of innumerable spools of darning cotton, lent a feminine touch to
the furniture, which for an instant distracted Carraway's mental
vision from the impending personality of Fletcher himself. He
remembered now that there was a sister whom he had heard vaguely
described by the women of his family as "quite too hopeless," and
a granddaughter of whom he knew merely that she had for years
attended an expensive school somewhere in the North. The grandson
he recalled, after a moment, more distinctly, as a pretty,
undeveloped boy in white pinafores, who had once accompanied
Fletcher upon a hurried visit to the town. The gay laugh had
awakened the incident in his mind, and he saw again the little
cleanly clad figure perched upon his desk, nibbling bakers' buns,
while he transacted a tedious piece of business with the vulgar
grandfather.

He was toying impatiently with these recollections when his
attention was momentarily attracted by the sound of Fletcher's
burly tones on the rear porch just beyond the open window.

"I tell you, you've set all the niggers agin me, and I can't get
hands to work the crops."

"That's your lookout, of course," replied a voice, which he
associated at once with young Blake. "I told you I'd work three
days because I wanted the ready money; I've got it, and my time
is my own again."

"But I say my tobacco's got to get into the ground this
week--it's too big for the plant-bed a'ready, and with three days
of this sun the earth'll be dried as hard as a rock."