The Quest of the Silver Fleece by W. E. B. Du Bois

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"Just what is your plan?" asked Taylor, quite as if he did not know.

"Why, man, the transfer of a hundred millions of stock would give me
control of the cotton-mills of America. Think of it!--the biggest trust
next to steel."

"Why not bigger?" asked Taylor, imperturbably puffing away. Mr. Easterly
eyed him. He had regarded Taylor hitherto as a very valuable asset to
the business--had relied on his knowledge of routine, his judgment and
his honesty; but he detected tonight a new tone in his clerk, something
almost authoritative and self-reliant. He paused and smiled at him.

"Bigger?"

But John Taylor was dead in earnest. He did not smile.

"First, there's England--and all Europe; why not bring them into the
trust?"

"Possibly, later; but first, America. Of course, I've got my eyes on the
European situation and feelers out; but such matters are more difficult
and slower of adjustment over there--so damned much law and gospel."

"But there's another side."

"What's that?"

"You are planning to combine and control the manufacture of cotton--"

"Yes."

"But how about your raw material? The steel trust owns its iron mines."

"Of course--mines could be monopolized and hold the trust up; but our
raw material is perfectly safe--farms growing smaller, farms isolated,
and we fixing the price. It's a cinch."

"Are you sure?" Taylor surveyed him with a narrowed look.

"Certain."

"I'm not. I've been looking up things, and there are three points you'd
better study: First, cotton farms are not getting smaller; they're
getting bigger almighty fast, and there's a big cotton-land monopoly in
sight. Second, the banks and wholesale houses in the South _can_ control
the cotton output if they work together. Third, watch the Southern
'Farmers' League' of big landlords."

Mr. Easterly threw away his cigar and sat down. Taylor straightened up,
switched on the porch light, and took a bundle of papers from his coat
pocket.

"Here are census figures," he said, "commercial reports and letters."
They pored over them a half hour. Then Easterly arose.

"There's something in it," he admitted, "but what can we do? What do you
propose?"

"Monopolize the growth as well as the manufacture of cotton, and use
the first to club European manufacturers into submission."

Easterly stared at him.

"Good Lord!" he ejaculated; "you're crazy!"

But Taylor smiled a slow, thin smile, and put away his papers. Easterly
continued to stare at his subordinate with a sort of fascination, with
the awe that one feels when genius unexpectedly reveals itself from a
source hitherto regarded as entirely ordinary. At last he drew a long
breath, remarking indefinitely:

"I'll think it over."

A stir in the parlor indicated departure.

"Well, you watch the Farmers' League, and note its success and methods,"
counselled John Taylor, his tone and manner unchanged. "Then figure what
it might do in the hands of--let us say, friends."

"Who's running it?"

"A Colonel Cresswell is its head, and happens also to be the force
behind it. Aristocratic family--big planter--near where my sister
teaches."

"H'm--well, we'll watch _him_."

"And say," as Easterly was turning away, "you know Congressman Smith?"

"I should say I did."

"Well, Mrs. Grey seems to be depending on him for advice in distributing
some of her charity funds."

Easterly appeared startled.

"She is, is she!" he exclaimed. "But here come the ladies." He went
forward at once, but John Taylor drew back. He noted Mrs. Vanderpool,
and thought her too thin and pale. The dashing young Miss Easterly was
more to his taste. He intended to have a wife like that one of these
days.

"Mary," said he to his sister as he finally rose to go, "tell me about
the Cresswells."

Mary explained to him at length the impossibility of her knowing much
about the local white aristocracy of Tooms County, and then told him all
she had heard.

"Mrs. Grey talked to you much?"

"Yes."

"About darky schools?"

"Yes."

"What does she intend to do?"

"I think she will aid Miss Smith first."

"Did you suggest anything?"

"Well, I told her what I thought about cooeperating with the local white
people."

"The Cresswells?"

"Yes--you see Mrs. Vanderpool knows the Cresswells."

"Does, eh? Good! Say, that's a good point. You just bear heavy on
it--cooeperate with the Cresswells."

"Why, yes. But--you see, John, I don't just know whether one _could_
cooeperate with the Cresswells or not--one hears such contradictory
stories of them. But there must be some other white people--"

"Stuff! It's the Cresswells we want."

"Well," Mary was very dubious, "they are--the most important."

_Seven_

THE PLACE OF DREAMS

When she went South late in September, Mary Taylor had two definite but
allied objects: she was to get all possible business information
concerning the Cresswells, and she was to induce Miss Smith to prepare
for Mrs. Grey's benevolence by interesting the local whites in her work.
The programme attracted Miss Taylor. She felt in touch, even if dimly
and slightly, with great industrial movements, and she felt, too, like a
discerning pioneer in philanthropy. Both roles she liked. Besides, they
held, each, certain promises of social prestige; and society, Miss
Taylor argued, one must have even in Alabama.

Bles Alwyn met her at the train. He was growing to be a big fine bronze
giant, and Mary was glad to see him. She especially tried, in the first
few weeks of opening school, to glean as much information as possible
concerning the community, and particularly the Cresswells. She found the
Negro youth quicker, surer, and more intelligent in his answers than
those she questioned elsewhere, and she gained real enjoyment from her
long talks with him.

"Isn't Bles developing splendidly?" she said to Miss Smith one
afternoon. There was an unmistakable note of enthusiasm in her voice.
Miss Smith slowly closed her letter-file but did not look up.

"Yes," she said crisply. "He's eighteen now--quite a man."

"And most interesting to talk with."

"H'm--very"--drily. Mary was busy with her own thoughts, and she did not
notice the other woman's manner.

"Do you know," she pursued, "I'm a little afraid of one thing."

"So am I."

"Oh, you've noted it, too?--his friendship for that impossible girl,
Zora?"

Miss Smith gave her a searching look.

"What of it?" she demanded.

"She is so far beneath him."

"How so?"

"She is a bold, godless thing; I don't understand her."

"The two are not quite the same."

"Of course not; but she is unnaturally forward."

"Too bright," Miss Smith amplified.

"Yes; she knows quite too much. You surely remember that awful scarlet
dress? Well, all her clothes have arrived, or remained, at a simplicity
and vividness that is--well--immodest."

"Does she think them immodest?"

"What she thinks is a problem."

"_The_ problem, you mean?"

"Well, yes."

They paused a moment. Then Miss Smith said slowly: "What I don't
understand, I don't judge."

"No, but you can't always help seeing and meeting it," laughed Miss
Taylor.

"Certainly not. I don't try; I court the meeting and seeing. It is the
only way."

"Well, perhaps, for us--but not for a boy like Bles, and a girl like
Zora."

"True; men and women must exercise judgment in their intercourse
and"--she glanced sharply at Miss Taylor--"my dear, you yourself must
not forget that Bles Alwyn is a man."

Far up the road came a low, long, musical shouting; then with creaking
and straining of wagons, four great black mules dashed into sight with
twelve bursting bales of yellowish cotton looming and swaying behind.
The drivers and helpers were lolling and laughing and singing, but Miss
Taylor did not hear nor see. She had sat suddenly upright; her face had
flamed crimson, and then went dead white.

"Miss--Miss Smith!" she gasped, overwhelmed with dismay, a picture of
wounded pride and consternation.

Miss Smith turned around very methodically and took her hand; but while
she spoke the girl merely stared at her in stony silence.

"Now, dear, don't mean more than I do. I'm an old woman, and I've seen
many things. This is but a little corner of the world, and yet many
people pass here in thirty years. The trouble with new teachers who come
is, that like you, they cannot see black folk as human. All to them are
either impossible Zoras, or else lovable Blessings. They forget that
Zora is not to be annihilated, but studied and understood, and that Bles
is a young man of eighteen and not a clod."

"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 bed-clothes 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 Miss Taylor's blue eyes. Miss
Taylor looked into the velvet blackness of hers and wondered what they
veiled.

"Is it wrong," asked Zora, "to make believe you likes people when you
don't, when you'se afeared of them and thinks they may rub off and dirty
you?"

"Why--why--yes, if you--if you, deceive."

"Then you lies sometimes, don't you?"

Miss Taylor stared helplessly at the solemn eyes that seemed to look so
deeply into her.

"Perhaps--I do, Zora; I'm sure I don't mean to, and--I hope God will
forgive me."

Zora softened.

"Oh, I reckon He will if He's a good God, because He'd know that lies
like that are heaps better than blabbing the truth right out. Only," she
added severely, "you mustn't keep saying it's wicked to lie 'cause it
ain't. Sometimes I lies," she reflected pensively, "and sometimes I
don't--it depends."

Miss Taylor forgot her collar, and fingered the pin on the desk. She
felt at once a desperate desire to know this girl better and to
establish her own authority. Yet how should she do it? She kept toying
with the pin, and Zora watched her. Then Miss Taylor said, absently:

"Zora, what do you propose to do when you grow up?"

Zora considered.

"Think and walk--and rest," she concluded.

"I mean, what work?"

"Work? Oh, I sha'n't work. I don't like work--do you?"

Miss Taylor winced, wondering if the girl were lying again. She said
quickly:

"Why, yes--that is, I like some kinds of work."

"What kinds?"

But Miss Taylor refused to have the matter made personal, as Zora had a
disconcerting way of pointing all their discussions.

"Everybody likes some kinds of work," she insisted.

"If you likes it, it ain't work," declared Zora; but Mary Taylor
proceeded around her circumscribed circle:

"You might make a good cook, or a maid."

"I hate cooking. What's a maid?"

"Why, a woman who helps others."

"Helps folks that they love? I'd like that."

"It is not a question of affection," said Miss Taylor, firmly: "one is
paid for it."

"I wouldn't work for pay."

"But you'll have to, child; you'll have to earn a living."

"Do you work for pay?"

"I work to earn a living."

"Same thing, I reckon, and it ain't true. Living just comes free,
like--like sunshine."

"Stuff! Zora, your people must learn to work and work steadily and work
hard--" She stopped, for she was sure Zora was not listening; the far
away look was in her eyes and they were shining. She was beautiful as
she stood there--strangely, almost uncannily, but startlingly beautiful
with her rich dark skin, softly moulded features, and wonderful eyes.

"My people?--my people?" she murmured, half to herself. "Do you know my
people? They don't never work; they plays. They is all little, funny
dark people. They flies and creeps and crawls, slippery-like; and they
cries and calls. Ah, my people! my poor little people! they misses me
these days, because they is shadowy things that sing and smell and bloom
in dark and terrible nights--"

Miss Taylor started up. "Zora, I believe you're crazy!" she cried. But
Zora was looking at her calmly again.

"We'se both crazy, ain't we?" she returned, with a simplicity that left
the teacher helpless.

Miss Taylor hurried out, forgetting her pin. Zora looked it over
leisurely, and tried it on. She decided that she liked it, and putting
it in her pocket, went out too.

School was out but the sun was still high, as Bles hurried from the barn
up the big road beside the soft shadows of the swamp. His head was busy
with new thoughts and his lips were whistling merrily, for today Zora
was to show him the long dreamed of spot for the planting of the Silver
Fleece. He hastened toward the Cresswell mansion, and glanced anxiously
up the road. At last he saw her coming, swinging down the road, lithe
and dark, with the big white basket of clothes poised on her head.

"Zora," he yodled, and she waved her apron.

He eased her burden to the ground and they sat down together, he
nervous and eager; she silent, passive, but her eyes restless. Bles was
full of his plans.

"Zora," he said, "we'll make it the finest bale ever raised in Tooms;
we'll just work it to the inch--just love it into life."

She considered the matter intently.

"But,"--presently,--"how can we sell it without the Cresswells knowing?"

"We won't try; we'll just take it to them and give them half, like the
other tenants."

"But the swamp is mortal thick and hard to clear."

"We can do it."

Zora had sat still, listening; but now, suddenly, she leapt to her feet.

"Come," she said, "I'll take the clothes home, then we'll go"--she
glanced at him--"down where the dreams are." And laughing, they hurried
on.

Elspeth stood in the path that wound down to the cottage, and without a
word Zora dropped the basket at her feet. She turned back; but Bles,
struck by a thought, paused. The old woman was short, broad, black and
wrinkled, with yellow fangs, red hanging lips, and wicked eyes. She
leered at them; the boy shrank before it, but stood his ground.

"Aunt Elspeth," he began, "Zora and I are going to plant and tend some
cotton to pay for her schooling--just the very best cotton we can
find--and I heard"--he hesitated,--"I heard you had some wonderful
seed."

"Yes," she mumbled, "I'se got the seed--I'se got it--wonder seed, sowed
wid the three spells of Obi in the old land ten tousand moons ago. But
you couldn't plant it," with a sudden shrillness, "it would kill you."

"But--" Bles tried to object, but she waved him away.

"Git the ground--git the ground; dig it--pet it, and we'll see what
we'll see." And she disappeared.

Zora was not sure that it had been wise to tell their secret.

"I was going to steal the seed," she said. "I knows where it is, and I
don't fear conjure."

"You mustn't steal, Zora," said Bles, gravely.

"Why?" Zora quickly asked.

But before he answered, they both forgot; for their faces were turned
toward the wonder of the swamp. The golden sun was pouring floods of
glory through the slim black trees, and the mystic sombre pools caught
and tossed back the glow in darker, duller crimson. Long echoing cries
leapt to and fro; silent footsteps crept hither and yonder; and the
girl's eyes gleamed with a wild new joy.

"The dreams!" she cried. "The dreams!" And leaping ahead, she danced
along the shadowed path. He hastened after her, but she flew fast and
faster; he followed, laughing, calling, pleading. He saw her twinkling
limbs a-dancing as once he saw them dance in a halo of firelight; but
now the fire was the fire of the world. Her garments twined and flew in
shadowy drapings about the perfect moulding of her young and dark
half-naked figure. Her heavy hair had burst its fastenings and lay in
stiffened, straggling masses, bending reluctantly to the breeze, like
curled smoke; while all about, the mad, wild singing rose and fell and
trembled, till his head whirled. He paused uncertainly at a parting of
the paths, crying:

"Zora! Zora!" as for some lost soul. "Zora! Zora!" echoed the cry,
faintly.

Abruptly the music fell; there came a long slow-growing silence; and
then, with a flutter, she was beside him again, laughing in his ears and
crying with mocking voice:

"Is you afeared, honey?"

He saw in her eyes sweet yearnings, but could speak nothing. He could
only clasp her hand tightly, and again down they raced through the wood.

All at once the swamp changed and chilled to a dull grayness; tall,
dull trees started down upon the murky waters; and long pendent
streamings of moss-like tears dripped from tree to earth. Slowly and
warily they threaded their way.

"Are you sure of the path, Zora?" he once inquired anxiously.

"I could find it asleep," she answered, skipping sure-footed onward. He
continued to hold her hand tightly, and his own pace never slackened.
Around them the gray and death-like wilderness darkened. They felt and
saw the cold white mist rising slowly from the ground, and waters
growing blacker and broader.

At last they came to what seemed the end. Silently and dismally the
half-dead forest, with its ghostly moss, lowered and darkened, and the
black waters spread into a great silent lake of slimy ooze. The dead
trunk of a fallen tree lay straight in front, torn and twisted, its top
hidden yonder and mingled with impenetrable undergrowth.

"Where now, Zora?" he cried.

In a moment she had slipped her hand away and was scrambling upon the
tree trunk. The waters yawned murkily below.

"Careful! careful!" he warned, struggling after her until she
disappeared amid the leaves. He followed eagerly, but cautiously; and
all at once found himself confronting a paradise.

Before them lay a long island, opening to the south, on the black lake,
but sheltered north and east by the dense undergrowth of the black swamp
and the rampart of dead and living trees. The soil was virgin and black,
thickly covered over with a tangle of bushes, vines, and smaller growth
all brilliant with early leaves and wild flowers.

"A pretty tough proposition for clearing and ploughing," said Bles, with
practised eye. But Zora eagerly surveyed the prospect.

"It's where the Dreams lives," she whispered.

Meantime Miss Taylor had missed her brooch and searched for it in vain.
In the midst of this pursuit the truth occurred to her--Zora had stolen
it. Negroes would steal, everybody said. Well, she must and would have
the pin, and she started for Elspeth's cabin.

On the way she met the old woman in the path, but got little
satisfaction. Elspeth merely grunted ungraciously while eyeing the white
woman with suspicion.

Mary Taylor, again alone, sat down at a turn in the path, just out of
sight of the house, and waited. Soon she saw, with a certain grim
satisfaction, Zora and Bles emerging from the swamp engaged in earnest
conversation. Here was an opportunity to overwhelm both with an
unforgettable reprimand. She rose before them like a spectral vengeance.

"Zora, I want my pin."

Bles started and stared; but Zora eyed her calmly with something like
disdain.

"What pin?" she returned, unmoved.

"Zora, don't deny that you took my pin from the desk this afternoon,"
the teacher commanded severely.

"I didn't say I didn't take no pin."

"Persons who will lie and steal will do anything."

"Why shouldn't people do anything they wants to?"

"And you knew the pin was mine."

"I saw you a-wearing of it," admitted Zora easily.

"Then you have stolen it, and you are a thief."

Still Zora appeared to be unimpressed with the heinousness of her fault.

"Did you make that pin?" she asked.

"No, but it is mine."

"Why is it yours?"

"Because it was given to me."

"But you don't need it; you've got four other prettier ones--I counted."

"That makes no difference."

"Yes it does--folks ain't got no right to things they don't need."

"That makes no difference, Zora, and you know it. The pin is mine. You
stole it. If you had wanted a pin and asked me I might have given you--"

The girl blazed.

"I don't want your old gifts," she almost hissed. "You don't own what
you don't need and can't use. God owns it and I'm going to send it back
to Him."

With a swift motion she whipped the pin from her pocket and raised her
arm to hurl it into the swamp. Bles caught her hand. He caught it
lightly and smiled sorrowfully into her eyes. She wavered a moment, then
the answering light sprang to her face. Dropping the brooch into his
hand, she wheeled and fled toward the cabin.

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