United States or Belgium ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In town Alwyn went to all the chief merchants one after another and received to his great surprise practically the same estimate. He could not understand it. He had estimated the current market prices according to the Montgomery paper, yet the prices in Toomsville were fifty to a hundred and fifty per cent higher. The merchant to whom he went last, laughed.
She gossiped with old Herodotus across the earth to the black and blameless Ethiopians; she saw the sculptured glories of Phidias marbled amid the splendor of the swamp; she listened to Demosthenes and walked the Appian Way with Cornelia while all New York streamed beneath her window. She saw the drunken Goths reel upon Rome and heard the careless Negroes yodle as they galloped to Toomsville.
In three short months the mill at Toomsville was open and its wheels whizzing to the boundless pride of the citizens. "Our enterprise, sir!" they said to the strangers on the strength of the five thousand dollars locally invested.
"Because I had to try; and moreover the circumstances are not altogether ordinary: the men in power in Toomsville now are not the landlords of this county; they are poor whites. The Judge and sheriff were both elected by mill-hands who hate Cresswell and Taylor.
Miss Taylor tried hard to think of something comforting to say, but words seemed inadequate to cheer the old soul; but after a few moments they rode on, leaving the kind face again beaming and dimpling. And now the country town of Toomsville lifted itself above the cotton and corn, fringed with dirty straggling cabins of black folk.
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.
I was sure it was coming, but I wanted to give Colonel Cresswell every chance. Bles starts for Montgomery " Alwyn looked up. "Does he?" he asked, smiling. "Yes," said Zora, smiling in turn. "We must lose no further time." "But there's no train from Toomsville tonight." "But there's one from Barton in the morning and Barton is only twenty miles away." "It is a long walk."
There was nothing unjust about such a course, he argued, for Negroes anyway were too lazy and shiftless to buy the land. They would not, they could not, work without driving. All this he imparted to John Taylor, to which that gentleman listened carefully. "H'm, I see," he owned. "And I know the way out." "How?" "A cotton mill in Toomsville." "What's that got to do with it?" "Bring in whites."
Easterly shouted. "It will ruin the plans of the Combine to put this amended Child Labor Bill through. John Taylor has just written me that he's starting mills at Toomsville, and that he depends on unrestricted labor conditions, as we must throughout the South. Doesn't Cresswell know this?" "Of course. I think it's just a bluff. If he gets the appointment he'll let the bill drop."
But her reply was uttered unhesitantly; distinct, direct. "No, Bles." Thirty-five The people of Toomsville started in their beds and listened. A new song was rising on the air: a harsh, low, murmuring croon that shook the village ranged around its old square of dilapadated stores.
Word Of The Day