The Quest of the Silver Fleece Read online

  “Where?” “Who is it?” and pale crowding faces blurred the light.

  The boy wheeled blindly and fled in terror stumbling through the swamp, hearing strange sounds and feeling stealthy creeping hands and arms and whispering voices. On he toiled in mad haste, struggling toward the road and losing it until finally beneath the shadows of a mighty oak he sank exhausted. There he lay a while trembling and at last drifted into dreamless sleep.

  It was morning when he awoke and threw a startled glance upward to the twisted branches of the oak that bent above, sifting down sunshine on his brown face and close curled hair. Slowly he remembered the loneliness, the fear and wild running through the dark. He laughed in the bold courage of day and stretched himself.

  Then suddenly he bethought him again of that vision of the night—the waving arms and flying limbs of the girl, and her great black eyes looking into the night and calling him. He could hear her now, and hear that wondrous savage music. Had it been real? Had he dreamed? Or had it been some witch-vision of the night, come to tempt and lure him to his undoing? Where was that black and flaming cabin? Where was the girl—the soul that had called him? She must have been real; she had to live and dance and sing; he must again look into the mystery of her great eyes. And he sat up in sudden determination, and, lo! gazed straight into the very eyes of his dreaming.

  She sat not four feet from him, leaning against the great tree, her eyes now languorously abstracted, now alert and quizzical with mischief. She seemed but half-clothed, and her warm, dark flesh peeped furtively through the rent gown; her thick, crisp hair was frowsy and rumpled, and the long curves of her bare young arms gleamed in the morning sunshine, glowing with vigor and life. A little mocking smile came and sat upon her lips.

  “What you run for?” she asked, with dancing mischief in her eyes.

  “Because—” he hesitated, and his cheeks grew hot.

  “I knows,” she said, with impish glee, laughing low music.

  “Why?” he challenged, sturdily.

  “You was a-feared.”

  He bridled. “Well, I reckon you’d be a-feared if you was caught out in the black dark all alone.”

  “Pooh!” she scoffed and hugged her knees. “Pooh! I’ve stayed out all alone heaps o’ nights.”

  He looked at her with a curious awe.

  “I don’t believe you,” he asserted; but she tossed her head and her eyes grew scornful.

  “Who’s a-feared of the dark? I love night.” Her eyes grew soft.

  He watched her silently, till, waking from her daydream, she abruptly asked:

  “Where you from?”

  “Georgia.”

  “Where’s that?”

  He looked at her in surprise, but she seemed matter-of-fact.

  “It’s away over yonder,” he answered.

  “Behind where the sun comes up?”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Then it ain’t so far,” she declared. “I knows where the sun rises, and I knows where it sets.” She looked up at its gleaming splendor glinting through the leaves, and, noting its height, announced abruptly:

  “I’se hungry.”

  “So’m I,” answered the boy, fumbling at his bundle; and then, timidly: “Will you eat with me?”

  “Yes,” she said, and watched him with eager eyes.

  Untying the strips of cloth, he opened his box, and disclosed chicken and biscuits, ham and corn-bread. She clapped her hands in glee.

  “Is there any water near?” he asked.

  Without a word, she bounded up and flitted off like a brown bird, gleaming dull-golden in the sun, glancing in and out among the trees, till she paused above a tiny black pool, and then came tripping and swaying back with hands held cupwise and dripping with cool water.

  “Drink,” she cried. Obediently he bent over the little hands that seemed so soft and thin. He took a deep draught; and then to drain the last drop, his hands touched hers and the shock of flesh first meeting flesh startled them both, while the water rained through. A moment their eyes looked deep into each other’s—a timid, startled gleam in hers; a wonder in his. Then she said dreamily:

  “We’se known us all our lives, and—before, ain’t we?”

  He hesitated.

  “Ye—es—I reckon,” he slowly returned. And then, brightening, he asked gayly: “And we’ll be friends always, won’t we?”

  “Yes,” she said at last, slowly and solemnly, and another brief moment they stood still.

  Then the mischief danced in her eyes, and a song bubbled on her lips. She hopped to the tree.

  “Come—eat!” she cried. And they nestled together amid the big black roots of the oak, laughing and talking while they ate.

  “What’s over there?” he asked pointing northward.

  “Cresswell’s big house.”

  “And yonder to the west?”

  “The school.”

  He started joyfully.

  “The school! What school?”

  “Old Miss’ School.”

  “Miss Smith’s school?”

  “Yes.” The tone was disdainful.

  “Why, that’s where I’m going. I was a-feared it was a long way off; I must have passed it in the night.”

  “I hate it!” cried the girl, her lips tense.

  “But I’ll be so near,” he explained. “And why do you hate it?”

  “Yes—you’ll be near,” she admitted; “that’ll be nice; but—” she glanced westward, and the fierce look faded. Soft joy crept to her face again, and she sat once more dreaming.

  “Yon way’s nicest,” she said.

  “Why, what’s there?”

  “The swamp,” she said mysteriously.

  “And what’s beyond the swamp?”

  She crouched beside him and whispered in eager, tense tones: “Dreams!”

  He looked at her, puzzled.

  “Dreams?” vaguely—“dreams? Why, dreams ain’t—nothing.”

  “Oh, yes they is!” she insisted, her eyes flaming in misty radiance as she sat staring beyond the shadows of the swamp. “Yes they is! There ain’t nothing but dreams—that is, nothing much.

  “And over yonder behind the swamps is great fields full of dreams, piled high and burning; and right amongst them the sun, when he’s tired o’ night, whispers and drops red things, ’cept when devils make ’em black.”

  The boy stared at her; he knew not whether to jeer or wonder.

  “How you know?” he asked at last, skeptically.

  “Promise you won’t tell?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  She cuddled into a little heap, nursing her knees, and answered slowly.

  “I goes there sometimes. I creeps in ’mongst the dreams; they hangs there like big flowers, dripping dew and sugar and blood—red, red blood. And there’s little fairies there that hop about and sing, and devils—great, ugly devils that grabs at you and roasts and eats you if they gits you; but they don’t git me. Some devils is big and white, like ha’nts; some is long and shiny, like creepy, slippery snakes; and some is little and broad and black, and they yells—”

  The boy was listening in incredulous curiosity, half minded to laugh, half minded to edge away from the black-red radiance of yonder dusky swamp. He glanced furtively backward, and his heart gave a great bound.

  “Some is little and broad and black, and they yells—” chanted the girl. And as she chanted, deep, harsh tones came booming through the forest:

  “Zo-ra! Zo-ra! O—o—oh, Zora!”

  He saw far behind him, toward the shadows of the swamp, an old woman—short, broad, black and wrinkled, with fangs and pendulous lips and red, wicked eyes. His heart bounded in sudden fear; he wheeled toward the girl, and caught only the uncertain flash of her garments—the wood was silent, and he was alone.

  He arose, startled, quickly gathered his bundle, and looked around him. The sun was strong and high, the morning fresh and vigorous. Stamping one foot angrily, he strode jauntily out of the wood towar
d the big road.

  But ever and anon he glanced curiously back. Had he seen a haunt? Or was the elf-girl real? And then he thought of her words:

  “We’se known us all our lives.”

  Two

  THE SCHOOL

  Day was breaking above the white buildings of the Negro school and throwing long, low lines of gold in at Miss Sarah Smith’s front window. She lay in the stupor of her last morning nap, after a night of harrowing worry. Then, even as she partially awoke, she lay still with closed eyes, feeling the shadow of some great burden, yet daring not to rouse herself and recall its exact form; slowly again she drifted toward unconsciousness.

  “Bang! bang! bang!” hard knuckles were beating upon the door below.

  She heard drowsily, and dreamed that it was the nailing up of all her doors; but she did not care much, and but feebly warded the blows away, for she was very tired.

  “Bang! bang! bang!” persisted the hard knuckles.

  She started up, and her eye fell upon a letter lying on her bureau. Back she sank with a sigh, and lay staring at the ceiling—a gaunt, flat, sad-eyed creature, with wisps of gray hair half-covering her baldness, and a face furrowed with care and gathering years.

  It was thirty years ago this day, she recalled, since she first came to this broad land of shade and shine in Alabama to teach black folks.

  It had been a hard beginning with suspicion and squalor around; with poverty within and without the first white walls of the new school home. Yet somehow the struggle then with all its helplessness and disappointment had not seemed so bitter as today: then failure meant but little, now it seemed to mean everything; then it meant disappointment to a score of ragged urchins, now it meant two hundred boys and girls, the spirits of a thousand gone before and the hopes of thousands to come. In her imagination the significance of these half dozen gleaming buildings perched aloft seemed portentous—big with the destiny not simply of a county and a State, but of a race—a nation—a world. It was God’s own cause, and yet—

  “Bang! bang! bang!” again went the hard knuckles down there at the front.

  Miss Smith slowly arose, shivering a bit and wondering who could possibly be rapping at that time in the morning. She sniffed the chilling air and was sure she caught some lingering perfume from Mrs. Vanderpool’s gown. She had brought this rich and rare-apparelled lady up here yesterday, because it was more private, and here she had poured forth her needs. She had talked long and in deadly earnest. She had not spoken of the endowment for which she had hoped so desperately during a quarter of a century—no, only for the five thousand dollars to buy the long needed new land. It was so little—so little beside what this woman squandered—

  The insistent knocking was repeated louder than before.

  “Sakes alive,” cried Miss Smith, throwing a shawl about her and leaning out the window. “Who is it, and what do you want?”

  “Please, ma’am. I’ve come to school,” answered a tall black boy with a bundle.

  “Well, why don’t you go to the office?” Then she saw his face and hesitated. She felt again the old motherly instinct to be the first to welcome the new pupil; a luxury which, in later years, the endless push of details had denied her.

  “Wait!” she cried shortly, and began to dress.

  A new boy, she mused. Yes, every day they straggled in; every day came the call for more, more—this great, growing thirst to know—to do—to be. And yet that woman had sat right here, aloof, imperturbable, listening only courteously. When Miss Smith finished, she had paused and, flicking her glove,—

  “My dear Miss Smith,” she said softly, with a tone that just escaped a drawl—“My dear Miss Smith, your work is interesting and your faith—marvellous; but, frankly, I cannot make myself believe in it. You are trying to treat these funny little monkeys just as you would your own children—or even mine. It’s quite heroic, of course, but it’s sheer madness, and I do not feel I ought to encourage it. I would not mind a thousand or so to train a good cook for the Cresswells, or a clean and faithful maid for myself—for Helene has faults—or indeed deft and tractable laboring-folk for any one; but I’m quite through trying to turn natural servants into masters of me and mine. I—hope I’m not too blunt; I hope I make myself clear. You know, statistics show—”

  “Drat statistics!” Miss Smith had flashed impatiently. “These are folks.”

  Mrs. Vanderpool smiled indulgently. “To be sure,” she murmured, “but what sort of folks?”

  “God’s sort.”

  “Oh, well—”

  But Miss Smith had the bit in her teeth and could not have stopped. She was paying high for the privilege of talking, but it had to be said.

  “God’s sort, Mrs. Vanderpool—not the sort that think of the world as arranged for their exclusive benefit and comfort.”

  “Well, I do want to count—”

  Miss Smith bent forward—not a beautiful pose, but earnest.

  “I want you to count, and I want to count, too; but I don’t want us to be the only ones that count. I want to live in a world where every soul counts—white, black, and yellow—all. That’s what I’m teaching these children here—to count, and not to be like dumb, driven cattle. If you don’t believe in this, of course you cannot help us.”

  “Your spirit is admirable, Miss Smith,” she had said very softly; “I only wish I could feel as you do. Good-afternoon,” and she had rustled gently down the narrow stairs, leaving an all but imperceptible suggestion of perfume. Miss Smith could smell it yet as she went down this morning.

  The breakfast bell jangled. “Five thousand dollars,” she kept repeating to herself, greeting the teachers absently—“five thousand dollars.” And then on the porch she was suddenly aware of the awaiting boy. She eyed him critically: black, fifteen, country-bred, strong, clear-eyed.

  “Well?” she asked in that brusque manner wherewith her natural timidity was wont to mask her kindness. “Well, sir?”

  “I’ve come to school.”

  “Humph—we can’t teach boys for nothing.”

  The boy straightened. “I can pay my way,” he returned.

  “You mean you can pay what we ask?”

  “Why, yes. Ain’t that all?”

  “No. The rest is gathered from the crumbs of Dives’ table.”

  Then he saw the twinkle in her eyes. She laid her hand gently upon his shoulder.

  “If you don’t hurry you’ll be late to breakfast,” she said with an air of confidence. “See those boys over there? Follow them, and at noon come to the office—wait! What’s your name?”

  “Blessed Alwyn,” he answered, and the passing teachers smiled.

  Three

  MISS MARY TAYLOR

  Miss Mary Taylor did not take a college course for the purpose of teaching Negroes. Not that she objected to Negroes as human beings—quite the contrary. In the debate between the senior societies her defence of the Fifteenth Amendment had been not only a notable bit of reasoning, but delivered with real enthusiasm. Nevertheless, when the end of the summer came and the only opening facing her was the teaching of children at Miss Smith’s experiment in the Alabama swamps, it must be frankly confessed that Miss Taylor was disappointed.

  Her dream had been a post-graduate course at Bryn Mawr; but that was out of the question until money was earned. She had pictured herself earning this by teaching one or two of her “specialties” in some private school near New York or Boston, or even in a Western college. The South she had not thought of seriously; and yet, knowing of its delightful hospitality and mild climate, she was not averse to Charleston or New Orleans. But from the offer that came to teach Negroes—country Negroes, and little ones at that—she shrank, and, indeed, probably would have refused it out of hand had it not been for her queer brother, John. John Taylor, who had supported her through college, was interested in cotton. Having certain schemes in mind, he had been struck by the fact that the Smith School was in the midst of the Alabama cotton-belt.

&nbs
p; “Better go,” he had counselled, sententiously. “Might learn something useful down there.”

  She had been not a little dismayed by the outlook, and had protested against his blunt insistence.

  “But, John, there’s no society—just elementary work—”

  John had met this objection with, “Humph!” as he left for his office. Next day he had returned to the subject.

  “Been looking up Tooms County. Find some Cresswells there—big plantations—rated at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Some others, too; big cotton county.”

  “You ought to know, John, if I teach Negroes I’ll scarcely see much of people in my own class.”

  “Nonsense! Butt in. Show off. Give ’em your Greek—and study Cotton. At any rate, I say go.”

  And so, howsoever reluctantly, she had gone.

  The trial was all she had anticipated, and possibly a bit more. She was a pretty young woman of twenty-three, fair and rather daintily moulded. In favorable surroundings, she would have been an aristocrat and an epicure. Here she was teaching dirty children, and the smell of confused odors and bodily perspiration was to her at times unbearable.

  Then there was the fact of their color: it was a fact so insistent, so fatal she almost said at times, that she could not escape it. Theoretically she had always treated it with disdainful ease.

  “What’s the mere color of a human soul’s skin,” she had cried to a Wellesley audience and the audience had applauded with enthusiasm. But here in Alabama, brought closely and intimately in touch with these dark skinned children, their color struck her at first with a sort of terror—it seemed ominous and forbidding. She found herself shrinking away and gripping herself lest they should perceive. She could not help but think that in most other things they were as different from her as in color. She groped for new ways to teach colored brains and marshal colored thoughts and the result was puzzling both to teacher and student. With the other teachers she had little commerce. They were in no sense her sort of folk. Miss Smith represented the older New England of her parents—honest, inscrutable, determined, with a conscience which she worshipped, and utterly unselfish. She appealed to Miss Taylor’s ruddier and daintier vision but dimly and distantly as some memory of the past. The other teachers were indistinct personalities, always very busy and very tired, and talking “school-room” with their meals. Miss Taylor was soon starving for human companionship, for the lighter touches of life and some of its warmth and laughter. She wanted a glance of the new books and periodicals and talk of great philanthropies and reforms. She felt out of the world, shut in and mentally anæmic; great as the “Negro Problem” might be as a world problem, it looked sordid and small at close range. So for the hundredth time she was thinking today, as she walked alone up the lane back of the barn, and then slowly down through the bottoms. She paused a moment and nodded to the two boys at work in a young cotton field.