“Not fer me, Brother Pelham. He hain’t done a lick fer me; but all of his own accord, in the last week, he has broke and sowed all that meadow-piece in wheat, an’ is now harrowin’ it down to hide it from the birds. To do ’im jestice, I hain’t seed so much work done in six days by any human bein’ alive. He ’ll work for hisse’f, but he won’t budge fer me.” Mr. Pelham broke into a soft, impulsive laugh, as if at the memory of something. “They all had a big joke on me out in North Carolina,” he said. “I tol’ ‘em I was comin’ home to whip a nigger, an’ they wouldn’t believe a word of it. I reckon it is the fust time a body ever went so fur on sech business. They ‘lowed I was jest homesick an’ wanted a’ excuse to come back.” “They don’t know what a difficult subject we got to handle,” Cobb replied. “You are, without doubt, the only man in seven states that could whip ‘im, Brother Pelham. I believe on my soul he’d kill anybody else that’d tech ‘im. He’s got the strangest notions about the rights of niggers I ever heerd from one of his kind. He’s jest simply dangerous.” “You ‘re afeard of ‘im, Brother Cobb, an’ he’s sharp enough to see it; that’s all.” The overseer winced. “I don’t reckon I’m any more so than any other white man would be under the same circumstances. Henry mought not strike back lick fer lick on the spot--I say he mought not; an’ then ag’in he mought--but he’d git even by some hook or crook, or I’m no judge o’ niggers.” Mr. Pelham rose. “Whar is he?” “Over in the wheat-field.” “Well, you go over thar n’ tell ’im I’m here, an’ to come right away down in the woods by the gum spring. I ’ll go down an’ cut some hickory withes an’ wait fer ‘im. The quicker it’s done an’ over, the deeper the impression will be made on ‘im. You see, I want ’im to realize that all this trip is jest solely on his account. I ’ll start back early in the mornin’. That will have its weight on his future conduct. An’, Brother Cobb, I can’t--I jest _can’t_ afford to be bothered ag’in. My business out thar at the lumber-camp won’t admit of it. This whippin’ has got to do fer the rest of the year. I think he ’ll mind you when I git through with ‘im. I like ’im better ’n any slave I ever owned, an’ I’d a thousand times ruther take the whippin’ myself; but it’s got to be done.” Cobb took himself to Henry in the wheat-field, and the planter went down into the edge of the woods near the spring. With his pocket-knife he cut two slender hickory switches about five feet in length. He trimmed off the out-shooting twigs and knots, and rounded the butts smoothly. From where he sat on a fallen log, he could see, across the boggy swamp of bulrushes, the slight rise on which Henry was at work. He could hear Henry’s mellow, resonant “Haw” and “Gee,” as he drove his mule and harrow from end to end of the field, and saw Cobb slowly making his way toward him.