CHAPTER VII
Some men fail because they invest their money in bad business. More fail because they invest themselves in sorry human material. They trust their plans to people who cannot or will not carry them out.
Bob from his first day as an employer realized that to be able to plan and work himself was only half of success. One must be able to pick men who will carry out his plans, must invest his brains, his generosity, his fair treatment, and his affections in human beings who will return him loyalty for loyalty.
He had made no mistake in Noah Ezekiel Foster. Noah was a good cotton planter; moreover, he knew a good deal about Chinese. Bob had employed six Chinamen to help get the ground in shape and the cotton planted.
"Noah," Bob stopped beside the disk plow and its double team, "you understand mules."
"I ought to." Noah rubbed his lean jaw. "I've been kicked by 'em enough."
Bob smiled. Somehow Noah's look of drollery always put him in a good humour. He noticed it also tickled the Chinamen, who thought "Misty Zeekee" one of the greatest of Anglo-Saxons.
"You see," remarked Noah, picking up the lines again, "as my dad used to say, 'He that taketh hold of the handles of a plow and looketh back, verily, he shall be kicked by a mule.' I never calculate to be kicked in the back. But if that Chinaman over there"—he frowned at a Chinaboy who was fumbling over a cotton planter—"don't get a move on him, he'll be kicked wherever he happens to hit my foot first. Hi, there"—Noah threw up his head and yelled to the Chinaboy—"get a move on. Plantee cotton. Goee like hellee." And the Chinaman did.
Bob laughed.
"Do you reckon you could let me have five dollars to-night?" Noah Ezekiel asked, looking down at his plow. "I want to go up to the Red Owl at Mexicali."