The Quest of the Silver Fleece | Page 7

"I must have been thinking of hemp. But tell me more about cotton."
His eyes lighted, for cotton was to him a very real and beautiful thing,
and a life-long companion, yet not one whose friendship had been
coarsened and killed by heavy toil. He leaned against his hoe and talked
half dreamily--where had he learned so well that dream-talk?
"We turn up the earth and sow it soon after Christmas. Then pretty soon
there comes a sort of greenness on the black land and it swells and
grows and, and--shivers. Then stalks shoot up with three or four leaves.
That's the way it is now, see? After that we chop out the weak stalks,
and the strong ones grow tall and dark, till I think it must be like the
ocean--all green and billowy; then come little flecks here and there and
the sea is all filled with flowers--flowers like little bells, blue and
purple and white."
"Ah! that must be beautiful," sighed Miss Taylor, wistfully, sinking to
the ground and clasping her hands about her knees.
"Yes, ma'am. But it's prettiest when the bolls come and swell and burst,
and the cotton covers the field like foam, all misty--"
She bent wondering over the pale plants. The poetry of the thing began
to sing within her, awakening her unpoetic imagination, and she
murmured:

"The Golden Fleece--it's the Silver Fleece!"
He harkened.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Have you never heard of the Golden Fleece, Bles?"
"No, ma'am," he said eagerly; then glancing up toward the Cresswell
fields, he saw two white men watching them. He grasped his hoe and
started briskly to work.
"Some time you'll tell me, please, won't you?"
She glanced at her watch in surprise and arose hastily.
"Yes, with pleasure," she said moving away--at first very fast, and then
more and more slowly up the lane, with a puzzled look on her face.
She began to realize that in this pleasant little chat the fact of the boy's
color had quite escaped her; and what especially puzzled her was that
this had not happened before. She had been here four months, and yet
every moment up to now she seemed to have been vividly, almost
painfully conscious, that she was a white woman talking to black folk.
Now, for one little half-hour she had been a woman talking to a
boy--no, not even that: she had been talking--just talking; there were no
persons in the conversation, just things--one thing: Cotton.
She started thinking of cotton--but at once she pulled herself back to
the other aspect. Always before she had been veiled from these folk:
who had put the veil there? Had she herself hung it before her soul, or
had they hidden timidly behind its other side? Or was it simply a brute
fact, regardless of both of them?
The longer she thought, the more bewildered she grew. There seemed
no analogy that she knew. Here was a unique thing, and she climbed to
her bedroom and stared at the stars.

Four TOWN
John Taylor had written to his sister. He wanted information, very
definite information, about Tooms County cotton; about its stores, its
people--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 letter
yesterday, forgetting that their mail was fetched once a day from the
town, four miles away. Then, too, she did not know all these matters
and knew no one who did. Did John think she had nothing else to do?
And sighing at the thought of to-morrow's drudgery, she determined to
consult Miss Smith in the morning.
Miss Smith suggested a drive to town--Bles could take her in the
top-buggy after school--and she could consult some of the merchants
and business men. She could then write her letter and mail it there; it
would be but a day or so late getting to New York.
"Of course," said Miss Smith drily, slowly folding her napkin, "of
course, the only people here are the Cresswells."
"Oh, yes," said Miss Taylor invitingly. There was an allurement about
this all-pervasive name; it held her by a growing fascination and she
was 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," was
Miss Smith's succinct and acid classification of the county's first family;
adding, as she rose, "but they own us body and soul." She hurried out
of the dining-room without further remark. Miss Smith was more
patient with black folk than with white.
The sun was hanging just above the tallest trees of the swamp