"John Bailey was here after dinner," remarked David's father. "He
has sold his crop of twenty-seven acres for four thousand dollars.
Ten dollars a hundred."

"That's fine," said David with enthusiasm, thinking regretfully of
their two or three acres.

"Good hemp lands are going to rent for twenty or twenty-five
dollars an acre in the spring," continued his father, watching the
effect of his words.

David got up, and going to the door, reached around against the
wall for two or three sticks of the wood he had piled there. He
replenished the fire, which was going down, and resumed his seat.

For a while father and son discussed in a reserved way matters
pertaining to the farm: the amount of feed in the barn and the
chances of its lasting; crops to be sown in the spring, and in what
fields; the help they should hire--a new trouble at that time. For
the negroes, recently emancipated, were wandering hither and
thither over the farms, or flocking to the towns, unused to
freedom, unused to the very wages they now demanded, and nearly
everywhere seeking employment from any one in preference to their
former masters as part of the proof that they were no longer in
slavery. David's father had owned but a single small family of
slaves: the women remained, the man had sought work on one of the
far richer estates in the neighborhood.

They threshed over once more the straw of these familiar topics and
then fell into embarrassed silence. The father broke this with an