United States or Central African Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Well, that's possible; but one doesn't easily give up good servants. By the way, I learn from Miss Smith that the boy, Bles Alwyn, in whom Zora was so interested, is a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington." "Indeed! I'm going to Washington this winter; I'll look him over and see if he's worth Zora which I greatly doubt." Mrs. Cresswell pursed her lips and changed the subject.
I'll trade with you now for another I have." "Done!" The exchange was soon made, Miss Wynn tying the new one herself and sticking a small carved pin in it. Bles slowly sat down again, and after a pause said, "Thank you." She looked up quickly, but he seemed quite serious and good-natured. "You see," he explained, "in the country we don't know much about ties."
Then Bles sat down beside Zora, facing the fields, and gravely took her hand. She looked at him in quick, breathless fear. "Zora," he said, "sometimes you tell lies, don't you?" "Yes," she said slowly; "sometimes." "And, Zora, sometimes you steal you stole the pin from Miss Taylor, and we stole Mr. Cresswell's mule for two days."
Cresswell to town, Bles to the swamp, apparently ignorant of each other's very existence. Yet, as the space widened between them, each felt a more vindictive anger for the other. How dares the black puppy to ignore a Cresswell on the highway? If this went on, the day would surely come when Negroes felt no respect or fear whatever for whites? And then my God! Mr.
Either bridegroom looked gladly at the flow of his sister's garments and almost darkly at his bride's. For Helen was decked in Parisian splendor, while Mary was gowned in the Fleece. "'Tis thy marriage morning, shining in the sun!" Up floated the song of the little dark-faced children, and Zora listened. Twenty-two Bles Alwyn was seated in the anteroom of Senator Smith's office in Washington.
"Again," she said, making him point out each word. Then she read it after him, accurately, with more perfect expression. He stared at her. She took the book, and with a nod was gone. It was Saturday and dark. She never asked Bles to her home to that mysterious black cabin in mid-swamp. He thought her ashamed of it, and delicately refrained from going.
Here stood a black man with a white man's voice, and yonder a white woman with a Negro's musical cadences; and yet again, a brown girl with exactly Miss Cresswell's air, and yonder, Miss Williams, with Zora's wistful willfulness. Bles was bewildered and silent, and his great undying sorrow sank on his heart with sickening hopeless weight.
"Of course, it isn't I don't know anything about farming. But what did I say so funny?" Bles was now laughing outright. "Why, Miss Taylor! I declare! Goobers don't grow on the tops of vines, but underground on the roots like yams." "Is that so?" "Yes, and we we don't pick cotton stalks except for kindling." "I must have been thinking of hemp. But tell me more about cotton."
She heard no sound behind her, but knew he was there, and braced herself. She must be true. She must be just. She must pay the uttermost farthing. "Bles," she called faintly, but did not turn her head. "Zora!" "Bles," she choked, but her voice came stronger, "I know all. Emma is a good girl. I helped bring her up myself and did all I could for her and she she is pure; marry her."
The sun burned fiercely upon the young cotton plants as the spring hastened, and they lifted their heads in darker, wilder luxuriance; for the time of hoeing was at hand. These days were days of alternate hope and doubt with Bles Alwyn. Strength and ambition and inarticulate love were fighting within him. He felt, in the dark thousands of his kind about him, a mighty calling to deeds.
Word Of The Day