n gathered their tenants' crops, ginned them at the
Cresswells' gin, and carried their cotton to town, where it was
deposited in the warehouse of the Farmers' League.

"Now," said Alwyn, "we would best sell while prices are high."

Zora laughed at him frankly.

"We can't," she said. "Don't you know that Colonel Cresswell will attach
our cotton for rent as soon as it touches the warehouse?"

"But it's ours."

"Nothing is ours. No black man ordinarily can sell his crop without a
white creditor's consent."

Alwyn fumed.

"The best way," he declared, "is to go to Montgomery and get a
first-class lawyer and just fight the thing through. The land is legally
ours, and he has no right to our cotton."

"Yes, but you must remember that no man like Colonel Cresswell regards a
business bargain with a colored man as binding. No white man under
ordinary circumstances will help enforce such a bargain against
prevailing public opinion."

"But if we cannot trust to the justice of the case, and if you knew we
couldn't, why did you try?"

"Because I had to try; and moreover the circumstances are not altogether
ordinary: the men in power in Toomsville now are not the landlords of
this county; they are poor whites. The Judge and sheriff were both
elected by mill-hands who hate Cresswell and Taylor. Then there's a new
young lawyer who wants Harry Cresswell's seat in Congress; he don't know
much law, I'm afraid; but what he don't know of this case I think I do.
I'll get his advice and then--I mean to conduct the case myself," Zora
calmly concluded.

"Without a lawyer!" Bles Alwyn stared his amazement.

"Without a lawyer in court."

"Zora! That would be foolish!"

"Is it? Let's think. For over a year now I've been studying the law of
the case," and she pointed to her law books; "I know the law and most of
the decisions. Moreover, as a black woman fighting a hopeless battle
with landlords, I'll gain the one thing lacking."

"What's that?"

"The sympathy of the court and the bystanders."

"Pshaw! From these Southerners?"

"Yes, from them. They are very human, these men, especially the
laborers. Their prejudices are cruel enough, but there are joints in
their armor. They are used to seeing us either scared or blindly angry,
and they understand how to handle us then, but at other times it is hard
for them to do anything but meet us in a human way."

"But, Zora, think of the contact of the court, the humiliation, the
coars