Then, returning to business, he said to the overseer:
"You understand the general spirit of my instructions, Mr. Wilkinson, and I beg you to bear it in mind. I'll give more specific orders from time to time, as they are needed."
"But what about me?" answered the overseer. "I've got a reputation for makin' more tobacco to the hand an' more wheat to the acre an' more corn on top o' that than any other man as oversees a plantation anywheres for forty mile around here."
"Well, what of it?"
"Well, it's this a ways. I ain't a-goin' to lose a reputation I prides myself on. Ef you don't want your niggers worked fer all they's worth, perhaps you'd better look out fer another overseer."
Westover flushed angrily, more at the tone than at the words, and answered instantly:
"Perhaps I had. At any rate I will. I shall not renew my contract with you for another year."
The Virginians were very tolerant of insolence on the part of a negro. Usually they treated it as badinage, quite harmlessly and humorously meant. But insolence on the part of an overseer was always taken seriously and instantly resented. The overseers constituted a pariah class, for whom there was tolerance only so long as they "minded their manners."
As the overseer lingered in hope of some modification of the sentence he had brought upon himself, Westover impatiently turned upon him, saying:
"I think I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Wilkinson, and I wish to talk with Mr. Towns. You may go now."