“We can’t,” she said. “Don’t you know that Colonel Cresswell will attach our cotton for rent as soon as it touches the warehouse?”
“But it’s ours.”
“Nothing is ours. No black man ordinarily can sell his crop without a white creditor’s consent.”
Alwyn fumed.
“The best way,” he declared, “is to go to Montgomery and get a first-class lawyer and just fight the thing through. The land is legally ours, and he has no right to our cotton.”
“Yes, but you must remember that no man like Colonel Cresswell regards a business bargain with a colored man as binding. No white man under ordinary circumstances will help enforce such a bargain against prevailing public opinion.”
“But if we cannot trust to the justice of the case, and if you knew we couldn’t, why did you try?”
‚ÄúBecause I had to try; and moreover the circumstances are not altogether ordinary: the men in power in Toomsville now are not the landlords of this county; they are poor whites. The Judge and sheriff were both elected by mill-hands who hate Cresswell and Taylor. Then there‚Äôs a new young lawyer who wants Harry Cresswell‚Äôs seat in Congress; he don‚Äôt know much law, I‚Äôm afraid; but what he don‚Äôt know of this case I think I do. I‚Äôll get his advice and then‚ÅÝ‚ÄîI mean to conduct the case myself,‚Äù Zora calmly concluded.
“Without a lawyer!” Bles Alwyn stared his amazement.
“Without a lawyer in court.”