The Quest of the Silver Fleece | Page 4

angrily, he strode jauntily out of the wood toward
the big road.
But ever and anon he glanced curiously back. Had he seen a haunt? Or
was the elf-girl real? And then he thought of her words:
"We'se known us all our lives."

Two THE SCHOOL
Day was breaking above the white buildings of the Negro school and
throwing long, low lines of gold in at Miss Sarah Smith's front window.
She lay in the stupor of her last morning nap, after a night of harrowing
worry. Then, even as she partially awoke, she lay still with closed eyes,
feeling the shadow of some great burden, yet daring not to rouse herself
and recall its exact form; slowly again she drifted toward
unconsciousness.
"_Bang! bang! bang!_" hard knuckles were beating upon the door
below.
She heard drowsily, and dreamed that it was the nailing up of all her
doors; but she did not care much, and but feebly warded the blows
away, for she was very tired.
"_Bang! bang! bang!_" persisted the hard knuckles.
She started up, and her eye fell upon a letter lying on her bureau. Back
she sank with a sigh, and lay staring at the ceiling--a gaunt, flat,
sad-eyed creature, with wisps of gray hair half-covering her baldness,
and a face furrowed with care and gathering years.
It was thirty years ago this day, she recalled, since she first came to this
broad land of shade and shine in Alabama to teach black folks.
It had been a hard beginning with suspicion and squalor around; with
poverty within and without the first white walls of the new school

home. Yet somehow the struggle then with all its helplessness and
disappointment had not seemed so bitter as today: then failure meant
but little, now it seemed to mean everything; then it meant
disappointment to a score of ragged urchins, now it meant two hundred
boys and girls, the spirits of a thousand gone before and the hopes of
thousands to come. In her imagination the significance of these half
dozen gleaming buildings perched aloft seemed portentous--big with
the destiny not simply of a county and a State, but of a race--a nation--a
world. It was God's own cause, and yet--
"_Bang! bang! bang!_" again went the hard knuckles down there at the
front.
Miss Smith slowly arose, shivering a bit and wondering who could
possibly be rapping at that time in the morning. She sniffed the chilling
air and was sure she caught some lingering perfume from Mrs.
Vanderpool's gown. She had brought this rich and rare-apparelled lady
up here yesterday, because it was more private, and here she had
poured forth her needs. She had talked long and in deadly earnest. She
had not spoken of the endowment for which she had hoped so
desperately during a quarter of a century--no, only for the five thousand
dollars to buy the long needed new land. It was so little--so little beside
what this woman squandered--
The insistent knocking was repeated louder than before.
"Sakes alive," cried Miss Smith, throwing a shawl about her and
leaning out the window. "Who is it, and what do you want?"
"Please, ma'am. I've come to school," answered a tall black boy with a
bundle.
"Well, why don't you go to the office?" Then she saw his face and
hesitated. She felt again the old motherly instinct to be the first to
welcome the new pupil; a luxury which, in later years, the endless push
of details had denied her.
"Wait!" she cried shortly, and began to dress.

A new boy, she mused. Yes, every day they straggled in; every day
came the call for more, more--this great, growing thirst to know--to
do--to be. And yet that woman had sat right here, aloof, imperturbable,
listening only courteously. When Miss Smith finished, she had paused
and, flicking her glove,--
"My dear Miss Smith," she said softly, with a tone that just escaped a
drawl--"My dear Miss Smith, your work is interesting and your
faith--marvellous; but, frankly, I cannot make myself believe in it. You
are trying to treat these funny little monkeys just as you would your
own children--or even mine. It's quite heroic, of course, but it's sheer
madness, and I do not feel I ought to encourage it. I would not mind a
thousand or so to train a good cook for the Cresswells, or a clean and
faithful maid for myself--for Helene has faults--or indeed deft and
tractable laboring-folk for any one; but I'm quite through trying to turn
natural servants into masters of me and mine. I--hope I'm not too blunt;
I hope I make myself clear. You know, statistics show--"
"Drat statistics!" Miss Smith had flashed impatiently. "These are folks."
Mrs. Vanderpool smiled indulgently. "To be sure," she murmured,