"Wal, we mout do so. Tain't no hurt ter do it dat er way, only it handles better ter let it hang on de sticks a while an' git sorter wilted—don't break de leaves off ner mash 'em up so much loadin' an" unloadin', yer know," answered Nimbus.
"How much have you got here?" asked the sheriff, casting his eye over the field; "forty thousand?"
"Wal," said Nimbus, "I made up sixty thousand hills, but I hed ter re-set some on 'em. I s'pose it'll run somewhere between fifty an' sixty thousand."
"A right good crop," said the sheriff. "I doubt if any man in the county has got a better, take it all 'round."
"I don't reckon ther's one wukked enny harder fer what he's got," said the colored man quietly.
"No, I'll guarantee ther hain't," said the other, laughing. "Nobody ever accused you of being lazy, Nimbus. They only fault you fer being too peart."
"All 'cause I wants my own, an' wuks fer it, an' axes nobody enny odds, but only a fa'r show—a white man's chance ter git along," responded Nimbus, with a touch of defiance in his tone.
"Well, well," said the sheriff good-naturedly, "I won't never fault ye for that, but they do say you're the only man, white er black, that ever got ahead of Potem Desmit in a trade yet. How's that, Nimbus?"
"I paid him all he axed," said the colored man, evidently flattered by this tribute to his judgment as to the value of Red Wing. "Kase white folks won't see good fine-terbacker lan' when dey walks ober it, tain't my fault, is it?"
"No more tain't, Nimbus; but don't yer s'pose yer Marse Potem's smartly worried over it?"