Such property
belonged of right to the master, if the master needed it; and since
ridiculous laws safeguarded the property, it was perfectly permissible
to circumvent such laws. No Negro starved on the Cresswell place,
neither did any accumulate property. Colonel Cresswell saw to both
matters.
As the Colonel and John Taylor were thus conferring, Zora appeared,
coming up the walk.
"Who's that?" asked the Colonel shading his eyes.
"It's Zora--the girl who went North with Mrs. Vanderpool," Taylor
enlightened him.
"Back, is she? Too trifling to stick to a job, and full of Northern
nonsense," growled the Colonel. "Even got a Northern walk--I thought for
a moment she was a lady."
Neither of the gentlemen ever dreamed how long, how hard, how
heart-wringing was that walk from the gate up the winding way beneath
their careless gaze. It was not the coming of the thoughtless, careless
girl of five years ago who had marched a dozen times unthinking before
the faces of white men. It was the approach of a woman who knew how the
world treated women whom it respected; who knew that no such treatment
would be thought of in her case: neither the bow, the lifted hat, nor
even the conventional title of decency. Yet she must go on naturally and
easily, boldly but circumspectly, and play a daring game with two
powerful men.
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