They turned off the highway and passed through long stretches of
ploughed and tumbled fields, and other fields brown with the dead ghosts
of past years' cotton standing straggling and weather-worn. Long,
straight, or curling rows of ploughers passed by with steaming,
struggling mules, with whips snapping and the yodle of workers or the
sharp guttural growl of overseers as a constant accompaniment.
"They're beginning to plough up the land for the cotton-crop," he
explained.
"What a wonderful crop it is!" Mary had fallen pensive.
"Yes, indeed--if only we could get decent returns for it."
"Why, I thought it was a most valuable crop." She turned to him
inquiringly.
"It is--to Negroes and manufacturers, but not to planters."
"But why don't the planters do something?"
"What can be done with Negroes?" His tone was bitter. "We tried to
combine against manufacturers in the Farmers' League of last winter. My
father was president. The pastime cost him fifty thousand dollars."
Miss Taylor was perplexed, but eager. "You must correspond with my
brother, Mr. Cresswell," she gravely observed. "I'm sure he--" Before
she could finish, an overseer rode up. He began talking abruptly, with a
quick side-glance at Mary, in which she might have caught a gleam of
surprised curiosity.
"That old nigger, Jim Sykes, over on the lower place, sir, ain't showed
up again this morning.
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