to return home they did so. I had just organized the whole gang anew
after this, when Mr. S.,[42] who I thought was gone for good, turned
up with an order to collect cotton on the mainland, and requested me
to let him have a boat's crew to explore for two days. I told him the
men were all organized and at work, each on his own acre, but if he
couldn't get men elsewhere I should not refuse for such a short time.
The men came back on the third day without Mr. S. and notified me that
he had hired them (and two more joined them, making twelve in all) to
collect cotton for a month or two on the neighboring territory beyond
our previous pickets, under protection of scouting-parties detached
for the purpose. The men were offered fifty cents per day, and as I
had no authority to offer _anything_ definitely, except, a house to
live in and their allowance of corn, I told them they were free to go
where they pleased, but advised them to stay. Of course they all went
off, but have been back twice since to spend a night and have gone
again this morning. They are nearly all active young men and are
pleased with this roving sort of life, but you may imagine how fatal
such a state of things is to my efforts at organization, and how
demoralizing upon the general industry of those remaining at home
these visits of the rovers are, to say nothing of the breaking up of
old gangs and abandoning allotments of land. Some of these men who
were about to go with Mr. S. told me their wives would carry on their
tasks while they were gone, and I told them that if they would do so I
would let them avail themselves of the proceeds of their labor, but if
these patches should be neglected, I should assign them to other men,
and their planting labor would be forfeited. Thus far I find but one
neglected patch, and unless this is soon hoed by some of the friends
of the sick woman to whom it belongs, I shall have to assign it to
some one else. It is a common practice among them to hire each other
to hoe their tasks, when sickness or other causes prevent them from
doing it themselves, so that most of the tasks of the lying-in women
are taken care of by sisters or other friends in the absence of their
husbands.

The more I see of these people the more surprised I am that they
should have done so much as they have this year without any definite
promise of payment on our part, and with so little acquaintance with
us. The course we have been obliged to pursue[4