‚ÄúIt wouldn‚Äôt be hypocrisy, Zora; you would be serving in a great cause. If you don‚Äôt go, I‚ÅÝ‚Äî‚Äù
‚ÄúWait! You shan‚Äôt go. If anyone goes it must be me. But let‚Äôs think it out: we pay off the mortgage, we get enough to run the school as it has been run. Then what? There will still be slavery and oppression all around us. The children will be kept in the cotton fields; the men will be cheated, and the women‚ÅÝ‚Äî‚Äù Zora paused and her eyes grew hard.
She began again rapidly: ‚ÄúWe must have land‚ÅÝ‚Äîour own farm with our own tenants‚ÅÝ‚Äîto be the beginning of a free community.‚Äù
Miss Smith threw up her hands impatiently.
“But sakes alive! Where, Zora? Where can we get land, with Cresswell owning every inch and bound to destroy us?”
Zora sat hugging her knees and staring out the window toward the sombre ramparts of the swamp. In her eyes lay slumbering the madness of long ago; in her brain danced all the dreams and visions of childhood.
“I’m thinking,” she murmured, “of buying the swamp.”