“I’ve talked till I’m tired out,” Mrs. Pelham interrupted. “Uncle Henry promises an’ forms good resolutions, it seems like, but the very minute Cobb wants ’im to do some ’n a little different from Mr. Pelham’s way, Henry won’t stir a peg. He jest hates the ground Cobb walks on. Well, I reckon Cobb ain’t much of a man. He never would work a lick, an’ if he couldn’t git a job overseein’ somebody’s niggers he’d let his family starve to death. Nobody kin hate a lazy, good-for-nothin’ white man like a nigger kin. Thar Cobb comes now, to complain to me, I reckon,” added Mrs. Pelham, going back to the window. “An’ bless your soul, Henry has took his seat out in the sun on the wagon-tongue, as big as life. I reckon the whole crop will go to rack an’ ruin.” The next moment a tall, thin-visaged man with gray hair and beard stood in the cellar door. “I’m jest about to the end o’ my tether, Sister Pelham.” (He always called her “Sister,” because they were members of the same church.) “I can’t get that black rascal to stir a step. I ordered Alf an’ Jake to hold ‘im, so I could give ’im a sound lashin’, but they was afeard to tech ‘im.” Mrs. Pelham looked at him over her glasses as she wiped her damp hands on her apron. “You don’t know how to manage niggers, Brother Cobb; I didn’t much ‘low you did the day Mr. Pelham left you in charge. The fust mornin’, you went to the field with that hosswhip in your hand, an’ you’ve toted it about ever since. You mought know that would give offense. Mr. Pelham never toted one, an’ yore doin’ of it looks like you ‘lowed you’d have a use fer it.” “I acknowledge I don’t know what to do,” said Cobb, frowning down her reference to his whip. “I’ve been paid fer three months’ work in advance, in the white mare an’ colt Mr. Pelham give me, an’ I’ve done sold ’em an’ used the money. I’m free to confess that Brother Pelham’s intrusts are bein’ badly protected as things are goin’; but I’ve done my best.” “I reckon you have,” answered Mrs. Pelham, with some scorn in her tone. “I reckon you have, accordin’ to your ability an’ judgment, an’ we can’t afford to lose your services after you’ve been paid. Thar is jest one thing left to do, an’ that is fer Mr. Pelham to come home an’ whip Henry. He’s sowin’ discord an’ rebellion, an’ needs a good, sound lashin’. The sooner it’s done the better. Nobody can do it but Mr. Pelham, an’ I’m goin’ in now an’ write the letter an’ send it off. In the mean time, you’d better go on to work with the others, an’ leave Henry alone till his master comes.” “Brother Pelham is the only man alive that could whip ‘im,” replied Cobb; “but it looks like a great pity an’ expense for Brother Pel--” But the planter’s wife had passed him and gone up the steps into the sitting-room. Cobb walked across the barnyard without looking at the stalwart negro sitting on the wagon-tongue. He threw his whip down at the barn, and he and half a dozen negroes went to the hayfields over the knoll toward the creek.