“I ’ll come mighty nigh it, Marse Jasper, if you ’ll let me be my own boss an’ be responsible to you when you git back. Mr. Cobb kin boss the rest of ‘em. They don’t keer how much he swings his whip an’ struts around.”
“Henry, I ’ll do it. I can trust you a sight better than I can Cobb. I know you will keep yore word. But you will not say anything about—”
“Not a word, Marse Jasper. They all may ’low I’m half dead, if they want to.” Then the two men laughed together heartily and parted.
The overseer and the two white women were waiting for Mr. Pelham in the backyard as he emerged from the woods and came toward the house. Mrs. Pelham opened the gate for him, scanning his face anxiously.
“I was afeard you an’ Henry had had some difficulty,” she said, in a tone of relief; “he has been that hard to manage lately.”
Mr. Pelham grunted and laughed in disdain.
“I ’ll bet he was the hardest you ever tackled,” ventured Cobb.
“Anybody can manage him,” the planter replied—“anybody that has got enough determination. You see Henry knows me.”
“But do you think he ’ll obey my orders after you go back?” Cobb had followed Mr. Pelham into the sitting-room, and he anxiously waited for the reply to his question.
The planter stooped to spit into a corner of the chimney, and then slowly and thoughtfully stroked his chin with his hand. “That’s the only trouble, Brother Cobb,” he said, thrusting his fat hands into the pockets of his trousers and turning his back to the fire-place; “that’s the only drawback. To be plain with you, Brother Cobb, I’m afeard you don’t inspire respect; men that don’t own niggers seldom do. I believe on my soul that nigger would die fightin’ before he’d obey yore orders. To tell the truth, I had to arrange a plan, an’ that is one reason—one reason—why I was down thar so long. After what happened today” (Mr. Pelham spoke significantly and stroked his chin again) “he ’ll mind me jest as well at a distance as if I was here on the spot. He’d have a mortal dread of havin’ me come so fur ag’in.”