“Oh, you’ve all saved up money, have you?”
“When we’s bo’n,” explained George Alexander, “an’ gits big ’nuff to work ’round, Mrs. Wells puts us on de pay-roll, an’ as long as we stays with her we draws half and she keeps half for us. When she dies or when dis place breaks up we gits all our savin’s back an’ int’rest on ’em. We’s all got our books to show how much. I’s been on dat pay-roll fo’ fifty yeahs, Mistah Richud. I’s a rich man if I stays on here, an’ I guess I can leave my chillun’ sumpin’, ’case anything happens.”
There were thirty negroes working here and there on the Wells’ land, George Alexander told Richard; entirely too many, of course, but it had always been the custom of the Wells family to look out for its blacks. All this explained the absolute absence of “labour troubles” for so many generations. Any capable negro was assured of an easy livelihood, care in illness, and a safe pension.
“An’ what mo’ does anybody want in dis yeah world?” asked George Alexander. “I’d be mighty thankful, Mistah Richud, to be shu’ o’ dat much up dah! Hyah! Hyah!”
In his artless way George Alexander had thrown considerable light on Red Jacket under Mrs. Wells’ management. Richard recalled one of Jerry’s illustrations of her mother’s obstinacy whereby the year’s grape crop had been lost. No doubt unrecorded history had similar stories with similar losses. Evidently there were funds enough to cover these bad balances and keep the big place going; if not Jerry would soon discover what she got to the bottom of the documents placed in her charge.
Jerry would sift things to the bottom, he felt sure. There was a certain satisfaction in lingering on the thought of Jerry’s substantial character. She had the mother’s persistence and will, and, he smiled to himself, a little of the mother’s obstinacy. How he had misjudged her at first! But there was nothing surprising in that to Richard. Having practised open-mindedness all his life he was aware of the commonness of mistaken judgments. It is only the bigoted and partisan who experience infallibility.
His pleasant musings were interrupted by George Alexander.
“But we’s makin’ a big go ob dem hahdy puh-ren-nials, Mistah Richud, a great go!” he was saying, with emphasis.
“Dey mus’ be ’bout twenty ob dem black boys up dah now, a-workin’ an’ a-hoein’ an’ a-prunin’. We’s su’ten’y got de prize crop o’ phlox an’ yaller daisy! Hyah! Hyah! Dey’s a whole mountain o’ snapdragon, blues an’ yallers an’ pinks an’ whites. You don’t know o’ any localities, Mistah Richud, what’s hungerin’ now fo’ a mess o’ peonies, does yo’? ’Ca’se if yo’ do, it’d be de Lawd’s mercy to let ’em loose up on dat hill yondah. An’ hollyhocks! Lawd! If we could on’y send hollyhocks down to Mistah Buttuhwo’th’s big ice-house in Philadelphia, we’d no need o’ no apple o’cha’d, Mistah Richud. Hyah! Hyah! But I’s not seen many puhsens hyeah-’bouts fallin’ ober demselves to buy up our hollyhock crop, Mistah Richud. Hyah! Hyah! Not so many, Mistah Richud!”
There was always money enough for spray and soil for the hardy perennials, George Alexander averred. And there was always a strong demand for labour to thin out this group here and transplant there, and prune and cultivate and graft. The seed-pods were collected as if they were gold-dust; and bulbs were dug up, wrapped and saved; and slips were cut and planted in fresh places; and paths were made, hedges constructed for background effect and natural stone walls built for trailing vines, and so on and so on.