She sat in her office looking out across the land. School had closed for
the year and Bles with the carryall was just taking Miss Taylor to the
train with her trunk and bags. Far up the road she could see dotted here
and there the little dirty cabins of Cresswell's tenants--the Cresswell
domain that lay like a mighty hand around the school, ready at a word to
squeeze its life out. Only yonder, to the eastward, lay the way out; the
five hundred acres of the Tolliver plantation, which the school needed
so sadly for its farm and community. But the owner was a hard and
ignorant white man, hating "niggers" only a shade more than he hated
white aristocrats of the Cresswell type. He had sold the school its
first land to pique the Cresswells; but he would not sell any more, she
was sure, even now when the promise of wealth faced the school.

She lay back and closed her eyes and fell lightly asleep. As she slept
an old woman came toiling up the hill northward from the school, and
out of the eastward spur of the Cresswell barony. She was fat and black,
hooded and aproned, with great round head and massive bosom. Her face
was dull and heavy and homely, her old eyes sorrowful. She moved
swiftly, carrying a basket on her arm. Opposite her, to the southward,
but too far for sight, an old man came out of the lower Cresswell place,
skirting the swamp. He was tall, black, and gaunt, part bald with tufted
hair, and a cowed and furtive look was in his eyes. One leg was
crippled, and he hobbled painfully.

Up the road to the eastward that ran past the school, with the morning
sun at his back, strode a young man, yellow, crisp-haired, strong-faced,
with darkly knit brows. He greeted Bles and the teacher coldly, and
moved on in nervous haste. A woman, hurrying out of the westward swamp
up the path that led from Elspeth's, saw him and shrank back hastily.
She turned quickly into the swamp and waited, looking toward the school.