I thought for a moment. "Learn to stem tobacco quick'en they do," I replied at last.
"What have you found out since you came in?"
"That you must strip the leaf off clean and throw it into the big trough that slides it downstairs somewhere."
A smile crossed his face. "If I give you a job it won't be much more than running up and down stairs with messages," he said; "that's what a nigger can't do." He hesitated an instant; "but that's the way I began," he added kindly, "under General Bolingbroke."
I looked up quickly, "And was it the way he began?"
"Oh, well, hardly. He belongs to one of the old families, you know. His father was a great planter and he started on top."
My crestfallen look must have moved his pity, I think, for he said as he turned away and we walked down the long room, "It ain't the start that makes the man, youngster, but the man that makes the start."
The doors swung together behind us, and we descended the dark staircase, with the piercing soprano voices fluting in our ears.
"Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah,
Christ leads de ole sheep by still watah, watah."