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 the singers to their throats and out into the air. The song was one of the old slave melodies—a spiritual. The words, as Dr. Tansey afterward learned, were:

There was such deep pathos in the song that for a few moments both men stood as if transfixed. To Dr. Tansey's heart there came a gripping pain of sympathy while his eyes filled with tears. He turned aside to brush them away, and when he turned back again Bennet was in the act of putting a handkerchief to his face. There seemed to be a wailing note in the song, as if they were crying out against conditions which hemmed them about, and against which they were helpless except for the faith which their singing instilled in them and the hopes that filled them of a better day to come.

The leader of the song had just stepped to another row of cotton and started toward the other end of the field still singing when a man, evidently the overseer, rode up from somewhere out of sight. The crowd was now moving along down the lanes of cotton when the man, a rawboned, sandy-haired, fiery-eyed man, wearing a wide brimmed slouched hat, came into the group swinging a seven-foot four-braided whip with the end knotted.

"Here, you black devils. Get to work! Get to work!" With that he swung the whip viciously, the lash catching two of the women in its swish. One gave a groan and the