From the Cresswells and the Maxwells and others came loads of clothes for washing and mending. The Tolliver girls had simple dresses made, embroidery was ordered from town, and soon there would be the gardens and cotton fields.
Mrs. ¬ÝCresswell would saunter down of mornings.
- Sometimes she would talk to the big girls and play with the children;
- sometimes she would sit hidden in the forest, listening and glimpsing and thinking, thinking, till her head whirled and the world danced red before her eyes, today she rose wearily, for it was near noon, and started home.
She saw Alwyn swing along the road to the school dining-room where he had charge of the students at the noonday meal.
Alwyn wanted Mrs. ¬ÝCresswell‚Äôs judgment and advice. He was growing doubtful of his own estimate of women. Evidently something about his standards was wrong; consequently he made opportunities to talk with Mrs. ¬ÝCresswell when she was about, hoping she would bring up the subject of Zora of her own accord.
But she did not. She was too full of her own cares and troubles, and she was only too glad of willing and sympathetic ears into which to pour her thoughts.
Miss Smith soon began to look on these conversations with some uneasiness. Black men and white women cannot talk together casually in the South and she did not know how far the North had put notions in Alwyn’s head.
Today both met each other almost eagerly.