The Quest of the Silver Fleece Read online

  “Cotton!”

  She paused. She remembered with what interest she had always read of this little thread of the world. She had almost forgotten that it was here within touch and sight. For a moment something of the vision of Cotton was mirrored in her mind. The glimmering sea of delicate leaves whispered and murmured before her, stretching away to the Northward. She remembered that beyond this little world it stretched on and on—how far she did not know—but on and on in a great trembling sea, and the foam of its mighty waters would one time flood the ends of the earth.

  She glimpsed all this with parted lips, and then sighed impatiently. There might be a bit of poetry here and there, but most of this place was such desperate prose.

  She glanced absently at the boys.

  One was Bles Alwyn, a tall black lad. (Bles, she mused,—now who would think of naming a boy “Blessed,” save these incomprehensible creatures!) Her regard shifted to the green stalks and leaves again, and she started to move away. Then her New England conscience stepped in. She ought not to pass these students without a word of encouragement or instruction.

  “Cotton is a wonderful thing, is it not, boys?” she said rather primly. The boys touched their hats and murmured something indistinctly. Miss Taylor did not know much about cotton, but at least one more remark seemed called for.

  “How long before the stalks will be ready to cut?” she asked carelessly. The farther boy coughed and Bles raised his eyes and looked at her; then after a pause he answered slowly. (Oh! these people were so slow—now a New England boy would have answered and asked a half-dozen questions in the time.)

  “I—I don’t know,” he faltered.

  “Don’t know! Well, of all things!” inwardly commented Miss Taylor—“literally born in cotton, and—Oh, well,” as much as to ask, “What’s the use?” She turned again to go.

  “What is planted over there?” she asked, although she really didn’t care.

  “Goobers,” answered the smaller boy.

  “Goobers?” uncomprehendingly.

  “Peanuts,” Bles specified.

  “Oh!” murmured Miss Taylor. “I see there are none on the vines yet. I suppose, though, it’s too early for them.”

  Then came the explosion. The smaller boy just snorted with irrepressible laughter and bolted across the fields. And Bles—was Miss Taylor deceived?—or was he chuckling? She reddened, drew herself up, and then, dropping her primness, rippled with laughter.

  “What is the matter, Bles?” she asked.

  He looked at her with twinkling eyes.

  “Well, you see, Miss Taylor, it’s like this: farming don’t seem to be your specialty.”

  The word was often on Miss Taylor’s lips, and she recognized it. Despite herself she smiled again.

  “Of course, it isn’t—I don’t know anything about farming. But what did I say so funny?”

  Bles was now laughing outright.

  “Why, Miss Taylor! I declare! Goobers don’t grow on the tops of vines, but underground on the roots—like yams.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, and we—we don’t pick cotton stalks except for kindling.”

  “I must have been thinking of hemp. But tell me more about cotton.”

  His eyes lighted, for cotton was to him a very real and beautiful thing, and a life-long companion, yet not one whose friendship had been coarsened and killed by heavy toil. He leaned against his hoe and talked half dreamily—where had he learned so well that dream-talk?

  “We turn up the earth and sow it soon after Christmas. Then pretty soon there comes a sort of greenness on the black land and it swells and grows and, and—shivers. Then stalks shoot up with three or four leaves. That’s the way it is now, see? After that we chop out the weak stalks, and the strong ones grow tall and dark, till I think it must be like the ocean—all green and billowy; then come little flecks here and there and the sea is all filled with flowers—flowers like little bells, blue and purple and white.”

  “Ah! that must be beautiful,” sighed Miss Taylor, wistfully, sinking to the ground and clasping her hands about her knees.

  “Yes, ma’am. But it’s prettiest when the bolls come and swell and burst, and the cotton covers the field like foam, all misty—”

  She bent wondering over the pale plants. The poetry of the thing began to sing within her, awakening her unpoetic imagination, and she murmured:

  “The Golden Fleece—it’s the Silver Fleece!”

  He harkened.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Have you never heard of the Golden Fleece, Bles?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said eagerly; then glancing up toward the Cresswell fields, he saw two white men watching them. He grasped his hoe and started briskly to work.

  “Some time you’ll tell me, please, won’t you?”

  She glanced at her watch in surprise and arose hastily.

  “Yes, with pleasure,” she said moving away—at first very fast, and then more and more slowly up the lane, with a puzzled look on her face.

  She began to realize that in this pleasant little chat the fact of the boy’s color had quite escaped her; and what especially puzzled her was that this had not happened before. She had been here four months, and yet every moment up to now she seemed to have been vividly, almost painfully conscious, that she was a white woman talking to black folk. Now, for one little half-hour she had been a woman talking to a boy—no, not even that: she had been talking—just talking; there were no persons in the conversation, just things—one thing: Cotton.

  She started thinking of cotton—but at once she pulled herself back to the other aspect. Always before she had been veiled from these folk: who had put the veil there? Had she herself hung it before her soul, or had they hidden timidly behind its other side? Or was it simply a brute fact, regardless of both of them?

  The longer she thought, the more bewildered she grew. There seemed no analogy that she knew. Here was a unique thing, and she climbed to her bedroom and stared at the stars.

  Four

  TOWN

  John Taylor had written to his sister. He wanted information, very definite information, about Tooms County cotton; about its stores, its people—especially its people. He propounded a dozen questions, sharp, searching questions, and he wanted the answers tomorrow. Impossible! thought Miss Taylor. He had calculated on her getting this letter yesterday, forgetting that their mail was fetched once a day from the town, four miles away. Then, too, she did not know all these matters and knew no one who did. Did John think she had nothing else to do? And sighing at the thought of to-morrow’s drudgery, she determined to consult Miss Smith in the morning.

  Miss Smith suggested a drive to town—Bles could take her in the top-buggy after school—and she could consult some of the merchants and business men. She could then write her letter and mail it there; it would be but a day or so late getting to New York.

  “Of course,” said Miss Smith drily, slowly folding her napkin, “of course, the only people here are the Cresswells.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Miss Taylor invitingly. There was an allurement about this all-pervasive name; it held her by a growing fascination and she was anxious for the older woman to amplify. Miss Smith, however, remained provokingly silent, so Miss Taylor essayed further.

  “What sort of people are the Cresswells?” she asked.

  “The old man’s a fool; the young one a rascal; the girl a ninny,” was Miss Smith’s succinct and acid classification of the county’s first family; adding, as she rose, “but they own us body and soul.” She hurried out of the dining-room without further remark. Miss Smith was more patient with black folk than with white.

  The sun was hanging just above the tallest trees of the swamp when Miss Taylor, weary with the day’s work, climbed into the buggy beside Bles. They wheeled comfortably down the road, leaving the sombre swamp, with its black-green, to the right, and heading toward the golden-green of waving cotton fields. Miss Taylor lay back, listlessl
y, and drank the soft warm air of the languorous Spring. She thought of the golden sheen of the cotton, and the cold March winds of New England; of her brother who apparently noted nothing of leaves and winds and seasons; and of the mighty Cresswells whom Miss Smith so evidently disliked. Suddenly she became aware of her long silence and the silence of the boy.

  “Bles,” she began didactically, “where are you from?”

  He glanced across at her and answered shortly:

  “Georgia, ma’am,” and was silent.

  The girl tried again.

  “Georgia is a large State,”—tentatively.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Are you going back there when you finish?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you ought to—and work for your people.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She stopped, puzzled, and looked about. The old horse jogged lazily on, and Bles switched him unavailingly. Somehow she had missed the way today. The Veil hung thick, sombre, impenetrable. Well, she had done her duty, and slowly she nestled back and watched the far-off green and golden radiance of the cotton.

  “Bles,” she said impulsively, “shall I tell you of the Golden Fleece?”

  He glanced at her again.

  “Yes’m, please,” he said.

  She settled herself almost luxuriously, and began the story of Jason and the Argonauts.

  The boy remained silent. And when she had finished, he still sat silent, elbow on knee, absently flicking the jogging horse and staring ahead at the horizon. She looked at him doubtfully with some disappointment that his hearing had apparently shared so little of the joy of her telling; and, too, there was mingled a vague sense of having lowered herself to too familiar fellowship with this—this boy. She straightened herself instinctively and thought of some remark that would restore proper relations. She had not found it before he said, slowly:

  “All yon is Jason’s.”

  “What?” she asked, puzzled.

  He pointed with one sweep of his long arm to the quivering mass of green-gold foliage that swept from swamp to horizon.

  “All yon golden fleece is Jason’s now,” he repeated.

  “I thought it was—Cresswell’s,” she said.

  “That’s what I mean.”

  She suddenly understood that the story had sunk deeply.

  “I am glad to hear you say that,” she said methodically, “for Jason was a brave adventurer—”

  “I thought he was a thief.”

  “Oh, well—those were other times.”

  “The Cresswells are thieves now.”

  Miss Taylor answered sharply.

  “Bles, I am ashamed to hear you talk so of your neighbors simply because they are white.”

  But Bles continued.

  “This is the Black Sea,” he said, pointing to the dull cabins that crouched here and there upon the earth, with the dark twinkling of their black folk darting out to see the strangers ride by.

  Despite herself Miss Taylor caught the allegory and half whispered, “Lo! the King himself!” as a black man almost rose from the tangled earth at their side. He was tall and thin and sombre-hued, with a carven face and thick gray hair.

  “Your servant, mistress,” he said, with a sweeping bow as he strode toward the swamp. Miss Taylor stopped him, for he looked interesting, and might answer some of her brother’s questions. He turned back and stood regarding her with sorrowful eyes and ugly mouth.

  “Do you live about here?” she asked.

  “I’se lived here a hundred years,” he answered. She did not believe it; he might be seventy, eighty, or even ninety—indeed, there was about him that indefinable sense of age—some shadow of endless living; but a hundred seemed absurd.

  “You know the people pretty well, then?”

  “I knows dem all. I knows most of ’em better dan dey knows dem-selves. I knows a heap of tings in dis world and in de next.”

  “This is a great cotton country?”

  “Dey don’t raise no cotton now to what dey used to when old Gen’rel Cresswell fust come from Carolina; den it was a bale and a half to the acre on stalks dat looked like young brushwood. Dat was cotton.”

  “You know the Cresswells, then?”

  “Know dem? I knowed dem afore dey was born.”

  “They are—wealthy people?”

  “Dey rolls in money and dey’se quality, too. No shoddy upstarts dem, but born to purple, lady, born to purple. Old Gen’ral Cresswell had niggers and acres no end back dere in Carolina. He brung a part of dem here and here his son, de father of dis Colonel Cresswell, was born. De son—I knowed him well—he had a tousand niggers and ten tousand acres afore de war.”

  “Were they kind to their slaves?”

  “Oh, yaas, yaas, ma’am, dey was careful of de’re niggers and wouldn’t let de drivers whip ’em much.”

  “And these Cresswells today?”

  “Oh, dey’re quality—high-blooded folks—dey’se lost some land and niggers, but, lordy, nuttin’ can buy de Cresswells, dey naturally owns de world.”

  “Are they honest and kind?”

  “Oh, yaas, ma’am—dey’se good white folks.”

  “Good white folk?”

  “Oh, yaas, ma’am—course you knows white folks will be white folks—white folks will be white folks. Your servant, ma’am.” And the swamp swallowed him.

  The boy’s eyes followed him as he whipped up the horse.

  “He’s going to Elspeth’s,” he said.

  “Who is he?”

  “We just call him Old Pappy—he’s a preacher, and some folks say a conjure man, too.”

  “And who is Elspeth?”

  “She lives in the swamp—she’s a kind of witch, I reckon, like—like—”

  “Like Medea?”

  “Yes—only—I don’t know—” and he grew thoughtful.

  The road turned now and far away to the eastward rose the first straggling cabins of the town. Creeping toward them down the road rolled a dark squat figure. It grew and spread slowly on the horizon until it became a fat old black woman, hooded and aproned, with great round hips and massive bosom. Her face was heavy and homely until she looked up and lifted the drooping cheeks, and then kindly old eyes beamed on the young teacher, as she curtsied and cried:

  “Good-evening, honey! Good-evening! You sure is pretty dis evening.”

  “Why, Aunt Rachel, how are you?” There was genuine pleasure in the girl’s tone.

  “Just tolerable, honey, bless de Lord! Rumatiz is kind o’ bad and Aunt Rachel ain’t so young as she use ter be.”

  “And what brings you to town afoot this time of day?”

  The face fell again to dull care and the old eyes crept away. She fumbled with her cane.

  “It’s de boys again, honey,” she returned solemnly; “dey’se good boys, dey is good to de’re old mammy, but dey’se high strung and dey gits fighting and drinking and—and—last Saturday night dey got took up again. I’se been to Jedge Grey—I use to tote him on my knee, honey—I’se been to him to plead him not to let ’em go on de gang, ’cause you see, honey,” and she stroked the girl’s sleeve as if pleading with her, too, “you see it done ruins boys to put ’em on de gang.

  Miss Taylor tried hard to think of something comforting to say, but words seemed inadequate to cheer the old soul; but after a few moments they rode on, leaving the kind face again beaming and dimpling.

  And now the country town of Toomsville lifted itself above the cotton and corn, fringed with dirty straggling cabins of black folk. The road swung past the iron watering trough, turned sharply and, after passing two or three pert cottages and a stately house, old and faded, opened into the wide square. Here pulsed the very life and being of the land. Yonder great bales of cotton, yellow-white in its soiled sacking, piled in lofty, dusty mountains, lay listening for the train that, twice a day, ran out to the greater world. Round about, tied to the well-gnawed hitching rails, were rows of mules—mules with ba
ck cloths; mules with saddles; mules hitched to long wagons, buggies, and rickety gigs; mules munching golden ears of corn, and mules drooping their heads in sorrowful memory of better days.

  Beyond the cotton warehouse smoked the chimneys of the seed-mill and the cotton-gin; a red livery-stable faced them and all about three sides of the square ran stores; big stores and small wide-windowed, narrow stores. Some had old steps above the worn clay side-walks, and some were flush with the ground. All had a general sense of dilapidation—save one, the largest and most imposing, a three-story brick. This was Caldwell’s “Emporium”; and here Bles stopped and Miss Taylor entered.

  Mr. Caldwell himself hurried forward; and the whole store, clerks and customers, stood at attention, for Miss Taylor was yet new to the county.

  She bought a few trifles and then approached her main business.

  “My brother wants some information about the county, Mr. Caldwell, and I am only a teacher, and do not know much about conditions here.”

  “Ah! where do you teach?” asked Mr. Caldwell. He was certain he knew the teachers of all the white schools in the county. Miss Taylor told him. He stiffened slightly but perceptibly, like a man clicking the buckles of his ready armor, and two townswomen who listened gradually turned their backs, but remained near.

  “Yes—yes,” he said, with uncomfortable haste. “Any—er—information—of course—” Miss Taylor got out her notes.