The Quest of the Silver Fleece | Page 8

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 demselves. 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