fulfilling the world‚Äôs duty to this black boy. She thought she had found this compromise and she wrote Mrs. ¬ÝGrey suggesting a chain of endowed Negro schools under the management of trustees composed of Northern business men and local Southern whites. Mrs. ¬ÝGrey acquiesced gladly and announced her plan, eventually writing Miss Smith of her decision ‚Äúto second her noble efforts in helping the poor colored people,‚Äù and she hoped to have the plan under way before next fall.
The sharpness of Miss Smith’s joy did not let her dwell on the proposed “Board of Trust”; of course, it would be a board of friends of the school.
She sat in her office looking out across the land. School had closed for the year and Bles with the carryall was just taking Miss Taylor to the train with her trunk and bags. Far up the road she could see dotted here and there the little dirty cabins of Cresswell‚Äôs tenants‚ÅÝ‚Äîthe Cresswell domain that lay like a mighty hand around the school, ready at a word to squeeze its life out. Only yonder, to the eastward, lay the way out; the five hundred acres of the Tolliver plantation, which the school needed so sadly for its farm and community. But the owner was a hard and ignorant white man, hating ‚Äúniggers‚Äù only a shade more than he hated white aristocrats of the Cresswell type. He had sold the school its first land to pique the Cresswells; but he would not sell any more, she was sure, even now when the promise of wealth faced the school.
She lay back and closed her eyes and fell lightly asleep. As she slept an old woman came toiling up the hill northward from the school, and out of the eastward spur of the Cresswell barony. She was fat and black, hooded and aproned, with great round head and massive bosom. Her face was dull and heavy and homely, her old eyes sorrowful. She moved swiftly, carrying a basket on her arm. Opposite her, to the southward, but too far for sight, an old man came out of the lower Cresswell place, skirting the