Only now and then, when their eyes met suddenly or unthinkingly, a
great kindling flash of flame seemed struggling behind showers of tears,
until in a moment she smiled or spoke, and then the dropping veil left
only the frank open glance, unwavering, soft, kind, but nothing more.
Then Alwyn would go wearily away, vexed or disappointed, or merely sad,
and both would turn to their work again.
_Thirty-six_
THE LAND
Colonel Cresswell started all the more grimly to overthrow the new work
at the school because somewhere down beneath his heart a pity and a
wonder were stirring; pity at the perfectly useless struggle to raise
the unraisable, a wonder at certain signs of rising. But it was
impossible--and unthinkable, even if possible. So he squared his jaw and
cheated Zora deliberately in the matter of the cut timber. He placed
every obstacle in the way of getting tenants for the school land. Here
Johnson, the "faithful nigger," was of incalculable assistance. He was
among the first to hear the call for prospective tenants.
The meeting was in the big room of Zora's house, and Aunt Rachel came
early with her cheery voice and smile which faded so quickly to lines of
sorrow and despair, and then twinkled back again. After her hobbled old
Sykes. Fully a half-hour later Rob hurried in.
"Johnson," he informed the others, "has sneaked over to Cresswell's to
tell of this meeting.
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