old friends of the school full of congratulations, but no money. I ought to have cut down the teaching force to the barest minimum, and gone North begging‚ÅÝ‚Äîbut I couldn‚Äôt. I guess my courage was gone. I knew how I‚Äôd have to explain and plead, and I just could not. So I used the ten thousand dollars to pay its own interest and help run the school. Already it‚Äôs half gone, and when the rest goes then will come the end.‚Äù
Without, the great red sun paused a moment over the edge of the swamp, and the long, low cry of night birds broke sadly on the twilight silence. Zora sat stroking the lined hands.
‚ÄúNot the end,‚Äù she spoke confidently. ‚ÄúIt cannot end like this. I‚Äôve got a little money that Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool gave me, and somehow we must get more. Perhaps I might go North and‚ÅÝ‚Äîbeg.‚Äù She shivered. Then she sat up resolutely and turned to the book.
“Let’s go over matters carefully,” she proposed.
Together they counted and calculated.
“The balance is four thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight dollars,” said Miss Smith.
‚ÄúYes, and then there‚Äôs Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool‚Äôs check.‚Äù
“How much is that?”
Zora paused; she did not know. In her world there was little calculation of money. Credit and not cash is the currency of the Black Belt. She had been pleased to receive the check, but she had not examined it.
“I really don’t know,” she presently confessed. “I think it was one thousand dollars; but I was so hurried in leaving that I didn’t look carefully,” and the wild thought surged in her, suppose it was more!