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

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These conclusions she did not pretend to have originated; but she
adopted them from reading and conversation, after hesitating for a year
before such puzzling contradictions as Bles Alwyn and Harry Cresswell.
For her to conclude to treat Bles Alwyn as a man despite his color was
as impossible as to think Mr. Cresswell a criminal. Some compromise was
imperative which would save her the pleasure of Mr. Cresswell's company
and at the same time leave open a way of fulfilling the world's duty to
this black boy. She thought she had found this compromise and she wrote
Mrs. Grey suggesting a chain of endowed Negro schools under the
management of trustees composed of Northern business men and local
Southern whites. Mrs. Grey acquiesced gladly and announced her plan,
eventually writing Miss Smith of her decision "to second her noble
efforts in helping the poor colored people," and she hoped to have the
plan under way before next fall.

The sharpness of Miss Smith's joy did not let her dwell on the proposed
"Board of Trust"; of course, it would be a board of friends of the
school.

She sat in her office looking out across the land. School had closed for
the year and Bles with the carryall was just taking Miss Taylor to the
train with her trunk and bags. Far up the road she could see dotted here
and there the little dirty cabins of Cresswell's tenants--the Cresswell
domain that lay like a mighty hand around the school, ready at a word to
squeeze its life out. Only yonder, to the eastward, lay the way out; the
five hundred acres of the Tolliver plantation, which the school needed
so sadly for its farm and community. But the owner was a hard and
ignorant white man, hating "niggers" only a shade more than he hated
white aristocrats of the Cresswell type. He had sold the school its
first land to pique the Cresswells; but he would not sell any more, she
was sure, even now when the promise of wealth faced the school.

She lay back and closed her eyes and fell lightly asleep. As she slept
an old woman came toiling up the hill northward from the school, and
out of the eastward spur of the Cresswell barony. She was fat and black,
hooded and aproned, with great round head and massive bosom. Her face
was dull and heavy and homely, her old eyes sorrowful. She moved
swiftly, carrying a basket on her arm. Opposite her, to the southward,
but too far for sight, an old man came out of the lower Cresswell place,
skirting the swamp. He was tall, black, and gaunt, part bald with tufted
hair, and a cowed and furtive look was in his eyes. One leg was
crippled, and he hobbled painfully.

Up the road to the eastward that ran past the school, with the morning
sun at his back, strode a young man, yellow, crisp-haired, strong-faced,
with darkly knit brows. He greeted Bles and the teacher coldly, and
moved on in nervous haste. A woman, hurrying out of the westward swamp
up the path that led from Elspeth's, saw him and shrank back hastily.
She turned quickly into the swamp and waited, looking toward the school.
The old woman hurried into the back gate just as the old man appeared to
the southward on the road. The young man greeted him cordially and they
stopped a moment to talk, while the hiding woman watched.

"Howdy, Uncle Jim."

"Howdy, son. Hit's hot, ain't it? How is you?"

"Tolerable, how are you?"

"Poorly, son, poorly--and worser in mind. I'se goin' up to talk to old
Miss."

"So am I, but I just see Aunt Rachel going in. We'd better wait."

Miss Smith started up at the timid knocking, and rubbed her eyes. It was
long since she had slept in the daytime and she was annoyed at such
laziness. She opened the back door and led the old woman to the office.

"Now, what have you got there?" she demanded, eyeing the basket.

"Just a little chicken fo' you and a few aigs."

"Oh, you are so thoughtful!" Sarah Smith's was a grateful heart.

"Go 'long now--hit ain't a thing."

Then came a pause, the old woman sliding into the proffered seat, while
over her genial, dimpled smile there dropped a dull veil of care. Her
eyes shifted uneasily. Miss Smith tried not to notice the change.

"Well, are you all moved, Aunt Rachel?" she inquired cheerfully.

"No'm, and we ain't gwine to move."

"But I thought it was all arranged."

"It was," gloomily, "but de ole Cunnel, he won't let us go."

The listener was instantly sympathetic. "Why not?" she asked.

"He says we owes him."

"But didn't you settle at Christmas?"

"Yas'm; but when he found we was goin' away, he looked up some more
debts."

"How much?"

"I don't know 'zactly--more'n a hundred dollars. Den de boys done got in
dat trouble, and he paid their fines."

"What was the trouble?"

"Well, one was a-gambling, and the other struck the overseer what was
a-whippin' him."

"Whipping him!"--in horrified exclamation, quite as much at Aunt
Rachel's matter-of-fact way of regarding the matter as at the deed
itself.

"Yas'm. He didn't do his work right and he whipped him. I speck he
needed it."

"But he's a grown man," Miss Smith urged earnestly.

"Yas'm; he's twenty now, and big."

"Whipped him!" Miss Smith repeated. "And so you can't leave?"

"No'm, he say he'll sell us out and put us in de chain-gang if we go.
The boys is plumb mad, but I'se a-pleadin' with 'em not to do nothin'
rash."

"But--but I thought they had already started to work a crop on the
Tolliver place?"

"Yes'm, dey had; but, you see, dey were arrested, and then Cunnel
Cresswell took 'em and 'lowed they couldn't leave his place. Ol' man
Tolliver was powerful mad."

"Why, Aunt Rachel, it's slavery!" cried the lady in dismay. Aunt Rachel
did not offer to dispute her declaration.

"Yas'm, hit's slavery," she agreed. "I hates it mighty bad, too, 'cause
I wanted de little chillens in school; but--" The old woman broke down
and sobbed.

A knocking came at the door; hastily wiping her eyes Aunt Rachel rose.

"I'll--I'll see what I can do, Aunt Rachel--I must do something,"
murmured Miss Smith hastily, as the woman departed, and an old black man
came limping in. Miss Smith looked up in surprise.

"I begs pardon, Mistress--I begs pardon. Good-morning."

"Good-morning--" she hesitated.

"Sykes--Jim Sykes--that's me."

"Yes, I've heard of you, Mr. Sykes; you live over south of the swamp."

"Yes, ma'am, that's me; and I'se got a little shack dar and a bit of
land what I'se trying to buy."

"Of Colonel Cresswell?"

"Yas'm, of de Cunnel."

"And how long have you been buying it?"

"Going on ten year now; and dat's what I comes to ask you about."

"Goodness me! And how much have you paid a year?"

"I gen'rally pays 'bout three bales of cotton a year."

"Does he furnish you rations?"

"Only sugar and coffee and a little meat now and then."

"What does it amount to a year?"

"I doesn't rightly know--but I'se got some papers here."

Miss Smith looked them over and sighed. It was the same old tale of
blind receipts for money "on account"--no items, no balancing. By his
help she made out that last year his total bill at Cresswell's store was
perhaps forty dollars.

"An' last year's bill was bigger'n common 'cause I hurt my leg working
at the gin and had to have some medicine."

"Why, as far as I can see, Mr. Sykes, you've paid Cresswell about a
thousand dollars in the last ten years. How large is your place?"

"About twenty acres."

"And what were you to pay for it?"

"Four hundred."

"Have you got the deed?"

"Yes'm, but I ain't finished paying yet; de Cunnel say as how I owes him
two hundred dollars still, and I can't see it. Dat's why I come over
here to talk wid you."

"Where is the deed?"

He handed it to her and her heart sank. It was no deed, but a
complicated contract binding the tenant hand and foot to the landlord.
She sighed, he watching her eagerly.

"I'se getting old," he explained, "and I ain't got nobody to take care
of me. I can't work as I once could, and de overseers dey drives me too
hard. I wants a little home to die in."

Miss Smith's throat swelled. She couldn't tell him that he would never
get one at the present rate; she only said:

"I'll--look this up. You come again next Saturday."

Then sadly she watched the ragged old slave hobble away with his
cherished "papers." He greeted the young man at the gate and passed out,
while the latter walked briskly up to the door and knocked.

"Why, how do you do, Robert?"

"How do you do, Miss Smith?"

"Well, are you getting things in shape so as to enter school early next
year?"

Robert looked embarrassed.

"That's what I came to tell you, Miss Smith. Mr. Cresswell has offered
me forty acres of good land."

Miss Smith looked disheartened.

"Robert, here you are almost finished, and my heart is set on your going
to Atlanta University and finishing college. With your fine voice and
talent for drawing--"

A dogged look settled on Robert's young bright face, and the speaker
paused.

"What's the use, Miss Smith--what opening is there for a--a nigger with
an education?"

Miss Smith was shocked.

"Why--why, every chance," she protested, "and where there's none _make_
a chance!"

"Miss Taylor says"--Miss Smith's heart sank; how often had she heard
that deadening phrase in the last year!--"that there's no use. That
farming is the only thing we ought to try to do, and I reckon she thinks
there ain't much chance even there."

"Robert, farming is a noble calling. Whether you're suited to it or not,
I don't yet know, but I'd like nothing better than to see you settled
here in a decent home with a family, running a farm. But, Robert,
farming doesn't call for less intelligence than other things; it calls
for more. It is because the world thinks any training good enough for a
farmer that the Southern farmer is today practically at the mercy of his
keener and more intelligent fellows. And of all people, Robert, your
people need trained intelligence to cope with this problem of farming
here. Without intelligence and training and some capital it is the
wildest nonsense to think you can lead your people out of slavery. Look
round you." She told him of the visitors. "Are they not hard working
honest people?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Yet they are slaves--dumb driven cattle."

"But they have no education."

"And you have a smattering; therefore are ready to pit yourself against
the organized plantation system without capital or experience. Robert,
you may succeed; you may find your landlord honest and the way clear;
but my advice to you is--finish your education, develop your talents,
and then come to your life work a full-fledged man and not a
half-ignorant boy."

"I'll think of it," returned the boy soberly. "I reckon you're right. I
know Miss Taylor don't think much of us. But I'm tired of waiting; I
want to get to work."

Miss Smith laid a kindly hand upon his shoulder.

"I've been waiting thirty years, Robert," she said, with feeling, and he
hung his head.

"I wanted to talk about it," he awkwardly responded, turning slowly
away. But Miss Smith stopped him.

"Robert, where is the land Cresswell offers you?"

"It's on the Tolliver place."

"The Tolliver place?"

"Yes, he is going to buy it."

Miss Smith dismissed the boy absently and sat down. The crisis seemed
drawing near. She had not dreamed the Tolliver place was for sale. The
old man must be hard pressed to sell to the Cresswells.

She started up. Why not go see him? Perhaps a mortgage on the strength
of the endowment? It was dangerous--but--

She threw a veil over her hair, and opened the door. A woman stood
there, who shrank and cowered, as if used to blows. Miss Smith eyed her
grimly, then slowly stepped back.

"Come in," she commanded briefly, motioning the woman to a chair.

But she stood, a pathetic figure, faded, worn, yet with unmistakable
traces of beauty in her golden face and soft brown hair. Miss Smith
contemplated her sadly. Here was her most haunting failure, this girl
whom she first had seen twelve years ago in her wonderful girlish
comeliness. She had struggled and fought for her, but the forces of the
devil had triumphed. She caught glimpses of her now and then, but today
was the first time she had spoken to her for ten years. She saw the
tears that gathered but did not fall; then her hands quivered.

"Bertie," she began brokenly. The girl shivered, but stood aloof.

"Miss Smith," she said. "No--don't talk--I'm bad--but I've got a little
girl, Miss Smith, ten years old, and--and--I'm afraid for her; I want
you to take her."

"I have no place for one so young. And why are you afraid for her?"

"The men there are beginning to notice her."

"Where?"

"At Elspeth's."

"Do you stay there now?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"_He_ wants me to."

"Must you do as he wants?"

"Yes. But I want the child--different."

"Don't _you_ want to be different?"

The woman quivered again but she answered steadily: "No."

Miss Smith sank into a chair and moistened her dry lips.

"Elspeth's is an awful place," she affirmed solemnly.

"Yes."

"And Zora?"

"She is not there much now, she stays away."

"But if she escapes, why not you?"

"She wants to escape."

"And you?"

"I don't want to."

This stubborn depravity was so distressing that Sarah Smith was at an
utter loss what to say or do.

"I can do nothing--" she began.

"For me," the woman quickly replied; "I don't ask anything; but for the
child,--she isn't to blame."

The older woman wavered.

"Won't you try?" pleaded the younger.

"Yes--I'll try, I'll try; I am trying all the time, but there are more
things than my weak strength can do. Good-bye."

Miss Smith stood a long time in the doorway, watching the fading figure
and vaguely trying to remember what it was that she had started to do,
when the sharp staccato step of a mule drew her attention to a rider who
stopped at the gate. It was her neighbor, Tolliver--a gaunt,
yellow-faced white man, ragged, rough, and unkempt; one of the poor
whites who had struggled up and failed. He spent no courtesy on the
"nigger" teacher, but sat in his saddle and called her to the gate, and
she went.

"Say," he roughly opened up, "I've got to sell some land and them damn
Cresswells are after it. You can have it for five thousand dollars if
you git the cash in a week." With a muttered oath he rode abruptly off;
but not before she had seen the tears in his eyes.

All night Sarah Smith lay thinking, and all day she thought and dreamed.
Toward dark she walked slowly out the gate and up the highway toward the
Cresswell oaks. She had never been within the gates before, and she
looked about thoughtfully. The great trees in their regular curving rows
must have been planted more than half a century ago. The lawn was well
tended and the flowers. Yes, there were signs of taste and wealth. "But
it was built on a moan," cried Miss Smith to herself, passionately, and
she would not look round any more, but stared straight ahead where she
saw old Colonel Cresswell smoking and reading on the verandah.

The Colonel saw her, too, and was uneasy, for he knew that Miss Smith
had a sharp tongue and a most disconcerting method of argument, which
he, as a Southern gentleman, courteous to all white females, even if
they did eat with "niggers," could not properly answer. He received her
with courtesy, offered a chair, laid aside his cigar, and essayed some
general remarks on cotton weather. But Miss Smith plunged into her
subject:

"Colonel Cresswell, I'm thinking of raising some money from a mortgage
on our school property."

The Colonel's face involuntarily lighted up. He thought he saw the
beginning of the end of an institution which had been a thorn in his
flesh ever since Tolliver, in a fit of rage, had sold land for a Negro
school.

"H'm," he reflected deprecatingly, wiping his brow.

"I need some ready money," she continued, "to keep from curtailing our
work."

"Indeed?"

"I have good prospects in a year or so"--the Colonel looked up sharply,
but said nothing--"and so I thought of a mortgage."

"Money is pretty tight," was the Colonel's first objection.

"The land is worth, you know, at least fifty dollars an acre."

"Not more than twenty-five dollars, I fear."

"Why, you wanted seventy-five dollars for poorer land last year! We have
two hundred acres." It was not for nothing that this lady had been born
in New England.

"I wouldn't reckon it as worth more than five thousand dollars,"
insisted the Colonel.

"And ten thousand dollars for improvements."

But the Colonel arose. "You had better talk to the directors of the
Jefferson Bank," he said politely. "They may accommodate you--how much
would you want?"

"Five thousand dollars," Miss Smith replied. Then she hesitated. That
would buy the land, to be sure; but money was needed to develop and run
it; to install tenants; and then, too, for new teachers. But she said
nothing more, and, nodding to his polite bow, departed. Colonel
Cresswell had noticed her hesitation, and thought of it as he settled to
his cigar again.

Bles Alwyn arose next morning and examined the sky critically. He
feared rain. The season had been quite wet enough, particularly down on
the swamp land, and but yesterday Bles had viewed his dykes with
apprehension for the black pool scowled about them. He dared not think
what a long heavy rain might do to the wonderful island of cotton which
now stood fully five feet high, with flowers and squares and budding
bolls. It might not rain, but the safest thing would be to work at those
dykes, so he started for spade and hoe. He heard Miss Smith calling,
however.

"Bles--hitch up!"

He was vexed. "Are you--in a hurry, Miss Smith?" he asked.

"Yes, I am," she replied, with unmistakable positiveness.

He started off, and hesitated. "Miss Smith, would Jim do to drive?"

"No," sharply. "I want you particularly." At another time she might have
observed his anxiety, but today she was agitated. She knew she was
taking a critical step.

Slowly Bles hitched up. After all it might not rain, he argued as they
jogged toward town. In silence they rode on. Bles kept looking at the
skies. The south was getting darker and darker. It might rain. It might
rain only an hour or so, but, suppose it should rain a day--two days--a
week?

Miss Smith was looking at her own skies and despite the promised sunrise
they loomed darkly. Five thousand was needed for the land and at least
another thousand for repairs. Two thousand would "buy" a half dozen
desirable tenants by paying their debts to their present landlords. Then
two thousand would be wanted for new teachers and a carpenter shop--ten
thousand dollars!

It was a great temptation. And yet, once in the hands of these
past-masters of debt-manipulation, would her school be safe? Suppose,
after all, this Grey gift--but she caught her breath sharply just as a
wet splash of rain struck upon her forehead. No. God could not be so
cruel. She pushed her bonnet back: how good and cool the water felt! But
on Bles as he raised the buggy top it felt hot and fiery.

He felt the coming of some great calamity, the end of a dream. This
rain might stay for days; it looked like such a downpour; and that would
mean the end of the Silver Fleece; the end of Zora's hopes; the end of
everything. He gulped in despairing anger and hit the staid old horse
the smartest tap she had known all summer.

"Why, Bles, what's the matter?" called Miss Smith, as the horse started
forward. He murmured something about getting wet and drew up at the
Toomsville bank.

Miss Smith was invited politely into the private parlor. She explained
her business. The President was there and Colonel Cresswell and one
other local director.

"I have come for a mortgage. Our land is, as you know, gentlemen, worth
at least ten thousand dollars; the buildings cost fifteen thousand
dollars; our property is, therefore, conservatively valued at
twenty-five thousand dollars. Now I want to mortgage it for"--she
hesitated--"five thousand dollars."

Colonel Cresswell was silent, but the president said:

"Money is rather scarce just now, Miss Smith; but it happens that I have
ten thousand dollars on hand, which we prefer, however, to loan in one
lump sum. Now, if the security were ample, I think perhaps you might get
this ten thousand dollars."

Miss Smith grew white; it was the sum she wanted. She tried to escape
the temptation, yet the larger amount was more than twice as desirable
to her as the smaller, and she knew that they knew it. They were trying
to tempt her; they wanted as firm a hold on the school property as
possible. And yet, why should she hesitate? It was a risk, but the
returns would be enormous--she must do it. Besides, there was the
endowment; it was certain; yes--she felt forced to close the bargain.

"Very well," she declared her decision, and they handed her the
preliminary papers. She took the pen and glanced at Mr. Cresswell; he
was smiling slightly, but nevertheless she signed her name grimly, in a
large round hand, "Sarah Smith."

_Thirteen_

MRS. GREY GIVES A DINNER

The Hon. Charles Smith, Miss Sarah's brother, was walking swiftly uptown
from Mr. Easterly's Wall Street office and his face was pale. At last
the Cotton Combine was to all appearances an assured fact and he was
slated for the Senate. The price he had paid was high: he was to
represent the interests of the new trust and sundry favorable measures
were already drafted and reposing in the safe of the combine's legal
department. Among others was one relating to child labor, another that
would effect certain changes in the tariff, and a proposed law providing
for a cotton bale of a shape and dimensions different from the
customary--the last constituting a particularly clever artifice which,
under the guise of convenience in handling, would necessitate the
installation of entirely new gin and compress machinery, to be supplied,
of course, by the trust.

As Mr. Smith drew near Mrs. Grey's Murray Hill residence his face had
melted to a cynical smile. After all why should he care? He had tried
independence and philanthropy and failed. Why should he not be as other
men? He had seen many others that very day swallow the golden bait and
promise everything. They were gentlemen. Why should he pose as better
than his fellows? There was young Cresswell. Did his aristocratic air
prevent his succumbing to the lure of millions and promising the
influence of his father and the whole Farmer's League to the new
project? Mr. Smith snapped his fingers and rang the bell. The door
opened softly. The dark woodwork of the old English wainscoting glowed
with the crimson flaming of logs in the wide fireplace. There was just
the touch of early autumn chill in the air without, that made both the
fire and the table with its soft linen, gold and silver plate, and
twinkling glasses a warming, satisfying sight.

Mrs. Grey was a portly woman, inclined to think much of her dinner and
her clothes, both of which were always rich and costly. She was not
herself a notably intelligent woman; she greatly admired intelligence or
whatever looked to her like intelligence in others. Her money, too, was
to her an ever worrying mystery and surprise, which she found herself
always scheming to husband shrewdly and spend philanthropically--a
difficult combination.

As she awaited her guests she surveyed the table with both satisfaction
and disquietude, for her social functions were few, tonight there
were--she checked them off on her fingers--Sir James Creighton, the rich
English manufacturer, and Lady Creighton, Mr. and Mrs. Vanderpool, Mr.
Harry Cresswell and his sister, John Taylor and his sister, and Mr.
Charles Smith, whom the evening papers mentioned as likely to be United
States Senator from New Jersey--a selection of guests that had been
determined, unknown to the hostess, by the meeting of cotton interests
earlier in the day.

Mrs. Grey's chef was high-priced and efficient, and her butler was the
envy of many; consequently, she knew the dinner would be good. To her
intense satisfaction, it was far more than this. It was a most agreeable
couple of hours; all save perhaps Mr. Smith unbent, the Englishman
especially, and the Vanderpools were most gracious; but if the general
pleasure was owing to any one person particularly it was to Mr. Harry
Cresswell. Mrs. Grey had met Southerners before, but not intimately, and
she always had in mind vividly their cruelty to "poor Negroes," a
subject she made a point of introducing forthwith. She was therefore
most agreeably surprised to hear Mr. Cresswell express himself so
cordially as approving of Negro education.

"Why, I thought," said Mrs. Grey, "that you Southerners rather
disapproved--or at least--"

Mr. Cresswell inclined his head courteously.

"We Southerners, my dear Mrs. Grey, are responsible for a variety of
reputations." And he told an anecdote that set the table laughing.
"Seriously, though," he continued, "we are not as black as the blacks
paint us, although on the whole I _prefer_ that Helen should marry--a
white man."

They all glanced at Miss Cresswell, who lay softly back in her chair
like a white lily, gleaming and bejewelled, her pale face flushing under
the scrutiny; Mrs. Grey was horrified.

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