The negroes whispered to one another and smiled as they looked his way. He paid no attention.
By four o'clock, the weariness had become a habit and at sundown he felt stronger than at dawn. He swung the bag over his back and started to the weighing place.
The negroes crowded around his pile of cotton.
"Dat Boy is sho one cotton-picker!" cried Jim Pemberton, regarding him with grinning admiration.
"Of course, I can pick cotton if I want to--"
Jim laughed aloud and, coming close, whispered insinuatingly:
"I'se sho sick er pickin' cotton, an' when yer quits de job--"
"Yassah, yassah?--I understan' dat--but de pint is, _when_ yer _do_ quit, don't fergit Jim, Marse Jeff. I likes you. You got de spunk. I wants ter be yo' man."
The appeal touched the Boy's pride. He answered with quiet dignity:
"Des listen at him call me Jeemes! I knows a real marster when I sees him!"
That night, the father asked no questions and made no comment on the fact that he had picked a hundred and ten pounds of cotton--as much as any man in the field. His deciding to work with his hands had apparently been accepted as final.
This thing of deciding life for himself was a serious business. It would be very silly to jump into a career with slaves, coarse and degrading, just because a fool happened to be teaching at the County Academy. He must think this thing over. Tired as he was, he lay awake until eleven o'clock, thinking, thinking for himself.
It was lonesome work, too, this thinking for himself.
If his father had only done the thinking for him, it would have been so much easier to accept his decision and then rebel if he didn't like it.
He returned to the field next morning with renewed determination. Through the long, hot, interminable day he bent and fought the battle in silence. His back ached worse than the first day. Every muscle in his finely strung little body was bruised and sore and on fire.
He began to ask if his father were right. Wasn't a man a double fool who had brains and refused to use them?
An idiot could pick cotton when the bag was fastened on his back. All he needed was one hand. All he had to do was to bend, hour after hour, day after day, until it became the habit of life and the ache stopped.