run by people like these. You have solved this problem for
yourselves, and you ought to be left to solve it all the time. As for
us folks from the North, we are a lot of ignorant meddlers; and as
for me, I'm going home.'"

Blount fell silent, musing for a time. "Some folks say, 'Educate the
negro,'" he resumed finally, "they say 'Uplift him.' They say 'Give
him a chance.' So do I. I will give him more than a chance. I will
let the negroes do all they can to help themselves, and I'll do the
balance myself. But they can't rule me, until they are better than I
am; and that's going to be a long while yet. Constitution or no
constitution, government or no government, the black rule can't and
don't go in the Delta! It wouldn't be _right_.

"Now, I'll tell you about those two poor fellows to-day," he
continued. "There was Tom Sands, who works on a plantation about
twelve miles from here. He has been getting drunk and beating his
wife and scaring his children for about three months. Judge Williams
had him up not long ago and bound him over to keep the peace, and
when I last saw the judge he told me to take this negro up, if I was
going by there any time, and bring him up and put him in jail for a
while, until he got to behaving himself again. You know we have to do
these things right along, to keep this country quiet.

"Well, when we were coming in from the hunt, we passed within a few
miles of his cotton patch, and I rode over to see him. He was out in
the field, and I found him and told him he had to come along. He
refused to come. He swore at me--and he was not even a county
surveyor in the old days! Then I ordered him in the name of the law
to come along. He picked up a piece of fence rail and started at me.