Thirty-six
THE LAND
Colonel Cresswell started all the more grimly to overthrow the new work at the school because somewhere down beneath his heart a pity and a wonder were stirring; pity at the perfectly useless struggle to raise the unraisable, a wonder at certain signs of rising. But it was impossible—and unthinkable, even if possible. So he squared his jaw and cheated Zora deliberately in the matter of the cut timber. He placed every obstacle in the way of getting tenants for the school land. Here Johnson, the "faithful nigger," was of incalculable assistance. He was among the first to hear the call for prospective tenants.
The meeting was in the big room of Zora's house, and Aunt Rachel came early with her cheery voice and smile which faded so quickly to lines of sorrow and despair, and then twinkled back again. After her hobbled old Sykes. Fully a half-hour later Rob hurried in.
"Johnson," he informed the others, "has sneaked over to Cresswell's to tell of this meeting. We ought to beat that nigger up." But Zora asked him about the new baby, and he was soon deep in child-lore. Higgins and Sanders came together—dirty, apologetic, and furtive. Then came Johnson.
"How do, Miss Zora—Mr. Alwyn, I sure is glad to see you, sir. Well, if there ain't Aunt Rachel! looking as young as ever. And Higgins, you scamp—Ah, Mr. Sanders—well, gentlemen and ladies, this sure is gwine to be a good cotton season. I remember—" And he ran on endlessly, now to this one, now to that, now to all, his little eyes all the while dancing insinuatingly here and there. About nine o'clock a buggy drove up and Carter and Simpson came in—Carter, a silent, strong-faced, brown laborer, who listened and looked, and Simpson, a worried nervous man, who sat still with difficulty and commenced many sentences but did not finish them. Alwyn looked at his watch and at Zora, but she gave no sign until they heard a rollicking song outside and Tylor burst into the room. He was nearly seven feet high and broad-shouldered, yellow, with curling hair and laughing brown eyes. He was chewing an enormous quid of tobacco, the juice of which he distributed generously, and had had just liquor enough to make him jolly. His entrance was a breeze and a roar.
Alwyn then undertook to explain the land scheme.
"It is the best land in the county—"
"When it's cl'ared," interrupted Johnson, and Simpson looked alarmed.
"It is partially cleared," continued Alwyn, "and our plan is to sell off small twenty-acre farms—"
"You can't do nothing on twenty acres—" began Johnson, but Tylor laid his huge hand right over his mouth and said briefly:
"Shut up!"
Alwyn started again: "We shall sell a few twenty-acre farms but keep one central plantation of one hundred acres for the school. Here Miss Zora will carry on her work and the school will run a model farm with your help. We want to centre here agencies to make life better. We want all sorts of industries; we want a little hospital with a resident physician and two or three nurses; we want a cooperative store for buying supplies; we want a cotton-gin and saw-mill, and in the future other things. This land here, as I have said, is the richest around. We want to keep this hundred acres for the public good, and not sell it. We are going to deed it to a board of trustees, and those trustees are to be chosen from the ones who buy the small farms."
"Who's going to get what's made on this land?" asked Sanders.
"All of us. It is going first to pay for the land, then to support the Home and the School, and then to furnish capital for industries."
Johnson snickered. "You mean youse gwine to git yo' livin' off it?"
"Yes," answered Alwyn; "but I'm going to work for it."
"Who's gwine—" began Simpson, but stopped helplessly.
"Who's going to tend this land?" asked the practical Carter.
"All of us. Each man is going to promise us so many days' work a year, and we're going to ask others to help—the women and girls and school children—they will all help."
"Can you put trust in that sort of help?"
"We can when once the community learns that it pays."
"Does you own the land?" asked Johnson suddenly.
"No; we're buying it, and it's part paid for already."
The discussion became general. Zora moved about among the men whispering and explaining; while Johnson moved, too, objecting and hinting. At last he arose.
"Brethren," he began, "the plan's good enough for talkin' but you can't work it; who ever heer'd tell of such a thing? First place, the land ain't yours; second place, you can't get it worked; third place, white folks won't 'low it. Who ever heer'd of such working land on shares?"
"You do it for white folks each day, why not for yourselves," Alwyn pointed out.
"'Cause we ain't white, and we can't do nothin' like that."
Tylor was asleep and snoring and the others looked doubtfully at each other. It was a proposal a little too daring for them, a bit too far beyond their experience. One consideration alone kept them from shrinking away and that was Zora's influence. Not a man was there whom she had not helped and encouraged nor who had not perfect faith in her; in her impetuous hope, her deep enthusiasm, and her strong will. Even her defects—the hard-held temper, the deeply rooted dislikes—caught their imagination.
Finally, after several other meetings five men took courage—three of the best and two of the weakest. During the Spring long negotiations were entered into by Miss Smith to "buy" the five men. Colonel Cresswell and Mr. Tolliver had them all charged with large sums of indebtedness and these sums had to be assumed by the school. As Colonel Cresswell counted over two thousand dollars of school notes and deposited them beside the mortgage he smiled grimly for he saw the end. Yet, even then his hand trembled and that curious doubt came creeping back. He put it aside angrily and glanced up.
"Nigger wants to talk with you," announced his clerk.
The Colonel sauntered out and found Bles Alwyn waiting.
"Colonel Cresswell," he said, "I have charge of the buying for the school and our tenants this year and I naturally want to do the best possible. I thought I'd come over and see about getting my supplies at your store."
"That's all right; you can get anything you want," said Colonel Cresswell cheerily, for this to his mind was evidence of sense on the part of the Negroes. Bles showed his list of needed supplies—seeds, meat, corn-meal, coffee, sugar, etc. The Colonel glanced over it carelessly, then moved away.
"All right. Come and get what you want—any time," he called back.
"But about the prices," said Alwyn, following him.
"Oh, they'll be all right."
"Of course. But what I want is an estimate of your lowest cash prices."
"Cash?"
"Yes, sir."
Cresswell thought a while; such a business-like proposition from Negroes surprised him.
"Well, I'll let you know," he said.
It was nearly a week later before Alwyn approached him again.
"Now, see here," said Colonel Cresswell, "there's practically no difference between cash and time prices. We buy our stock on time and you can just as well take advantage of this as not. I have figured out about what these things will cost. The best thing for you to do is to make a deposit here and get things when you want them. If you make a good deposit I'll throw off ten per cent, which is all of my profit."
"Thank you," said Alwyn, but he looked over the account and found the whole bill at least twice as large as he expected. Without further parley, he made some excuse and started to town while Mr. Cresswell went to the telephone.
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.
"Don't you know we're not going to interfere with Colonel Cresswell's tenants?" He stated the dealers' attitude, and Alwyn saw light. He went home and told Zora, and she listened without surprise.
"Now to business," she said briskly. "Miss Smith," turning to the teacher, "as I told you, they're combined against us in town and we must buy in Montgomery. 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." Alwyn thought a while, silently. Then he rose. "I'm going," he said. "Good-bye."
In less than a week the storehouse was full, and tenants were at work. The twenty acres of cleared swamp land, attended to by the voluntary labor of all the tenants, was soon bearing a magnificent crop. Colonel Cresswell inspected all the crops daily with a proprietary air that would have been natural had these folk been simply tenants, and as such he persisted in regarding them.
The cotton now growing was perhaps not so uniformly fine as the first acre of Silver Fleece, but it was of unusual height and thickness.
"At least a bale to the acre," Alwyn estimated, and the Colonel mentally determined to take two-thirds of the crop. After that he decided that he would evict Zora immediately; since sufficient land was cleared already for his purposes and moreover, he had seen with consternation a herd of cattle grazing in one field on some early green stuff, and heard a drove of hogs in the swamp. Such an example before the tenants of the Black Belt would be fatal. He must wait a few weeks for them to pick the cotton—then, the end. He was fighting the battle of his color and caste.
The children sang merrily in the brown-white field. The wide baskets, poised aloft, foamed on the erect and swaying bodies of the dark carriers. The crop throughout the land was short that year, for prices had ruled low last season in accordance with the policy of the Combine. This year they started high again. Would they fall? Many thought so and hastened to sell.
Zora and Alwyn gathered their tenants' crops, ginned them at the Cresswells' gin, and carried their cotton to town, where it was deposited in the warehouse of the Farmers' League.
"Now," said Alwyn, "we would best sell while prices are high."
Zora laughed at him frankly.
"We can't," she said. "Don't you know that Colonel Cresswell will attach our cotton for rent as soon as it touches the warehouse?"
"But it's ours."
"Nothing is ours. No black man ordinarily can sell his crop without a white creditor's consent."
Alwyn fumed.
"The best way," he declared, "is to go to Montgomery and get a first-class lawyer and just fight the thing through. The land is legally ours, and he has no right to our cotton."
"Yes, but you must remember that no man like Colonel Cresswell regards a business bargain with a colored man as binding. No white man under ordinary circumstances will help enforce such a bargain against prevailing public opinion."
"But if we cannot trust to the justice of the case, and if you knew we couldn't, why did you try?"
"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. Then there's a new young lawyer who wants Harry Cresswell's seat in Congress; he don't know much law, I'm afraid; but what he don't know of this case I think I do. I'll get his advice and then—I mean to conduct the case myself," Zora calmly concluded.
"Without a lawyer!" Bles Alwyn stared his amazement.
"Without a lawyer in court."
"Zora! That would be foolish!"
"Is it? Let's think. For over a year now I've been studying the law of the case," and she pointed to her law books; "I know the law and most of the decisions. Moreover, as a black woman fighting a hopeless battle with landlords, I'll gain the one thing lacking."
"What's that?"
"The sympathy of the court and the bystanders."
"Pshaw! From these Southerners?"
"Yes, from them. They are very human, these men, especially the laborers. Their prejudices are cruel enough, but there are joints in their armor. They are used to seeing us either scared or blindly angry, and they understand how to handle us then, but at other times it is hard for them to do anything but meet us in a human way."
"But, Zora, think of the contact of the court, the humiliation, the coarse talk—"
Zora put up her hand and lightly touched his arm. Looking at him, she said:
"Mud doesn't hurt much. This is my duty. Let me do it."
His eyes fell before the shadow of a deeper rebuke. He arose heavily.
"Very well," he acquiesced as he passed slowly out.
The young lawyer started to refuse to touch the case until he saw—or did Zora adroitly make him see?—a chance for eventual political capital. They went over the matter carefully, and the lawyer acquired a respect for the young woman's knowledge.
"First," he said, "get an injunction on the cotton—then go to court." And to insure the matter he slipped over and saw the Judge.
Colonel Cresswell next day stalked angrily into his lawyers' office.
"See here," he thundered, handing the lawyer the notice of the injunction.
"See the Judge," began the lawyer, and then remembered, as he was often forced to do these days, who was Judge.
He inquired carefully into the case and examined the papers. Then he said:
"Colonel Cresswell, who drew this contract of sale?"
"The black girl did."
"Impossible!"
"She certainly did—wrote it in my presence."
"Well, it's mighty well done."
"You mean it will stand in law?"
"It certainly will. There's but one way to break it, and that's to allege misunderstanding on your part."
Cresswell winced. It was not pleasant to go into open court and acknowledge himself over-reached by a Negro; but several thousand dollars in cotton and land were at stake.
"Go ahead," he concurred.
"You can depend on Taylor, of course?" added the lawyer.
"Of course," answered Cresswell. "But why prolong the thing?"
"You see, she's got your cotton tied by injunction."
"I don't see how she did it."
"Easy enough: this Judge is the poor white you opposed in the last primary."
Within a week the case was called, and they filed into the courtroom. Cresswell's lawyer saw only this black woman—no other lawyer or sign of one appeared to represent her. The place soon filled with a lazy, tobacco-chewing throng of white men. A few blacks whispered in one corner. The dirty stove was glowing with pine-wood and the Judge sat at a desk.
"Where's your lawyer?" he asked sharply of Zora.
"I have none," returned Zora, rising.
There came a silence in the court. Her voice was low, and the men leaned forward to listen. The Judge felt impelled to be over-gruff.
"Get a lawyer," he ordered.
"Your honor, my case is simple, and with your honor's permission I wish to conduct it myself. I cannot afford a lawyer, and I do not think I need one."
Cresswell's lawyer smiled and leaned back. It was going to be easier than he supposed. Evidently the woman believed she had no case, and was weakening.
The trial proceeded, and Zora stated her contention. She told how long her mother and grandmother had served the Cresswells and showed her receipt for rent paid.
"A friend sent me some money. I went to Mr. Cresswell and asked him to sell me two hundred acres of land. He consented to do so and signed this contract in the presence of his son-in-law."
Just then John Taylor came into the court, and Cresswell beckoned to him.
"I want you to help me out, John."
"All right," whispered Taylor. "What can I do?"
"Swear that Cresswell didn't mean to sign this," said the lawyer quickly, as he arose to address the court.
Taylor looked at the paper blankly and then at Cresswell and some inkling of the irreconcilable difference in the two natures leapt in both their hearts. Cresswell might gamble and drink and lie "like a gentleman," but he would never willingly cheat or take advantage of a white man's financial necessities. Taylor, on the other hand, had a horror of a lie, never drank nor played games of chance, but his whole life was speculation and in the business game he was utterly ruthless and respected no one. Such men could never thoroughly understand each other. To Cresswell a man who had cheated the whole South out of millions by a series of misrepresentations ought to regard this little falsehood as nothing.
Meantime Colonel Cresswell's lawyer was on his feet, and he adopted his most irritating and contemptuous manner.
"This nigger wench wrote out some illegible stuff and Colonel Cresswell signed it to get rid of her. We are not going to question the legality of the form—that's neither here nor there. The point is, Mr. Cresswell never intended—never dreamed of selling this wench land right in front of his door. He meant to rent her the land and sign a receipt for rent paid in advance. I will not worry your honor by a long argument to prove this, but just call one of the witnesses well known to you—Mr. John Taylor of the Toomsville mills."
Taylor looked toward the door and then slowly took the stand.
"Mr. Taylor," said the lawyer carelessly, "were you present at this transaction?"
"Yes."
"Did you see Colonel Cresswell sign this paper?"
"Yes."
"Well, did he intend so far as you know to sign such a paper?"
"I do not know his intentions."
"Did he say he meant to sign such a contract?"
Taylor hesitated.
"Yes," he finally answered. Colonel Cresswell looked up in amazement and the lawyer dropped his glasses.
"I—I don't think you perhaps understood me, Mr. Taylor," he gasped. "I—er—meant to ask if Colonel Cresswell, in signing this paper, meant to sign a contract to sell this wench two hundred acres of land?"
"He said he did," reiterated Taylor. "Although I ought to add that he did not think the girl would ever be able to pay. If he had thought she would pay, I don't think he would have signed the paper."
Colonel Cresswell went red, than pale, and leaning forward before the whole court, he hurled:
"You damned scoundrel!"
The Judge rapped for order and fidgeted in his seat. There was some confusion and snickering in the courtroom. Finally the Judge plucked up courage:
"The defendant is ordered to deliver this cotton to Zora Cresswell," he directed.
The raging of Colonel Cresswell's anger now turned against John Taylor as well as the Negroes. Wind of the estrangement flew over town quickly. The poor whites saw a chance to win Taylor's influence and the sheriff approached him cautiously. Taylor paid him slight courtesy. He was irritated with this devilish Negro problem; he was making money; his wife and babies were enjoying life, and here was this fool trial to upset matters. But the sheriff talked.
"The thing I'm afraid of," he said, "is that Cresswell and his gang will swing in the niggers on us."
"How do you mean?"
"Let 'em vote."
"But they'd have to read and write."
"Sure!"
"Well, then," said Taylor, "it might be a good thing."
Colton eyed him suspiciously.
"You'd let a nigger vote?"
"Why, yes, if he had sense enough."
"There ain't no nigger got sense."
"Oh, pshaw!" Taylor ejaculated, walking away.
The sheriff was angry and mistrustful. He believed he had discovered a deep-laid scheme of the aristocrats to cultivate friendliness between whites and blacks, and then use black voters to crush the whites. Such a course was, in Colton's mind, dangerous, monstrous, and unnatural; it must be stopped at all hazards. He began to whisper among his friends. One or two meetings were held, and the flame of racial prejudice was studiously fanned.
The atmosphere of the town and country quickly began to change. Whatever little beginnings of friendship and understanding had arisen now quickly disappeared. The town of a Saturday no longer belonged to a happy, careless crowd of black peasants, but the black folk found themselves elbowed to the gutter, while ugly quarrels flashed here and there with a quick arrest of the Negroes.
Colonel Cresswell made a sudden resolve. He sent for the sheriff and received him at the Oaks, in his most respectable style, filling him with good food, and warming him with good liquor.
"Colton," he asked, "are you sending any of your white children to the nigger school yet?"
"What!" yelled Colton.
The Colonel laughed, frankly telling Colton John Taylor's philosophy on the race problem,—his willingness to let Negroes vote; his threat to let blacks and whites work together; his contempt for the officials elected by the people.
"Candidly, Colton," he concluded, "I believe in aristocracy. I can't think it right or wise to replace the old aristocracy by new and untried blood." And in a sudden outburst—"But, by God, sir! I'm a white man, and I place the lowest white man ever created above the highest darkey ever thought of. This Yankee, Taylor, is a nigger-lover. He's secretly encouraging and helping them. You saw what he did to me, and I'm warning you in time."
Colton's glass dropped.
"I thought it was you that was corralling the niggers against us," he exclaimed.
The Colonel reddened. "I don't count all white men my equals, I admit," he returned with dignity, "but I know the difference between a white man and a nigger."
Colton stretched out his massive hand. "Put it there, sir," said he; "I misjudged you, Colonel Cresswell. I'm a Southerner, and I honor the old aristocracy you represent. I'm going to join with you to crush this Yankee and put the niggers in their places. They are getting impudent around here; they need a lesson and, by gad! they'll get one they'll remember."
"Now, see here, Colton,—nothing rash," the Colonel charged him, warningly. "Don't stir up needless trouble; but—well, things must change."
Colton rose and shook his head.
"The niggers need a lesson," he muttered as he unsteadily bade his host good-bye. Cresswell watched him uncomfortably as he rode away, and again a feeling of doubt stirred within him. What new force was he loosening against his black folk—his own black folk, who had lived about him and his fathers nigh three hundred years? He saw the huge form of the sheriff loom like an evil spirit a moment on the rise of the road and sink into the night. He turned slowly to his cheerless house shuddering as he entered the uninviting portals.