her room, and sat down in the dark. The mere mention of the thing was to
her so preposterous--no, loathsome, she kept repeating.

She slowly undressed in the dark, and heard the rumbling of the cotton
wagons as they swayed toward town. The cry of the Naked was sweeping the
world, and yonder in the night black men were answering the call. They
knew not what or why they answered, but obeyed the irresistible call,
with hearts light and song upon their lips--the Song of Service. They
lashed their mules and drank their whiskey, and all night the piled
fleece swept by Mary Taylor's window, flying--flying to that far cry.
Miss Taylor turned uneasily in her bed and jerked the bed-clothes about
her ears.

"Mrs. Vanderpool is right," she confided to the night, with something of
the awe with which one suddenly comprehends a hidden oracle; "there must
be a difference, always, always! That impudent Negro!"

All night she dreamed, and all day,--especially when trim and immaculate
she sat in her chair and looked down upon fifty dark faces--and upon
Zora.

Zora sat thinking. She saw neither Miss Taylor nor the long straight
rows of desks and faces. She heard neither the drone of the spellers nor
did she hear Miss Taylor say, "Zora!" She heard and saw none of this.
She only heard the prattle of the birds in the wood, far down where the
Silver Fleece would be planted.

For the time of cotton-planting was coming; the gray and drizzle of
December was past and the hesitation, of January. Already a certain
warmth and glow had stolen into the air, and the Swamp was calling its
child with low, seductive voice. She knew where the first leaves were
bursting, where tiny flowers nestled, and where young living things
looked upward to the light and cried and crawled. A wistful longing was
stealing into her heart. She wanted to be free. She wanted to run and
dance and sing, but Bles wanted--

"Zora!"

This time she heard the call, but did not heed it. Miss Taylor was very
tiresome, and was forever doing and saying silly things. So Zora paid no
attention, but sat still and thought. Yes, she would show Bles the place
that very night; she had kept it secret from him until now, out of
perverseness, out of her love of mystery and secrets. But tonight, after
school, when he met her on the big road with the clothes, she would take
him and show him the chosen spot.

Soon she was aware that school had been dismissed, and she leisurely
gathered up