The boy was listening in incredulous curiosity, half
minded to laugh, half minded to edge away from the
black-red radiance of yonder dusky swamp. He
glanced furtively backward, and his heart gave a great
bound.
“Some is little and broad and black, and they
yells—” chanted the girl. And
as she chanted, deep, harsh tones came booming through
the forest:
“Zo-ra! Zo-ra! O—o—oh,
Zora!”
He saw far behind him, toward the shadows of the swamp,
an old woman—short, broad, black and wrinkled,
with fangs and pendulous lips and red, wicked eyes.
His heart bounded in sudden fear; he wheeled toward
the girl, and caught only the uncertain flash of her
garments—the wood was silent, and he was
alone.
He arose, startled, quickly gathered his bundle, and
looked around him. The sun was strong and high,
the morning fresh and vigorous. Stamping one
foot 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.”
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—
