"
"Ah! where do you teach?" asked Mr. Caldwell. He was certain he knew the
teachers of all the white schools in the county. Miss Taylor told him.
He stiffened slightly but perceptibly, like a man clicking the buckles
of his ready armor, and two townswomen who listened gradually turned
their backs, but remained near.
"Yes--yes," he said, with uncomfortable haste. "Any--er--information--of
course--" Miss Taylor got out her notes.
"The leading land-owners," she began, sorting the notes searchingly, "I
should like to know something about them."
"Well, Colonel Cresswell is, of course, our greatest landlord--a
high-bred gentleman of the old school. He and his son--a worthy
successor to the name--hold some fifty thousand acres. They may be
considered representative types. Then, Mr. Maxwell has ten thousand
acres and Mr. Tolliver a thousand."
Miss Taylor wrote rapidly. "And cotton?" she asked.
"We raise considerable cotton, but not nearly what we ought to; nigger
labor is too worthless."
"Oh! The Negroes are not, then, very efficient?"
"Efficient!" snorted Mr. Caldwell; at last she had broached a phase of
the problem upon which he could dilate with fervor. "They're the
lowest-down, ornriest--begging your pardon--good-for-nothing loafers you
ever heard of. Why, we just have to carry them and care for them like
children.
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