dis ole world better? I spits on the world! Come out from it. Seek Jesus. Heaven is my home! Is it yo's?" "Yes," groaned the mult.i.tude. His arm shot out and he pointed straight at Zora.

"Beware the ebil one!" he shouted, and the mult.i.tude moaned. "Beware of dem dat calls ebil good. Beware of dem dat worships debbils; the debbils dat crawl; de debbils what forgits G.o.d."