"I see you've been talking to Ephraim. What good would it do the negroes if they owned every foot of the cotton land? They would still have to depend on the man that buys the crop, and the cotton exchange wouldn't be run for the benefit of the negro. In slavery days, too, there was some one to take an interest in the negro and help him. Now he's got to do it for himself, and he can't do anything but go on in the same old groove." "You think it was better in the old days?" "In some ways for the negro, yes. But it was harder for the people of the South. There was always trouble of some kind in the slave quarters. Before the war you had to support all the old, the sick, the children, and the poor workers. Under present conditions you hire just whom you want. The cost is about even, and the responsibility is less. Now," he added, lunch being over, "if you've finished we'll go and see what this peonage business is. Ephraim," he called, "is that man here?" "Yas, sah," answered the old negro. "He's hyar." "Bring him in, then." In a minute or two the old darky returned, bringing with him a gaunt, emaciated negro, who cringed as he entered the room. He was followed by a brisk, young mulatto. "If yo' please, Massa," said the old preacher, dropping unconsciously into the familiar form of address, "this is Peter, young Peter's father." "I've seen him before," the Colonel said abruptly "Peter, were you on this plantation?" "Yas, Massa." "What's the matter with him, Ephraim?" queried the old soldier. "He looks to me as though he hadn't had enough to eat." "It isn't only that, Massa," said the negro, "he's been whipped 'most to death." "Whipped!" cried Hamilton, startled. Then, remembering suddenly that the matter was not his concern, he flushed and turned to the Colonel. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "I forgot." The old soldier, who had been a stern disciplinarian in his time, had drawn himself up indignantly at the boy's interruption, but his immediate apology caused the old gentleman to see that it was just a flash of boyish indignation, so he merely turned and said: "Let him tell his story." "Ah was born hyar durin' the war," the negro began. "Ah c'n jes' remember Missis, an' Ah've often heard mah mother cry when we was livin' in Atlanta an' trouble come, 'If only Ah could go to Missis.'" "Get to your story, boy," said the Colonel, "I haven't time to waste." "Ah was brought up in Atlanta, Georgia, an' times was always hard. Six years ago Ah hired out to a lumber man in Florida. Thar were sixty of us hired together. The pay was good. The day we come, we were put into a group o' huts with a stockade 'roun', an' men with rifles guarded us night an' day. Ah reckon thirty men was shot tryin' to escape durin' the years I was thar." "Thirty?" "Yas, sah, leastways I know of five, an' heard o' the rest." "Talk about what you know, not what you've heard," admonished the old soldier. "Go on."