The Promise
Miss Smith sat with her face buried in her hands while the tears trickled silently through her thin fingers. Before her lay the letter, read a dozen times:
‚ÄúOld Mrs. ¬ÝGrey has been to see me, and she has announced her intention of endowing five colored schools, yours being one. She asked if $500,000 would do it. She has plenty of money, so I told her 150,000 apiece. She‚Äôs arranging for a Board of Trust, etc. You‚Äôll probably hear from her soon. You‚Äôve been so worried about expenses that I thought I‚Äôd send this word on; I knew you‚Äôd be glad.‚Äù
Glad? Dear God, how flat the word fell! For thirty years she had sown the seed, planting her lifeblood in this work, that had become the marrow of her soul.
Successful? No, it had not been successful; but it had been human. Through yonder doorway had trooped an army of hundreds upon hundreds of bright and dull, light and dark, eager and sullen faces. There had been good and bad, honest and deceptive, frank and furtive. Some had caught, kindled and flashed to ambition and achievement; some, glowing dimly, had plodded on in a slow, dumb faithful work worth while; and yet others had suddenly exploded, hurtling human fragments to heaven and to hell. Around this school home, as around the centre of some little universe, had whirled the sorrowful, sordid, laughing, pulsing drama of a world: birth pains, and the stupor of death; hunger and pale murder; the riot of thirst and the orgies of such red and black cabins as Elspeth’s, crouching in the swamp.