The Quest of the Silver Fleece: A Novel Read online

  _Four_

  TOWN

  John Taylor had written to his sister. He wanted information, verydefinite information, about Tooms County cotton; about its stores, itspeople--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 letteryesterday, forgetting that their mail was fetched once a day from thetown, four miles away. Then, too, she did not know all these matters andknew no one who did. Did John think she had nothing else to do? Andsighing at the thought of to-morrow's drudgery, she determined toconsult Miss Smith in the morning.

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

  "Of course," said Miss Smith drily, slowly folding her napkin, "ofcourse, the only people here are the Cresswells."

  "Oh, yes," said Miss Taylor invitingly. There was an allurement aboutthis all-pervasive name; it held her by a growing fascination and shewas 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," wasMiss Smith's succinct and acid classification of the county's firstfamily; adding, as she rose, "but they own us body and soul." Shehurried out of the dining-room without further remark. Miss Smith wasmore patient with black folk than with white.

  The sun was hanging just above the tallest trees of the swamp when MissTaylor, weary with the day's work, climbed into the buggy beside Bles.They wheeled comfortably down the road, leaving the sombre swamp, withits black-green, to the right, and heading toward the golden-green ofwaving cotton fields. Miss Taylor lay back, listlessly, and drank thesoft warm air of the languorous Spring. She thought of the golden sheenof the cotton, and the cold March winds of New England; of her brotherwho apparently noted nothing of leaves and winds and seasons; and of themighty Cresswells whom Miss Smith so evidently disliked. Suddenly shebecame 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 waytoday. The Veil hung thick, sombre, impenetrable. Well, she had done herduty, and slowly she nestled back and watched the far-off green andgolden 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 andthe 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 atthe horizon. She looked at him doubtfully with some disappointment thathis hearing had apparently shared so little of the joy of her telling;and, too, there was mingled a vague sense of having lowered herself totoo familiar fellowship with this--this boy. She straightened herselfinstinctively and thought of some remark that would restore properrelations. 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 ofgreen-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 wasa 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 becausethey are white."

  But Bles continued.

  "This is the Black Sea," he said, pointing to the dull cabins thatcrouched here and there upon the earth, with the dark twinkling of theirblack 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 attheir side. He was tall and thin and sombre-hued, with a carven face andthick gray hair.

  "Your servant, mistress," he said, with a sweeping bow as he strodetoward the swamp. Miss Taylor stopped him, for he looked interesting,and might answer some of her brother's questions. He turned back andstood 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 himthat indefinable sense of age--some shadow of endless living; but ahundred seemed absurd.

  "You know the people pretty well, then?"

  "I knows dem all. I knows most of 'em better dan dey knows demselves. Iknows 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'relCresswell fust come from Carolina; den it was a bale and a half to theacre 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 hadniggers and acres no end back dere in Carolina. He brung a part of demhere and here his son, de father of dis Colonel Cresswell, was born. Deson--I knowed him well--he had a tousand niggers and ten tousand acresafore de war."

  "Were they kind to their slaves?"

  "Oh, yaas, yaas, ma'am, dey was careful of de're niggers and wouldn'tlet de drivers whip 'em much."

  "And these Cresswells today?"

  "Oh, dey're quality--high-blooded folks--dey'se lost some land andniggers, but, lordy, nuttin' can buy de Cresswells, dey naturally ownsde 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 whitefolks--white folks will be white folks. Your servant, ma'am." And theswamp 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 aconjure 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 firststraggling cabins of the town. Creeping toward them down the road rolleda dark squat figure. It grew and spread slowly on the horizon until itbecame a fat old black woman, hooded and aproned, with great round hipsand massive bosom. Her face was heavy and homely until she looked up andlifted the drooping cheeks, and then kindly old eyes beamed on the youngteacher, 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 thegirl's tone.

  "Just tolerable, honey, bless de Lord! Rumatiz is kind o' bad and AuntRachel 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. Shefumbled 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 gitsfighting and drinking and--and--last Saturday night dey got took upagain. 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 pleadingwith 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, butwords seemed inadequate to cheer the old soul; but after a few momentsthey rode on, leaving the kind face again beaming and dimpling.

  And now the country town of Toomsville lifted itself above the cottonand corn, fringed with dirty straggling cabins of black folk. The roadswung past the iron watering trough, turned sharply and, after passingtwo or three pert cottages and a stately house, old and faded, openedinto the wide square. Here pulsed the very life and being of the land.Yonder great bales of cotton, yellow-white in its soiled sacking, piledin lofty, dusty mountains, lay listening for the train that, twice aday, ran out to the greater world. Round about, tied to the well-gnawedhitching rails, were rows of mules--mules with back cloths; mules withsaddles; mules hitched to long wagons, buggies, and rickety gigs; mulesmunching golden ears of corn, and mules drooping their heads insorrowful memory of better days.

  Beyond the cotton warehouse smoked the chimneys of the seed-mill and thecotton-gin; a red livery-stable faced them and all about three sides ofthe square ran stores; big stores and small wide-windowed, narrowstores. Some had old steps above the worn clay side-walks, and some wereflush with the ground. All had a general sense of dilapidation--saveone, the largest and most imposing, a three-story brick. This wasCaldwell's "Emporium"; and here Bles stopped and Miss Taylor entered.

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

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

  "My brother wants some information about the county, Mr. Caldwell, and Iam only a teacher, and do not know much about conditions here."

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

  "Yes--yes," he said, with uncomfortable haste. "Any--er--information--ofcourse--" Miss Taylor got out her notes.

  "The leading land-owners," she began, sorting the notes searchingly, "Ishould like to know something about them."

  "Well, Colonel Cresswell is, of course, our greatest landlord--ahigh-bred gentleman of the old school. He and his son--a worthysuccessor to the name--hold some fifty thousand acres. They may beconsidered representative types. Then, Mr. Maxwell has ten thousandacres and Mr. Tolliver a thousand."

  Miss Taylor wrote rapidly. "And cotton?" she asked.

  "We raise considerable cotton, but not nearly what we ought to; niggerlabor is too worthless."

  "Oh! The Negroes are not, then, very efficient?"

  "Efficient!" snorted Mr. Caldwell; at last she had broached a phase ofthe problem upon which he could dilate with fervor. "They're thelowest-down, ornriest--begging your pardon--good-for-nothing loafers youever heard of. Why, we just have to carry them and care for them likechildren. Look yonder," he pointed across the square to the court-house.It was an old square brick-and-stucco building, sombre and stilted andvery dirty. Out of it filed a stream of men--some black and shackled;some white and swaggering and liberal with tobacco-juice; some white andshaven and stiff. "Court's just out," pursued Mr. Caldwell, "and themniggers have just been sent to the gang--young ones, too; educated butgood for nothing. They're all that way."

  Miss Taylor looked up a little puzzled, and became aware of a battery ofeyes and ears. Everybody seemed craning and listening, and she felt asudden embarrassment and a sense of half-veiled hostility in the air.With one or two further perfunctory questions, and a hasty expression ofthanks, she escaped into the air.

  The whole square seemed loafing and lolling--the white world perched onstoops and chairs, in doorways and windows; the black world filteringdown from doorways to side-walk and curb. The hot, dusty quadranglestretched in dreary deadness toward the temple of the town, as if doingobeisance to the court-house. Down the courthouse steps the sheriff,with Winchester on shoulder, was bringing the last prisoner--acurly-headed boy with golden face and big brown frightened eyes.

  "It's one of Dunn's boys," said Bles. "He's drunk again, and they sayhe's been stealing. I expect he was hungry." And they wheeled out of thesquare.

  Miss Taylor was tired, and the hastily scribbled letter which shedropped into the post in passing was not as clearly expressed as shecould wish.

  A great-voiced giant, brown and bearded, drove past them, roaring ahymn. He greeted Bles with a comprehensive wave of the hand.

  "I guess Tylor has been paid off," said Bles, but Miss Taylor was toodisgusted to answer. Further on they overtook a tall young yellow boywalking awkwardly beside a handsome, bold-faced girl. Two white men cameriding by. One leered at the girl, and she laughed back, while theyellow boy strode sullenly ahead. As the two white riders approached thebuggy one said to the other:

  "Who's that nigger with?"

  "One of them nigger teachers."

  "Well, they'll stop this damn riding around or they'll hear something,"and they rode slowly by.

  Miss Taylor felt rather than heard their words, and she wasuncomfortable. The sun fell fast; the long shadows of the swamp sweptsoft coolness on the red road. Then afar in front a curled cloud ofwhite dust arose and out of it came the sound of galloping horses.

  "Who's this?" asked Miss Taylor.

  "The Cresswells, I think; they usually ride to town about this time."But already Miss Taylor had descried the brown and tawny sides of thespeeding horses.

  "Good gracious!" she thought. "The Cresswells!" And with it came asudden desire not to meet them--just then. She glanced toward the swamp.The sun was sifting blood-red lances through the trees. A littlewagon-road entered the wood and disappeared. Miss Taylor saw it.

  "Let's see the sunset in the swamp," she said suddenly. On came thegalloping horses. Bles looked up in surprise, then silently turned intothe swamp. The horses flew by, their hoof-beats dying in the distance. Adark green silence lay about them lit by mighty crimson glories beyond.Miss Taylor leaned back and watched it dreamily till a sense ofoppression grew on her. The sun was sinking fast.

  "Where does this road come out?" she asked at last.

  "It doesn't come out."

  "Where does it go?"

  "It goes to Elspeth's."

  "Why, we must turn back immediately. I thought--" But Bles was alreadyturning. They were approaching the main road again when there came afluttering as of a great bird beating its wings amid the forest. Then agirl, lithe, dark brown, and tall, leaped lightly into the path withgreetings on her lips for Bles. At the sight of the lady she drewsuddenly back and stood motionless regarding Miss Taylor, searching herwith wide black liquid eyes. Miss Taylor was a little startled.

  "Good--good-evening," she said, straightening herself.

  The girl was still silent and the horse stopped. One tense moment pulsedthrough all the swamp. Then the girl, still motionless--still lookingMiss Taylor through and through--said with slow deliberateness:

  "I hates you."

  The teacher in Miss Taylor strove to rebuke this unconventional greetingbut the woman
in her spoke first and asked almost before she knew it--

  "Why?"