The next day, Alston, humiliated by his failure and by the brutal reprimand he had received, went to the cotton-field before any of the other hands—­indeed, before it was fairly light.  There he worked if ever a man did work.  When the other negroes came on the field there were laughing, talking, singing, nodding and occasional napping in the shade of the cotton-stalks.  But Alston took no part in any of these.  He had no interest for anything apart from his work.  At this all his faculties were engaged.  His lithe body was seen swaying from side to side about the widespreading branches; he stood on tiptoe to reach the topmost bolls; he got on his knees to work the base-limbs, pressing down and away the long grass with his broad feet, tearing and holding back even with his teeth hindering tendrils of the passion-flower and morning-glory and other creepers which had escaped the devastating hoe when the crop was “laid by,” and had made good their hold on occasional stalks.  Persistently he worked in this intent way all through the hot day, every muscle in action.  He lingered at the work till after the last of the other pickers had with great baskets poised on head joined the long, weird procession, showing white in the dusk, that went winding through field and lane to the ginhouse.  On he worked till the crescent moon came up and he could hardly discern fleece from leaf.  At last, fearing that the basket-weighing might be ended before he could reach the ginhouse, a half mile distant, he emptied his pick-sack, belted at his waist, into the tall barrel-like basket, tramped the cotton with a few movements of his bare feet, and then kneeling got the basket to his shoulder:  he was not used to the balancing on head which seemed natural as breathing to the old hands.  With long strides he hurried to the ginhouse.  He was not a minute too early.  Almost the last basket had been weighed, emptied and stacked when he climbed the ladder-like steps to the scaffold where the cotton was sunned preparatory to its ginning.  When he had pushed his way through the crowd of negroes hanging about the door of the ginhouse-loft he heard the overseer call, “Whar’s that yaller whelp, Als’on?”

“Here, sah,” Alston answered, hurrying forward to put his basket on the steelyard.

“Give me any mo’ yer jaw an’ I’ll lay yer out with the butt-en’ er this whip,” said Mr. Buck.  Alston was wondering what he had said that was disrespectful, when the man added, “Won’t have none yer sahrin’ uv me.  I’s yer moster, an’ that’s what yer’s got ter call me, I let yer know.”

Alston’s blood was up, but the slaves were used to self-repression.  All that was endurable in their lives depended on patience and submission.

“Beg poddon, moster,” Alston said with well-assumed meekness.  “In Ol’ Virginny we use ter say moster to jist our sho’-’nuff owners; but,” he added quickly, by way of mollifying the overseer, who could not fail to be stung by the covert jeer, “it’s a heap better ter say moster ter all the white folks, white trash an’ all:  then yer’s sho’ ter be right.”