ll, leave it here, and I'll see to it."

"But you see, sir, Miss Smith is so methodical; she expects some papers
or receipts."

"Well, it's too late tonight."

"Possibly you could sign a sort of receipt and later--"

Cresswell laughed. "Well, write one," he indulgently assented. And Zora
wrote.

When Zora left Colonel Cresswell's about noon that Sunday she knew her
work had just begun, and she walked swiftly along the country roads,
calling here and there. Would Uncle Isaac help her build a log home?
Would the boys help her some time to clear some swamp land? Would Rob
become a tenant when she asked? For this was the idle time of the year.
Crops were laid by and planting had not yet begun.

This too was the time of big church meetings. She knew that in her part
of the country on that day the black population, man, woman, and child,
were gathered in great groups; all day they had been gathering,
streaming in snake-like lines along the country roads, in well-brushed,
brilliant attire, half fantastic, half crude. Down where the
Toomsville-Montgomery highway dipped to the stream that fed the
Cresswell swamp squatted a square barn that slept through day and weeks
in dull indifference. But on the First Sunday it woke to sudden mighty
life. The voices of men and children mingled with the snorting of
animals and the cracking of whips. Then came the long drone and
sing-song of the preacher with its sharp wilder climaxes and the
answering "amens" and screams of the worshippers. This was the shrine of
the Baptists--shrine and oracle, centre and source of inspiration--and
hither Zora hurried.

The preacher was Jones, a big man, fat, black, and greasy, with little
eyes, unctuous voice, and three manners: his white folks manner, soft,
humble, wheedling; his black folks manner, voluble, important,
condescending; and above all, his pulpit manner, loud, wild, and strong.
He was about to don this latter cloak when Zora approached with a
request briefly to address the congregation. Remembering some former
snubs, his manner was lordly.

"I doesn't see," he returned reflectively, wiping his brows, "as how I
can rightly spare you any time; the brethren is a-gettin' mighty
onpatient to hear me." He pulled down his cuffs, regarding her
doubtfully.

"I might speak after you're through," she suggested. But he objected
that there was the regular collection and two or three other
collections, a baptism, a meeting of the trustees; there