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To the car-window sociologist, to the man who seeks to understand and know the South by devoting the few leisure hours of a holiday trip to unravelling the snarl of centuries, to such men very often the whole trouble with the black field-hand may be summed up by Aunt Ophelia's word, "Shiftless!" They have noted repeatedly scenes like one I saw last summer.
Apollo had always been a house-servant, and had for several years served with satisfaction as coachman to his master's family; but after the breaking up, when the place went into other hands, he failed to find favor with the new-comers, who had an eye for conventional form, and so Apollo was under the necessity of accepting lower rank on the place as a field-hand.
Uli asks the master about the neighbor's Katie, saying that he thinks she would have him. The master, however, strongly dissuades him, pointing out that Katie might make a good field-hand, but not a good wife. She can make hay, but not soup; and there is not so much wealth, for the farm is badly managed.
China endeavored to do faithfully all that she was bidden; sewing, however, was her trade; she knew how to do naught else well; she was consequently chidden and scolded from morning until night. Mrs. Lisle's antipathy toward her grew every day more strong. She sought a cause for having her degraded from the rank of house-servant to field-hand. She had employed more than one fruitless stratagem.
The others were nearly all of the true field-hand type, aboriginal black, with dull faces, short and thick forms, and an air of animal contentment or at least indifference. They talked little, but giggled a great deal, snatching the canvas bags from each other, and otherwise showing their disbelief in the doctrine of all work and no play.
Morris told of his absence in town on business. That Abram had been hired first as a field-hand; and that later, after his marriage, he had taken Abram from the field to look after his horse and to do the heavier work about the house and yard. "And the woman Aggie is trust-worthy?" "I am sure of it; she used to belong to us." "Abram is a strange negro?" "Yes."
He never indulged in any regrets for the Arcadian joyousness and irresponsibility which was a somewhat popular conception of slavery; his had not been the lot of the petted house-servant, but that of the toiling field-hand.
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