Mr. Wilson opened the meeting after the introductions had been completed.
“Brothers, we’ve met here this evenin’ to talk over some way we can he’p these brothers who live out in the country and who ain’t been able to get an honest settlement from the folks they’s been farmin’ for. I’m going to ask Brother Tucker to tell us just how things are with the folks out his way. Brother Tucker.”
“Brother” Tucker rose and stood by the table around which they were seated and on which flickered an oil lamp. He was a man between fifty and sixty years of age, of medium height and thick-set. His black skin was wrinkled with age and toil. His hands, as they rested on the table in front of him, were gnarled and hardened through a lifetime of ploughing and hoeing and the other hard work of farm life. It was Mr. Tucker’s face, however, which attracted interest. Out of the rolls of skin there shone two kindly, docile eyes. One gained the impression that these eyes had seen tragedies on top of tragedies, as indeed they had, and their owner had been taught by dire necessity to look upon them in a philosophic and pacifist manner. One remembered a biblical description: “He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Kenneth, as he looked at him, felt that Socrates and Aristotle and Jesus Christ must have had eyes like Brother Tucker’s. His impression was heightened by Mr. Tucker’s hair. Of a snowy whiteness, his head bald on top, his hair formed a circle around his head that reminded Kenneth of the picture-cards used at Sunday school when he was a boy, where the saints had crowns of light hovering over their heads. The only difference was that Mr. Tucker’s halo seemed to be a bit more firmly and closely attached than those of the saints, which he remembered always seemed to be poised perilously in mid-air. He had often wondered, as he gazed intently at the pictures, what would have happened had a strong gust of wind come suddenly upon the saints, and blown their haloes away.
Mr. Tucker began speaking slowly, in the manner of one of few words and as one unused to talking in public.
“Brudders, me ‘n’ Brudder Tracy, and Brudder Swann ast Reverend Wilson here to let us come t’ town some time and talk over with you gent’men a li’l’ trouble we’s been havin’. Y’ see, all of us folks out dat way wuks on shares like dis. We makes a ‘greement wif de landlord to wuk one year or mo’. He fu’nishes de lan’ and we puts de crap in de soil, wuks it, and den gathers it. We’s sposed to ‘vide it share and share alike wif de landlord but it doan wuk out dat way. If us cullud folks ain’t got money enough to buy our seed and fert’lizer and food and the clo’es we needs du’in’ de year, we is allowed t’ take up dese things at de sto’. Den when we goes to settle up after de cott’n and cawn’s done laid by, de sto’ man who wuks in wif de landlord won’t giv’ us no bill for whut we done bought but jes’ gives us a li’l piece of paper wif de words on it: “Balance Due.”
He paused to wipe the perspiration from his face caused by the unusual experience of speaking at such length. He continued:
“An’ dat ain’t all. W’en we starts to pickin’ our cotton, dey doan let us ca’y it to de gin and weigh it ourself. De lan’lord send his wagons down in de fiel’ and as fas’ as we picks it, dey loads it on de wagons and takes it away. Dey doan let us know how much it weighs or how much dey sells it for. Dey jus’ tells us it weighs any ‘mount de lan’lord wants to tell us, and dey says dey sol’ it at any price dey set. W’en we comes to settle up for de year, dey ‘ducts de balance due’ from what we’s got comin’ t’us from our share of de craps. I’s been wukin’ for nigh on to six years for Mr. Taylor out near Ashland and ev’y year I goes deeper in debt dan de year befo’. Las’ year I raised mo’ dan twenty-fo’ bales of cott’n dat weighed mo’ dan five hundred poun’s each. My boy Tom whut’s been t’ school figgered out dat at eighten cents a poun’—and dat’s de price de paper said cott’n sol’ at las’ year—I oughter got mo’ dan a thousan’ dollars for my share. An’ dat ain’t all neither. Dey was nearly twelve tons of cott’n seed dat was wuth ‘bout two hundred and fo’ty dollars. An’den dey was mo’ dan three hundred bush’ls of cawn at a dollar’n a ha’f a bush’l dat makes fo’ hundred and fifty dollars mo’. All dat t’gether makes nearly three thousan’ dollars an’ I oughter got ‘bout fifteen hundred dollars fo’ my share.”
Tucker stopped again and shifted his feet while Tracy and Swann nodded agreement with his statements.
“Las’ year me ‘n’ my wife said we wuz gwine t’ get along without spendin’ no mo’ money at de sto’ dan we had to, so’s we could get out of debt. We wukked ha’d and all our chillen we made wuk in de fiel’s too. My boy Tom kept account of ev’ything we bought at de sto’, and when de year ended he figgered it up an’ he foun’ we’d done spent jus’ even fo’ hundred dollars. But when we goes to make a settlement at de end of de year, Mr. Taylor said he sol our cott’n at eight cent a poun’ and didn’have but sev’n hundred and thutty-five dollars comin’ to us. An’ den he claim we tuk up ‘leven hundred dollars wuth of stuff at de sto’ which he done paid for, so that leave me owin’ him three hundred ‘n’ sixty-five dollars dat I got to wuk out next year.”
His face took on a dejected look as though the load had become almost too heavy to bear. His voice took on at the same time a plaintive and discouraged tone.