He bought a
square mile or more, and for a time the field-hands sang, the
gins groaned, and the mills buzzed. Then came a change. The
agent's son embezzled the funds and ran off with them. Then
the agent himself disappeared. Finally the new agent stole
even the books, and the company in wrath closed its business
and its houses, refused to sell, and let houses and furniture
and machinery rust and rot. So the Waters-Loring plantation
was stilled by the spell of dishonesty, and stands like some
gaunt rebuke to a scarred land.
Somehow that plantation ended our day's journey; for I
could not shake off the influence of that silent scene. Back
toward town we glided, past the straight and thread-like
pines, past a dark tree-dotted pond where the air was heavy
with a dead sweet perfume. White slender-legged curlews
flitted by us, and the garnet blooms of the cotton looked gay
against the green and purple stalks. A peasant girl was hoeing
in the field, white-turbaned and black-limbed. All this we
saw, but the spell still lay upon us.
How curious a land is this,--how full of untold story, of
tragedy and laughter, and the rich legacy of human life;
shadowed with a tragic past, and big with future promise!
This is the Black Belt of Georgia.
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