“But that he should dare—” Mary began breathlessly.
“He hasn’t dared,” Miss Smith went gently on. “No thought of you but as a teacher has yet entered his dear, simple head. But, my point is simply this: he’s a man, and a human one, and if you keep on making much over him, and talking to him and petting him, he’ll have the right to interpret your manner in his own way—the same that any young man would.”
“But—but, he’s a—a—”
“A Negro. To be sure, he is; and a man in addition. Now, dear, don’t take this too much to heart; this is not a rebuke, but a clumsy warning. I am simply trying to make clear to you why you should be careful. Treat poor Zora a little more lovingly, and Bles a little less warmly. They are just human—but, oh! so human.”
Mary Taylor rose up stiffly and mumbled a brief good night. She went to her room, and sat down in the dark. The mere mention of the thing was to her so preposterous—no, loathsome, she kept repeating.
She slowly undressed in the dark, and heard the rumbling of the cotton wagons as they swayed toward town. The cry of the Naked was sweeping the world, and yonder in the night black men were answering the call. They knew not what or why they answered, but obeyed the irresistible call, with hearts light and song upon their lips—the Song of Service. They lashed their mules and drank their whiskey, and all night the piled fleece swept by Mary Taylor’s window, flying—flying to that far cry. Miss Taylor turned uneasily in her bed and jerked the bedclothes about her ears.
“Mrs. Vanderpool is right,” she confided to the night, with something of the awe with which one suddenly comprehends a hidden oracle; “there must be a difference, always, always! That impudent Negro!”
All night she dreamed, and all day—especially when trim and immaculate she sat in her chair and looked down upon fifty dark faces—and upon Zora.
Zora sat thinking. She saw neither Miss Taylor nor the long straight rows of desks and faces. She heard neither the drone of the spellers nor did she hear Miss Taylor say, “Zora!” She heard and saw none of this. She only heard the prattle of the birds in the wood, far down where the Silver Fleece would be planted.
For the time of cotton-planting was coming; the gray and drizzle of December was past and the hesitation, of January. Already a certain warmth and glow had stolen into the air, and the Swamp was calling its child with low, seductive voice. She knew where the first leaves were bursting, where tiny flowers nestled, and where young living things looked upward to the light and cried and crawled. A wistful longing was stealing into her heart. She wanted to be free. She wanted to run and dance and sing, but Bles wanted—
“Zora!”
This time she heard the call, but did not heed it. Miss Taylor was very tiresome, and was forever doing and saying silly things. So Zora paid no attention, but sat still and thought. Yes, she would show Bles the place that very night; she had kept it secret from him until now, out of perverseness, out of her love of mystery and secrets. But tonight, after school, when he met her on the big road with the clothes, she would take him and show him the chosen spot.
Soon she was aware that school had been dismissed, and she leisurely gathered up her books and rose. Mary Taylor regarded her in perplexed despair. Oh, these people! Mrs. Vanderpool was right: culture and—some masses, at least—were not to be linked; and, too, culture and work—were they incompatible? At any rate, culture and this work were.
Now, there was Mrs. Vanderpool—she toiled not, neither did she spin, and yet! If all these folk were like poor, stupid, docile Jennie it would be simpler, but what earthly sense was there in trying do to anything with a girl like Zora, so stupid in some matters, so startlingly bright in others, and so stubborn in everything? Here, she was doing some work twice as well and twice as fast as the class, and other work she would not touch because she “didn’t like it.” Her classification in school was nearly as difficult as her classification in the world, and Miss Taylor reached up impatiently and removed the gold pin from her stock to adjust it more comfortably when Zora sauntered past unseeing, unheeding, with that curious gliding walk which Miss Taylor called stealthy. She laid the pin on the desk and on sudden impulse spoke again to the girl as she arranged her neck trimmings.
“Zora,” she said evenly, “why didn’t you come to class when I called?”
“I didn’t hear you,” said Zora, looking at her full-eyed and telling the half-truth easily.
Miss Taylor was sure Zora was lying, and she knew that she had lied to her on other occasions. Indeed, she had found lying customary in this community, and she had a New England horror of it. She looked at Zora disapprovingly, while Zora looked at her quite impersonally, but steadily. Then Miss Taylor braced herself, mentally, and took the war into Africa.
“Do you ever tell lies, Zora?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you know that is a wicked, bad habit?”
“Why?”
“Because God hates them.”
“How does you know He does?” Zora’s tone was still impersonal.
“He hates all evil.”
“But why is lies evil?”
“Because they make us deceive each other.”
“Is that wrong?”
“Yes.”
Zora bent forward and looked squarely into
