“I’ll do my best,” he said, “but it isn’t as easy as you might think.”
“I don’t know what I ever did or said,” retorted Marcia, “that would give you the impression that I thought anything about life was easy for either one of us. ‘Easy’ is a funny word to use in connection with this house.”
Jason found himself standing straight, gripping his books, and looking into her eyes.
“I’m sorry you have to work so hard,” he said.
His glance left the face of the woman before him and ran over the small mean kitchen, the plain, ugly living room. Without seeing it actually, he mentally saw the house outside, and the unprepossessing surroundings. There was a catch in his breath as he again faced Marcia.
“I’ll try very hard,” he told her, “and maybe it won’t be long until I can be a lawyer or a doctor or rent a piece of land, and then I’ll take care of you like a real lady.”
And again a close observer could have seen a stifled impulse toward the boy on the part of the woman; but it was not of sufficient impetus that the boy caught it, for he hesitated a second longer, then turning on his heel, he ran from the room and made his way down the street, happy to discover that for once he had plenty of time.
So it happened that at the same hour these four children were on the different streets of Ashwater, all headed toward the village school house, a grade and high school combined in one brick building designed for the educational purposes of the town. The day labourers of the village had passed over those same streets earlier that morning. The people that the children met were doctors and lawyers going to their offices, and the housewives of the village, many of them with their baskets on their arms, going to do their morning shopping. Front walks were being swept and rugs shaken from verandas. Walking demurely arm in arm, chattering to each other, went Mahala Spellman and Edith Williams. At the same time they saw an approaching figure and their arms tightened around each other.
Down the street toward them came a woman that all the village knew and spoke of as Crazy Becky. She wore the usual long, wide skirt of the period, with the neat, closely fitting waist. Her dress was of a delicately flowered white calico carefully made, her face and head covered by a deep sunbonnet well drawn forward. The children were accustomed to having only a peep of her face with its exquisite modelling, delicate colouring, and big, wide-open, blue-gray eyes with long, dark lashes. Sometimes a little person, passing her closely and peering up, caught a gleam of wavy golden hair surrounding her face. Over one shoulder, firmly gripped in her hand, was a long red osier cut from the cornels bordering the river. From it there waved behind her as she walked, a flag of snow-white muslin, neatly tacked to its holder and carefully fringed on the lower edge. In the other hand she carried an empty basket. On her face was a look of expectancy. Always her eyes were flashing everywhere in eager search for something.
Seeing the children coming in all directions, she stationed herself on the steps leading to the lawn of a residence that stood slightly above the street, and facing the passers-by, she began to offer them the privilege of walking under her white flag. In a mellow voice, sweet and pathetic, she began timidly: “Behold the White Flag! Mark the emblem of purity.” Then, gathering courage, she cried to those approaching her: “If you know in your hearts that you are clean, pass under the flag with God’s blessing. If you know that your hearts are filled with evil, bow your heads, pass under, and the flag will make you clean.”