‚ÄúI don‚Äôt ask anything; but for the child‚ÅÝ‚Äîshe isn‚Äôt to blame.‚Äù
The older woman wavered.
“Won’t you try?” pleaded the younger.
‚ÄúYes‚ÅÝ‚ÄîI‚Äôll try, I‚Äôll try; I am trying all the time, but there are more things than my weak strength can do. Goodbye.‚Äù
Miss Smith stood a long time in the doorway, watching the fading figure and vaguely trying to remember what it was that she had started to do, when the sharp staccato step of a mule drew her attention to a rider who stopped at the gate. It was her neighbor, Tolliver‚ÅÝ‚Äîa gaunt, yellow-faced white man, ragged, rough, and unkempt; one of the poor whites who had struggled up and failed. He spent no courtesy on the ‚Äúnigger‚Äù teacher, but sat in his saddle and called her to the gate, and she went.
“Say,” he roughly opened up, “I’ve got to sell some land and them damn Cresswells are after it. You can have it for five thousand dollars if you git the cash in a week.” With a muttered oath he rode abruptly off; but not before she had seen the tears in his eyes.
All night Sarah Smith lay thinking, and all day she thought and dreamed. Toward dark she walked slowly out the gate and up the highway toward the Cresswell oaks. She had never been within the