In his eagerness to "clean up" the territory we fell to
corraling negroes everywhere, in the streets, at work, buying
their supplies at the commissary, sleeping in the shade of wayside
trees, anywhere and everywhere, until at last in his excitement
"the boss" let his medium soft pencil slip by the column for color
and dashed down the abbreviation for "mixed" after the question,
"Married or Single?" Which may have been near enough the truth of
the case, but suggested it was time to quit. So we marked Paraiso
"finished except for recalls" and returned to Empire.
One by one our fellow-enumerators had dropped by the wayside, some
by mutual agreement, some without any agreement whatever. Renson
was now relieved from census duty, to his great joy, there
remained but four of us,--"the boss" and "Mac" in the office,
"Scotty" and I outside. A deep conference ensued and, as if I had
not had good luck enough already, it was decided that we two
should go through the "cut" itself. It was like offering us a
salary to view all the Great Work in detail, for virtually all the
excavation of any importance on the Zone lay within the confines
of our district.
So one day "Scotty" and I descended at the girderless railroad
bridge and, taking each one side of the canal, set out to canvass
its every nook and cranny.
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