He said it was the folk he came to know in the boardinghouse, every one of them with a powerful drive to work at some kind of trade, even if the task was hard, dirty, or thankless. You know why that was, Mr. Scott? he asked me. Tell me, I said. He stretched his hands out in front of him, his two palms facing up, and this, verbatim, is what he said: Their hands is their own. And that dollar that get put in those hands, that’s their own dollar.
