"And why does she hold a lily?"
"It stands for purity--she was a good woman."
"With a baby," Zora added slowly.
"Yes--" said Bles, and then more quickly--"It is the Christ Child--G.o.d"s baby."
"G.o.d is the father of all the little babies, ain"t He, Bles?"
"Why, yes--yes, of course; only this little baby didn"t have any other father."
"Yes, I know one like that," she said,--and then she added softly: "Poor little Christ-baby."
Bles hesitated, and before he found words Zora was saying:
"How white she is; she"s as white as the lily, Bles; but--I"m sorry she"s white--Bles, what"s purity--just whiteness?"
Bles glanced at her awkwardly but she was still staring wide-eyed at the picture, and her voice was earnest. She was now so old and again so much a child, an eager questioning child, that there seemed about her innocence something holy.
"It means," he stammered, groping for meanings--"it means being good--just as good as a woman knows how."
She wheeled quickly toward him and asked him eagerly:
"Not better--not better than she knows, but just as good, in--lying and stealing and--and everything?"
Bles smiled.
"No--not better than she knows, but just as good."
She trembled happily.
"I"m--pure," she said, with a strange little breaking voice and gesture. A sob struggled in his throat.
"Of course you are," he whispered tenderly, hiding her little hands in his.
"I--I was so afraid--sometimes--that I wasn"t," she whispered, lifting up to him her eyes streaming with tears. Silently he kissed her lips.
From that day on they walked together in a new world. No revealing word was spoken; no vows were given, none asked for; but a new bond held them. She grew older, quieter, taller, he humbler, more tender and reverent, as they toiled together.
So the days pa.s.sed. The sun burned in the heavens; but the silvered glory of the moon grew fainter and fainter and each night it rose later than the night before. Then one day Zora whispered:
"Tonight!"
Bles came to the cabin, and he and Zora and Elspeth sat silently around the fire-place with its meagre embers. The night was balmy and still; only occasionally a wandering breeze searching the hidden places of the swamp, or the call and song of night birds, jarred the stillness. Long they sat, until the silence crept into Bles"s flesh, and stretching out his hand, he touched Zora"s, clasping it.
After a time the old woman rose and hobbled to a big black chest. Out of it she brought an old bag of cotton seed--not the white-green seed which Bles had always known, but small, smooth black seeds, which she handled carefully, dipping her hands deep down and letting them drop through her gnarled fingers. And so again they sat and waited and waited, saying no word.
Not until the stars of midnight had swung to the zenith did they start down through the swamp. Bles sought to guide the old woman, but he found she knew the way better than he did. Her shadowy figure darting in and out among the trunks till they crossed the tree bridge, moved ever noiselessly ahead.
She motioned the boy and girl away to the thicket at the edge, and stood still and black in the midst of the cleared island. Bles slipped his arm protectingly around Zora, glancing fearfully about in the darkness. Slowly a great cry rose and swept the island. It struck madly and sharply, and then died away to uneasy murmuring. From afar there seemed to come the echo or the answer to the call. The form of Elspeth blurred the night dimly far off, almost disappearing, and then growing blacker and larger. They heard the whispering "_swish-swish_" of falling seed; they felt the heavy tread of a great coming body. The form of the old woman suddenly loomed black above them, hovering a moment formless and vast then fading again away, and the "_swish-swish_" of the falling seed alone rose in the silence of the night.
At last all was still. A long silence. Then again the air seemed suddenly filled with that great and awful cry; its echoing answer screamed afar and they heard the raucous voice of Elspeth beating in their ears:
_"De seed done sowed! De seed done sowed!"_
_Ten_
MR. TAYLOR CALLS
"Thinking the matter over," said Harry Cresswell to his father, "I"m inclined to advise drawing this Taylor out a little further."
The Colonel puffed his cigar and one eye twinkled, the lid of the other being at the moment suggestively lowered.
"Was she pretty?" he asked; but his son ignored the remark, and the father continued:
"I had a telegram from Taylor this morning, after you left. He"ll be pa.s.sing through Montgomery the first of next month, and proposes calling."
"I"ll wire him to come," said Harry, promptly.
At this juncture the door opened and a young lady entered. Helen Cresswell was twenty, small and pretty, with a slightly languid air.
Outside herself there was little in which she took very great interest, and her interest in herself was not absorbing. Yet she had a curiously sweet way. Her servants liked her and the tenants could count on her spasmodic attentions in time of sickness and trouble.
"Good-morning," she said, with a soft drawl. She sauntered over to her father, kissed him, and hung over the back of his chair.
"Did you get that novel for me, Harry?"--expectantly regarding her brother.
"I forgot it, Sis. But I"ll be going to town again soon."
The young lady showed that she was annoyed.
"By the bye, Sis, there"s a young lady over at the Negro school whom I think you"d like."
"Black or white?"
"A young lady, I said. Don"t be sarcastic."
"I heard you. I did not know whether you were using our language or others"."
"She"s really unusual, and seems to understand things. She"s planning to call some day--shall you be at home?"
"Certainly not, Harry; you"re crazy." And she strolled out to the porch, exchanged some remarks with a pa.s.sing servant, and then nestled comfortably into a hammock. She helped herself to a chocolate and called out musically:
"Pa, are you going to town today?"
"Yes, honey."