The Quest of the Silver Fleece

by W. E. B. Dubois

  “Now, look here, sir,” began Colonel Cresswell, flushing and drawing himself erect.

  “There, there, Colonel Cresswell, don’t misunderstand me. I’m a plain man. I’m playing a big game—a tremendous one. I need you, and I know you need me. I find out about you, and my sources of knowledge are wide and unerring. But the knowledge is safe, sir; it’s buried. Last year when you people curtailed cotton acreage and warehoused a big chunk of the crop you gave the mill men the scare of their lives. We had a hasty conference and the result was that the bottom fell out of your credit.”

  Colonel Cresswell grew pale. There was a disquieting, relentless element in this unimpassioned man’s tone.

  “You failed,” pursued John Taylor, “because you couldn’t get the banks and the big merchants behind you. We’ve got ’em behind us—with big chunks of stock and a signed iron-clad agreement. You can wheel the planters into line—will you do it?” John Taylor bent forward tense but cool and steel-like. Harry Cresswell laid his hand on his father’s arm and said quietly:

  “And where do we come in?”

  “That’s business,” affirmed John Taylor. “You and two hundred and fifty of the biggest planters come in on the ground-floor of the two-billion-dollar All-Cotton combine. It can easily mean two million to you in five years.”

  “And the other planters?”

  “They come in for high-priced cotton until we get our grip.”

  “And then?”

  The quiet question seemed to invoke a vision for John Taylor; the gray eyes took on the faraway look of a seer; the thin, bloodless lips formed a smile in which there was nothing pleasant.

  “They keep their mouths shut or we squeeze ’em and buy the land. We propose to own the cotton belt of the South.”

  Colonel Cresswell started indignantly from his seat.

  “Do you think—by God, sir!—that I’d betray Southern gentlemen to—”

  But Harry’s hand and impassive manner restrained him; he cooled as suddenly as he had flared up.

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Taylor,” he concluded; “we’ll consider this matter carefully. You’ll spend the night, of course.”

  “Can’t possibly—must catch that next train back.”

  “But we must talk further,” the Colonel insisted. “And then, there’s your sister.”

  “By Jove! Forgot all about Mary.” John Taylor after a little desultory talk, followed his host up-stairs.

  The next afternoon John Taylor was sitting beside Helen Cresswell on the porch which overlooked the terrace, and was, on the whole, thinking less of cotton than he had for several years. To be sure, he was talking cotton; but he was doing it mechanically and from long habit, and was really thinking how charming a girl Helen Cresswell was. She fascinated him. For his sister Taylor had a feeling of superiority that was almost contempt. The idea of a woman trying to understand and argue about things men knew! He admired the dashing and handsome Miss Easterly, but she scared him and made him angrily awkward. This girl, on the other hand, just lounged and listened with an amused smile, or asked the most child-like questions. She required him to wait on her quite as a matter of course—to adjust her pillows, hand her the bon-bons, and hunt for her lost fan. Mr. Taylor, who had not waited on anybody since his mother died, and not much before, found a quite inexplicable pleasure in these little domesticities. Several times he took out his watch and frowned; yet he managed to stay with her quite happily.

  On her part Miss Cresswell was vastly amused. Her acquaintance with men was not wide, but it was thorough so far as her own class was concerned. They were all well-dressed and leisurely, fairly good looking, and they said the same words and did the same things in the same way. They paid her compliments which she did not believe, and they did not expect her to believe. They were charmingly deferential in the matter of dropped handkerchiefs, but tyrannical of opinion. They were thoughtful about candy and flowers, but thoughtless about feelings and income. Altogether they were delightful, but cloying. This man was startlingly different; ungainly and always in a desperate, unaccountable hurry. He knew no pretty speeches, he certainly did not measure up to her standard of breeding, and yet somehow he was a gentleman. All this was new to Helen Cresswell, and she liked it.

  Meanwhile the men above-stairs lingered in the Colonel’s office—the older one perturbed and sputtering, the younger insistent and imperturbable.

  “The fact is, father,” he was saying, “as you yourself have said, one bad crop of cotton would almost ruin us.”

  “But the prospects are good.”

  “What are prospects in March? No, father, this is the situation—three good crops in succession will wipe off our indebtedness and leave us facing only low prices and a scarcity of niggers; on the other hand—” The father interrupted impatiently.

  “Yes, on the other hand, if we plunge deeper in debt and betray our friends we may come out millionaires or—paupers.”

  “Precisely,” said Harry Cresswell, calmly. “Now, our plan is to take no chances; I propose going North and looking into this matter thoroughly. If he represents money and has money, and if the trust has really got the grip he says it has, why, it’s a case of crush or get crushed, and we’ll have to join them on their own terms. If he’s bluffing, or the thing looks weak, we’ll wait.”

  It all ended as matters usually did end, in Harry’s having his way. He came downstairs, expecting, indeed, rather hoping, to find Taylor impatiently striding to and fro, watch in hand; but here he was, ungainly, it might be, but quite docile, drawing the picture of a power-loom for Miss Cresswell, who seemed really interested. Harry silently surveyed them from the door, and his face lighted with a new thought.

  Taylor, espying him, leapt to his feet and hauled out his watch.

  “Well—I—” he began lamely.

  “No, you weren’t either,” interrupted Harry, with a laugh that was unmistakably cordial and friendly. “You had quite forgotten what you were waiting for—isn’t that so, Sis?”

  Helen regarded her brother through her veiling lashes: what meant this sudden assumption of warmth and amiability?

  “No, indeed; he was raging with impatience,” she returned.

  “Why, Miss Cresswell, I—I—” John Taylor forsook social amenities and pulled himself together. “Well,” shortly, “now for that talk—ready?” And quite forgetting Miss Cresswell, he bolted into the parlor.

  “The decision we have come to is this,” said Harry Cresswell. “We are in debt, as you know.”

  “Forty-nine thousand, seven hundred and forty-two dollars and twelve cents,” responded Taylor; “in three notes, due in twelve, twenty-four, and thirty-six months, interest at eight per cent, held by—”

  The Colonel snorted his amazement, and Harry Cresswell cut in:

  “Yes,” he calmly admitted; “and with good crops for three years we’d be all right; good crops even for two years would leave us fairly well off.”

  “You mean it would relieve you of the present stringency and put you face to face with the falling price of cotton and rising wages,” was John Taylor’s dry addendum.

  “Rising price of cotton, you mean,” Harry corrected.

  “Oh, temporarily,” John Taylor admitted.

  “Precisely, and thus postpone the decision.”

  “No, Mr. Cresswell. I’m offering to let you in on the ground floor—now—not next year, or year after.”

  “Mr. Taylor, have you any money in this?”

  “Everything I’ve got.”

  “Well, the thing is this way: if you can prove to us that conditions are as you say, we’re in for it.”

  “Good! Meet me in New York, say—let’s see, this is March tenth—well, May third.”

  Young Cresswell was thinking rapidly. This man without doubt represented money. He was anxious for an alliance. Why? Was it all straight, or did the whole move conceal a trick?

  His eyes strayed to the porch where his pretty sister sat languidly, and then toward the
school where the other sister lived. John Taylor looked out on the porch, too. They glanced quickly at each other, and each wondered if the other had shared his thought. Harry Cresswell did not voice his mind for he was not wholly disposed to welcome what was there; but he could not refrain from saying in tones almost confidential:

  “You could recommend this deal, then, could you—to your own friends?”

  “To my own family,” asserted John Taylor, looking at Harry Cresswell with sudden interest. But Mr. Cresswell was staring at the end of his cigar.

  Eleven

  THE FLOWERING OF THE FLEECE

  Zora,” observed Miss Smith, “it’s a great blessing not to need spectacles, isn’t it?”

  Zora thought that it was; but she was wondering just what spectacles had to do with the complaint she had brought to the office from Miss Taylor.

  “I’m always losing my glasses and they get dirty and—Oh, dear! now where is that paper?”

  Zora pointed silently to the complaint.

  “No, not that—another paper. It must be in my room. Don’t you want to come up and help me look?”

  They went up to the clean, bare room, with its white iron bed, its cool, spotless shades and shining windows. Zora walked about softly and looked, while Miss Smith quietly searched on desk and bureau, paying no attention to the girl. For the time being she was silent.

  “I sometimes wish,” she began at length, “I had a bright-eyed girl like you to help me find and place things.”

  Zora made no comment.

  “Sometimes Bles helps me,” added Miss Smith, guilefully.

  Zora looked sharply at her. “Could I help?” she asked, almost timidly.

  “Why, I don’t know,”—the answer was deliberate. “There are one or two little things perhaps—”

  Placing a hand gently upon Zora’s shoulder, she pointed out a few odd tasks, and left the girl busily doing them; then she returned to the office, and threw Miss Taylor’s complaint into the waste-basket.

  For a week or more Zora slipped in every day and performed the little tasks that Miss Smith laid out: she sorted papers, dusted the bureau, hung a curtain; she did not do the things very well, and she broke some china, but she worked earnestly and quickly, and there was no thought of pay. Then, too, did not Bles praise her with a happy smile, as together, day after day, they stood and watched the black dirt where the Silver Fleece lay planted? She dreamed and sang over that dark field, and again and again appealed to him: “S’pose it shouldn’t come up after all?” And he would laugh and say that of course it would come up.

  One day, when Zora was helping Miss Smith in the bedroom, she paused with her arms full of clothes fresh from the laundry.

  “Where shall I put these?”

  Miss Smith looked around. “They might go in there,” she said, pointing to a door. Zora opened it. A tiny bedroom was disclosed, with one broad window looking toward the swamp; white curtains adorned it, and white hangings draped the plain bureau and wash-stand and the little bed. There was a study table, and a small bookshelf holding a few books, all simple and clean. Zora paused uncertainly, and surveyed the room.

  “Sometimes when you’re tired and want to be alone you can come up here, Zora,” said Miss Smith carelessly. “No one uses this room.”

  Zora caught her breath sharply, but said nothing. The next day Miss Smith said to her when she came in:

  “I’m busy now, dear, but you go up to your little room and read and I’ll call.”

  Zora quietly obeyed. An hour later Miss Smith looked in, then she closed the door lightly and left. Another hour flew by before Zora hurried down.

  “I was reading, and I forgot,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” returned Miss Smith. “I didn’t need you. And any day, after you get all your lessons, I think Miss Taylor will excuse you and let you go to your room and read.” Miss Taylor, it transpired, was more than glad.

  Day after day Bles and Zora visited the field; but ever the ground lay an unrelieved black beneath the bright sun, and they would go reluctantly home again. today there was much work to be done, and Zora labored steadily and eagerly, never pausing, and gaining in deftness and care.

  In the afternoon Bles went to town with the school wagon. A light shower flew up from the south, lingered a while and fled, leaving a fragrance in the air. For a moment Zora paused, and her nostrils quivered; then without a word she slipped down-stairs, glided into the swamp, and sped away to the island. She swung across the tree and a low, delighted cry bubbled on her lips. All the rich, black ground was sprinkled with tender green. She bent above the verdant tenderness and kissed it; then she rushed back, bursting into the room.

  “It’s come! It’s come!—the Silver Fleece!”

  Miss Smith was startled.

  “The Silver Fleece!” she echoed in bewilderment.

  Zora hesitated. It came over her all at once that this one great all-absorbing thing meant nothing to the gaunt tired-look woman before her.

  “Would Bles care if I told?” she asked doubtfully.

  “No,” Miss Smith ventured.

  And then the girl crouched at her feet and told the dream and the story. Many factors were involved that were quite foreign to the older woman’s nature and training. The recital brought to her New England mind many questions of policy and propriety. And yet, as she looked down upon the dark face, hot with enthusiasm, it all seemed somehow more than right. Slowly and lightly Miss Smith slipped her arm about Zora, and nodded and smiled a perfect understanding. They looked out together into the darkening twilight.

  “It is so late and wet and you’re tired tonight—don’t you think you’d better sleep in your little room?”

  Zora sat still. She thought of the noisy flaming cabin and the dark swamp; but a contrasting thought of the white bed made her timid, and slowly she shook her head. Nevertheless Miss Smith led her to the room.

  “Here are things for you to wear,” she pointed out, opening the bureau, “and here is the bath-room.” She left the girl standing in the middle of the floor.

  In time Zora came to stay often at Miss Smith’s cottage, and to learn new and unknown ways of living and dressing. She still refused to board, for that would cost more than she could pay yet, and she would accept no charity. Gradually an undemonstrative friendship sprang up between the pale old gray-haired teacher and the dark young black-haired girl. Delicately, too, but gradually, the companionship of Bles and Zora was guided and regulated. Of mornings Zora would hurry through her lessons and get excused to fly to the swamp, to work and dream alone. At noon Bles would run down, and they would linger until he must hurry back to dinner. After school he would go again, working while she was busy in Miss Smith’s office, and returning later, would linger awhile to tell Zora of his day while she busied herself with her little tasks. Saturday mornings they would go to the swamp and work together, and sometimes Miss Smith, stealing away from curious eyes, would come and sit and talk with them as they toiled.

  In those days, for these two souls, earth came very near to heaven. Both were in the midst of that mighty change from youth to womanhood and manhood. Their manner toward each other by degrees grew shyer and more thoughtful. There was less of comradeship, but the little meant more. The rough good fellowship was silently put aside; they no longer lightly clasped hands; and each at times wondered, in painful self-consciousness, if the other cared.

  Then began, too, that long and subtle change wherein a soul, until now unmindful of its wrappings, comes suddenly to consciousness of body and clothes; when it gropes and tries to adjust one with the other, and through them to give to the inner deeper self, finer and fuller expression. One saw it easily, almost suddenly, in Alwyn’s Sunday suit, vivid neckties, and awkward fads.

  Slower, subtler, but more striking was the change in Zora, as she began to earn bits of pin money in the office and to learn to sew. Dresses hung straighter; belts served a better purpose; stockings were smoother; underwear was daintier. T
hen her hair—that great dark mass of immovable infinitely curled hair—began to be subdued and twisted and combed until, with steady pains and study, it lay in thick twisted braids about her velvet forehead, like some shadowed halo. All this came much more slowly and spasmodically than one tells it. Few noticed the change much; none noticed all; and yet there came a night—a student’s social—when with a certain suddenness the whole school, teachers and pupils, realized the newness of the girl, and even Bles was startled.

  He had bought her in town, at Christmas time, a pair of white satin slippers, partly to test the smallness of her feet on which in younger days he had rallied her, and partly because she had mentioned a possible white dress. They were a cheap, plain pair but dainty, and they fitted well.

  When the evening came and the students were marching and the teachers, save Miss Smith, were sitting rather primly apart and commenting, she entered the room. She was a little late, and a hush greeted her. One boy, with the inimitable drawl of the race, pushed back his ice-cream and addressed it with a mournful head-shake:

  “Go way, honey, yo’ los’ yo’ tas’e!”

  The dress was plain and fitted every curving of a healthy girlish form. She paused a moment white-bodied and white-limbed but dark and velvet-armed, her full neck and oval head rising rich and almost black above, with its deep-lighted eyes and crown of silent darkling hair.

  To some, such a revelation of grace and womanliness in this hoyden, the gentle swelling of lankness to beauty, of lowliness to shy self-poise, was a sudden joy, to others a mere blindness. Mary Taylor was perplexed and in some indefinite way amazed; and many of the other teachers saw no beauty, only a strangeness that brought a smile. They were such as know beauty by convention only, and find it lip-ringed, hoop-skirted, tattooed, or corsetted, as time and place decree.

  The change in Zora, however, had been neither cataclysmic nor revolutionary and it was yet far—very far—from complete. She still ran and romped in the woods, and dreamed her dreams; she still was passionately independent and “queer.” Tendencies merely had become manifest, some dominant. She would, unhindered, develop to a brilliant, sumptuous womanhood; proud, conquering, full-blooded, and deep bosomed—a passionate mother of men. Herein lay all her early wildness and strangeness. Herein lay, as yet half hidden, dimly sensed and all unspoken, the power of a mighty all-compelling love for one human soul, and, through it, for all the souls of men. All this lay growing and developing; but as yet she was still a girl, with a new shyness and comeliness and a bold, searching heart.