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surprised when she returned and stood over him without starting her own meal.
    “Some colored man’s at the door.” Her voice sounded apologetic.
    “What colored man?” Alex wanted to hear none of this. Couldn’t Eula see that he had just started his dinner? It was her house, and she was responsible for keeping niggers or anybody else away who would disturb him.
    Still, she stood.
    “New to Lawnover. Says his name is Isaiah Harris.” When Eula made no motion to sit, Alex put down his fork and stared at her.
    “Wants to know if he can farm for you next year?” The tail end of her voice ended in a question.
    The mid-forty, never entirely off his mind all day, flooded Alex’s thoughts.
    “It’s harvest time. Lots of tenants want to work two or three weeks at harvest and then coast off me for the next six months.” Alex pushed back from the table, though he did not stand. He ran the possibilities through his mind.
    “Maybe he could help out on the mid-forty?” Eula did not meet his eyes when his face trained on hers.
    “Can’t this nigger come back tomorrow?” Annoyed at the disturbance, still Alex wasn’t at all sure the mid-forty could wait until tomorrow.
    Before Eula could bob her head yea or nay, Alex got to his feet, almost knocking over the chair. “I’ll get this over with now.”
    The man who greeted him outside the porch door, stood with his head bowed, waiting respectfully for Alex to begin his greeting. Alex took his time looking over the fellow. At first glance, the man looked able enough. Almost as tall but not nearly as muscular as John Welles, this one verged on the skinny.
    “What’s that name again?” Alex estimated the fellow to be in his early thirties.
    A man in his thirties was usually a decent worker, while young bucks in their twenties were nothing but trouble. Alex searched his farmyard for the man’s family.
    “It’s Isaiah, suh. Isaiah Harris.” The man busied his fingers turning the brim of his hat over in his hands.
    The lane to Lawnover swept right by his barnyard, and there was no sign of Harris’s wife or children. Alex shifted his weight and stared at the applicant.
    “Well, Isaiah, how old are you?” Alex folded his arms over his chest in growing unease. A man in his thirties should be fairly settled in his ways. Where was his woman?
    “I’m thirty-one, suh.” Isaiah kept his eyes properly on the ground, and Alex liked the way he stooped his shoulders. John Welles had stood a little too tall for his own good.
    “How many in your family?” Alex asked with Eula standing right behind him.
    “Ain’t got none, suh.” The man kept his eyes on the bottom stoop of the step where Alex stood.
    “Ain’t got no what? Don’t have no family or don’t have no wife?” Alex’s face drooped into a frown. “A man old as you ought to have a family unless he’s a sportin’ man. You a sportin’ man, Isaiah?” He could smell the vinegar in Eula’s hair assaulting his nose.
    “Naw, suh. I ain’t no sportin’ man. Jest ain’t got me enough money to get me a wife right now.” Isaiah twirled the hat in his hands faster.
    “How you gonna bring in forty acres of tobacco all by yourself?” Alex’s frown deepened.
    A single man most oft en brought a ruckus with him. Women helped settle a man—black or white. Something in his gut felt uneasy about the idea of an unmarried man on the mid-forty. Alex had just about made up his mind about Isaiah Harris when Eula whispered in his ear.
    “He won’t be by himself. That missing man’s wife and her older boys can pitch in.” The sound of her voice startled him and he half-turned toward her. “As soon as the crop is in, you can send them all on their way.”
    Though getting rid of a sharecropper who ran off whenever the notion took him felt like a good idea in Alex’s head, Eula knew better than to bring up business matters to him, even if it was only in front of a nigger. He wondered if his wife had taken sick with her