f the peanut
plant like the tubers of a potato, instead of really being a true nut,
developing from a flower the elongation of the lower portion of which
reaches to the ground. The farm was run by an orphaned colored girl
nineteen years old and her four younger brothers.

[Illustration: ON A PEANUT FARM. Caesar and his sister at work when
Hamilton came to take the census.]

"Jes' as soon as the young-uns gits big enough," she said to Hamilton,
when discussing the statistics of her little holding, "we're goin' to
buy a big patch o' peanut land. Ah'd like to grow peanuts every year,
but these hyar gov'nment papers say yo' shouldn't. They say once in
every fo' years is enough fo' peanuts, but Ah'm goin' to try it every
other year."

"Aren't they a very troublesome crop?"

"'Bout the same as potatoes, Ah reckon. But they pay a good price fo'
picked peanuts, an' Ah can get these boys hyar to do the pickin'. In one
o' the papers Ah saw up to Colonel 'Gerius' place the other day, one the
gov'nment puts out, thar's a list showin' this country has to send to
foreign countries fo' twelve million bushels o' peanuts every year. Ah'm
goin' to try raisin' a real big crop, and Dicky hyar," she added,
pointing to the oldest boy, "thinks jes' as I do about it."

Hamilton was distinctly impressed with the evidence that this young
negro girl and her younger brothers not only knew enough about the
peanut business to be able to make it pay, but that they were reading
the government bulletins.

"I didn't know," he said hastily, "that you people--" and he stopped
suddenly, realizing the ungracious ending to his sentence.

"You mean us colored folks,--you didn't think we troubled 'bout such
things? Yas, sah, we don' have all the advantages o' white folks but
we're improvin' right along. Colonel 'Gerius jes' does all he can, an'
he gets us gov'nment seeds an' papers, an' advises every one fo' miles
aroun'. Yas, sah, we're gettin' on. If yo' have to go to Bullertown,
sah, yo'll fin' as nice a li'l place as thar is f'om one end o' the
United States cla'r to the other, an' thar's not one white person in
it."

"Bullertown?" queried Hamilton in surprise. "I'm glad to hear it, for
that's the next place on my map."

"We're all proud of it hyar, sah, an' it 'pears to me, Bullertown owes
jes' everythin' to the folks at the Big House and to Mistah Ephraim
Jones. Yo'll see Mistah Jones, sah, an' I'd take it kindly if yo'll
remember me to him."