- 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
‚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 black girl do in this wilderness?”
Her heart answered back: “What is impossible to youth and resolution?”
Let the shabbiness increase; let the debts pile up; let the boarders complain and the teachers gossip‚ÅÝ‚ÄîZora was coming. And somehow she and Zora would find a way.
And Zora came just as the sun threw its last crimson through the black swamp; came and gathered the frail and white-haired woman in her arms; and they wept together.
Long and low they talked, far into the soft Southern night; sitting shaded beneath the stars, while nearby blinked the drowsy lights of the girls’ dormitory.
At last Miss Smith said, rising stiffly: