ON A PEANUT FARM. Caesar and his sister at work when Hamilton came to take the census.
"Jes' as soon as the young-uns gits big enough," she said to Hamilton, when discussing the statistics of her little holding, "we're goin' to buy a big patch o' peanut land. Ah'd like to grow peanuts every year, but these hyar gov'nment papers say yo' shouldn't. They say once in every fo' years is enough fo' peanuts, but Ah'm goin' to try it every other year."
"Aren't they a very troublesome crop?"
"'Bout the same as potatoes, Ah reckon. But they pay a good price fo' picked peanuts, an' Ah can get these boys hyar to do the pickin'. In one o' the papers Ah saw up to Colonel 'Gerius' place the other day, one the gov'nment puts out, thar's a list showin' this country has to send to foreign countries fo' twelve million bushels o' peanuts every year. Ah'm goin' to try raisin' a real big crop, and Dicky hyar," she added, pointing to the oldest boy, "thinks jes' as I do about it."
Hamilton was distinctly impressed with the evidence that this young negro girl and her younger brothers not only knew enough about the peanut business to be able to make it pay, but that they were reading the government bulletins.
"I didn't know," he said hastily, "that you people—" and he stopped suddenly, realizing the ungracious ending to his sentence.
"You mean us colored folks,—you didn't think we troubled 'bout such things? Yas, sah, we don' have all the advantages o' white folks but we're improvin' right along. Colonel 'Gerius jes' does all he can, an' he gets us gov'nment seeds an' papers, an' advises every one fo' miles aroun'. Yas, sah, we're gettin' on. If yo' have to go to Bullertown, sah, yo'll fin' as nice a li'l place as thar is f'om one end o' the United States cla'r to the other, an' thar's not one white person in it."
"Bullertown?" queried Hamilton in surprise. "I'm glad to hear it, for that's the next place on my map."
"We're all proud of it hyar, sah, an' it 'pears to me, Bullertown owes jes' everythin' to the folks at the Big House and to Mistah Ephraim Jones. Yo'll see Mistah Jones, sah, an' I'd take it kindly if yo'll remember me to him."
"All right, Delia, I will," said Hamilton. "Let's see, I did get all the figures, didn't I?"