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tea please matthews butler impassively |
hostess replaces lump and inclines empty teapot over tray for a moment then hands him a cup painted brown inside thus deceiving the gentleman with the telescope in the upper circle |
re enter butler and three footmen who remove the tea things hostess to guest |
in novels the hero has often pushed his meals away untasted but no stage hero would do anything so unnatural as this |
two bites are made and the bread is crumbled with an air of great eagerness indeed one feels that in real life the guest would clutch hold of the footman and say half a mo old chap i haven't nearly finished but the actor is better schooled than this |
but it is the cigarette which chiefly has brought the modern drama to its present state of perfection |
lord john taking out gold cigarette case from his left hand upper waistcoat pocket |
all about him was a tumult of bright and broken color scattered in broad splashes |
the merganser had a crested head of iridescent green black a broad collar of lustrous white black back black and white wings white belly sides finely pencilled in black and white and a breast of rich chestnut red streaked with black |
his feet were red his long narrow beak with its saw toothed edges and sharp hooked tip was bright red |
but here he was at a terrible disadvantage as compared with the owls hawks and eagles he had no rending claws |
but suddenly straight and swift as a diving cormorant he shot down into the torrent and disappeared beneath the surface |
once fairly a wing however he wheeled and made back hurriedly for his perch |
it might have seemed that a trout of this size was a fairly substantial meal |
but such was his keenness that even while the wide flukes of his engorged victim were still sticking out at the corners of his beak his fierce red eyes were once more peering downward into the torrent in search of fresh prey |
in despair he hurled himself downward too soon |
the great hawk followed hurriedly to retrieve his prey from the ground |
the cat growled softly picked up the prize in her jaws and trotted into the bushes to devour it |
in fact he had just finished it the last of the trout's tail had just vanished with a spasm down his strained gullet when the baffled hawk caught sight of him and swooped |
the hawk alighted on the dead branch and sat upright motionless as if surprised |
like his unfortunate little cousin the teal he too had felt the fear of death smitten into his heart and was heading desperately for the refuge of some dark overhanging bank deep fringed with weeds where the dreadful eye of the hawk should not discern him |
the hawk sat upon the branch and watched his quarry swimming beneath the surface |
almost instantly he was forced to the top |
straightway the hawk glided from his perch and darted after him |
but at this point in the rapids it was impossible for him to stay down |
but this frequenter of the heights of air for all his savage valor was troubled at the leaping waves and the tossing foam of these mad rapids he did not understand them |
as he flew his down reaching clutching talons were not half a yard above the fugitive's head |
where the waves for an instant sank they came closer but not quite within grasping reach |
but as before the leaping waves of the rapids were too much for his pursuer and he was able to flap his way onward in a cloud of foam while doom hung low above his head yet hesitated to strike |
the hawk embittered by the loss of his first quarry had become as dogged in pursuit as a weasel not to be shaken off or evaded or deceived |
he had a lot of line out and the place was none too free for a long cast but he was impatient to drop his flies again on the spot where the big fish was feeding |
the last drop fly as luck would have it caught just in the corner of the hawk's angrily open beak hooking itself firmly |
at the sudden sharp sting of it the great bird turned his head and noticed for the first time the fisherman standing on the bank |
the drag upon his beak and the light check upon his wings were inexplicable to him and appalling |
then the leader parted from the line |
the hon charles smith miss sarah's brother was walking swiftly uptown from mister easterly's wall street office and his face was pale |
at last the cotton combine was to all appearances an assured fact and he was slated for the senate |
why should he not be as other men |
she was not herself a notably intelligent woman she greatly admired intelligence or whatever looked to her like intelligence in others |
as she awaited her guests she surveyed the table with both satisfaction and disquietude for her social functions were few tonight there were she checked them off on her fingers sir james creighton the rich english manufacturer and lady creighton mister and missus vanderpool mister harry cresswell and his sister john ta... |
missus grey had met southerners before but not intimately and she always had in mind vividly their cruelty to poor negroes a subject she made a point of introducing forthwith |
she was therefore most agreeably surprised to hear mister cresswell express himself so cordially as approving of negro education |
but you believe in some education asked mary taylor |
i believe in the training of people to their highest capacity the englishman here heartily seconded him |
but cresswell added significantly capacity differs enormously between races |
the vanderpools were sure of this and the englishman instancing india became quite eloquent missus grey was mystified but hardly dared admit it the general trend of the conversation seemed to be that most individuals needed to be submitted to the sharpest scrutiny before being allowed much education and as for the lowe... |
positively heroic added cresswell avoiding his sister's eyes |
but we're not er exactly welcomed |
mary taylor however related the tale of zora to missus grey's private ear later |
fortunately said mister vanderpool northerners and southerners are arriving at a better mutual understanding on most of these matters |
in the debate between the senior societies her defence of the fifteenth amendment had been not only a notable bit of reasoning but delivered with real enthusiasm |
the south she had not thought of seriously and yet knowing of its delightful hospitality and mild climate she was not averse to charleston or new orleans |
john taylor who had supported her through college was interested in cotton |
better go he had counselled sententiously |
might learn something useful down there |
but john there's no society just elementary work |
been looking up tooms county |
find some cresswells there big plantations rated at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars |
some others too big cotton county |
you ought to know john if i teach negroes i'll scarcely see much of people in my own class |
at any rate i say go |
here she was teaching dirty children and the smell of confused odors and bodily perspiration was to her at times unbearable |
she wanted a glance of the new books and periodicals and talk of great philanthropies and reforms |
so for the hundredth time she was thinking today as she walked alone up the lane back of the barn and then slowly down through the bottoms |
cotton she paused |
she had almost forgotten that it was here within touch and sight |
the glimmering sea of delicate leaves whispered and murmured before her stretching away to the northward |
there might be a bit of poetry here and there but most of this place was such desperate prose |
her regard shifted to the green stalks and leaves again and she started to move away |
cotton is a wonderful thing is it not boys she said rather primly |
miss taylor did not know much about cotton but at least one more remark seemed called for |
don't know well of all things inwardly commented miss taylor literally born in cotton and oh well as much as to ask what's the use she turned again to go |
i suppose though it's too early for them then came the explosion |
goobers don't grow on the tops of vines but underground on the roots like yams is that so |
the golden fleece it's the silver fleece he harkened |
some time you'll tell me please won't you |
now for one little half hour she had been a woman talking to a boy no not even that she had been talking just talking there were no persons in the conversation just things one thing cotton |
he knew the silver fleece his and zora's must be ruined |
it was the first great sorrow of his life it was not so much the loss of the cotton itself but the fantasy the hopes the dreams built around it |
ah the swamp the cruel swamp |
the revelation of his love lighted and brightened slowly till it flamed like a sunrise over him and left him in burning wonder |
he panted to know if she too knew or knew and cared not or cared and knew not |
she was so strange and human a creature |
the world was water veiled in mists |
then of a sudden at midday the sun shot out hot and still no breath of air stirred the sky was like blue steel the earth steamed |
where was the use of imagining |
the lagoon had been level with the dykes a week ago and now |
perhaps she too might be there waiting weeping |
he started at the thought he hurried forth sadly |
he splashed and stamped along farther and farther onward until he neared the rampart of the clearing and put foot upon the tree bridge |
then he looked down the lagoon was dry |
he stood a moment bewildered then turned and rushed upon the island a great sheet of dazzling sunlight swept the place and beneath lay a mighty mass of olive green thick tall wet and willowy |
the squares of cotton sharp edged heavy were just about to burst to bolls |
for one long moment he paused stupid agape with utter amazement then leaned dizzily against a tree |
he gazed about perplexed astonished |
here lay the reading of the riddle with infinite work and pain some one had dug a canal from the lagoon to the creek into which the former had drained by a long and crooked way thus allowing it to empty directly |
he sat down weak bewildered and one thought was uppermost zora |
the years of the days of her dying were ten |
the hope and dream of harvest was upon the land |
up in the sick room zora lay on the little white bed |
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