"Not another plant will I set out, and that's an end of it!" he
was saying angrily. "I agreed to do a day's work and I've been at
it steadily since sunrise. Is it any concern of mine, I'd like to
know, if he can't put in his crop to-night? Do you think I care
whether his tobacco rots in the ground or out of it?"

As he came on, Carraway measured him coolly, with an appreciation
tempered by his native sense of humour. He perceived at once a
certain coarseness of finish which, despite the deep-rooted
veneration for an idle ancestry, is found most often in the
descendants of a long line of generous livers. A moment later he
weighed the keen gray flash of the eyes beneath the thick fair
hair, the coating of dust and sweat over the high-bred curve from
brow to nose, and the fullness of the jaw which bore with a
suggestion of sheer brutality upon the general impression of a
fine racial type. Taken from the mouth up, the face might have
passed as a pure, fleshly copy of the antique idea; seen
downward, it became almost repelling in its massive power.

Stooping beside the fence for a common harvest hat, the young man
placed it on his head, and gave a careless nod to Peterkin. He
had thrown one leg over the rails, and was about to swing himself
into the road, when Sol spoke a little timidly.

"I hear yo' ma's done lost her yaller cat, Mr. Christopher."

For an instant Christopher hung midway of the fence.

"Isn't the beast back yet?" he asked irritably, scraping the mud
from his boot upon the rail. "I've had Uncle Boaz scouring the