bewildered black serf dawdled in listless inability to understand. The Cresswells in their new wealth, the Maxwells and Tollivers in the new pinch of poverty, stretched long arms to gather in the tenants and their children. Excuse after excuse came to the school.
“I can’t send the chilluns dis term, Miss Smith; dey has to work.”
‚Äú Mr. ¬ÝCresswell won‚Äôt allow Will to go to school this term.‚Äù
‚Äú Mr. ¬ÝTolliver done put Sam in the field.‚Äù
And so Miss Smith contemplated many empty desks.
Slowly a sort of fatal inaction seized her. The school went on; daily the dark little cloud of scholars rose up from hill and vale and settled in the white buildings; the hum of voices and the busy movements of industrious teachers filled the day; the office work went on methodically; but back of it all Miss Smith sat half hopeless. It cost five thousand a year to run the school, and this sum she raised with increasingly greater difficulty. Extra and heart-straining effort had been needed to raise the eight hundred dollars additional for interest money on the mortgage last year. Next year it might have to come out of the regular income and thus cut off two teachers. Beyond all this the raising of ten thousand dollars to satisfy the mortgage seemed simply impossible, and Miss Smith sat in fatal resignation, awaiting the coming day.
‚ÄúIt‚Äôs the Lord‚Äôs work. I‚Äôve done what I could. I guess if He wants it to go on, He‚Äôll find a way. And if He doesn‚Äôt‚ÅÝ‚Äî‚Äù She looked off across the swamp and was silent.
Then came Zora’s letter, simple and brief, but breathing youth and strength of purpose. Miss Smith seized upon it as an omen of salvation. In vain her shrewd New England reason asked: “What can a half-taught