ter let it rot in the fiel'. Yer ought ter pick three hunderd ev'ry day. I
know'd a nigger onct, a heap littler than Little Lizay, that picked five
hunderd ev'ry lick; an' I hearn tell uv a feller that went up ter seven
hunderd. I ain't goin' ter take no mo' sixties from yer: a good hunderd or
the cowhide. That's the talk!"

"I'll pick all I kin," said Alston: "I wuckt haud's I could ter-day."

"Ef yer don't hush yer lyin' mouth I'll cut yer heart out."

Alston went from the gin-loft, his blood tingling. On the sunning-scaffold
he encountered Little Lizay. She had been listening--had heard all that had
passed between the two men. She went down the scaffold-steps, and Alston
came soon after. She waited for him, and they walked to the "quarter"
together. "It's mighty haud, ain't it?" she said.

"I believe he tol' a lie 'bout my baskit. Anyhow, I wuckt haud's I could
ter-day. I can't pick no hunderd poun's uv the flimpsy stuff. He'll have
ter cowhide me: I don't kere."

But Alston did care keenly--not so much for the pain; he could bear worse
misery than the brutal arm could inflict, though the rawhide cut like a
dull knife; but it was the shame, the disgrace, of the thing. He was a
stranger on the place--only a few weeks there--and to be tied up and
flogged in the midst of strange, unsympathizing negroes! it was such
degradation to his manhood. Since he was a child he had not been struck. He
had been rather a favorite with his master in Virginia, but this master had
died in debt, leaving numerous heirs, and in the changes incident to a
partition of the estate Alston was sold.