“Man came last night,” Arnold said. (Ezra knew this.) “A free man looking for work. Paper to prove he belongs to himself. Been in Highboro a little time; before that, Savannah, he says. Name of Roscoe Elk.” Ezra took pincers and lifted a strip of red-white metal from the fire and began to hammer it as delicately as if he feared to wake an invalid. “Says he knows something about smithing. Want to give him a try?”

Ezra looked up from his work seriously. Then he started to hammer again, more lightly and meticulously than before. When Arnold had turned his back to go, Ezra said, “Try him.”

6

Roscoe Elk claimed to be half Indian, and it is possible that he was. It is also possible that he had invented the background to give himself mystery. His claim accorded with a slightly hooked nose and with coarse black hair that showed no kink. He cultivated near silence, which contrasted tellingly with the volubility of the slaves around him. There was no telling his age. The young thought him old; the old considered him mature, but still young.

It is never hard for a clever man to rise, no matter how low he is born, for the world is full of lazy people, and Roscoe had learned early that if he stood ready to do a portion of another man’s work, take on some of his responsibility, he gained power.

Ezra was not at all lazy, but he was not jealous of his position either, having much to do and an active mind that was forever expanding his knowledge and activity instead of narrowing them. Within six months of his coming Roscoe was acknowledged blacksmith. His work brought most men to him, and it was among the lazy ones of them he accrued power. “Just leave it there… I’ll do it… Never mind… Don’t worry.”

He had not been a year on the place before it was common to hear people say, “Ask Roscoe; Roscoe will know.” From blacksmith he became in logical sequence general mender and maker. Since it involved hardware, he tended the scales that weighed the work of the slave hands. While not paid in money for what they did, the more productive were rewarded with privileges and bonus goods. Knowing how to figure and how to write, he presently found himself—or rather, others found him to be—keeper of records and accounts. No one but the ambitious enjoy the nitty-natty of daily life, but Roscoe never complained. Once power was his, sloth in others would no longer, of course, be tolerated.

7