l sanctuary were enforced the exactions
that made the plantation thrive. Outside, in the yard, in the "big
house," elsewhere under the sky, a plea of distress might moisten his
eyes and soften his heart to his own financial disadvantage, but under
the moss-grown shingles of the office all was business, hard,
uncompromising. It was told in the neighborhood that once, in this
inquisition of affairs, he demanded the last cent possessed by a widowed
woman, but that, while she was on her way home, he overtook her,
graciously returned the money and magnanimously tore to pieces a
mortgage that he held against her small estate.

Just as he entered the office there came across the yard a loud and
impatient voice. "Here, Bill, confound you, come and take this horse.
Don't you hear me, you idiot? You infernal niggers are getting to be so
no-account that the last one of you ought to be driven off the place.
Trot, confound you. Here, take this horse to the stable and feed him.
Where is the Major? In the office? The devil he is."

Toward the office slowly strode old Gideon Batts, fanning himself with
his white slouch hat. He was short, fat, and bald; he was bow-legged
with a comical squat; his eyes stuck out like the eyes of a swamp frog;
his nose was enormous, shapeless, and red. To the Major's family he
traced the dimmest line of kinship. During twenty years he had operated
a small plantation that belonged to the Major, and he was always at
least six years behind with his rent. He had married the widow Martin,
and afterward swore that he had been disgracefully deceived by her, that
he had expected much but had found her moneyless; and after this he had
but small faith in woman. His wife died and he went into contented
mourning, and out of gratitude to his satisfied melancholy, swore that
he would pay his rent, but failed. Upon the Major he held a strong hold,
and this was a puzzle to his neighbors. Their characters stood at
fantastic and whimsical variance; one never in debt, the other never out
of debt; one clamped by honor, the other feeling not its restraining
pinch. But together they would ride abroad, laughing along the road. To
Mrs. Cranceford old Gid was a pest. With the shrewd digs of a woman, the
blood-letting side stabs of her sex, she had often shown her disapproval
of the strong favor in which the Major held him; she vowed that her
husband had gathered many an oath from Gid's swollen store of execration
(when, in truth