Penhallow had gravely told John that in his absence he must look after the stables and the farm, so that now he had for the first time in his life responsibilities.

The horses and the stables were to be looked over every day.

Of course, too, he must ride to the Squire's farm, which was two miles away, and which was considered a model of all that a farm should be.

The crop yield to the acre was most satisfactory, but when some one of the old Quaker farmers, whose apple-orchards the Squire had plundered when young, walked over it and asked, "Well, James, how much did thee clear this last year ?" the owner would honestly confess that Mrs.Ann's kitchen-garden paid better; but then she gave away what the house did not use.
Very many years before slavery had become by tacit consent avoided as a subject for discussion, Mrs.Ann critical of what his farm cost, being herself country-bred, had said that if it were worked with Maryland blacks it would pay and pay well.
"You mean, dear, that if I owned the labour, it would pay." "Yes," she returned gaily, "and with me for your farmeress." "You are, you are!" he laughed, "and you have cultivated me.

I am well broken to your satisfaction, I trust; but to me, Ann, the unpaid labour of the slave seems impossible." "Oh, James, it is not only possible, but right for us who know what for all concerned is best." "Well, well," he laughed, "the vegetable garden seems to be run at a profit without them--ah! Ann, how about that ?" The talk was, as they both knew, more serious than it would have seemed to any one who might have chanced to be present.