nd 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.

"Pooh--it's easy!" he said with scorn.

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--"

"But ye raly don't wanter?" Jim grinned.

"Sure I do. I'm sick of school."

Jim laughed aloud and, coming close, whispered insinuatingly:

"I'se sho sick er pickin' cotton, an' when yer quits de job--"

"I'm not going to quit--"

"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:

"All right, James--"

Jim lifted his head and walled his eyes:

"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.

He could see this now