“Never better in my life, Marse Jasper.”

The planter had risen, but he now sat down beside his switches. For a moment nothing was said. Uncle Henry awkwardly bent his body and his neck to see if his mule were standing where he had left him, and his master looked steadfastly at the ground.

“Sit down, Henry,” he said, presently; and the negro took a seat on the extreme end of the log and folded his black, seamed hands over his knee. “I want to talk to you first of all. Something of a very unpleasant, unavoidable nature has got to take place betwixt us, an' I want to give you a sound talkin' to beforehan'.”

“All right, Marse Jasper; I'm a-listenin'.” Henry looked again toward his mule. “I did want to harrow that wheat down 'fore them birds eat it up; but I got time, I reckon.”

The planter coughed and cleared his throat. He tried to cross his short, fat legs by sliding the right one up to the knee of the left, but owing to the lowness of the log, he was unable to do this, so he left his legs to themselves, and with a hand on either side of him, leaned back.

“Do you remember, Uncle Henry, twenty years ago, when you belonged to old Heaton Pelzer an' got to hankerin' after that yellow girl of mine jest after I bought her in South Carolina?”

“Mighty plain, Master Jasper, mighty plain.”

Henry's face showed a tendency to smile at the absurdity of the question.

“Lucinda was jest as much set after you, it seemed,” went on the planter. “Old Pelzer was workin' you purty nigh to death on his pore, wore-out land, an' pointedly refused to buy Lucinda so you could marry her, nur he wouldn't consent to you marryin' a slave of mine. Ain't that so?”

“Yes, Marse Jasper, that's so, sir.”

“I had jest as many niggers as I could afford to keep, an' a sight more. I was already up to my neck in debt, an' to buy you I knowed I'd have to borrow money an' mortgage the last thing I had. But you come to me night after night, when you could sneak off, an' begged an' begged to be bought, so that I jest didn't have the heart to refuse. So, jest to accommodate you, I got up the money an' bought you, payin' fully a third more fer you than men of yore age was goin' at. You are married now, an' got three as likely children as ever come into the world, an' a big buxom wife that loves you, an' if I haven't treated you an' them right I never heerd of it.”

“Never was a better master on earth, Marse Jasper. If thar is, I hadn't never seed 'im.” Henry's face was full of emotion. He picked up his slouch hat from the grass and folded it awkwardly on the log beside him.

“From that day till this,” the planter went on, “I've been over my head in debt, an' I can really trace it to that transaction. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, as the feller said. Well, now, Henry, six months ago, when I saw that openin' to deal in lumber in North Carolina, it seemed to me to be my chance to work out of debt, if I could jest find somebody to look after my farm. I found a man, Henry - a good, clever, honest man, as everybody said, an' a member of Big Bethel Church. For a certain consideration he agreed to take charge. That consideration I've paid in advance, an' it's gone; I couldn't git it back.

“Now, how has it turned out? I had hardly got started out thar before one of my niggers - the very one I relied on the most - has played smash with all my plans. You begun by turnin' up yore nose at Brother Cobb, an' then by openly disobeyin' 'im. Then he tried to punish you - the right that the law gives a overseer - an' you up an' dared him to tech you, an' - ”

“Marse Jasper - ”

“Hold yore tongue till I'm through.”

“All right, Marse Jasper, but - ”

“You openly defied 'im, that's enough; you broke up the order of the whole thing, an' yore mistress was so upset that she had to send fer me. Now, Henry, I hadn't never laid the lash on you in my life, an' I'd rusher take it myself than to have to do it, but I hadn't come three hundred miles jest to talk to you. I'm goin' to whip you, Henry, an' I'm goin' to do it right, if thar's enough strength in my arm. You needn't shake yore head an' sulk. No matter what you refused to let Cobb an' the rest of 'em do, you are a-goin' to take what I'm goin' to give you without a word, because you know it's just an' right.”

Henry's face was downcast, and his master could not see his eyes, but a strange, rebellious fire had suddenly kindled in them, and he was stubbornly silent. Mr. Pelham could not have dreamed of what was passing in his mind.

“Henry, you an' me are both religious men,” said the planter, after he had waited for a moment. “Let's kneel right down here by this log an' commune with the Lord on this matter.”

Without a word the negro rose and knelt, his face in his hands, his elbows on the log. There never had been a moment when Uncle Henry was not ready to pray or listen to a prayer. He prided himself on his own powers in that line, and had unbounded respect even for the less skillful efforts of others. Mr. Pelham knelt very deliberately and began to pray:

“Our heavenly Father, it is with extreme sadness an' sorrow that we come to Thee this bright, sunny day. Our sins have been many, an' we hardly know when our deeds are acceptable in Thy sight; but bless all our efforts, we pray Thee, for the sake of Him that died for us, an' let us not walk into error in our zeal to do Thy holy will.

“Lord, Thou knowest the hearts of Thy humble supplicant an' this man beside him. Thou, through the existin' laws of this land, hast put him into my care an' keepin' an' made me responsible to a human law for his good or bad behavior. Lord, on this occasion it seems my duty to punish him for disobedience, an' we pray Thee to sanction what is about to take place with Thy grace. Let no 66 anger or malice rest in our hearts during the performance of this disagreeable task, an' let the whole redound to Thy glory, for ever an' ever, through the mercy of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Mr. Pelham rose to his feet stiffly, for he had touches of rheumatism, and the ground was cold. He brushed his trousers, and laid hold of his switches. But to his surprise, Henry had not risen. If it had not been for the stiffness of his elbows; and the upright position of his long feet, which stood on their toes erect as gate-posts, Mr. Pelham might have thought that he had dropped asleep.

For a moment the planter stood silent, glancing first at the mass of ill-clothed humanity at his feet, and then sweeping his eyes over the quiet, rolling land which lay between him and the farmhouse. How awfully still everything was! He saw Henry's cabin near the farmhouse. Lucinda was out in the yard picking up chips, and one of Uncle Henry's children was clinging to her skirts. The planter was very fond of Lucinda, and he wondered what she would do if she knew he was about to whip her husband. But why did the fellow not get up? Surely that was an unusual way to act. In some doubt as to what he ought to do, Mr. Pelham sat down again. It should not be said of him that he had ever interrupted any man's prayers to whip him. As he sat down, the log rolled slightly, the elbows of the negro slid off the bark, and Henry's head almost came in contact with the log. But he took little notice of the accident, and glancing at his master from the corner of his eye, he deliberately replaced his elbows, pressed his hands together, and began to pray aloud:

“Our heavenly Father.” These words were spoken in a deep, sonorous tone, and as Uncle Henry paused for an instant the echoes groaned and murmured and died against the hill behind him. Mr. Pelham bowed his head to his hand. He had heard Henry pray before, and now he dreaded hearing him, he hardly knew why. He felt a strange creeping sensation in his spine.

“Our heavenly Father,” the slave repeated, in his mellow sing-song tone, “Thou knowest that I am Thy humble servant. Thou knowest that I have brought to Thee all my troubles since my change of heart - that I have left nothing hidden from Thee, who art my Maker, my Redeemer, an' my Lord. Thou knowest that I have for a long time harbored the belief that the black man has some rights that he don't git under existin' laws, but which, Thy will be done, will come in due time, like the harvest follows the plantin'. Thou knowest, an' I know, that Henry Pelham is nigher to Thee than a dumb brute, an' that it ain't no way to lift a nigger up to beat 'im like a horse or a ox. I have said this to Thee in secret prayer, time an' ag'in, an' Thou knowest how I stand on it, if my master don't. Thou knowest that before Thee I have vowed that I would die before any man, white or black, kin beat the blood out'n my back. I may have brought trouble an' vexation to Marse Jasper, I don't dispute that, but he had no business puttin' me under that low-down, white-trash overseer an' goin' off so far. Heavenly Father, thou knowest I love Marse Jasper, an' I would work fer 'im till I die; but he is ready to put the lash to me an' disgrace me before my wife an' children. Give my arms strength, Lord, to defend myself even against him - against him who has, up to now, won my respect an' love by forbearance an' kindness. He has said it, Lord - he has said that he will whip me; but I've said, also, that no man shall do it. Give me strength to battle fer the right, an' if he is hurt - bad hurt - may the Lord have mercy on him! This I ask through the mercy an' the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Henry rose awkwardly to his feet and looked down at his master, who sat silent on the log. Mr. Pelham's face was pale. There was a look of indecision under the pallor. He held one of the switches by the butt in his hand, and with its tapering end tapped the brown leaves between his legs. He looked at the imperturbable countenance of the negro for fully a minute before he spoke.

“Do you mean to say, Henry,” he asked, “that you are a-goin' to resist me by force?”

“I reckon I am, Marse Jasper, if nothin' else won't do you. That's what I have promised the Lord time an' ag'in since Cobb come to boss me. I wasn't thinkin' about you then, Marse Jasper, because I didn't 'low you ever would try such a thing; but I said any white man, an' I can't take it back.”

The planter looked up at the stalwart man towering over him. Henry could toss him about like a ball. In his imagination he had pictured the faithful fellow bowed before him, patiently submitting to his blows, but the present contingency had never entered his mind. He tried to be angry, but the good natured face of the slave he loved made it impossible.

“Sit down thar, Henry,” he said; and when the negro had obeyed, he continued, almost appealingly: “I have told the folks in North Carolina that I was comin' home to whip you, you see. I have told yore mistress, an' I have told Cobb. I'll look like a purty fool if I don't do it.”

A regretful softness came into the face of the negro, and he hung his head, and for a moment picked at the bark of the log with his long thumbnail.

“I'm mighty sorry, Marse Jasper,” he answered, after remaining silent for a while. “But you see I've done promised the Lord; you wouldn't have me - what do all them folks amount to beside the Lord? No; a body ought to be careful about what he's promised the Almighty.”

Mr. Pelham had no reply forthcoming. He realized that he was simply not going to whip Uncle Henry, and he did not want to appear ridiculous in the eyes of his friends. The negro saw by his master's silence that he was going to escape punishment, and that made him more humble and sympathetic than ever. He was genuinely sorry for his master.