“No, sir.”

The overseer nods and puts his whip back on his hip. “Now, you can call me sir, or you can call me Master Mulch. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir, Master Mulch.”

“That’s fine, boy, that’s just fine.” He takes a step back and looks him up and down. “What name did they give you?”

“I’s called Jim, Master Mulch, sir.”

The overseer tips his chin up and shouts out, “Red!” When the coach driver comes jogging on back, he tells him, “Show Jim where he’ll sleep and eat, and make sure he finds his way to the fields on time in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Red says, but he hesitates, looking between me and Master Mulch. “You want me to go get Maple for this one?” he asks.

The overseer slits his eyes at him. “I want you to go do like I said.”

Red looks back at me and then up at the house.

“Go on, now, get,” Master Mulch barks, and Red leads Jim away.

Master Mulch runs his eyes over me from head to toe and every part in between till my skin starts to crawling. “Well,” he says, at last. “You don’t have the look of a field slave.” He takes my hands and rubs his thumbs all over my palms.

I know I can’t pull them away, so I look up to the house instead.

“Don’t have the hands neither,” he says. He grips my arms and starts feeling at them like he’s feeling on a horse for the muscle. He squeezes on my shoulders and down my back, but he pulls away when the master comes out with a stout woman behind him.

She has the same high forehead and close-set, small eyes as the missus. Her dark hair’s pulled into the same tight bun, but her lips are fuller, and they pinch when she looks at me.

“Ah, Ralph. There you are,” my new master says, peering down at us. “I take it you’ve already sent the new field hand down.”

“Yes, sir, Mister Johnson. You want this one for the cotton?”

“No, no. She’s not right for picking. Anyone can see she’s for the house.”

“Well, then.” Master Mulch taps twice on my backside, and pushes me toward the steps. “You best get on in there.”

I scoot away from him up the front porch, as fast as I can get.

“Maple, see what you can do with Sarah here,” Master says to the woman behind him. “My dear wife wants her for Thomas, but I’m sure you can get more use out of her than that.”

Master strolls down the steps whistling while Maple motions me over with a flick of her finger and leads me inside. The entrance is long and wide with paintings hung all along the walls. When I follow her to the stairway, one of the dark wood floorboards squeaks under my foot. The woman glares back at me.

“Sorry, ma’am,” I say, and I hop quick off the noisy board.