“Ef you-all ’ll thess pay me off, I reckon I won’t come back no more,” Teppenpaw announced, after he had thrown the trace-chains over the backs of his mules for the descent of the mountain.
“What’s that?—what the devil is the matter with you?” Tregarvon snapped viciously. “Aren’t you getting enough money?”
“Money ain’t the onliest thing ther’ is in this world,” was the sullen retort. “I ain’t allowin’ to let no man hire me to take his cussin’ and swearin’ and browbeatin’. I got a li’l piece o’ land and a few head o’ stock o’ my own, and I allow I don’t haf to!”
“I reckon that’s about the size of it f’r me, too,” put in Jeff Daggett, who was Teppenpaw’s nearest neighbor on the north; and from this the fire of resentment spread so rapidly that the strike became unanimous, passing at once beyond any hope of arbitration.
“You’re quitting on me before the job’s finished?” raged Tregarvon. “You are a lot of bally idiots! The money you are getting for this haul is more than any one of you will see from now to Christmas! Are you a pack of silly women that you can’t stand a little man-sized talk from a boss?”
“That’s jist hit,” said Daggett. “Looks like you-all was used to rippin’ and tearin’ at them no-account furriners up No’th that ain’t got nothin’, and don’t know enough to raise a terruction when you cuss ’em out. We-all ain’t nuther niggers n’r furriners. I’ll take my pay and quit.”
Tregarvon became heavily sarcastic. “Is this your way of telling me that you want more money?”
Bickler, the oldest man in the squad, made answer.
“I reckon you-all ain’t got money enough to make us-all come back f’r another day like what this’n has been, Mr. Tregarvon. You’ve got a heap to l’arn ef ye allow to stay down yere in old Tennessee and get white men to work f’r ye.”
“Quit, then, and be damned to you!” Tregarvon exploded. “Show up at the office in Coalville to-morrow morning before I leave, and you’ll get your pay. I don’t carry your money around with me in my pocket.”