he's had much larnin' sence. I've leant on the gate myself an'
watched the nigger children traipsin' by to the Yankee woman's
school, an' he drivin' the plough when he didn't reach much
higher than the handle. He' used to be the darndest leetle brat,
too, till his sperits got all freezed out o' him. Lord! Lord!
thar's such a sight of meanness in this here world that it makes
a body b'lieve in Providence whether or no."

Carraway meditatively twirled his walking-stick. "Raises tobacco
now like the rest, doesn't he?"

"Not like the rest--bless you, no, suh. Why, the weed thrives
under his very touch, though he can't abide the smell of it, an'
thar's not a farmer in the county that wouldn't ruther have him
to plant, cut, or cure than any ten men round about. They do say
that his pa went clean crazy about tobaccy jest befo' he died,
an' that Mr. Christopher gets dead sick when he smells it smokin'
in the barn, but he kin pick up a leaf blindfold an' tell you the
quality of it at his first touch."

For a moment the lawyer was silent, pondering a thought he
evidently did not care to utter. When at last he spoke it was in
the measured tones of one who overcomes an impediment in his
speech.

"Do you happen to have heard, I wonder, anything of his attitude
toward the present owner of the Hall?"

"Happen to have heard!" Peterkin threw back his head and gasped.
"Why, the whole county has happened to hear of it, I reckon. It's