Place Called Estherville

Erskine Caldwell

Contents

Part One: Early Spring

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part Two: Midsummer

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part Three: Late Autumn

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

A Biography of Erksine Caldwell

Part One

EARLY  SPRING

Chapter 1

FOR THE TIME of year it was chilly inside the large, two-storied, white, colonnaded house, but a balmy spring breeze, smelling of dew-damp jasmine, was blowing intermittently through the open windows, and rustling the Sunday paper on the kitchen table. Outside, along both sides of the wide shady street, leafy wateroaks were swaying restlessly with the wind in their branches. Somebody from the country, in a mud-spattered sedan, late for morning services at the Baptist church, drove recklessly down the street and around the corner of the Singfield house.

Sitting at the kitchen table, comfortably at ease, with his arms resting on the white oilcloth and his legs crossed at the ankles, Ganus Bazemore was reading the sixteen-page Sunday Journal comic section for the third time that morning. Ganus was a tall, graceful boy of eighteen with handsome fulvous coloring and closely cropped black hair. He had finished most of his morning work and it was too soon to begin cooking Sunday dinner.

There was a slight disturbance behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Stephena in the doorway. He immediately got to his feet and began to smooth his starched white jacket. He had not expected her to get up on a Sunday morning until time to eat dinner with her parents.

“Good morning, Miss Stephena,” he said hurriedly. He fumbled with the top button of his jacket until he had fastened the collar. “I didn’t know you’d be up and awake so soon today. I guess I must have let the time slip by.”

Stephena leaned against the side of the doorway, an impudent pout on her lips.

“It’s a fine day today,” Ganus remarked distractedly.

Closing her eyes sleepily, Stephena yawned. Her dark brown hair was still uncombed, and she was wearing partly buttoned yellow silk pajamas and bright red satin slippers. She was a beautiful girl, tall and slender like her mother, with large brown eyes and full red lips. Though only sixteen, she was in her third year at high school, and had been having late dates, with the permission of her parents, since the previous summer, and often she had two or three afternoon car-ride dates on weekends. Her father, Charley Singfield, owned the largest hardware store in town, besides being president of the cottonseed oil mill, and he was wealthy enough to give her just about anything within reason that she and her mother asked for. The Singfield home, inherited from Charley’s father, who built the grandiose, white, colonnaded mansion on Greenbriar Street after retiring from plantation cotton farming, was the most imposing structure in Estherville. Frequently, visitors from out of town, who had accidentally glimpsed some of the poverty and squalor of the Negro section in the south side, and who had remarked upon the dilapidated and unsightly shacks and shanties, were driven slowly along Greenbriar Street, and had the Singfield house pointed out to them as being a typical example of the town’s fine homes.

Stephena ran her fingers through her tousled dark hair and shook it back from her face with a practiced toss of her head.

“What time is it, Ganus?” she asked in a drowsy voice. “I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep.”

Ganus looked up at the kitchen clock on the wall. “It’s almost eleven o’clock, Miss Stephena,” he said. He watched her with admiring eyes. “You must have stayed out mighty late last night, Miss Stephena. You look awfully sleepy.”

She nodded languidly. “I went to a party last night. I didn’t get home till nearly three.” Placing her hand over her mouth, she yawned again. “I had a wonderful time last night. I went with the nicest boy.” She smiled dreamily. “But he’s awfully timid.”

Ganus looked down at her red satin slippers. He knew she was still looking at him and he felt uncomfortable. He could feel the silence of the huge house ringing in his ears while he tried to think of something to say. He shifted the weight of his body from one foot to the other.

“Your mama and papa have already left for church, Miss Stephena,” he told her with sudden thought. “Mr. Charley said they were going to take in everything today, Sunday school and all.” He knew she was watching him, and he was unable to resist the urge to look at her. He raised his head, his startled glance met her languid gaze, and he immediately felt a twinge in his throat as he became aware of the familiar manner in which she was regarding him through partly closed eyes. The provocative fluttering of her dark lashes frightened him, but, just as always in the past, he was fascinated by her in spite of his fear. Ever since he had come to work for the Singfields the summer before, when he and his sister, Kathyanne, moved to town from the country to live with Aunt Hazel Teasley after their mother died, he had been under Stephena’s spell. Her attitude and demands were usually cruel, but he was helplessly beguiled by her; there were times when she teased him until the torment was more than he thought he could stand, but nevertheless he had always willingly and, sometimes, eagerly endured it. Once she had come into the kitchen hugging a pillow in her arms and dared him with childish audacity to take it away from her. He often wondered what would have happened if he had tussled with her for the pillow. As it happened, though, her mother came home unexpectedly, and Stephena ran upstairs to her room. Ganus swallowed hard and began talking in a hurried flow of words in an effort to conceal his nervousness and apprehension. “Mr. Charley your papa said he didn’t go to church often but when he did go he wanted to do a good big job of church-going. He said it might be six months before he went to church again and he wanted to be sure to get enough religion from the preacher to last him all through a hot summer.”

He suddenly began wondering why she had come to the kitchen instead of ringing for her breakfast. She was standing in the doorway regarding him in almost exactly the same inciting manner she had the morning she teased him with the pillow. Ganus shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other.

“Is that all Papa said, Ganus?” she asked with a tantalizing smile.

He could feel the discomforting twinge grip his throat once more. He wet his dry lips. He knew she was purposely teasing him, but he did not know how to make her stop.

“Answer me, Ganus,” she said with childish insistence.

“Miss Stephena, please don’t start talking like that,” he begged with a helpless feeling.

“Why, Ganus?”

“Miss Stephena—”

“Are you timid, too?”

“Please, Miss Stephena—”

“Then go ahead and answer me.”

“If you only wouldn’t make me say—”

She stamped her foot impatiently.

“Because you know as well as I do what Mr. Charley your papa said the last time, that’s why.” He spoke to her more brusquely than he was accustomed to, but he felt that there were some things he had to keep her from talking about.

“What did Papa say, Ganus?” she asked with pretended innocence. “Honest, I’ve forgotten. What was it about?”

Ganus reached behind him and found the corner of the table for his hand to grip. He realized how helpless he always was when she wanted to torment him.

“You know what Mr. Charley said he’d do to me if—if—if I didn’t stay plumb-square in my place. Please, Miss Stephena, don’t make trouble for me. I want to go as long as I live without that awful kind of trouble. It’s bad enough just being a colored boy with the white folks all around, so please don’t try to make it worse for me, Miss Stephena. I always want to do right. It’s the only sure way for a colored boy to get along in this world and stay out of trouble. You know that, Miss Stephena, don’t you?”

He hoped she would say something, because he wanted her assurance that no matter how much she teased him, she would not get him into trouble. She watched him with an amused expression until he turned abruptly and began busily preparing breakfast for her. She waited confidently until he suddenly looked at her with a darted glance of anxiety.

“Ganus—” she began in a slow, insinuating drawl.

Ganus turned his back and began talking in a loud tone, hoping to keep her from going any further. “Miss Stella your mama said to make you a fine fluffy omelet if you got up in time for breakfast and fix a lot of brown toast with heaps of butter and—”

He suddenly stopped when he heard the click of her high-heeled slippers on the kitchen floor. It was only a moment before she was standing beside him.

“I won’t eat a messy old omelet, Ganus,” she told him. “I want scrambled eggs in cream with fresh tomatoes cut up in them, and plenty of bacon.”

Ganus looked at her with an uneasy feeling. “But Miss Stella told me to be sure and fix the omelet and I always want to do just exactly what your mama tells me.”

“You heard what I said, didn’t you, Ganus Bazemore?” she spoke out in a severe tone of discipline. “Aren’t you going to do everything I tell you to do?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied apologetically.

“Then do what I tell you and quit talking back to me like that. Who do you think you are? I don’t stand for it one instant! Do you understand, Ganus?”

“Yes, ma’am, I understand, Miss Stephena,” he said, nodding solemnly and going to the range.

A moment later she was again standing close to him and looking up into his face while he broke three eggs and began stirring them in a mixing bowl. He tried not to let his eyes meet hers, and she jerked the bowl from his hands and dropped it carelessly on the table. Then she turned to him with an ingratiating smile.

“Don’t you like to do what I tell you, Ganus?” she asked. Her voice was low and intimate, and he could feel a weakness overcoming the strength in the muscles of his arms and legs. She had come so close to him that he could smell the familiar, enjoyably sweetish aroma of her body and he was entranced by the rhythmical rise and fall of her girlish breasts in the deep opening of her pajamas. “Don’t you now, Ganus?” she asked persistently in the same ingratiating manner.

He stepped back, wetting his dry lips. He had become so distracted by the sight and smell of her that he could not remember what she was so insistently asking.

“Ganus!” she reminded him sharply.

“What—what did you say, Miss Stephena?” he asked in confusion.

“I said, don’t you always want to do what I tell you, Ganus?”

“Miss Stephena, you know I always want to do exactly what you tell me,” he assured her earnestly. “I always try to do that.”

She turned away with a provocative movement of her hips and sat down on the edge of the kitchen table. After that she began swinging her feet back and forth.

“Ganus, what else did Papa say?”

“That’s all Mr. Charley said. He didn’t have to say more. He said plenty.”

She threw back her head and laughed at him. Her swinging feet became a dazzling reddish blur in his eyes. It sounded as if her laughter were filling the whole house with a mocking echo.

“Are you scared, Ganus?” she asked presently.

He drew a deep breath before he could answer her. “I sure am, Miss Stephena. I want to mind my own business, like a colored house boy ought to, and not get myself in any kind of trouble. I’ve made up my mind about that.”

“What are you scared of?”

“Of just exactly what I know deep in my bones I ought to be scared of, that’s what.”

“Are you scared of me?”

Ganus did not answer her.

Her feet moved faster under the table.

“I don’t know what you mean, Ganus. You won’t say what you’re scared of. How am I to know?”

“Miss Stephena, you’re telling a whopping big fib. You know just as well as I do.”

She laughed at him and sat up erectly. The bright red satin slippers became motionless.

“Look at me, Ganus. Don’t you think I’m attractive?”

He nodded almost immediately with a nervous jerky motion of his head. For a long time all he could see were her large brown eyes wavering before him, while confused thoughts tumbled through his mind. “You sure are pretty, Miss Stephena,” he heard the strange sound of his own voice. He was surprised and frightened by the thoughts that raced through him, but he could not drive them away. “You’re the prettiest girl there is. I never saw anybody so pretty before. I wish the Good Man had—had—”

“Had what, Ganus?” she spoke up quickly bending her body forward. Her shoulders twitched almost imperceptibly. “Had what, Ganus? Tell me. I’ve got to know.”

He felt a cold dampness on his forehead and when he looked down at his hands, he could see tiny beads of perspiration breaking through the skin.

“I wish you wouldn’t tease me about that—about things that can’t be helped,” he said, pleading with her. “It’s not right, Miss Stephena. It’s not right at all.”

She thrust one of her feet forward and gazed musingly at the bright red satin. After a while she tossed back her tousled brown hair and looked straight at him.

“Ganus, what would you do if—if we were both the same?”

He knew at once what she meant. Shaking his head, he looked away from her and at the shady street outside the window.

“Have you ever thought about it?” she asked.

He shook his head determinedly.

“You have, though, haven’t you, Ganus?”

This time he tried to pretend that he had not heard her.

“I’ve thought about it,” she continued persistently. “You have, too. I know you have.”

“Please, Miss Stephena,” he pleaded, “don’t make me say that.”

She leaned farther over the edge of the table. “I won’t tell anybody,” she promised solemnly. “Cross my heart!”

Ganus swallowed nervously. “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that, Miss Stephena. Or make me talk about it, neither. You oughtn’t to. The last time you asked me that, I told you a boy like me oughtn’t be opening his mouth about some things. It can make the worst kind of trouble there is. I sure don’t want to get myself in that kind of awful trouble. I’ve heard of colored boys letting white people get them in trouble, and I don’t want it happening to me. I want to stay as far away from bad trouble as the Good Man will let me. That’s what I want to do as long as I live. Now, don’t ever say that to me again. You keep quiet about that.”

Her face flushed with anger. There was a tightening of the lines of her firmly compressed lips.

“I didn’t think you’d dare talk back to me like that.”

“I didn’t mean it to sound that way at all, Miss Stephena,” he tried to explain. “I was only saying what I was worried about. You know I wouldn’t talk back to you.”

“Stand on your head, Ganus,” she commanded.

He had always done everything she told him to do. Many times while washing dishes or making beds or sweeping the floor he would wonder what she would order him to do when she came home from school in the afternoon. He had come to look forward to obeying her impulsive whims, no matter how absurd or difficult, and he always felt deprived of the opportunity to do something to please her when she stayed out late and did not come home until dark. There had been times when she made him skin-the-cat in the garage until he dropped exhausted to the floor; there had been other times when she would tell him to weave pins under his skin until the calloused palms of both hands or the soles of his feet looked as if they had been coated with shiny metal. She frequently thought of something new or difficult for him to do, but no matter how cruel or painful her demands were, he had always tried his best to do what she told him. This was the first time she had ever ordered him to stand on his head, and he wondered if that was because she had never happened to think of it before. He tried to recall how long it had been since he had stood on his head, and at the same time he was hoping he would be able to do it.

“I said, stand on your head, Ganus Bazemore!” she told him imperiously. “Didn’t you hear me?”

He nodded and went to the center of the kitchen and lowered his hands to the floor. He did not look directly at Stephena, but he could watch her red satin slippers swinging under the table. He placed his head on the floor between his outspread hands and hurled his legs upward toward the ceiling. At first he almost lost his balance, but after frantically kicking his feet several times he was surprised to find how easy it was for him to stay on his head. He did not know how much time had passed when he felt himself becoming dizzy. He waited, hoping Stephena would hurry and tell him that he could put his feet down, and when she jumped off the table and walked past him to the door, he felt himself losing his balance and he hastily lowered his feet to the floor. He crouched on his knees until the dizzy sensation went away, and then, feeling proud of what he had accomplished, he slowly stood upright. It was then that Stephena ran to him and slapped his face as hard as she could.

“That’s for not asking me if you could stop, Ganus Bazemore,” she told him crossly. “Maybe next time you’ll know better.”

He stumbled backward beyond her reach to prevent her from slapping him again, and stood there with an uncertain smile on his face while he rubbed his stinging cheek. She had never slapped him so hard before, and the tears were beginning to blur his vision. He blinked his eyes helplessly.

Stephena went to the table, snatched up the comic section of the Sunday paper, and walked out of the kitchen.

“Bring my breakfast right away,” she called back to him.

Ganus nodded, even though she had already passed out of sight, and went to the table and picked up the bowl of eggs. He looked in the direction she had gone until he could no longer hear the sound of her footsteps.

He could still feel the painful sting of her hand on his face as he sliced the tomatoes and he rubbed his burning cheek against the cool white cloth of his sleeve. For the first time he felt resentful, although the resentment lasted only as long as the pain itself; but during that time he wanted to leave and find a job where he would not be treated like this. As soon as the pain went away, though, he was sorry he had even thought of leaving the Singfields. He wanted to stay where Stephena was.

When the eggs and toast were ready, he carefully arranged the silverware and china on the tray and went through the house and up the stairway to the second floor. As he walked down the carpeted hall toward Stephena’s room, he made up his mind to work harder than ever before so the Singfields would let him stay there all his life. However, when he saw the door before him, he felt a familiar twinge rising in his throat. He wanted to go into the room where she was, but now he realized more than ever before how easily she could get him into trouble. While he stood at the door delaying as long as he could the moment when he would have to enter, he made up his mind not to let anything keep him from leaving the room as quickly as possible. He knocked, opened the door, and went in. He could feel his hands beginning to shake when he started across the room.

Carefully averting his eyes, he walked toward the small bedside table and because of that he almost dropped the breakfast tray; she had thrown the yellow silk pajamas on the floor, and it was then that he almost dropped the tray in jumping aside in time to keep from stepping on them. With dishes rattling noisily, he managed to place the tray on the table before anything was spilled. He could hear Stephena’s giggling laughter while he uncovered the dish of scrambled eggs and tomatoes and poured coffee with trembling hands. Then as quickly as possible, still not having looked at her in bed, he started toward the door.

“Why are you running away like that, Ganus?” she called to him in a drawling voice. “You’re shaking all over, too. What’s the matter, Ganus?”

He stopped, clearly remembering his firm determination to leave the room right away, but nevertheless, turning slowly around with helpless disregard, he looked at her for the first time since she had left the kitchen. She had combed her hair and was sitting upright in bed laughingly hugging a pillow in her arms.

“Nothing much’s the matter, Miss Stephena,” he answered her weakly, trying his best to make his voice sound calm. He backed slowly toward the door. “It’s just that I’ve got to hurry back downstairs and finish up my work in the kitchen before Miss Stella and Mr. Charley come home from church. I wouldn’t want your mama to find the kitchen untidy. No, ma’am! That’s one thing Miss Stella always raises a big rumpus about. She won’t put up with an untidy kitchen. No ma’m!”

“Come back here, Ganus,” she ordered him in a commanding manner.

Reluctantly, he moved several steps in her direction. She was hugging the pillow excitedly.

“What—what—do you want, Miss Stephena?”

“I want to ask you something.”

“Yes, ma’m, Miss Stephena,” he murmured, his whole being fearful of what she might say.

Stephena leaned forward and the pillow sagged carelessly in her arms. “Ganus, tell me the honest truth. What would you do now if you could do anything you wanted to and be sure nobody ever knew about it?”

“I’d—I’d go right straight back down to the kitchen, Miss Stephena,” he told her, shoving his hands behind his back and gripping them damply together.

“No, you wouldn’t, Ganus,” she said tensely. “Go on and tell me the honest truth. I want to know.”

“Know what?” he asked evasively, glancing behind him at the door.

“If you could do anything you wanted to.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said in desperation. “I wish you’d eat your breakfast before it gets cold.”

“Ganus,” she spoke as though patiently prompting him.

He shook his head determinedly. “That’s something I don’t want to know, neither.”

“Yes, you do, too. You know just as well as I do.”

“Please don’t make me say what you said you wanted me to say, Miss Stephena. I’ll do anything in the world you want me to as long as I live—if you’ll only let me go now like I ought to. That’s all the favor I’d ever ask, Miss Stephena.” She moved across the bed and the pillow fell to the floor. He could think of nothing else but the time she walked into the kitchen hugging a pillow in her arms, and he prayed fervently for somebody to come this time, too. The realization that somebody might come and find him there almost made his heart stand still. “Miss Stephena, they’d murder me alive if they found me here now,” he pleaded with desperate urgency. “Nothing would stop it. You know that. They’d kill me sure if they saw me now. I know what I’m talking about. That’s the Good Man’s own truth, Miss Stephena.”

“You promised me a little while ago that you were going to do everything I told you. Didn’t you, Ganus?”

“Yes, ma’m, and I’ll promise it again, if you’ll only let me go now.”

“Aren’t you going to keep your promise, Ganus?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know you meant anything at all like this, though, Miss Stephena. I thought you only meant like standing on my head and skinning-the-cat and things like that. I’d sure be tickled to stand on my head for you right now and stay on it as long as you say, if you’ll only let me go like I ought to. Could I please stand on my head right away, Miss Stephena? Please, ma’m, let me stand on my head.”

“Don’t be silly, Ganus,” she said.

There was the sound of an automobile in the street below. Ganus ran to the window and looked out. He was momentarily relieved when he saw that it was a strange car that soon passed out of sight without stopping. He turned from the window and came back to the center of the room.

“Miss Stella and Mr. Charley might be coming home early any minute now, Miss Stephena.” He gazed longingly over his shoulder at the bright sunshine out of doors. “Something terrible’s liable to happen, Miss Stephena,” he began again. He was looking down at the floor when he found himself staring at the yellow silk pajamas. Snatching them up, he went cautiously toward the bed, shyly holding the garment at arm’s length. “Please put these things on, Miss Stephena, please. Put them on quick! Something awful’s going to happen. I just know it is. Please put them on like they belong and don’t stay out of them any longer.” Stephena threw the pajamas aside. Tears came to his eyes. “Please don’t do this to me, Miss Stephena. It’s awful to be teased like you’re doing. I don’t have a bit of business being in here when you’re sprang out of all your clothes like that. It’s the worst thing a colored boy could be caught at. They’d murder me alive for sure, just like Mr. Charley said they would if he ever caught me doing something a colored boy oughtn’t. Won’t you please put those clothes on right away, Miss Stephena, like you ought to? I don’t want them to kill me. I want to stay alive. I don’t want to die.”

“If you don’t do what I want you to, I’ll scream,” she warned him, unmoved. Ganus stared at her, his mouth falling open. He was thoroughly frightened. He could feel his knees coming together with a jar that shook his whole body. “And if I scream, somebody’ll hear me, and they’ll come in the house. When they found you in here, you know what’d happen, don’t you, Ganus?”

“I sure do, Miss Stephena!” he cried out in an agonized voice. “Please don’t do that! Have mercy on me, Miss Stephena! Please don’t stay out of your clothes! I don’t want to die!”

She sprang to the floor and ran to him. Ganus closed his eyes, but in another moment he could smell the familiar aroma of her body.

“Nobody’ll ever know, Ganus,” he heard her pleading in a voice that sounded far away. “I promise never to tell a soul as long as I live. That’s the honest truth. Cross my heart!” He opened his eyes at last. “Don’t you believe me, Ganus?”

“I believe you, Miss Stephena, if you tell me to,” he said through trembling lips. “I mean, I want to believe you, Miss Stephena. But I can’t!”

When he realized what he had said, he shut his eyes tightly, fearing that at any moment he would feel the stinging blow of her hand on his face. While he stood there with his eyes closed, he tried to imagine what it would be like to be somewhere far away in the country running from the Singfield house as fast as he could. When he finally opened his eyes, Stephena was still standing in front of him. She was smiling up at him with wild-eyed excitement.

“Ganus—” she said slowly.

“No, ma’m, Miss Stephena—” he told her, shaking his head.

“Just this once, Ganus.”

He tried to say something, but his mouth was so dry that he was unable to make the sound of words. He could only stare at her while he wet his parched lips.

“Only this once, Ganus.”

“Miss Stephena—”

“Please, Ganus.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked weakly.

She was standing so close to him that her body was almost touching his. He waited, unable to move. He could feel numbness creeping through the muscles of his legs. His arms dangled limply at his sides.

They stood there moment after moment facing each other. Then suddenly she grasped his arm and clamped her teeth into his wrist. When she first bit him, he felt no pain whatsoever, but gradually he became conscious of a tingling sensation running up and down his arm, and then all at once the savage bite of her teeth in his flesh made him cry out in agony. He begged and pleaded for her to stop hurting him, but her teeth sank deeper and more painfully into his flesh.

When he could bear it no longer, he made a desperate lunge to get away from her. Instead of freeing himself, however, he stumbled and fell heavily on the floor. An instant later the weight of her body falling on his chest and stomach left him gasping for breath. As the pain increased, his only thought was to do something to make her stop hurting him, and he put his other arm around her neck and drew it as tight as he could. He could feel the tension in her body relax almost immediately, and after a while she released his wrist from the biting grip of her teeth. A watery smear of blood covered his arm, and when he wiped it away, he could see the deep marks of her teeth in the broken skin.

They were still on the floor facing one another and breathing through parted lips when Ganus began sliding cautiously away from her.

“Nothing else’s going to happen,” she said breathlessly as a convulsive tremble shook her body.

Ganus continued to move away from her.

“That’s all I wanted,” she said, shaking her head. “I wanted to know how it would feel to have you put your arm around me. I made you do it. I knew I could if I tried. But that was all I wanted. Now, get away from me—quick!”

Ganus slid backward across the floor until he was almost at the door. Then he hastily got to his feet. He looked back at her only once after that. She had put both hands over her face and she was crying hysterically.

“I made you do it—I knew I could!” she sobbed.

He opened the door and ran from the room, holding his left hand clenched tightly around his throbbing wrist.

Chapter 2

IT WAS SATURDAY AFTERNOON. A cold spring drizzle had been falling since early morning and few people wanted to come to town on such a dreary day. The red clay county roads were muddy and slippery and most of the farmers and their families, who usually came to Estherville on Saturday to buy staple groceries and shop for piece goods and medicine, had put off the trip until next week or later when the roads would be dry. Down at the barber shop, where four barbers worked on Saturdays and where there were usually eight or ten men waiting to get into a chair, only three customers had come in since noon. Standing in doorways or under dripping awnings, sad-faced merchants gazed forlornly at the deserted, rain-soaked streets. Many of them had advertised special Saturday sales for the country people, in anticipation of a profitable quick turnover of spring merchandise, and now they were left with costly seasonal stock on their hands that probably would be difficult to move when the weather turned warm.

At three o’clock George Swayne set the time-lock on the vault for Monday morning and locked up the bank, where he had been vice president and cashier for twelve years, and got ready to go home. The damp spring weather had made his feet hurt more than ever, but he was feeling good over the prospect of going home and taking off his shoes. His wife, Norma, who did not hesitate to tell George what he could and could not do, since it was her money that had made it possible for George to get into banking in the first place, he having been a clerk in one of the grocery stores when she married him—anyway, his wife would never let him take off his shoes in the house until bedtime; but Norma had gone to Savannah to visit her sister for the weekend, and George was planning to take off his shoes the minute he got home, and to keep them off until he had to open the bank Monday morning. He was looking forward to the most comfortable and carefree weekend of his life.

George backed the car out of the parking lot at the rear of the Estherville State Bank, racing the engine with such loud spurts that the pigeons roosting in the loft behind the drug store were so scared that they flew out into the drizzling rain. After that he drove up Magnolia Street, every once in a while pushing in the clutch and racing the engine of his wife’s green sedan until the vibration made the doorhandles rattle. There often were times when George resented his wife’s stubborn refusal to let him come home in the afternoon after banking hours and sit in his easy chair and listen to the radio in his sock-feet, but after all those years he knew there was nothing he could do about it. He sometimes wondered how different his life would be if Norma had not inherited her father’s wealth and put him in charge of the bank; even now there were times when he yearned to be back in the grocery store selling canned goods and weighing five-pound sacks of rice for customers. Many afternoons after being on his feet in the bank most of the day he would slip off his shoes in the garage and sit there in complete comfort for half an hour or longer before having to put his shoes back on and go into the house. He had always had trouble with his feet, even when he was clerking in the grocery store, and he had to wear specially made shoes that Dr. Lew Broadus had designed for him. However, the only lasting relief he could find was when he could take off his shoes and sit in his sock-feet.

When he reached the red brick house on Holly Street, he turned into the driveway, put the sedan into the garage and, gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes, raced the engine until he could feel the vibration tingling in his cheeks. After that he felt a lot better. It was only a few steps from the garage to the side door and for the first time in more than a year he found himself walking into the house with eager anticipation. He hoped Norma would not wait another whole year to visit her sister in Savannah again.

First turning on the radio as loudly as he pleased, he untied the laces, kicked his shoes with all his might across the room, and then leaned back happily, to listen to the music and wiggle his toes. He chuckled to himself when he tried to imagine what Norma would say and do if she should come home unexpectedly and see him now. He almost wished she would come home just so he could see the expression on her face. The more he thought about it, the happier he became, and he laughed out loud.

He had been sprawled comfortably in the easy chair wondering if there were many other men in the world living in fear of their wives, when, looking up, he saw Kathyanne come into the room. He had forgotten all about the maid until the moment he saw her, but then he remembered hearing Norma say that Kathyanne would take care of the house and cook all his meals for him while she was away. Kathyanne had worked for the Swaynes for the past six or seven months, but George rarely saw her except for a few minutes at breakfast and again when she served supper in the evening. He was surprised to see how eyesome she was, and he wondered why he had not noticed her in that way before. He leaned back and, with an unaccustomed boldness, eyed her closely in her freshly ironed white dress. Norma was a large-boned woman with heavy pendulous buttocks twice the size of his. She always kept herself tightly corseted right up to the last second before she put out the lights and went to bed, and in the mornings she was always up and corseted for the day before he was awake. Kathyanne was a small slender girl with light, golden skin and straight blue-black hair. Without her coloring few would have known, by looking casually at her, that she was a mulatto.

“I heard you come home a little while ago, Mr. George,” she said pleasantly, looking directly at him without embarrassment as he continued to scrutinize her adventurously. It had been so long since he had had an opportunity frankly to ogle another woman that he was astonished to see how alluring a good-looking girl could be. “I just wanted to let you know you could have your supper anytime you wanted it. Just let me know, Mr. George. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

She did not talk like most Negroes he was accustomed to hearing. Her speech was casual and friendly, but not presumptuously so, and it had been a long time since he had heard a Negro, even a mulatto, speak to a white person without hesitating lapses and cautious inflections. He recalled hearing his wife say that Kathyanne and her brother, Ganus, had moved to town the previous summer from the lower part of the county, near Blackburn’s Mill, where they had grown up on a farm and had attended a Negro grade school for several years. For a moment he wondered how much longer she and her brother would be able to continue talking in such a normal manner before some white person, possibly resentful because he had never learned to read and write, or merely because he had been raised in an environment that encouraged hatred of the race, used force or intimidation to cower them into assuming a servile attitude. Every once in a while he heard of a Negro being run out of Tallulah County or beaten for failing to stay in his place and show proper respect for a white man. Many men boasted of being hard on blacks, and said that was the reason the town had so little race trouble.

Kathyanne started to leave the room.

He reached over and turned the radio down.

“What time do we usually have supper, Kathyanne?” he said quickly, sitting up and attempting to appear calm and matter-of-fact. He found himself looking at her legs. She had slender, round ankles and smoothly tapering calves, and, being barelegged, her bright golden skin seemed more alluring than the sheerest stockings. He wondered why he had never noticed before how ideally proportioned she was. He was convinced that he had never seen anyone, white or colored, who possessed such endearing attractiveness. He was in the habit of casually looking at a female customer’s legs when she left the bank after transacting some business, or at girls who walked past the window of the bank, but this was the first time he had been conscious of the fact that Kathyanne had legs. By that time he had come to the conclusion that he had never seen anyone who appealed to him as strongly as she did. When he realized how long he had been staring at her, he felt self-conscious. Clearing his throat, he glanced up. He was sure he saw a knowing smile on her face. “Is there a regular time, Kathyanne? I mean, is there usually a regular time?”

“Miss Norma always wants supper served at six-thirty sharp,” she replied. “But since you are here all by yourself, Mr. George, you can have it at any time.”

“Well, we’ll have it at a different time tonight. Five-thirty, six, seven, seven-thirty. Any time except six-thirty. We don’t have to—to—” He was going to say have to be afraid of changing the supper hour, but he decided it might be better not to say it in Kathyanne’s presence.

Again he thought he saw her smile with a perceptive look as she nodded and turned to leave the room. George moved to the edge of his chair and watched the disturbing movement of her hips and the tantalizing sway of her skirt. He could not recall ever having seen anything like it before. He had been cooped up in the bank so long that he had forgotten what a pretty girl’s effortless grace could do to a man’s sensibilities. As she reached the door, he felt an irresistible urge to keep her from leaving his sight.

“Kathyanne!” he called, much louder than necessary. She stopped and turned around with an expression of startled innocence. For a moment he was afraid she was going to run to the kitchen. He realized that he had called out in a voice that probably could have been heard in the rear of the house. “I was just thinking—Kathyanne,” he said nervously, hoping he had lowered his voice to a normal pitch. As soon as he had spoken, he tried frantically to think what in the world he could say that would not sound ridiculous just then. Moment after moment passed while he stared confusedly at her, and then, finally, he blurted out the first and only thought he could bring to mind. “Kathyanne, I wanted to say—don’t go to too much trouble for me. I don’t think I’m very hungry, anyway.”

“We were going to have fried chicken tonight, Mr. George,” she told him right away. “It’ll be no trouble at all. I wanted to have a nice meal for you tonight, Mr. George.”

“Well, that sounds all right,” he said, disconcerted by her reply. “You go right ahead and fry the chicken, Kathyanne. That really suits me fine. I always was partial to fried chicken. I believe I am getting a little hungry, after all. Fried chicken sounds mighty good.”

She left the room and went to the rear of the house. George sat listening for a while, and then, unable to sit still any longer, jumped up and went to the hall and stood there trying to hear some sound of her in the kitchen. He knew that if Norma had been there he would never have dared to do what he was doing, and it gave him a pleasant unfamiliar sensation to know that he was alone in the house with Kathyanne. He was glad it was rainy and wet outside, because the dampness of the rapidly falling night seemed to make the privacy of the house more secure. He walked back into the living room and stood at the window watching the fading light of the misty afternoon as he thought how lonely he would be in the house without Kathyanne. An automobile came slowly into view, its front wheels splashing cautiously through the puddles on the street, and then it disappeared in the gloom. He was thinking that there went a man home to his wife and children, while here he was childless and married to a woman who would not even let him talk about the possibility of having children. He told himself that a man had a right to do some things in life, especially in his case. Convinced of the righteousness of his reasoning, and unable to wait any longer, George left the window and went straight to the kitchen.

Kathyanne was standing at the table when he got to the doorway. She had not heard him coming and she was unaware that he was looking at her.

While he stood there with his heart beating faster and faster, he remembered what somebody downtown had once said about the irresistible fascination of a Negress—at some stage in a man’s life, and why it was that a white man sometimes would seek a Negro girl’s favors in preference to accepting those of a white girl. He had not thought much about it at the time, but now he knew that he had a compelling desire for Kathyanne. Being a banker and a church-going Baptist, and having never before in his life approached a Negress, either light or dark in color, he wondered if he would be able to get up enough courage to speak to her in any way other than in an impersonal, businesslike manner. He had heard that it was easy for a white man to approach a Negro girl and talk as audaciously as he pleased, because usually she would be fearful of the consequences of not being agreeable, but at that moment he was far from being sure of his own ability. He was still trying to think of the best way to begin the conversation when Kathyanne turned and saw him standing in the doorway. She looked at him questioningly.

“Oh, by the way, Kathyanne,” he said in confusion. The instant he uttered the words he realized he made a false start, and he racked his brains frantically for help. “I wanted to ask you something, Kathyanne.” He looked down at the floor to hide his embarrassment. He knew what he wanted to say, but he was so completely confounded that he did not have the slightest idea about how to go about saying it. “I—ah—I just happened to think of it.” He stared perplexedly at the kitchen stove.

“What is it, Mr. George?” she asked pleasantly.

When he glanced at her, he thought he detected for a moment an understanding smile, and he grinned at her hopefully. A moment later, however, there was a serious frown on her face. He wondered if she really knew exactly what he was so desperately scheming, and if that was her method of trying to elude him.

He still had no idea of what he was going to say to her, but he realized that he would have to think of something before he found himself in a ludicrous position. The only thing in the whole world he could bring to mind was the banking business.

“What I came in here for was to ask if you’ve ever considered opening a savings account down at the bank,” he said, feeling silly for talking about banking or anything like it at a time such as that, but relieved to have thought of something. There was no way out now, however. He would have to go through with it and try to make a fresh start later. “It’s a pretty good habit to get into, Kathyanne. You never know when a few dollars tucked away in a savings account is going to save the day for you. Having a savings account to fall back on is a real safeguard in a time of need. It gives you peace of mind. Squirrels stow away nuts for a time of need, and human beings have learned down through the ages that putting away dollars is just as wise.” He saw her moving her head up and down, and he hurried to complete a convincing argument. “It only takes a single dollar to open an account, and even if you save only a dollar a week in the beginning, the first thing you know you’ve got a sizable fund safely stowed away—just like the squirrels. Everybody, white and colored, ought to protect themselves with a saving account, no matter how small.” She was nodding again, and George was pleased with himself for having appealed so successfully to her acquisitive instinct. “I tell you what you do, Kathyanne. Monday morning you come in the bank and let me show you how easy it is to set up a small financial program for yourself. I’ll be glad to do that for you. It’s always a pleasure to help people who want to save money.”

He beamed with satisfaction.

“Mr. George, I didn’t want to interrupt while you were talking, but I’ve already got a savings account at the bank.”

“You have?” he said in astonishment.

“I opened it two or three months ago. You gave me a little piggy bank to save pennies in.”

“I did?”

She nodded, and as she did so he was positive this time that he saw an impudent sparkle in her eyes.

“Well,” he said with a despondent feeling, “that’s fine. I’m glad you reminded me.”

All he could think of then was finding some way to get out of such an awkward situation so that he could make a fresh start. He looked around the kitchen with a critical eye as though he had come there in the first place to inspect the walls and ceiling and to decide if they were in need of a new coat of paint. He nodded thoughtfully at the ceiling and left the kitchen without another word spoken.

He went back to the front of the house feeling thoroughly foolish and cursing himself under his breath for wasting so much time talking about putting money in the bank. “Those goddam squirrels!” he said out loud. “Who gives a damn if they save nuts!” He jerked down the shades over the windows and turned on all the lights. Feeling too provoked to sit down, he began walking restlessly from one side of the room to the other. He told himself that the next time he was going to be thoroughly prepared and not blunder again.

The doorbell rang, jarring his nerves. The dreaded thought instantly flashing through his mind was that Norma had come home. He felt a heavy weight sinking deeper and deeper in the pit of his stomach, and he wondered if he would ever again in his life have another opportunity like the one that had just passed. He stood in the middle of the floor listening to the bell and dreading to answer it while it continued its jangling ring. The last time it rang with a sharp tone of urgency.

When he threw open the door, Hugh Howard was standing there. George was dumfounded. He stared open-mouthed at Hugh.

“What’s the matter, George?” Hugh asked him. “You look like you might’ve been expecting somebody else.”

“I wasn’t expecting anybody,” George told him. “Nobody ought to be out on a night like this. You’re liable to catch a cold going around like this.”

“It’s not so bad out. Just a little drizzly and misty. That’s all. Damp weather’s good for your hair. Look what water does for a muskrat’s fur.”

“What do you want?” George said impatiently.

“Well, I just stopped by to ask if you’d—” He looked down at George’s feet. “What’s the matter with you, George? Do your feet hurt that bad? Can’t you stand still?”

“No, they don’t hurt. They feel good tonight.”

“I never saw anybody dance up and down like you’re doing.”

“What did you stop here for?”

“Well, I stopped to ask if you’d like to come up to my house after supper tonight and maybe play a little poker. My wife’s brother came to town for the weekend, and I thought—”

“No,” George told him abruptly.

“Why not?”

“Well, I’m busy.”

“Busy doing what?”

“I don’t know—but I can’t come, anyway.”

“You don’t have to go back to the bank and count money tonight, do you?”

“No!” he said emphatically.

“George, you can sit around in your sock-feet in my house. My wife won’t make a fuss. She’ll be decent about it. You know that.”

“Can’t do it,” George told him, moving back into the hall and partly closing the door.

“You’re acting mighty funny, George,” Hugh said with a puzzled look. “What’s bothering you, anyhow?”

“I’m all right. Just leave me alone.”

“Won’t Norma let you come?”

“She’s gone to Savannah.”

“She has?” Hugh said with a slowly rising inflection. His eyes opened wide. “I see,” he said, backing toward the steps. “I didn’t know that. Sorry I busted in like this. Well, be careful, George. Better watch your reflex actions.”

“What are you talking about?”

Hugh gave him a knowing wink. “That good-looking high-yellow maid, George. I’ve heard about her. They say she’s the best-looking mulatto girl in the county, and I’ve seen some beauts around here.” He backed down the steps. “Good night, George,” he called back as he turned and walked toward the street. “If you need any advice, just send for me.”

“Good night,” George muttered gruffly, slamming the door and locking it securely.

He waited in the hall until he heard Hugh slam the car door and drive away. Then he walked back as far as the living room. There was complete silence in the house. It was then that he was gripped by the fear that Kathyanne had overheard the conversation at the door and, becoming suspicious, had left supper uncooked and gone home. He hurried down the hall, padding noiselessly in his sock-feet, and went to the kitchen door. This time Kathyanne was sitting at the table calmly turning the pages of a magazine. She did not appear to be at all uneasy.

“Kathyanne,” he called to her hoarsely. He was relieved to see her sitting there so placidly, but by that time he was completely unnerved. He remembered his resolution to keep from foolishly blundering again and he wished he had the sense to think of what he was going to say before returning to the kitchen. He wished he had the ability to talk to her with the same cool judgment he had in the bank when he was able to reject a loan application, by a doubtful risk, without the slightest trace of a quaver. The longer he stood there, however, the more confused his mind became, and in desperation he finally grasped at the thought of finding some excuse to get her to the living room.

“Yes, Mr. George?” she said with a disconcertingly placid expression.

For once in his life he felt as utterly worldly and rake-helly as the Baptist minister said all men were. He told himself that after this he would probably be able to appreciate the sermons more. It had always been a mystery to him where the Baptist minister got his ideas for sermons.

“Kathyanne, come up to the living room for a minute.”

At first he was afraid she was not going to do as he had asked her, because it seemed to him, as the seconds passed, that she was carefully debating the wisdom of obeying him, but she did get up after all. George backed out of the doorway and followed her closely all the way to the front room.

Nothing was said right away. The important thing, he reminded himself, was to think of some good excuse for having asked her to come there, and after looking hopefully around the room he suddenly asked her to empty the ash tray. Kathyanne seemed to be surprised by such a request, because he had smoked only one cigarette since coming home from the bank and most of the ashes had dropped somewhere on the carpet, but nevertheless, she picked it up and carried it to the kitchen. George paced the floor while she was gone, unable to forget the look of childish innocence on her face when he spoke to her in the kitchen, but at the same time determinedly telling himself that he was only doing what thousands of men all over the world were doing at that very minute.

He was still trying to think of some way to keep Kathyanne in the room without making her suspicious of his motives when she walked in and replaced the ash tray on the table. To his own surprise, he immediately made a bold move. Before she could turn around and go toward the hall, he hurriedly walked past her and got between her and the door.

When she saw what he had done, she did not say anything, but he knew she must be wondering what he intended doing next.

“You don’t have to hurry away, Kathyanne,” he spoke up nervously. “There’s no great rush about anything, you know.” He lit a cigarette and fanned the smoke away from his face. It had been a long time since he had felt so ill at ease in a woman’s presence, and he thrust the cigarette behind his back to prevent her from seeing his trembling hands. He wondered if he would ever have started this if he had known how nerve-racking the ordeal was going to be. “I’m—I’m surprised you’re not married, Kathyanne,” he said, determined not to be led into talking about banking again. “A good-looking girl like you—”

Kathyanne did not appear to be at all surprised by what he had said; he told himself that she was a lot smarter than he had supposed she was. He was convinced by then that she was capable of anticipating every devious twist and turn, his mind was taking, and he was left feeling dispirited to realize that he would also have to overcome intelligence.

“I mean that, Kathyanne,” he started again. “A good-looking girl—”

“I’m too young to be married now, Mr. George,” she said, smiling at him. “Besides, I have to help out at home. Aunt Hazel can’t work any more, and my brother and I take care of her.”

“Well, that’s probably true, but at the same time—”

She was shaking her head.

“How old are you, Kathyanne?” he then asked.

“Just seventeen.”

For the first time he had the sensation of feeling at ease. It was nowhere near as difficult to talk to her as he had feared. He drew a deep comforting breath. He wished so much time had not been wasted already.

“A lot of girls get married and raise families at that age,” he remarked easily.

“I know they do. But I couldn’t.”

She was so calm, and her manner was so pleasant, that George began to wonder if he were really as much at ease as he thought he was. He could not detect the slightest indication that she was afraid of him. He wished she would become frightened or even tearful, his reasoning being that, if she became distressed, he would have a better opportunity to induce her to stay in the room. He could always assure her, if he could create the opportunity, that she had nothing to fear. He took a step closer in a casual manner as though it were only by chance that he happened to move in her direction.

“You’re a very attractive girl, Kathyanne,” he said, surprised by his own forthright boldness. “I don’t know when I’ve seen anybody so good-looking.”

He was careful to keep himself from looking at her then, but he was almost certain she had smiled at his remarks.

“I noticed that several times this evening and I wanted to tell you how good-looking I think you are. There’re not many girls who could—”

He stopped and looked up at her with a tentative smile.

“I’m a good girl, Mr. George,” she said calmly, looking straight at him with unblinking eyes that sparkled in the bright light.

The unexpected statement took him completely by surprise. He was at a loss to know how to deal with a girl who apparently knew precisely to what end a flattering comment would lead, and who could forestall his solicitous efforts with so much grace.

“Of course, you are,” he said, embarrassed. “I mean, I know you are. What I meant was, you’re much better looking than the average girl around town, white or colored. That’s the way I wanted you to understand it, Kathyanne.”

He could see her shaking her head at him. “That doesn’t make any difference, Mr. George,” she said as though gently chiding him. “I’m still a good girl.”

George knew he could not stop now, no matter what she could think of saying. He had gone too far and had built up too many expectations to let anything she could say change his mind. Boldly he went toward her. Kathyanne recognized the meaning of the gesture, but she made no attempt to stop him or even to evade him. She moved backward resignedly until she was standing against the wall. While he stood there listening to the rasping sound of his own breathing, he wondered why she did not plead or struggle. It would have given him the opportunity he needed in order to justify himself. As each second passed, the greater became his inferior feeling. He knew he had to do something right away to keep from feeling completely debased in her presence.

He reached out and grasped her arms.

“I can’t help it, Kathyanne,” he told her, making a desperate appeal to her. “It’s something I can’t stop—a good-looking girl like you—”

“Mr. George, do you think it would make a difference if I were a white girl?” she asked unhurriedly. “Or do you think it doesn’t matter because I’m a Negro?”

“I don’t care what you are—that doesn’t matter at all—I can’t let you go now. It’s not what I think about it, anyway—it’s the way I feel.”

She still made no attempt to plead or struggle, but he thought he detected a contemptuous smile on her lips. Regardless of that, he felt greatly superior to her now, because she had admitted she was not white like him.

“You don’t think you’d have that light color—if there hadn’t been some white man, do you Kathyanne?”

She was watching him with the same unblinking gaze.

“Your father was a white man,” he continued contentiously. “Anybody can see that, and you know it, too. It’s the way things are. Colored girls ought to know that by now.”

Kathyanne still said nothing, but he could read the hopelessness of her thoughts in her sparkling eyes. She stood pressed tightly against the wall unable to escape now even if she had tried. George knew he was more frightened than she was.

“It’s different with us,” he told her with the feeling that he had to make some explanation of his conduct. “We don’t want white girls having anything to do with a black. But it’s all right for—”

“I know how you feel about it, Mr. George. You don’t have to say that. I understand.”

“You do?”

“I think I do.”

She had become so acquiescent that he was suspicious.

“You won’t tell my wife, will you, Kathyanne?” he asked anxiously.

“No,” she assured him. “That wouldn’t do any good.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I’ll have to leave when Miss Norma comes home. I couldn’t stay here and work for her after this.”

“It’ll be your own fault for giving up your job,” he told her, nettled by her reply. “You may never get another job this good again.”

He could see that she was worried. All at once he was regretful of what had happened, but he felt that he had to dominate her at any cost, because otherwise he was afraid he would never be able to forget as long as he lived that he had been shamed by a mulatto girl.

Chapter 3

THE NARROW ALLEY behind the Singfield house at night was dark and unlighted, besides being cluttered with trash barrels and garbage cans, but it was the shortest way home, and for several months Ganus had been in the habit of going through the alley to Poinsettia Street when he finished work. Generally, it was after eight-thirty when he left, and by the time he had walked through town to Aunt Hazel’s house in the quarter it was nine o’clock or later.

Twice lately somebody had thrown rocks at him when he was about halfway through the alley, and, afraid of being hit on the head in the dark, he had run all the way home. He had not said anything about it to Aunt Hazel or Kathyanne, because he did not wish them to worry, and he hoped that whoever had been throwing rocks at him would not do it any more. For a whole week he had gone the longer way around, through the lighted streets, and after that he thought it was safe, if he walked fast all the way, to go through the alley again.

It was almost nine o’clock when he turned out the kitchen lights, locked the house door, and went through the backyard gate to the alley. It was a chilly spring evening, and he shivered in the night air after having been so long in the warm kitchen. He wished he had worn a sweater to work that morning. He stood at the gate for several minutes; then, hearing nothing out of the ordinary, he started walking rapidly toward Poinsettia Street. He avoided stumbling over one of the overturned trash barrels, and was within sight of the street lights at the end of the alley when a heavy jagged stone, coming from somewhere out of the darkness, hit him a glancing but painful blow just above his left ear. He staggered against the wooden fence at the rear of the Pillson house, stunned by the rock, but he managed to stay on his feet by clinging to the paling. Before he had a chance to run, four boys were standing in front of him. He did not recognize any of them at first, but he could see that all except one were about his own size. The smallest boy, who was between ten and eleven years old, was watching him with wild-eyed dismay. Ganus backed against the fence and pressed his hand against his throbbing head. He could see with a dim consciousness that two of the boys had large rocks grasped in their hands. The other two were carrying heavy sticks. The little boy, suddenly putting both hands behind his back as though ashamed to be seen with a stick, dropped it on the ground. He came closer, peering intently at Ganus. It was then that he recognized Robbie Gunsby, who lived in the next block and who had come to the Singfields’ kitchen door several times recently and asked Ganus to play marbles with him in the backyard. Robbie was a thin, freckle-faced, tow-headed boy with light blue eyes and a wide friendly grin. His father was a mail carrier. Ganus wondered if Robbie Gunsby would ever ask him to shoot marbles again.

“That’s him,” he heard one of the older boys say in a loud whisper. “It’s him, all right.”

Ganus could feel a warm wet trickle on his cheek and he tried to wipe it away with the palm of his hand. He had never been cornered like this by white boys before, but he had heard other Negro boys talk about it and he knew how cruelly white boys sometimes treated them. His first thought was to run before they threw more rocks at him or hit him with the sticks, but he was afraid they might hurt him worse if he tried to get away and was caught again.

“What’re you doing out so late at night?” one of the larger boys asked him.

“I just now got through my work,” Ganus answered as quietly as he could, hoping he could persuade them to let him leave. “I was just on my way home. I wish you’d let me go now. I wasn’t bothering anybody. You white boys oughtn’t to chunk rocks at folks like that.”

“Pete, you going to let one of them talk to you that way?” somebody said with a challenging snicker.

“Maybe he don’t know any better,” Pete Tilghman, the tallest of the four boys, said with a jeering laugh. Pete, whose father owned a brickyard, played center on the high-school basketball team. “He ought to be learned better than to keep on talking like that after he answers questions. Boy, you talk mighty big for a nigger, don’t you? Who do you think you are, anyhow?”

He wanted to say something in defense of himself, if only to try to make them understand that he did not intend to appear arrogant or presumptuous, but he decided it would be better not to say anything just then.

“I’ll learn him a lesson, Pete,” Hank Newgood, the boy with the heavy stick, said. Hank had quit school in the tenth grade. He hit the principal, one morning during recess, with a baseball bat, and his father, who operated a sawmill on Indian Creek south of town, said he already had enough schooling anyway. Hank drew back his arm as if to hit Ganus on the head with the stick. “I’ll only have to whang him once with this club, and that’ll stop him from growing up to be a back-talking nigger.”

“Wait a minute, Hank,” Pete said, holding his arm. “I want to ask him something first.” Pete dropped the large rock he had been holding. “What’s your right name, boy?”

“Ganus Bazemore.”

“That’s a funny name,” Vern Huff said. “How’d you ever get a queer name like that? Who gave it to you?”

“Now, hold on, Vern,” Hank said, pushing him aside. “I want to be sure this’s the right nigger. I don’t want to waste time on the wrong one.”

“That’s him, I told you,” Vern tried to convince him. “He’s the one I saw through the crack in the garage. I know him when I see him.”

Ganus, becoming frightened, not knowing what Vern was talking about, tried to move away. Hank hit him on the face as hard as he could with his fist. Ganus fell against the fence, dropping to his knees for a moment, and then slowly got to his feet. He could see Robbie Gunsby watching him and he wanted to ask Robbie to make the boys stop. Robbie was on the verge of crying, and he wondered if the little boy could do anything to help him.

“We’d better tie him up, Hank, before he gets away,” Pete said.

“Hell, he won’t try that again,” Hank said, laughing confidently. “He knows what’ll be coming to him the next time if he does.” He drew up his fist in a threatening gesture. “Do you work for Mr. Charley Singfield, boy?”

“Yes, sir, I work for him,” he answered promptly.

“Didn’t I tell you so, Hank?” Vern said. “Why didn’t you listen to me? I’d know that nigger in the bottom of a coal mine on a cloudy night.”

Robbie pulled at Hank’s sleeve. “What are you going to do now, Hank?” he asked in a trembling voice. “Pete hit him with a rock, and you’ve hit him once with your fist. He’s bleeding where the rock hit him. You shouldn’t hurt him any more. He never did anything to anybody. You leave him alone now, Hank Newgood!”

Hank shoved Robbie away. “Look who’s talking!” he said with a contemptuous laugh. “What’s the matter with you, Robbie? What’d you come along for if you’re going to act like a sissy?”

“I thought we were just going to scare him and then stop. I like Ganus. He shoots marbles with me in Mr. Singfield’s backyard everytime I ask him to. You stop hurting him now.”

“Aw, dry up, Robbie!” he said, scowling and making a threatening motion with his hand. He turned to Ganus. “What that nigger needs is his gizzard cut out. I’ve got a knife to cut it out, too.” He took a long bone-handled knife from his pocket and snapped it open. “All niggers all over the country ought to have their gizzards cut out.”

“Wait a minute, Hank,” Pete Tilghman said, pushing him aside. “I want to find out something first.” He faced Ganus and asked, “Boy, where’d you come from? Where’d you live before you moved to town?”

“Out near Blackburn’s Mill in the country.”

“Say ‘sir’ when you talk to me, nigger!”

“Out near Blackburn’s Mill, please, sir.”

“That’s Mister Blackburn’s Mill to you, boy!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why’d you move to Estherville?”

“To go to work, please, sir.”

“Why didn’t you stay out there in the country, where you belonged, and go to work?”

“My mother died and I moved to town to live with Aunt Hazel.”

Pete snickered. “Hank, reckon he wants us to blubber because some old nigger woman died?”

“It’d be just like a coon,” Hank agreed.

Pete came closer, watching him cautiously. Ganus drew himself as far back against the fence as he could.

“Come on, Hank,” Pete said, waving his arm. “Let’s give him what’s coming to him and stop all this jawing. It’s getting late. My folks’ll be mad as hell if I don’t get home soon. I told them I was going to the movies.”

“That’s what I say,” Vern Huff said. “Let’s give it to him, Hank.”

Hank jabbed the knife at Ganus several times, gradually coming closer. Ganus squeezed against the wooden palings, trying to get beyond the range of the knife. Hank suddenly lunged forward and jabbed the point of the blade into Ganus’ thigh.

“Please, sir, white folks,” he pleaded, “don’t hurt me with that knife. I haven’t done anything.”

“You stop hurting him, Hank,” Robbie said, his lips trembling.

“Just listen to the nigger try to lie out of it, Pete,” Vern said, ignoring Robbie Gunsby. “You’d know he’s a bad nigger by the way he’s started lying already.”

“He’s got a funny way of talking, ain’t he?” Pete remarked, trying to imitate Ganus’ speech. “He sounds like he thinks he’s one of these educated niggers. What makes you talk like that, boy?”

“It’s the only way I know how,” he answered quickly.

“Have you ever been to school?”

“Yes, sir. I went to the colored grade school out at—at—in the country out there.”

“So that’s where you got that educated talk. Why’d you waste all that time going to school instead of working? What good do you think it’s going to do you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, afraid to speak any more than necessary.

“Hear that, Hank?” Pete asked. “He says he’s educated, but he don’t know why. Maybe he figured on being a nigger preacher.”

“I’ll bet he figured he could move to town and talk to white girls if he had an education,” Vern said.

“Drop your pants, boy,” Hank ordered.

He looked from one face to the other. “Please, sir, what do you want me to do that for?” he asked, trembling.

“Never mind what for,” Vern told him. “You’d better skin off those breeches in a hurry and quit that arguing.”

He unbuckled his trousers with nervous fingers and let them fall to the ground.

Robbie pulled at Pete’s arm. “Why’d Hank make Ganus do that, Pete?” he asked. “Why does Ganus have to take his pants off?”

“Step out of those breeches, nigger,” he told Ganus, ignoring Robbie. “And hurry up about it, too. When I say something, I mean it.”

Ganus was quick to obey. He stepped out of his pants and hurriedly pressed his body back against the fence as Hank’s knifeblade flashed close to him.

“Do you have a sister living in town?” Pete asked him.

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s her name?”

“Kathyanne.”

The three older boys looked at each other knowingly.

“Is she that good-looking high-yellow who’s been working for Mrs. Swayne on Holly Street?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You and her both are half white, ain’t you?”

“I don’t know anything about that, please, sir.”

“Like hell you don’t,” Pete said derisively. “You’re a big liar. You know goddam well your daddy was a white man—if your mammy was a nigger. I’ll bet anything I’ve got you never saw your daddy in your whole life. Ain’t that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Pete nudged Hank with his elbow. “I told you so, Hank. I knew damn well he was half-and-half. Those kind only smell half as strong as the all-blacks.”

Ganus tried to move along the side of the fence beyond reach of Hank’s threatening motions. Vern Huff picked up a stick and made him go back. He glanced appealingly at Robbie Gunsby.

“You leave Ganus alone now,” Robbie said.

“You know what I’m going to do to you?” Hank asked him, paying no attention to Robbie.

“No, sir, I sure don’t, but please, sir, don’t do anything with that knife.”

“I’m going to cut your pod off, that’s what,” Hank told him. “You ought to be tickled about it, because it’ll keep you out of a lot of trouble from now on.” He made a slashing motion with his arm. Ganus looked at Robbie again. “Just because your daddy was a white man, you’d better not think you can get away with anything you want. You’re still a nigger, because your mammy was a nigger. That’s why you ought to be glad I came along. Hell, I’m doing you a big favor, if you only knew it.” He nudged Pete with his elbow. “Ain’t that right, Pete?”

“It’s one hell of a big favor,” Pete agreed. “Not every nigger who comes along gets a big favor like that. Boy, you ought to be falling all over yourself to, say how glad you are.”

“White folks, please, sir, you must be all mixed up about me, because I don’t aim to be anything except what I am. I always stay in my place. I never did try to do anything but just that. That’s the truth, and the Good Man knows it. I wouldn’t step out of my place, please, sir.”

“Maybe so, but you might just accidently forget it once. Then you’d be in a mighty bad fix. It never pays to take a chance on what a nigger might forget.”

“Don’t forget to cut his gizzard out, too, while we’re about it,” Pete said. “That’ll save him the trouble of having to come back to get it cut out.”

Ganus looked hopefully at Robbie.

“Please you tell them I always mind my own business, Robbie,” he begged the little boy. “You know that’s the truth, don’t you, Robbie? When I shot marbles with you up there in Mr. Charley’s backyard, didn’t I always act like I ought to? Didn’t I always treat you fair and square? I never nudged on you a single time, did I, Robbie? And I never tried to beat you out of your agates, either, did I? Won’t you tell them that for me, Robbie? Please tell them that.”

“Robbie, are you going to let the coon talk to you like that without calling you ‘mister’?” Hank said tauntingly.

Robbie burst into tears. He caught Pete by the arm and held to him, refusing to be shaken off.

“Don’t hurt Ganus any more, Pete!” he cried. “He plays marbles with me everytime I ask him and he never cheats or nothing. I don’t want you to hurt him—you hear!”

Pete succeeded in pushing Robbie away.

“Who let that cry-baby come along with us, anyhow?” Hank said, scowling at Pete and Vern. He shoved Robbie to the other side of the alley. “Go on home to your mama and get your ditty, Robbie. You ought to know better than stay out past your ditty-time. And after this stop trying to hang around with grown-up boys like us. You’re too little.”

“You stop hurting Ganus, Hank Newgood!” Robbie cried.

“Please, sir, Mr. Hank,” Ganus said desperately, “why do you white boys want to do that to me? I haven’t done anything wrong. That’s the truth. The Good Man knows that.”

“Why don’t you tell him why, Hank?” Vern said.

“Hell, the nigger knows why. That’s just a nigger way of trying to beg off. I’ve seen them do that before.”

“Please, sir, Mr. Hank, I don’t know what you mean,” Ganus said, pleading.

“He won’t need to know after I take a couple of swipes at him with this knife of mine. All his troubles will be over then for the rest of his life. He ought to be thanking me instead of doing all that begging. Hell, I don’t think he’s educated like he claims. He sure don’t talk like it. A smart, educated nigger would say go ahead and do me a big favor so I won’t never get in trouble from now on.”

“Let me ask him something first, Hank,” Pete said, pushing the others aside. “Boy, what kind of notions you got in that woolly head about white girls?”

“None at all, please, sir,” he answered tensely, thoroughly frightened.

Vern said, “Hank, I always thought that was why niggers wanted to be educated—so they’d get some notions.”

“I know how to find out if he’s got notions,” Pete said. “Boy, which are the best, white girls or nigger girls?”

“I wish you wouldn’t make me say anything like that, please, sir, Mr. Pete. It’s not right to make me say those things. That’s something a colored boy ought to keep his mouth shut about.”

Hank laughed, and said, “He talks just like a nigger preacher I heard once. My old man gigged him with a pitchfork and tried to make him say whether he thought Jesus Christ was white or black. He almost bust a gut trying to get out of saying it.”

“Boy, you think nigger girls are better?” Pete asked him.

“No, sir, I didn’t say that.”

“You think white girls are better?”

“Yes, sir—no, sir! I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t mean it either way. All I meant was—”

“You’d better be careful what you say,” he was warned.

“Please, sir, I only meant what I ought to. I wish you wouldn’t try to make me say what I oughtn’t.”

“All I’m doing is asking you, and you’re the one who’s doing the answering. How come you know so much about white girls—how do you know if they’re better or not?”

“I don’t know anything at all about it, Mr. Pete. That’s the Good Man’s truth.”

“Vern Huff saw you in the Singfield garage,” Pete told him. “You were in there with Stephena Singfield, and there wasn’t nobody else around, neither. Don’t you know better than being out there all alone like that with a white girl?”

“Mr. Pete, she told me to go out there in the garage and skin-the-cat,” he said earnestly. He glanced appealingly at Robbie, wanting somebody to believe him at a time like that. “I always try to do what Miss Stephena tells me.”

“She didn’t tell you to show off, did she?”

“No, sir, and all I did was—”

“Don’t you know no better than to show off in front of a white girl?”

“Mr. Pete, I didn’t mean to show off—”

“How’d I know that was all you did out there?”

“Because that’s the only thing in the whole wide world I did do, Mr. Pete. You can ask Miss Stephena yourself and she’ll tell you it’s the plain truth. She told me to go out there and skin-the-cat, and I went right out and did what she told me.”

“How about that, Vern?” Hank asked. “You saw what he did in the garage. Is he lying about it?”

“He was hanging on a chinning bar skinning-the-cat and showing off just like he’d been born white in the big house,” Vern said. “I watched him till he got down, and he sat on the floor and grinned like a fool about it. He acted like he thought she was going to rub the fuzz off his peach for him, for being such a big show-off. You ought’ve seen him grin at her, Hank. You’d of thought he was whiter than she was.”

“Maybe he was figuring on getting some goody for showing off,” Pete said, looking at Ganus and nodding suspiciously. “I’ve heard of light-skin niggers like him who didn’t know better than think they had it coming to them.”

“The lighter-skinned they are,” Vern said, “the more they think it’s coming to them.”

“Hell, I’m as white as the next one,” Hank said, “but I’ve never had a chance to play around with her like that. It’s getting pretty bad when a nigger can do what I can’t do. I’ve been trying to get a date with her for two months.”

“Me, too,” Pete said with a wistful inflection.

“That’s the whole trouble,” Vern said with an accusing look at Hank and Pete. “There’re too many peckers trying to date her. What that does is make her think she’s got the monkey by the tail. She can’t be all that good, anyway. There’re plenty of other good tits in town.”

“You don’t have to berate her, Vern, just because she won’t let you suck around. Maybe you’re not in her class.”

“My folks are just as good as hers, any day of the week.”

“That’s what you think. Do you know how stinking rich that Charley Singfield is?”

“What’d you think my dad’s got stuffed away in that safe deposit box of his at the bank? He’s already made more money buying and selling cotton on commission than your old man’ll ever make peddling brickbats.”

“Cut out the squabbling,” Hank said, shoving Pete.

“Make Vern stop then. He’s the one who started it.”

“Like hell I did!”

“You did, too!”

Vern ran at Pete and hit him with his fist. Pete tried to hit back, but Hank flung them apart. They stood glaring at each other with Hank in the middle.

“I’m going to haul off and bat the hell out of both of you, if you don’t cut it out,” he told them. He watched them for a moment and then suddenly turned to Robbie Gunsby, drawing back his arm threateningly. Robbie ran and got behind Vern. “I thought I told you once already to go home and get your ditty, Robbie. What are you still hanging around here with us big boys for?”

Robbie did not say anything, and Hank walked part way to where Ganus was standing against the fence.

“You’ve been at the Singfields long enough, boy,” he told Ganus. “I don’t want you hanging around a white girl no more. You’re going to quit the job and go to work somewhere else. You hear that?”

“Mr. Hank, please, sir, Mr. Charley told me when I went to work for him that I couldn’t quit unless he told me to. If I quit now, he wouldn’t like it at all. I’d be scared to quit.”

“I don’t care if he does get mad. What’s that to me? You’re going to quit or I’m going to fix you.” He flashed the knifeblade in front of Ganus’ face. “See this knife? That’s what I mean.”

Robbie nudged Vern excitedly and pointed behind them. Somebody was walking up the alley.

Nobody said a word, but Pete, seeing the shadowy figure in the alley, caught Hank by the arm and turned him around so he could see that somebody was there. Hank quickly closed the knife, put it into his pocket out of sight, and leaned against the fence beside Ganus. In the faint light they recognized Paul Benoit, who owned one of the drug stores on Peachtree Street and who lived two houses up the alley. He stopped a few feet away. Paul often came home through the alley instead of walking around the block to the front of his house.

Ganus wanted to run and get behind Paul Benoit, because he knew he might not have another chance like that, but when he thought of what Hank might do when they caught him again, he was afraid to move.

“What’s going on, Vern?” Paul asked, looking at the faces in the dim light.

“Nothing, Mr. Benoit,” Vern replied uneasily. “We were just standing here talking.”

Paul came closer. “You’re not getting these boys into trouble, are you, Hank?” he asked suspiciously.

“No, sir, Mr. Benoit,” Hank replied meekly.

Pete saw Paul looking at him. “Howdy, Mr. Benoit,” he spoke up.

“Who’s that colored boy over there at the fence?”

“That’s Ganus Bazemore, Mr. Benoit,” Vern told him. “He’s the houseboy up at Mr. and Mrs. Charley Singfield’s.”

Pete noticed that Robbie Gunsby was slowly edging closer and closer to Paul Benoit, and he caught the boy by the arm and jerked him back. He could hear Robbie whimpering, and he rapped Robbie on the head with his knuckles as a warning to be quiet.

“Everything’s all right, is it, boys?” Paul asked them, looking from one to the other.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Benoit,” Pete and Hank said almost simultaneously. “Everything’s just fine, Mr. Benoit,” Vern added.

“Ganus, are they treating you all right?” he asked.

Ganus swallowed. He knew he would not have another opportunity like this, but he could not make himself tell on the white boys. He could see from the corners of his eyes that they were watching him apprehensively, and he wondered what each of them was thinking. He tried to think what he would say if Paul noticed that he did not have his pants on. He was glad it was as dark as it was.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Benoit,” he said finally, looking him straight in the face. He could sense the feeling of relief all around him. “I’m all right, thank you, Mr. Benoit.”

“We just stopped to talk to Ganus for a minute,” Vern spoke up quickly. “We’ll all be going home pretty soon.”

Paul saw Robbie Gunsby for the first time. “What are you doing here, Robbie?” he said. “It’s pretty late for you to be out. You’d better go home soon.”

Robbie glanced up at Pete’s face. He could see the stern look of warning there. Frightened, he said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Benoit.”

Turning away, Paul walked up the alley toward his gate. “Good night, boys,” he called back, without looking at them again.

“Good night, Mr. Benoit,” they said in unison.

Nobody said a word after that for a long time. Nobody even moved until they heard Paul go into his house and close the door.

Vern was the first to say anything. “He could tell on all of us now—if anything happened.”

“Hell,” Hank said derisively, spitting in the direction of Ganus’ feet and walking away from the fence, “who’s scared of Paul Benoit! He’s nothing but a soda jerker who owns the joint.”

“You’d better be scared, Hank Newgood,” Robbie said, breaking away from Pete. “Mr. Benoit’ll know who did it now, if you go and hurt Ganus.”

“How many times have I told you to go home!” Hank said angrily. “It’s Vern’s fault for letting you come along, anyhow. You’re too little to go around with big boys. You stay away from me after this. You hear, Robbie?”

“I thought you just wanted to chunk some rocks at Ganus to scare him. I didn’t know anybody wanted to hurt him. I don’t see why you want to. He never did anything to you. I’ll tell on you, too, if you hurt him. You just wait and see if I don’t. I’ll go straight home and tell everybody.”

“Like hell you will, cry-baby,” Pete said, grabbing him. “You’re not going home and tell on me. I’ll choke the life out of you—if you don’t take that back.” He gripped Robbie’s thin neck with both hands and shook him. “Say it, Robbie! Say it! You’d better take it back! I’ll choke the life out of you till you can’t breathe! Say it, Robbie! You’d better say it!”

“I want to go home,” Robbie muttered faintly, crying again.

Vern pulled Robbie away from Pete. “Go pick on somebody your own size, Pete,” he said.

Hank opened his knife.

“Hank, let’s just beat up Ganus a little and let him go,” Vern said uneasily when he saw the knife. “It’s getting late. Somebody in one of these houses might hear us and come out to see what’s going on. Mr. Benoit might come back. I don’t want to be caught cutting up anybody with a knife. My dad would take the hide off me.”

“I want to go home,” Robbie cried in a louder voice, holding tightly to Vern.

“Christ Almighty!” Hank said in disgust. “Why didn’t all you scaredy-cats stay home with your mamas? I didn’t know there was so many scaredy-cats in town.” Biting his lower lip between his teeth, he drew back his hand and slashed at Ganus with the knife. The blade cut a deep gash across Ganus’ shoulder. “That’ll show you how scared I am of anybody,” he told them boastfully.

Ganus, uttering no sound, moved as far away from Hank as he could. He put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed the flesh together.

“You went and made him bleed again, Hank Newgood!” Robbie cried out. Tears were running down his cheeks. “Why’d you do that? He didn’t do anything to you—he never did do anything to hurt you! Why’d you have to go and hurt him like that, Hank?” He ran up the alley. “I’m going home!” he sobbed.

“Hank, Robbie Gunsby’s going to tell on all of us,” Vern said accusingly. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Let the cry-baby tell,” Hank said indifferently. “What do I care? Cutting up a nigger’s nothing. I saw my old man hit a nigger once so hard with a scantling it knocked one of his eyes out.”

Both Vern and Pete began backing away from him.

Presently Vern went to the fence where Ganus was standing. “Ganus,” he said in a low voice, “you won’t tell on us, will you? I didn’t mean all the things I said. Honest to God, I didn’t, Ganus!”

Before Ganus could say anything, Hank grabbed Vern and flung him away. Then he shoved Ganus to the middle of the alley.

“Get going, nigger, and keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you.” He walked up to Ganus and shoved him again. “I can make it plenty rough on you, if you talk. You know that, don’t you?”

Without waiting to go back for his pants, Ganus started walking rapidly toward Poinsettia Street. He was almost there when a heavy rock crashed against the wooden fence beside him, and he began running. He did not look back again after that, but ran as fast as he could toward home.

Chapter 4

IT WAS THE END OF MAY and nothing had been done during the past five weeks about paying Kathyanne her wages. After leaving the Swaynes, Kathyanne had gone to work for Madgie Pugh, doing the cooking, cleaning, washing, and other daily household tasks, and each time she had spoken about it, Madgie had become excited and upset and said she was too busy to discuss the matter. That had been going on week after week since the last Saturday in April and she did not understand why Madgie kept on refusing to do anything about it.

The Pughs lived about half a mile from the center of town in a square, six-room, red brick house, on a sandy ridge, at the north end of Palmetto Street where several new homes had been built in recent years. The ridge, which previously had been wasteland, with a sparse growth of yellow broomsedge and scraggly blackjack, had been given the name of Sedgefield by a real estate development company, and had become a fashionable neighborhood for those who could afford the upkeep of year-around gardens and bermuda lawns in summer and rye lawns in winter. Carter Pugh, who was ruddy-faced and genial, was general manager of the largest ginning company in the county, and both he and Madgie had been born in Estherville and had lived there all their lives. They had married hurriedly, before a church wedding could be planned, in an attempt to put an end to scandalous talk when somebody in town, whose brother was a hotel clerk, found out that they had spent the night together in Augusta. They were now in their early forties and had two children, Jimmy and Frances, in high school.

Madgie was president of the Garden Club and was away from home two afternoons a week attending committee meetings. Every Sunday she took Carter and the children to morning church services, and then she and Carter always went to the evening service. Carter flatly refused to go to the Wednesday evening prayer meetings, because he thought that was just too much religion for any man, and Madgie attended alone. Whenever she had an opportunity, she proudly boasted that both her family and Carter’s had been church-supporting Baptists for six generations, and that the two families, during that time, had contributed seven preachers to the Baptist ministry.

“I declare, Kathyanne, I wish you wouldn’t be so everlastingly annoying,” Madgie said that morning when Kathyanne reminded her once more that she had not been paid. Madgie had a habit of throwing up her hands at a time like that, and fluttering them like a bird flapping its wings against a screen. She was high-strung and nervous, and sometimes, especially when somebody provoked her, she had screaming spasms. The close neighbors had become accustomed to her spells and no longer knocked on the door to ask what had happened. Carter usually gave in to her rather than have to endure one of the scenes. She had always had difficulty in keeping a servant, most of them usually leaving after a week or two. “If there’s anything I detest,” she cried at Kathyanne in her shrill voice, “it’s being pestered like this when I have more important things on my mind. A whole delegation of important people from Macon will be in town tomorrow for a tour of azalea gardens, and I must not be distracted like this. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times that we’ll discuss it the first chance I can find.” With a flurry of her arms, she got up from the breakfast table, her exasperated expression implying that she considered the matter closed. “Now, please show me the consideration I’m entitled to, Kathyanne. After all, you’re only a servant here. You must remember your place.”

“But Miss Madgie,” Kathyanne said desperately, “I’ve just got to get at least part of my pay now. Our rent hasn’t been paid for the past month, and it’s due every week. Aunt Hazel needs medicine, too. My brother’s not working, and—”

“Well, why isn’t he working?” she interrupted in a piercing high voice. “If there weren’t so many trifling colored people in the world, there wouldn’t be all this annoyance. Make your lazy good-for-nothing brother get out and go to work. The idea of a strong, able-bodied man not earning a living! There’s no excuse for anybody in this country not working. Why must you colored people be forever coming around with pitiful-sounding tales like this? I’ve heard them all my life, and I’m getting sick and tired of it. I have no sympathy whatsoever for such people. Don’t you have any self-respect?”

Kathyanne did not attempt to answer her. She had worked for the Pughs long enough to have learned that questions were rarely meant to be answered, but were, characteristically, Madgie’s way of expressing herself, and that Madgie could become very upset and angry if she presumed to interpret them literally. Madgie had once hurled a wastebasket at her when she attempted to explain why it had not been emptied. The children were nervous and uneasy in their mother’s presence, and often they went off to school in the morning with Madgie’s screams ringing in their ears. Carter always tried to finish his breakfast and get out of the house before Madgie was up.

Madgie had gone as far as the door; but there she stopped, looked around at Kathyanne in a peculiar manner as though having remembered something of importance to her, and then came back to the table and sat down again. She was noticeably calm and subdued. There was no tapping of the knife and fork on the table; there was no nervous twisting of the water glass; her hands lay motionlessly on the white tablecloth. Kathyanne, never having seen her in such a tranquil mood before, hoped that she had had a change of heart and was going to pay her at last. She went to the vacant chair across the table from Madgie and stood there expectantly.

“By the way, Kathyanne,” she said sweetly, speaking for the first time that morning without a trace of irritation or impatience, “there’s something I’ve been intending to ask you about. I’m glad I happened to remember it. It’s been on my mind for a long time now.”

“Yes, Miss Madgie?” she said hopefully.

“You didn’t bring me a reference when you came to work several weeks ago, did you? Why is that?” She smiled confidently. “Didn’t Mrs. Swayne give you a reference?”

Kathyanne felt weak with disappointment. She gripped the back of the chair with both hands. Madgie was smiling with a superior arching of her eyebrows.

“I didn’t ask for one, Miss Madgie.”

“You didn’t?” she remarked with increased interest. “And why not, Kathyanne?”

“I didn’t ask for one at the time, and I just never went back for it.”

“Are you sure that’s the reason, Kathyanne?” She picked up a knife and began playing with it. “Are you sure she would have given you one?”

“I suppose, if I’d asked for it.”

Madgie smiled mistrustfully. “But why didn’t you ask for it when you left?”

“It was late and Miss Norma had just come home from Savannah and I didn’t like to bother her about it.” She paused and looked directly at Madgie. “You didn’t ask me for a reference when I came to work for you, Miss Madgie.”

Madgie poured some coffee into her cup. She stirred the coffee thoughtfully while watching Kathyanne. “Well, never mind about that, Kathyanne. I suppose I did let it slip my mind at the time.”

“I’ll be glad to ask Miss Norma for a reference, Miss Madgie, if you want me to.”

“I said, never mind!” she spoke out with an agitated motion of her hands. “I don’t want to be bothered with it now.” The momentary irritation passed. Presently she was looking up again at Kathyanne and smiling ingratiatingly. “Tell me, Kathyanne,” she said, “what kind of meals does Mrs. Swayne serve? Do they have just ordinary plain cooking when there’s no company, or do they generally have expensive cuts of meat and vegetables out of season—just what do they eat?”

Kathyanne knew, by the tone of her voice and by her ingratiating manner, that she was curious about the living standard of the Swaynes and hoped to find out, at last, something she had wanted to know for a long time. Kathyanne wanted to evade the questioning, because she knew any comment she might make, no matter how carefully she worded it, would more than likely furnish the basis for gossip among the women in town for weeks to come. She could see Madgie watching her, with unconcealed anticipation, while she tried to think what she could say. She felt loyal to Norma, because she had never before worked for anyone who treated her so considerately, and she wished she could have stayed to work for her. But she must say something, for she could see the impatient look on Madgie’s face. She was determined that, no matter how insistent Madgie became, she was not going to say anything that might be used against her.

“Miss Norma’s meals are just about like the ones you serve, Miss Madgie,” she replied at last.

Madgie was disappointed, but not discouraged. She had waited for this opportunity ever since Kathyanne came to work for her, and she intended to take full advantage of it.

“Now, Kathyanne,” she said with a condescending smile, “you know you can trust me. I wouldn’t dream of repeating one single word you told me in confidence. Norma Swayne is one of my dearest friends, anyway. I wouldn’t dream of repeating anything that would hurt her feelings. I’m just not that kind. Everybody knows that.”

“Her meals are just about the same as yours, Miss Madgie,” she steadfastly maintained. “They often have fried chicken and rice and cow peas, just like we’ve had lots of times since I came to work for you.”

“Mr. Pugh happens to like fried chicken and rice and cow peas,” she said rather stiffly, with a defensive toss of her head. “I always try to give Mr. Pugh what he likes. I think every wife should.” With a sigh she gazed thoughtfully at the water glass she was twisting with her fingers. Several moments passed before she spoke again. “Well,” she said as though talking to herself alone, “with all the money everybody says she has in her own right, I should think they’d eat much better than that. But, there are wealthy people who just hate to part with a dollar or two for the better things of life. I always did think Norma counted pennies too closely. A little more money spent wisely on her clothes would improve her appearance, too. There are times when she looks downright dowdy.” She drank some of the coffee and pushed the cup aside. “What’s her bed linen like, Kathyanne? Does she have nice percale sheets, or are they just ordinary muslin? Are her blankets all-wool, or are they rayon and cotton?”

Kathyanne said carefully, “I never noticed, Miss Madgie.”

“Then what silver does she use when she doesn’t have company? Is it plated or is it just common tinware? I’ve often wondered about that. Norma’s fastidious in some respects, but in others—”

“Her silverware is just like yours, Miss Madgie.”

Madgie was growing increasingly irritated by Kathyanne’s evasive replies, but she was trying her best to conceal it. “Well,” she said, making one more attempt, “I’ve heard it said that Norma makes her husband wear his shirts two or three days at a time so they won’t have to be laundered so often. And he’s vice president of the bank, too, even if she did pick him up in some grocery store, where he was a common clerk, and put him where he is today. Of course, I don’t know if it’s just talk about her saving money that way on laundry. But it does sound a lot like Norma Swayne. Is it true, Kathyanne?”

“I don’t know, Miss Madgie.”

Madgie was provoked. Her lips hardened into a narrow taut line across her face. She looked at Kathyanne with a harsh, angry expression.

“Now, tell me the truth, Kathyanne,” she said in a demanding tone. “Did you leave Mrs. Swayne of your own free will, or did she discharge you? What was the real reason?”

“I left because I wanted to.”

“You are very aggravating, Kathyanne. I’m sure there must have been some other reason. I don’t believe you. You told me you worked for her for only six or seven months, and in the past her maids have always stayed with her two or three years or longer. Now, tell me the truth!”

“It was just as I said, Miss Madgie. I wanted to leave.”

“I could call her on the phone, you know, and I’m sure she’d tell me. We’ve always been very close friends.”

“I don’t mind if you call her, Miss Madgie.”

“But why did you want to leave, Kathyanne?” she asked persistently.

“I decided it would be better if I worked somewhere else.”

“So that’s it!” she said with a triumphant smile. “It was a personal reason, wasn’t it? It had nothing to do with your work, or with Norma’s treatment of you, did it? It might have happened in any household in town—isn’t that what you mean, Kathyanne?”

“I suppose so,” she admitted.

Madgie smiled engagingly as though to give the impression that she knew exactly what had happened, and that it would be useless for Kathyanne to try to hide anything from her after that.

“I can readily see that under certain circumstances trouble could easily develop in a household where you worked.” She looked Kathyanne up and down with an appraising glance. “A girl your age, who’s gifted with a certain type of female charm, and with your coloring and figure, would no doubt appeal to some men—those who aren’t particular enough about such things as racial equality. The country is probably full of men with so little character—there are such men in the world, aren’t there, Kathyanne—white men I mean? Of course, you’d know all about it, wouldn’t you, Kathyanne?”

Kathyanne made no reply, but Madgie took it for granted that Kathyanne would admit it.

“You’ve had such experiences, of course—right here in town, haven’t you, Kathyanne?”

Kathyanne remained silent. She was wondering, however, if Norma had suspected the reason for her leaving and had said something about it to Madgie. She was almost certain that she knew what Madgie was leading up to now, as well as what she would eventually ask. She told herself that this was one time when she wanted to be able to answer convincingly and conclusively.

“Kathyanne,” Madgie began, leaning over the table toward her confidentially and lowering her voice to an intimate level, “Kathyanne, has my husband—has Mr. Pugh—has he ever shown any indication—has he ever said anything that made you think he is interested in you—in any way—well, you know what I mean, don’t you? Men always give themselves away, don’t they? They’re so awkward and bungling about such things. They can be downright childish. You can nearly always read their minds a mile away. Now, I want you to be perfectly honest and frank. Mr. Pugh will never know you told me. You know you can trust me. Now, has he ever approached you with a suggestion—anything like that—I mean, has he ever actually—well, has he Kathyanne?”

“No, Miss Madgie,” she replied in a firm voice, looking directly at her.

“Are you sure—is that the truth, Kathyanne?” she asked through trembling lips. Her hands were clasped tightly together and resting on her lap. “I must know the truth, Kathyanne! I’ve got to know the truth!”

“It is the truth, Miss Madgie.”

Madgie drew herself up with a doubtful, uncertain sigh. After that she leaned back in the chair, her shoulders drooping wearily. She suddenly looked older and the lines in her face were more noticeable.

“I don’t know whether to believe you or not. Women are such dreadful liars about such things. All women are. Even girls your age. I don’t know.” She was frowning and shaking her head, and she made no effort to hide her tears. “It’s awful not to know—not to be absolutely certain. Maybe it’s wisest always to suspect the very worst. Then you are never in doubt. Men can’t be trusted—no man can be—not even Mr. Pugh. I know colored girls are a great temptation to white men—even the blackest can be, but especially mulattoes and quadroons. My father—sometimes I wonder if Mr. Pugh—but there’s no way on earth of knowing absolutely.

But if I thought for one minute—” She was crying brokenly. “If I only had your—your charm. Yes, that’s what it is—your charm. I’d give my very soul for it now—because then I know I’d never have to worry about Mr. Pugh. I could hold him. I know I could!”

Madgie wiped the tears from her face with the napkin, and they looked at each other, both wondering what thoughts were in the other’s mind. It was growing late and none of the housework had been done that morning. Kathyanne tried to think of some way to ask Madgie for her wages again without upsetting her and making her angry. Madgie kept gazing at her suspiciously.

“Kathyanne, if I ever have reason to believe—” Madgie said hesitatingly, “—I’d stop at nothing. You know that, don’t you? I’d have no mercy for you. I wouldn’t think twice. I’d kill you. Yes, I really would. You’d better remember that, Kathyanne. I mean every word of it. I’d kill you.”

“Yes, Miss Madgie,” she said, frightened.

Madgie got up the second time to leave. She was almost out of the room before Kathyanne could bring herself to speak. She ran to the doorway.

“Miss Madgie!” she called tensely.

Madgie stopped and looked back at her.

“Miss Madgie, please, ma’m, it’s about my pay.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed as though relieved to hear what Kathyanne had said. “Oh, yes.” She smiled agreeably, turning and going toward the front of the house. “I’ll be right back, Kathyanne.”

As soon as the table had been cleared and the tablecloth and napkins folded and put away in the sideboard drawer, Kathyanne went to the kitchen and began washing dishes. Madgie’s manner had been so unexpectedly pleasant when she mentioned her wages that she wondered what could be the reason for such a sudden change in attitude. Every few minutes she stopped and listened for the sound of Madgie coming through the dining room, but she did not return and soon a quarter-hour had passed. While she was putting the dishes in the cupboard, she began to worry again, this time thinking that Madgie had deliberately lied and had no intention of coming back. She did not know what to do. Clyde Picquet, the rent collector, had agreed to wait until that evening when, she told him, she expected to have money to give him; besides that, she had to buy food as well as medicine for Aunt Hazel. She hurriedly swept the floor, hung the tea towels up to dry, and then went as far as the dining-room door. Presently she heard Madgie coming down the hall, and she hurried back into the kitchen and stood beside the table. It had been a relief to hear footsteps, and she was sorry she had suspected Madgie of planning to leave the house without paying her. She tried to be calm as she heard the footsteps come closer.

Madgie walked in carrying an armful of clothes. She dumped the clothing in a pile on the kitchen table, and then stood back beaming with satisfaction. There were several out-of-season woolen dresses that had been hanging on a nail in the hall closet for a number of years, a knotted ball of unmatched stockings with runs in them, and a pair of scuffed and soiled pink bedroom slippers. Madgie searched under the pile until she drew out a dusty, crushed felt halt with feather trimming. The doubt that had come to Kathyanne’s mind when she first saw Madgie dump the clothing on the table and smile engagingly was now strong and forboding. She moved away from the table.

“There!” Madgie said, tossing the feathered hat to the top of the heap with a confident gesture. “I’d almost forgotten all about these nice things. It’s been so long since I’ve looked at them. I’m being very generous, Kathyanne. I hope you fully appreciate it. These are very expensive dresses, and that hat was by no means cheap when I bought it in Atlanta. I hate to part with all these nice things, but I know you’ll appreciate them. You’ll probably have to alter the dresses a little.” She glanced self-consciously at Kathyanne’s slender figure. “Well?” she said a moment later with an impatient toss of her head. “Don’t just stand there! Aren’t you going to so much as thank me for all this, Kathyanne? Don’t you realize how generous I’m being? Say something, Kathyanne!”

She tried not to let her feelings show how disappointed and unhappy she was, because she still hoped to get at least part of her wages in money. She waited, biting her lip tensely, until she was sure she had control of herself. She knew that if she was not careful she would say something that would antagonize Madgie. All at once she could feel the sting of tears that refused to be held back any longer.

“What’s the matter with you, Kathyanne?” she heard Madgie say in a nervous high-pitched voice. “You’re acting very strange. You haven’t said a word, Kathyanne.”

She knew before she spoke that she was on the verge of making Madgie angry, but she could not help herself. “I can’t take those things for my pay, Miss Madgie,” she said, no longer making a pretense of her feelings. “I need the money. Your old clothes won’t do.”

“Well!” Madgie remarked sarcastically. “I suppose you think you’re too good to wear my clothes.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Then what is the matter with you?”

This time Kathyanne forced herself not to say anything.

“You’re being very ungrateful—and very foolish, too,” Madgie told her crossly. “I never saw such a person before. When you came here to work for me, I thought at last I’d found good colored help. I can see now how wrong I was. You’re just like all the rest of them. You have no sense of appreciation whatsoever. There’s nothing in all the world more provoking than an ungrateful servant.”

“I would appreciate it, Miss Madgie, but I don’t need clothes. I need the money.”

“Money!” she exclaimed with a derisive laugh. “You’re trying with your crafty ways to get both out of me—clothes and money. I know how wily and tricky the colored are. Nobody has to tell me. But I might have known what to expect. You don’t fool me one instant, though. I’ve lived with the colored all my life, and I know their deceitful little conniving tricks better than they know them themselves. Every last one of you will try to do something spiteful like this every time you have the slightest chance. Sometimes I think it’s born into every last one of you and will never die out as long as your race lasts. But you’re not fooling me, Kathyanne.”

“But when I started to work for you—”

“When you started to work! Just listen to yourself! You’re telling a vile, bald-faced lie of the meanest kind. That’s why nobody can ever believe the colored. There’s never a word of truth in any of you. When you started to work for me, I never agreed to pay you one red cent of money and you know it, too. Money was never mentioned—not once! You said you’d work for me reasonably if I’d give you the job—”

“But when you agree to work for somebody, it’s understood you’ll be paid in money. Miss Norma always paid me every—”

“You shut your mouth! I won’t have you talking to me with such impertinence! You’re trying to make it appear that I’m taking advantage of you. That was the only understanding we had, and I’m going to do just exactly what I think is right. I’ve always given my servants clothes like this, and I must say that most of them appreciated what they received and were glad to have them. Very few of them ever showed a spirit like yours, and if they did they lived to regret it. You seem to forget that you’ve been eating three meals a day here for the past month, meals that I provide for you. Altogether, I think I’m being extremely generous. There are not many women in this town who treat a maid as well as I treat you. You’re ungrateful, Kathyanne. Very ungrateful. And I hope you live to regret it. I hope you have to beg off the streets until you learn your lesson. Now, will you take these clothes I’ve offered to give you? Will you?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“I need fifteen dollars for last month’s rent.”

Madgie angrily snatched up a baking pan from the table and hurled it with all her might to the floor. The pan clattered noisily across the room to the opposite wall.

“All you colored are just alike—begging for money all the time. I’ve never known it to fail. The better you’re treated, the more you demand. Well, you won’t get it from me. I wouldn’t hand over as much as a thin dime after seeing your attitude about these lovely clothes I wanted to see you have. You stayed out there in the country till you got a common education, and then you thought you could move to town and demand anything you wanted from white people. Somebody’s got to put you in your place. Somebody’s got to teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.”

“The clothes are nice, Miss Madgie, but it’s the rent money—”

Exasperated, Madgie drew a long deep breath. Presently she forced a smile to her lips.

“Kathyanne, I don’t want to be hard on you. All my life I’ve believed that we white people should go to the trouble of trying to understand the colored, and help them—show them what’s best for their own welfare—just like you would a child. Every time I heard people talking about ways for the two races to live together harmoniously, I just think to myself how simple it would all be if everybody would only listen to me. I wouldn’t think of scolding one of my children for not having the foresight and the judgment of an adult—I would try to explain to him he should do one thing and not something else. That’s the intelligent thing to do. And I feel exactly the same way about you, Kathyanne, child. I want to be patient and try to help you understand. Now, if you want the clothes, it’s not too late to change your mind. These are very lovely things. Just look at this striped wool dress. Don’t you like it, Kathyanne? It’s a little too warm to wear now, but you could put it away in mothballs until fall. I’d be glad to let you have some mothballs, too.”

She shook her head. “I’ll just have to quit and find a job somewhere else, Miss Madgie. I don’t like to leave without notice, but I just can’t keep on working for you any longer without real pay.”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Madgie cried, her anger returning. She flung the dress on the table. “I never heard such impertinence in all my life! The idea of somebody like you talking to me like this! I’ll not have you leaving and spreading vile lies all over town about me—telling the whole town that I tried to make you take your wages in clothing—saying that you quit because I wouldn’t give you money instead. There are people in this town who’d gloat over such gossip about me—but I won’t have it! I know exactly what you’d like people to say. But I’ll not have that kind of talk spread around about me, by you or anybody else. I have a social standing in Estherville that I intend to keep, and I simply won’t be talked about that way. You’ll stay right here where you are, Kathyanne. You understand?”

“But please, Miss Madgie—”

“If you colored people weren’t so everlastingly trifling in your ways, you wouldn’t get behind in the rent and such things. It’s your own fault. And you’re trying to get sympathy out of me for your own shortcomings.”

Madgie walked to the other side of the kitchen and stood there regarding Kathyanne contemptuously. Her face was flushed with anger and her lips were trembling.

“I’ve wanted to say this for a long time, and thank God I’ve got the chance at last. If there’s anything in this world I despise,” she said cruelly, “it’s a nasty stinking nigger!”

There was a long speechless interval, during which the only sound to be heard in the kitchen was the urgent ticking of the clock on the shelf behind the stove.

“I’m sorry, Miss Madgie,” Kathyanne told her, her voice tensely vibrant, “but I can’t work for you any more after this—after what you’ve said.”

“You’d better listen to me and do as I tell you if you know what’s good for you. I’m giving you fair warning, Kathyanne Bazemore. If you disobey me and deliberately turn your back on me and walk out of this house now, I’ll tell my husband. Mr. Pugh will see to it that nobody in town hires you after this—ever! I’ll say that you’re dishonest, thieving, lying, and immoral—which’ll be the truth, because all of your race is that, and worse, from beginning to end.” She laughed with a shrill high-pitched tremor in her voice. “When I get through, nobody in town will let you work steady. And it’ll serve you right to have to go around begging for a day’s work every day.”

Madgie’s face was livid with rage.

“I’ll have to get along the best I can then,” Kathyanne told her, “because I’m going to leave.” She started walking across the kitchen. “I’m sorry, Miss Madgie, but I have to now. I couldn’t stay after this.” She went to the door and opened it. “I could never work for you for old clothes, or money, either, after this. You’ll have to find somebody else.”

“I’ve warned you, Kathyanne,” Madgie said, her voice shrill and hysterical. She was trembling all over. “If you ever so much as breathe a word of this to a living soul—if you tell anybody that the reason you left here was because I tried to make you take your pay in old clothes—you’ll never have a decent job in Estherville again. Ill tell my husband to see to that.” She pressed her hands against her face and began to cry. “Please say you won’t tell, Kathyanne—I couldn’t stand to have that kind of gossip going on and on as long as I live! Don’t treat me like this! For God’s sake, promise me you won’t tell, Kathyanne!”

Closing the door behind her, Kathyanne ran across the porch, down the steps, and then walked away into the bright warm sunshine of the May morning.

Part Two

MIDSUMMER

Chapter 5

GANUS HAD BEEN WAITING on the sidewalk in front of Claude Hutto’s bicycle shop since six-thirty that morning, and it was nearly a quarter of nine when Claude, after having stopped at the post office for the mail, came walking leisurely down Peachtree Street, and opened up for the day’s business. It was a warm summer morning in July. Claude was middle-aged and a widower. His only child, Mabel, had married a farmer when she was fifteen and then, later, had left him to live with a barber in Atlanta. Claude kept short hours during the hot summer months when children were not riding bicycles to school and so needed less repair work done. From early June to late August he nearly always closed his shop on Saturdays to go fishing for mud-cat in the Savannah River. His best business months were September, when old bikes were traded in on new models, and December, when many parents, in prosperous cotton years, bought bicycles to give their children for Christmas.

Claude had noticed a Negro boy, dressed in patched overalls and a faded blue shirt, standing in front of his shop gazing enviously at the three or four new bicycles displayed in the windows, but he had paid little attention to him. After unlocking the door, he went to the rear of the store and put the mail on his desk, and then got the broom to sweep off the sidewalk. When he returned to the front of the shop, Ganus had come inside and was standing entranced before one of the bicycles racked on the floor. It was one of the newest models, dazzlingly enameled in air-cruiser red and metallic gray. It had a coil spring fork, sponge-rubber pedals, and chromium-plated wheel rims. It was not unusual for Negro boys of all ages to come in and stare admiringly at Claude’s stock of bicycles; but he discouraged the practice, because most of the boys were of school age and unable to earn enough money on weekends to pay for a bike. Occasionally, however, a Negro boy of eighteen or nineteen, who had quit school and was working steadily, gave him an opportunity to make a sale. Claude stood just inside the door, broom in hand, and, eyeing Ganus, tried to make up his mind whether or not to tell him to get out of the store. A Negro’s dollar was as good as a white man’s as far as he was concerned; but, as a matter of principle, he kept Negroes out of his store as much as possible when they were not actually buying something they could pay for, since most white people in Estherville shunned stores where it was known that Negroes were permitted to congregate and more than one merchant had been known to go bankrupt for not being more particular about such things. Claude was still trying to decide what to do, when he saw Ganus put his hand on the shiny chromium-plated handlebar. He knew that was a sign for him to take action without further delay; there were white people who would even refuse to buy an article of merchandise if they suspected it had been previously touched by a Negro’s hand.

“What do you want, boy?” he spoke out roughly.

Ganus quickly withdrew his hand. “Howdy, Mr. Hutto,” he said, turning around.

“You know my name?” Claude asked, surprised. “I don’t know you.”

“My name’s Ganus Bazemore, Mr. Hutto.”

“That don’t mean a thing to me,” Claude told him, shaking his head. “I never saw you before. Where’re you from, boy?”

“I’ve been living here in town since late last summer,” Ganus replied.

“That still don’t mean nothing to me. What do you want here in my store?”

“I came in here to see about getting a bicycle, Mr. Hutto.”

“You mean—buy one?”

“Yes, sir. I sure would like to have one right away. I always did want a fine bicycle like these you’ve got.”

“Are you working steady?”

Ganus looked around at the bicycle on the rack for a moment and then shook his head.

“Not exactly, right this minute, Mr. Hutto. But if I had a bicycle—”

Claude raised the broom and motioned him toward the street with an authoritative gesture. “No use hanging around here, boy,” he said gruffly. “Now, get out. I don’t want you blacks in here with no real business to transact. I don’t have the time to waste on you, and white people might be coming in any minute, anyhow. If you ever get yourself a steady, paying job, you can come back and talk to me about it. But don’t come back unless you are working steady. Now, get out of my store like I told you.”

Careful to keep beyond Claude’s reach, Ganus went out to the sidewalk. He stood silently at the curb while Claude swept out the doorway and made a few token sweeps of the broom on the concrete pavement in front of the store.

As Claude turned to go back into the shop, he saw Ganus following him. “I thought I told you to go on away!” he said angrily. “Why don’t you do what I told you?”

“Mr. Hutto, I just wanted to ask you something,” Ganus said meekly.

“There’s no use asking me nothing, boy. I’ve got bicycles to sell, but you don’t have the money to buy one with. Now, stop this loafing around my store like I told you once already. If I have to call the police, you’ll wish you had. They wouldn’t mind at all giving you two or three months on the work gang. They’ve got a lot of road work they want done this summer. Now, get on down the street and stay away from here after this like I’ve been telling you.”

Ganus started moving away and Claude went back inside. While he was dusting the counter, however, he looked around and saw Ganus standing on the threshold of the door.

“How much money will it take to get a bike, Mr. Hutto?” he asked Claude.

“Forty-nine fifty,” Claude said, thinking that would discourage him enough to make him leave without further trouble. “And that’s not counting the extras, neither.”

“I don’t have that much money,” Ganus said, shaking his head sadly. “But just as soon as I go to work I can pay on it every week, Mr. Hutto.”

Claude studied him thoughtfully, wondering if he had misjudged Ganus’ ability to pay. He told himself that the boy might be able to buy a bicycle, after all. It had been nearly a month since he had made a sale. He put the broom away and walked up to the front of the shop again.

“How much money have you got?” he asked Ganus.

“None at all, right now, Mr. Hutto,” he admitted.

Claude was disappointed. “You don’t seem to understand how bicycles are sold, boy. You’d have to pay all cash, because you don’t have a steady job. Unless you can pay about half down and make satisfactory arrangements for the balance to be paid off weekly, plus carrying charges and so on. It takes real money to buy things in a store.”

“What you said is just exactly what I want to do, Mr. Hutto,” Ganus told him with an eager motion of his head. “That’s what I came in here to see you about.”

“You mean—pay half down?”

“Yes, sir.”

Claude was confused. “But just a while ago you said you didn’t have no money at all. What are you talking about, anyhow? Is somebody going to advance you enough money for the down payment? Is that what you mean?”

“Mr. Harry Daitch over there at his grocery store across the street said he’d give me a job delivering groceries for him if I had a bicycle—starting right away, if I hurried. That’s why I’ve been waiting here in front of your store since early in the morning. I want to go to work for Mr. Harry right away.”

“Is Mr. Daitch going to let you have the money for the down payment? Is that what you mean?”

Claude was feeling much better, now that he thought he could see the prospect of making a sale. He had a good mark-up on his line of bicycles and his overhead was nothing to worry about. He smiled at Ganus for the first time.

“No, sir, Mr. Hutto. He didn’t say he would. He just said for me to make my own arrangements my own self, if I wanted the job, because I couldn’t have it unless I had a bike to deliver the groceries with. He said it ought to be brand-new, too, so it wouldn’t always be breaking down and falling apart and making the deliveries late, because folks don’t like to wait for their groceries. That’s why I came in here. That’s what I want to see you about, Mr. Hutto. I sure want that job. It’s been a long time since I worked steady. I’ve been up since five o’clock waiting for you to open up your store so I could see you about getting a bicycle.”

Claude frowned. “I couldn’t let you take a bike out of here on such terms. That wouldn’t be good business. You’ll have to raise enough money somehow to make the down payment if you want the bike. There just ain’t no other way about it.”

“But I’ve just got to get me a bicycle, Mr. Hutto,” he said desperately, “because I need to go to work for Mr. Harry Daitch right away. I’ve been out of work since last spring and I’ve just got to have a job. Mr. Harry told me to hurry and be there to go to work just as soon as I could make the arrangements about getting a bicycle. If I don’t hurry, I’m scared he might let somebody else have that job. I sure don’t want that to happen. Nobody needs work as bad as I do.”

“How about somebody in your family helping you out?” Claude suggested. Now that he had gone that far toward making a sale, he hated to see the opportunity vanish completely. “Could your family make the down payment for you?”

“My sister hasn’t been working lately, either, and Aunt Hazel can’t work any more at all.”

“That’s bad,” Claude said coldly. “It’s always bad when nobody in a household is working. You can’t make down payments on a bike that way.”

“There must be some way to get it done,” Ganus said persistently. “I’ve just got to have a bicycle. I might have to go the rest of the year before I could find another job.”

“Boy, the trouble with you is that you haven’t lived in town long enough to learn that the colored hardly ever gets what they want. The big trouble is that you still think in your head like the country colored. But you’ll learn in time, if you live long enough.”

Turning his back on Ganus, he went to the door and looked out into the street for several minutes. He was thinking it might be at least two months before the September buying season began and he might not have another opportunity in the meantime to make a sale. He could find good use for twenty or twenty-five dollars in profit during the weeks to come. He needed a new battery for his automobile before he could go fishing again, too. When he turned around, he saw Ganus moving his hand affectionately over the smooth, bright enameled frame of the bicycle. This time he did not order him to take his hand off.

“If you’re going to work steady,” he said, walking toward Ganus, “I might be able to help you out, after all. I don’t take a chance on everybody who comes along, but you look to me like you might be a steady reliable boy. You don’t shoot craps and spend your money on liquor and fool around with bad women, do you?”

“No, sir, I sure don’t,” Ganus said emphatically.

Claude watched him closely for a long time before he finally made up his mind.

“All right, then. You go up to Dr. Lamar English’s over the post office and tell him I sent you. He may be able to do something about it for you. Just tell Dr. English I sent you and then see what he says.”

Ganus stared at him with a perplexed expression. “Mr. Hutto, why do you want me to go to see Dr. English?” he asked. “There’s nothing ailing me. I’m not sick at all, Mr. Hutto. I only came in here to see you about getting a bicycle—”

“Forget about being sick,” Claude told him, “and go on and do like I told you, if you want to get a bike.”

“Do I have to be vaccinated or get the shots before I can buy a bicycle?”

Claude chuckled. “It’s nothing like that. I think maybe Dr. English’ll work out something for you. He’s been doing a lot of that lately, I’m told. Now, go on up there like I said.”

“But I don’t want to go to see any doctor, Mr. Hutto,” he pleaded. “I don’t have the time to waste. Mr. Harry Daitch said—”

“You’d better stop that arguing with me and go on up the street like I told you.”

“Yes, sir,” Ganus said, backing away from him.

He left the shop with a last longing look at the brightly enameled red-and-gray bicycle. He walked slowly up Peachtree Street toward the post office in the next block, watching Daitch’s Market on the other side and hoping the job had not yet been given to somebody else.

It was almost nine-thirty then and he was afraid Harry Daitch would not wait much longer for him. At the side of the building he found the stairs that led up to Dr. English’s office on the second floor. He still had no idea why he was being sent to see Dr. English, but he was willing to go if a physical examination or anything else would help him get the bicycle. When he reached the top of the stairway and opened the door, he wondered if it would help any if he were to be able to complain of some imaginary illness, but the time was so short he could not think of anything that would sound convincing to a doctor. Five or six Negro women and men were sitting in a small reception room and two white women were seated in an adjoining room. In the hallway between the two rooms a nurse in a white uniform was seated at a desk. She looked up when he entered and closed the door behind him.

“Do you have an appointment with Dr. English?” she asked immediately.

“No, ma’m,” he replied.

“Dr. English has a great many patients waiting to see him,” she told Ganus coolly. “Some of them are critically ill and have come ten or fifteen miles from out in the country to see Dr. English. I don’t think he can possibly find the time to see you today.”

“Yes, ma’m,” he said, starting for the door.

He was almost at the door when he heard the nurse calling him.

“What is the nature of your illness—what’s wrong with you?” she said to him.

He could still not think of any complaint that would sound convincing. “Nothing,” he replied vaguely. “I don’t have any ailment, that I know about, Miss. I feel fine. I’ve been feeling fine all morning.”

“Then what do you want here?” she said impatiently.

“I don’t know, exactly, Miss. But I went down to Mr. Hutto’s bicycle store to see about getting a bike, and he told me to come up here and see Dr. English. I don’t know why he wanted me to do that, unless he wants me examined, or something. I told Mr. Hutto I didn’t feel sick at all, but he said that didn’t matter and for me to come on up here just the same. I didn’t want to come, but I did just like Mr. Hutto said.”

“Oh! Mr. Claude Hutto sent you!” she said, quickly laying aside the paper on which she had been writing. “That’s different. Why didn’t you tell me that when you first came in?” She got up. “Wait right here.”

After several minutes she came back to the hallway and motioned for Ganus to follow her. He walked down the hall behind her to an open door, and there she motioned for him to step inside. When he walked into the office, he saw Dr. Lamar English sitting at a desk with his back to the door. Ganus waited, fidgeting uneasily in the strange surroundings, while Dr. English talked in a low indistinct voice to somebody on the phone. He was a pleasant, soft-spoken man of fifty-eight with short white hair and a trim gray mustache. He had been practicing medicine in Estherville for the past thirty years. After the town was laid out, he was one of the first physicians to move to Estherville and, although there were now four or five other general practitioners in town, he and Dr. Horatio Plowden, who had lived there about the same length of time, attended more patients than all the others combined. All his children had married and moved away, and his wife, who had always disliked living in such a small town, had divorced him when he was fifty. He lived alone with two Negro servants in a spacious, white colonial house on Cedar Street and raised pigeons in his backyard. During his early years in Estherville he, unlike Dr. Plowden, had acquired a considerable amount of valuable real estate, especially farm land in the county, and he was now one of the wealthiest men in that section of the state. Those who disliked Lamar English said that he had become rich by exacting real estate mortgages from patients who could not pay their bills, while his friends maintained that he had reluctantly accepted first mortgages rather than see hard-pressed patients go into debt to others in order to pay their bills in cash. Anyway, most of the mortgages were eventually foreclosed, and he now owned a large portion of Tallulah County farm land in addition to business property in town. When increased property taxes threatened to make him land-poor, he began selling real estate, and with the rapidly accumulating cash had begun making private loans to persons who were unable to obtain credit at the stores. He never charged interest, but instead financed a purchase by first buying it himself and then reselling it for double the original cost to him. He collected these payments in weekly installments, besides holding a chattel mortgage until full payment had been made.

When he finally finished the conversation on the phone, he turned around in his chair.

“What’s your name?” he asked, looking at Ganus over the rims of his glasses.

“Ganus Bazemore.”

Dr. English picked up a pad of notepaper and began scrawling on it with a fountain pen.

“How old are you, Ganus?”

“Eighteen—but Dr. English—I’m not sick or anything. I don’t want to have to take any medicine. I don’t need the shots, either. I only came up here because Mr. Hutto—”

“I know—I know!” he said with an impatient motion of his hand. “We’ll get everything straightened out in a minute. I want to ask some questions first.” He lit a cigarette with nervous hands. “Where do you live, Ganus?”

“I live with my Aunt Hazel.”

“What’s her full name?”

“Aunt Hazel Teasley.”

“What’s her address?”

“We all live down there in Gwinnett Alley.”

“Which house?”

“But, Dr. English, I don’t want some old medicine—I don’t need it,” Ganus protested. “I’m not sick at all. I feel mighty fine today. All I came up here for—”

“Which house?” Dr. English repeated in a stern manner.

“The fourth house on the right-hand side—the one with the two ginkgo trees in the front yard.”

“Is she employed—and if so, where?”

“Who? Aunt Hazel?” When he saw Dr. English nod, he shook his head. “Aunt Hazel can’t work. She’s sick in bed all the time. That’s why me and my sister moved to town late last summer to take care of her.”

“Is anyone in your family employed at present?”

“No, sir. My sister Kathyanne hasn’t worked steady for a long time now. She hasn’t had a real steady job since she used to work for Mrs. Madgie Pugh. She does day work, when she can find it.”

“Well,” Dr. English said with a solemn smile, “I’m glad to hear you’re going to work, Ganus. Somebody in every family ought to work. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, sir,” Ganus replied eagerly. “Mr. Harry Daitch said he’d give me a job if I’d—”

Dr. English made another motion of impatience. “I know all about it, Ganus. I talked to Claude Hutto on the phone a few minutes ago.” He leaned back in the chair. “How much money do you think you need, Ganus?”

“You mean for the bicycle?”

He nodded.

“Mr. Hutto said it’d cost forty-nine dollars and fifty cents.”

“That was before he got to thinking it over, Ganus,” Dr. English said with a faint smile. “After you left his shop and started up here to see me, he decided you ought to have some necessary extra equipment. When I talked to Mr. Hutto just now, he said you would need a battery headlight, a tire pump, a tool kit, and a few other things like that. He told me he would not be interested in selling you a bike unless all those things went along with it. I believe he’s right in wanting you to have a well-equipped bicycle. And then he said that if you didn’t take the equipment he’s already gone to the trouble of adjusting and attaching to the bicycle, there wouldn’t be any use for you to come back to see him. Of course, there’s no other store in town that sells bicycles. I advise you to take the bicycle fully equipped, Ganus.”

Ganus nodded doubtfully. Several moments passed before he said anything. “Is all that going to make it cost more, Dr. English?”

“Naturally. But it’ll probably amount to only twenty or twenty-five dollars extra. How much can you pay a week, Ganus? Five dollars?”

“Five dollars a week?” he repeated uncertainly.

Dr. English nodded.

“I might could pay five dollars a week, I suppose, if I got the job at Mr. Harry Daitch’s grocery store. But that’s a lot of money. Mr. Harry might not pay me but five dollars a week for working for him. He didn’t say how much it’d be. I sure wouldn’t have much left over.”

Dr. English picked up the phone and called Harry Daitch. He turned around in his chair and, with his back to Ganus, talked in a low voice for a while, and then hung up.

“Well, Ganus,” he said, leaning back and smiling at him. “I think I’ll be able to help you out. You seem to be the kind of boy I’d like to do business with. I don’t recall hearing of you being in any kind of trouble around town. As far as I can find out, you don’t shoot craps or spend your money on liquor or fool around with bad women. I want to help you, Ganus.”

“How—how do you mean—help me, Dr. English?”

“I’ll arrange it so you can have that bicycle you’ve got your heart set on. Every boy, black and white, ought to have a bicycle before he’s twenty-one.” He stopped and looked out the window for a moment. “I do things like this a lot these days, Ganus. Helping people buy what they want. It looks like I spend more time at it these days than I do practicing medicine.” He turned away from the window. “But there’s a need for it—sometimes, just as much as there is for a medical prescription. There’s always somebody who wants something in this world—whether he ought to have it or not—and who’d be unhappy if he couldn’t have it. I guess that’s human nature at its best. At least, some people would say so. Anyway, there’s more money in it than in doctoring bellyaches.” He began to smile. “What else is there for a lonely old man like me to do with his money? I wouldn’t get any fun out of spending it. It’s too late for that now. Most of the best things in life have passed me by. So I might just as well make some more.” He pointed his finger at Ganus. “Anyway, you bring me five dollars every Saturday, for sure.”

Ganus swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he agreed.

Dr. English took a printed form from a desk drawer, marked an ‘x’ on the bottom line, and handed it to Ganus.

“Sign it there, Ganus. I’ll get your Aunt Hazel’s signature later. Your own signature isn’t worth much to me. You’re not of legal age yet.”

Ganus signed the paper and handed it back to him.

“Now, don’t fail to bring me five dollars every Saturday from now on, for sure,” he said. “Don’t give Mr. Hutto any money at all. You won’t owe him any. Bring the money to me. Every Saturday. Five dollars. For sure. Don’t fail.”

Ganus watched Dr. English put the paper he had signed on the desk.

“Every Saturday from now on, Dr. English?” he said with a worried look. “For how long?”

Dr. English glanced over the rim of his glasses. “How long? Oh, let’s see.” He did some figuring on the pad. “About six months will take care of it, unless you fall behind in the weekly payments, and then in that case we’ll have to add a little more to the total. That’d take longer to pay off, wouldn’t it? Anyway, you won’t be paying me any interest. I collect only what you owe me for the bicycle. However, if you fail to make a payment of five dollars every Saturday, you’ll have to turn the bicycle over to me, and then of course you’d lose all you’d paid out. If you wanted to buy it back again after that, naturally you’d have to begin paying all over again. That might take a year or more. It’s a lot better to keep up the payments, Ganus.”

“If it’s going to take all that long to pay for it, Dr. English, I’d rather leave off the headlight and all those other things so I could finish paying for it quicker.”

Dr. English frowned and shook his head. “No, Ganus. You might be out delivering groceries some night after dark and run into something.” He kept on shaking his head. “I don’t want you wrecking my bicycle like that. You go ahead and take the headlight and the other things Mr. Hutto wants you to have.”

“I’ve got some wrenches of my own. I don’t have to buy the tool kit, do I?”

“Ganus, Mr. Hutto wouldn’t like it if you took the bicycle away without the proper tools. Remember the spokes have to be kept good and tight all the time. Nobody can tighten spokes properly without a good spoke wrench.”

“But I’d sure like to save on it somehow, Dr. English,” he said persistently, “so I wouldn’t have to pay on it for six whole months. That’s a mighty long time to pay five dollars every week. It’s half a whole year.”

“You’ll be surprised how fast time goes when you have that new bike, Ganus. Now, go on back to Claude Hutto’s and let him fix you up like he wants to. And remember to keep that bike in good condition, too. Don’t let it stand out in the rain. Take it in the house at night. That bike belongs to me until you’ve paid for it. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, either, because it’s mortgaged property now. I’d hate to have to turn the law loose on you, Ganus. Remember that.”

Ganus wanted to talk some more about finding a way to shorten the length of time necessary to pay for the bicycle, but it was already after ten o’clock and he was worried about the job at Daitch’s Market. He backed out of the office and hurried down the hall. The nurse at the desk looked up as he walked through the reception room. He did not speak to her, because he was looking at the people waiting to see Dr. English, and wondering if they were really ill or if they hoped to buy an automobile or some furniture or a pair of mules. He was almost through the door when he heard the nurse calling him. He went back to the desk.

“You can hand me the payments Dr. English spoke of,” she instructed him matter-of-factly. “I’m usually right here at this desk all day Saturday. There’ll be a lot of others coming in to make payments, so please wait your turn in line like everybody else. Thank you.”

“Yes, ma’m,” Ganus replied, backing to the door.

He hurried down the stairway and ran the rest of the way. On the opposite side of Peachtree Street he could see people constantly going into and coming out of Daitch’s Market, but there was no bicycle leaning against the curb and he hoped he could still get there in time.

Claude Hutto was waiting for him at the door when he ran inside. The red-and-gray bicycle had been lifted from its rack, and already attached to it was the battery headlight, a tool kit, and tire pump.

“Well, I’m glad you got things fixed up with Dr. English, Ganus,” Claude said agreeably. “He just phoned me that it was all right for you to take the bike. I’m really glad to see you have such a fine wheel, and I want you to know I really appreciate this piece of business. I always like to do business with your people. I’m not like some storekeepers around town who cheat the colored just because they are colored. No, sir! I believe in giving every customer who walks into my place of business a square deal, no matter what color he is. We’d all be better off if all the storekeepers took that stand. Now, if you’ve got any friends who’ve been thinking about buying a bicycle, be sure and tell them to drop in to see me. I’ll be glad to talk it over with them anytime, if they’ve got a steady job.”

Ganus was walking around the bike, inspecting it from all sides. “I wish I didn’t have to buy and pay for all these things on here, Mr. Hutto,” he said, looking at the chromium-plated kickstand, the sheepskin saddle cover, and all the other accessories Claude had attached while he had been in Dr. English’s office. “It sure makes it cost a lot more. I don’t think I can afford it.”

Claude laughed easily. “You won’t notice the difference, Ganus. Besides, it’s going to make you feel mighty proud while you’re riding around town to have a bike with a handsome sheepskin saddle cover and suspended tool kit. Not to mention all the other little things that really dress up a bicycle. And here. Here’s something else you need, too.” He picked up a wire basket and hung it on the handlebar. “That’s an electrically welded galvanized wire basket, Ganus. It’s just the thing to carry groceries in and you’ll need it on your new job. I’ll add it to the bill. Don’t worry about the cost.”

He could see Claude looking around the store for something else to sell him, and he hastily rolled the bike through the door and across the sidewalk to the curb. He was straddling the bike when Claude came through the door carrying a wide leather cycling belt studded with jewel reflectors.

“Just a minute, Ganus!” Claude called, waving the belt.

Before Claude could get to him, he got on the bike and pedaled up the street as fast as he could. He looked back just before he got to Daitch’s Market. Claude was still standing at the curb, holding the cycling belt high above his head and waving it at Ganus in a last effort to induce him to come back and take it.

Chapter 6

THE FIVE EXCITED BOYS—now that the moment they had been waiting for so eagerly for the past hour was actually there—listened to the sound of footsteps on the pavement halfway up the block. They were huddled in the dark recessed doorway of Benoit’s Drug Store, nervously pushing and shoving each other as the footsteps came closer and closer. All of them were between fifteen and eighteen years of age and were bareheaded. Like most other boys in town that summer, they were wearing short-sleeve sport shirts of various colors, two-tone saddle-shoes, and dark tan cotton trousers. It was a few minutes past nine o’clock, on one of the warm, humid nights late in the month of July. There had been a heavy shower of rain earlier in the evening which, instead of clearing the atmosphere, had left the night feeling clammy and hot. Puddles of rainwater gleamed darkly on the pavement. Most of the stores along the lower end of Peachtree Street were closed and dark, and only a few of them, like Benoit’s on the corner, kept dim window lights on all night. Two blocks away, electric signs in front of the Pastime Theatre, a pool room, two drug stores, and Dave’s Round-The-Clock Cafe kept the upper end of Peachtree Street lighted with a garish red glow until midnight.

“Here she comes now,” Tommy Blackburn said to the other boys in an excited whisper. He was the oldest in the group and was in the habit of taking the lead in most of the things they did together. Unlike some of the other groups of boys in town, they spent most of their time swimming and going to the movies and had never been in any serious trouble. Tommy whispered cautiously, “Everybody stay back out of sight.”

He was a tall blond boy with wavy thick hair who was majoring in history at senior high school and he was proud of the fact that he had been on the debating team for two years. He wanted to be a lawyer like his father, who was now a circuit court judge. He planned to study law when he went away to college. His grandfather had been state senator for the past twelve years. The Blackburns and the Singfields were cousins, and they lived on Greenbriar Street, two blocks east of the Singfleld mansion, in a three-storied brick house with the only slate roof in town. Tommy’s older sister, Dottie, was married to Horace Ledbetter, the county solicitor. His younger sister, Mildred, had graduated from high school that spring and she was going away to college in the fall. Their mother was no longer alive.

“Look how fast she’s walking,” Todd Dudley, one of the other boys, said nervously. “Maybe she knows we’re waiting for her and she’s getting ready to run. Let’s catch her before she gets away, Tommy.”

“Don’t lose your head, Todd, just because she’s getting close,” Tommy told him in a calm, low voice. “There’s plenty of time. Just hold your dog in. I don’t want anybody to make a move till she gets right in front of us. Then we’ll all grab her before she has a chance to get away. You remember that now, Jake,” he said with a sharp thrust of his elbow into Jake Chester’s stomach. “Don’t jump out there with that face of yours and scare her away before we all get a chance to grab her. I don’t want anything to go wrong, either. This’s too good to lose. I’ve wanted to sick my dog on something fancy all summer and I swear I’ll bash the first guy who makes a wrong move.”

“But what’ll we do if she yells, Tommy?” Jimmy Pugh asked with a timorous quaver in his voice. He was nervously tugging at Tommy’s arm. “I don’t want to stay here and get caught by Will Hanford or somebody like that. I never have been caught doing anything before—not even swiping watermelons from that field near our house.”

“Aw, for crying out loud, Jimmy,” Tommy said to him. “She won’t have a chance to yell or anything if you and everybody else do like I tell you. We’ll take her around the corner to the alley just like we said a while ago. I’ll keep my hand over her mouth all the time. Once we get her in the alley she won’t even try to yell. She’ll be quiet back there. Todd, you and Jake be careful and don’t get rough with her. You don’t have to fight her—she’s no tiger. Nobody has to hurt a girl to get her to do what you want. Persuasion always counts more than anything else.”

“But suppose she kicks and fights right out there on the street where somebody might come along and see us—what will we do then, Tommy? I don’t want to get caught and have my folks find out.”

“Aw, for Pete’s sake, Jimmy!” He looked down at Jimmy Pugh in disgust. “You don’t know the first thing about girls and you won’t listen to me and learn. What kind of a fight can a girl put up if you guys do like I tell you? What do you think girls are, anyhow—screaming wildcats? Now stop getting scared and wetting your pants. You’re shaking all over like a kid waiting for Santa Claus the first time. Everybody’s got to help, or we’ll lose our chance. It might be another month before we got another chance like this. If you want to go home, go on now, or else help out like everybody else.”

“I’m going to help, Tommy,” he promised quickly. “Please don’t make me go home now. I want to stay and see what she does.”

“Then keep quiet,” he warned Jimmy in a whisper. “Here she is now.”

Kathyanne, wearing a light summer dress and high-heeled white shoes, was only a few steps from the drugstore doorway. She had been working for Jake Chester’s mother for the day, and it was Jake who had told Tommy and the others that he had found out that she would be going home from work about nine o’clock that night. Mrs. Chester had entertained her club with a bridge party that evening and she had sent for Kathyanne that morning to help her prepare a buffet dinner. All five of the boys had left home after supper to meet downtown and go to the movies, but when they got to the Pastime and Jake told them about Kathyanne, they decided to go to the movies some other time and to wait in front of Benoit’s Drug Store for Kathyanne to come past on her way home.

When she was directly in front of the doorway, Tommy Blackburn nudged the boys beside him and they ran to her. Todd Dudley and Jake Chester caught her by the arms and twisted them behind her back while Tommy was clamping his arm around her neck and putting his hand over her mouth. Jimmy Pugh and Lance Clotworthy, doing just as Tommy had told them, got behind Kathyanne and started pushing. After that, all five of them partly pushed and partly carried her around the corner and down the side street to the alley.

Nobody happened to be passing the drug store at the time, and so they got her into the alley unobserved. The reddish glow of electric signs a block away made the alley as bright as the lower end of Peachtree Street, and they did not stop until they had taken her into the shed at the rear of the drug store. The shed, which was constructed of corrugated iron sheeting, was used as a storage room for empty syrup barrels and packing cases and was never locked day or night. The boys were excited and breathless when they put Kathyanne down gently on the floor. She did not say a word when Tommy took his hand from her mouth. Even though she was frightened by what had happened, she still had made no effort to get away.

“Didn’t I tell you it’d work as easy as that?” Tommy said triumphantly, looking at each of the boys in the dim light. “I knew it’d be as easy as pie if you guys did just like I told you. Like everything else, it’s no trouble at all when you know how. It’s clumsy butterfingers who’re always making a mess of things.”

“Cut out the orations, Tommy,” Todd said impatiently, shoving Lance and Jake aside and trying to get closer to Kathyanne. “I didn’t come around here to listen to Blackburn speech-making.”

Jimmy was the only one who was not pushing and shoving and trying to get closer. He was standing behind Lance and Jake and staring with a wonder-struck expression at Kathyanne on the floor.

Todd tried to push Tommy aside. “Just because you think you know how to handle girls, you needn’t think you can hold up everything to suit yourself. You’re not the only one around here.”

“Cool off, Todd, will you!” Tommy told him, drawing back his hand threateningly. “Your mouth’s too big for your size. I know what I’m doing.”

“Just because you’re the biggest, you always want to run everything to suit yourself,” Todd replied defiantly. “I’ve got just as much right to be here as you have. I don’t have to take orders from you, neither.”

Tommy shoved him away. Todd stood a short distance away and muttered something.

“Don’t pay any attention to him, Kathyanne,” Tommy told her. “I’ll keep him quiet.”

Jake was nudging Tommy. “Ask her if she’s going to try to run away and tell on us, Tommy.”

She looked up, startled.

“I wish you boys hadn’t made me come back here,” she said, looking appealingly first at Tommy and then at the others. “It’s not a nice way for white boys to behave. You ought to let me go now.”

“Don’t let her leave, Tommy,” Jake told him anxiously. “Don’t let her talk you out of it. Remember what we said.”

“The only way she could get out of here now,” Todd said confidently, “would be to fly out on wings. I don’t see those tucked under her arms anywhere. I can make her stay if nobody else can. I’m not scared.”

“Go on, Tommy,” Jake urged. “Make her promise she’ll stay.”

Tommy got down on the floor beside her. “You know how it is, don’t you, Kathyanne?” he said as persuasively as he could. “We didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that we got to talking about you tonight and everybody wanted to get you to come back here. We wanted to talk it over back here so we could tell you how it is. You don’t have to worry about getting hurt.” He looked around at Jake Chester, who was leaning over his shoulder. “The first guy who doesn’t know how to behave himself is going to get thrown out. You hear that, Todd? I mean it.”

“If we listen to him,” Todd said, “it’ll turn into a Sunday school picnic.”

“Don’t look at me,” Jake said. “I don’t need you to tell me how to act. And anyway, who told everybody about her tonight? It was me, wasn’t it? If it hadn’t been for me, all you guys would be sitting up there at the movies right this minute. Well, that ought to give me the right to have a say-so about what I do. I don’t have to take orders from you, or anybody else, Tommy Blackburn.”

Kathyanne moved backward toward the wall. “What do you white boys want?” she asked fearfully.

“The same as usual,” Todd said right away.

“That’s the way,” Tommy said angrily, turning on him. “Go ahead and scare her to death.”

“Well, what the hell are we waiting for?” Todd retorted.

They could see Kathyanne looking at them. They knew by the expression on her face that she recognized them all. Jimmy Pugh got behind Lance Clotworthy and tried to hide from her.

“She’s going to tell on us, Lance,” he whispered, thoroughly frightened. “I just know she is. She looked straight at me, and I could tell. I don’t want my folks to know. They’d never let me out again to go to the movies at night. I want to go home. I’m scared.”

Tommy grabbed Jimmy by the arm and shook him. “What’s the matter with you, Jimmy Pugh? She’s not going to tell on you. Colored girls don’t tell on white boys. It’s only white girls who do that. If you don’t believe it, you just wait and see one of these days. If you try to run away now, I’ll tell your folks on you myself. I’ll tell them that you talked the rest of us into coming down here instead of going to the movies like we wanted to. How’d you like that? You’d better go on and promise not to run away. If you don’t—-”

“I promise, Tommy. Don’t hurt me. I’ll stay. I don’t want my folks to know.”

He pushed Jimmy away and turned around toward Kathyanne. The other boys crowded closer.

“What do you white boys want?” she asked once more.

“What do white boys always want?” Todd said.

She made no reply.

“Like hell you don’t,” he told her. “Get naked.”

“Shut up, Todd!” Tommy said. “You’ll spoil everything.”

Todd laughed at him. “Why don’t you make a speech, Tommy?” he said tauntingly. “Anybody’d think a big speech-maker like you could get her to do anything you wanted. Go on and give her an oration and see what happens.” He made a derisive sound with his mouth. “Hell, the way to get her clothes off is to rip them off, if she won’t do it herself. They’ll all get busy if they know you mean business, because they don’t want them torn up. There’s no sense wasting all this time just so you can make a speech. If you’re scared to make her do it, move over and let me show you how it’s done. I didn’t come down here to listen to a Blackburn give an oration. Get out and run for sheriff, if that’s what you want to do.”

Tommy was pushed away.

“I swear I’ll rip every piece off, if you don’t take them off yourself,” Todd told her. “You’d better get busy.” He turned and shoved Tommy again. “Stay away from me, Tommy Blackburn. I know what I’m doing.” He reached down and grasped her white dress with both hands. “I’ll rip it off, if you don’t hurry and do it yourself,” he warned her.

Kathyanne hesitated momentarily, and then her golden-tinted body became visible in the faint light.

Todd was the first to speak after that. “I told you that was the way,” he boasted. “What’s the sense of hanging around and arguing about it half the night?”

Jimmy was slowly backing toward the door when Tommy saw him in time to catch him by the arm.

“Why’re you trying to slip off like that, Jimmy?” he said, shaking him. “Haven’t you ever seen a girl with all her clothes off before?”

“I don’t know,” he said, trembling. Tommy shook him. “I swear I don’t know, Tommy! That’s the truth!”

“Then why were you trying to run off?”

“I’m scared to look.”

“You’ve seen your sister naked, haven’t you?”

“Yes—but she didn’t look like—like Kathyanne.”

“They’re all the same, Jimmy. Come on back.”

He shoved Jimmy back into the shed.

“Don’t make me stay and look, Tommy,” he begged. “I don’t want to.” He tried to dodge past Tommy and get to the door. Tommy twisted his arm. “Please don’t hurt me, Tommy!” He was already crying. “Please let me go home—I don’t want to look—I’m scared to! If you let me go home now, I promise I won’t tell on you. I’ll never tell on you as long as I live.”

“I wouldn’t take chances on you now,” Tommy said, dragging him back to where the other boys were. “You’re staying here, Jimmy.”

“Will you make her promise and cross her heart not to tell on me?” he asked Tommy. “I don’t want my folks to know. My dad would beat me if he found out. I just know he would. He told me to stay away from colored girls, and I promised him I would. If he found out—”

“Aw, dry up, Jimmy Pugh!” Lance said. “I thought you were too grown-up to bawl like that. Nobody’s ever going to know about it, if you’ll shut up. If they do find out, it’ll be your own fault for making so much fuss. Your dad’ll never know about it if you keep quiet.”

Todd said boastingly, “If my old man found out, he’d be mad as hell because he wasn’t in on it.”

“I know my old man chases colored girls’,” Jake said. “Only the good-looking ones, though. I’ve seen him do it. Once he got one off the street and took her in his store and kept her there half the night. My mother found out about it. And did she give him holy hell! She almost took the roof off until my old man got down on his knees and promised her a fur-trimmed coat if she’d lay off. That didn’t stop him for long, though. He’s just more careful now.”

Jimmy broke away from Tommy and ran to Kathyanne. He got down on the floor beside her.

Kathyanne looked as surprised as anyone else. “What’s the matter, Jimmy?” she asked him.

Tears were running down his cheeks. He tried to wipe them away before the other boys could see him.

“I’m scared, Kathyanne,” he sobbed, getting as close to her as he could. “I didn’t want to come down here. I said I didn’t want to, but Tommy Blackburn made me. He said he’d tell on me just the same if I didn’t.”

“What the hell’s Jimmy Pugh doing?” Jake Chester said. “Look at him nuzzle up to her.”

“He acts like he got scared in the dark and thinks she’s his nurse,” Todd said, laughing at him.

Kathyanne put her arm around Jimmy protectingly. “He’s too little to be going around at night with big boys,” she said with a reproachful look at Tommy Blackburn. “He’s too young for that. All you big boys ought to be ashamed for making him.”

“He’s fifteen,” Tommy told her. “Lance Clotworthy’s fifteen, too. But you don’t see Lance trying to nuzzle up to you like that.”

“That makes no difference. Jimmy’s too little, anyway.”

Jimmy had stopped trying to hide his tears. “Please don’t tell my folks on me, Kathyanne,” he begged her. “I always liked you, didn’t I? I never did anything mean to you when you worked for us out at our house, did I? My mama was mean to you, but I wasn’t, was I, Kathyanne? Please don’t tell on me.”

Kathyanne patted Jimmy tenderly, but she did not say anything.

“Tommy and Jake made me come down here,” he said, crying more loudly. “I didn’t want to, but they said I might go home and tell on them if I didn’t come. That’s why I had to. They made me.”

Tommy caught Jimmy’s arm and pulled him away from Kathyanne. “For Pete’s sake!” he said, shaking Jimmy. “I didn’t know you were such a big cry-baby, Jimmy. Don’t you ever beg to go around with me again. I’m through with you from now on. You stay away from me after this.”

“I want to go home!” he sobbed, unashamed.

“You ought’ve stayed home tonight and sucked a sugar-tit,” Tommy told him.

The startling bright beam of a flashlight suddenly burst upon them. Nobody moved. Then the dazzling beam moved slowly around the shed, momentarily revealing the terrified expression of each of the boys in turn. Finally it illuminated Kathyanne’s gleaming nakedness.

Somebody whispered, “There’s going to be all kinds of hell to pay now. I wish I’d gone to the movies tonight.”

“All right, boys,” a loud and familiar voice called out behind them. “I know every one of you. The fun’s over. Turn around and walk out the door one at a time. And don’t nobody try to knock this flashlight out of my hand, neither. I’ll slam you silly with this pistol butt. Now, get started like I told you. When you get outside, keep on walking, and don’t come back, neither.”

Tommy was the first to turn around. “It’s Will Hanford,” he said. “How’d he know we were back here?”

“It’s my business to know what goes on around town at night, Tommy,” Will told him, laughing at the rueful sound of his voice.

“It’s all your fault, Tommy Blackburn,” Jimmy said accusingly. “You made me come. I didn’t want to. I want to go home.”

“Aw, dry up, cry-baby!” Tommy told him.

The night patrolman, waving the beam of light back and forth, went to the side of the shed and waited.

“It’s me, all right, boys,” Will said, pleased with his accidental discovery of them. “Tending to my business as usual. Nothing goes on in Estherville that I don’t know about. Now, you boys go home. Everyone of you. I don’t want to catch none of you out on the street again tonight. I know who you are, and if I want you, I know where to find you. The less you talk about this, the better off you’ll be, if you want to take my advice. If you don’t want your folks to find out what I caught you at, just keep your mouths shut from now on. I’ll tell you something else, too. The next time you want to nuzzle one of these high-yellows, you’d better be sure it’s outside the city limits. Now, get going and don’t stop till you’re home. One at a time now. Tommy, you go first. Hurry it up now, like I tell you.”

The five boys left the shed one by one, and as each boy reached the alley he broke into a run. Jimmy Pugh, the last to leave, could be heard crying all the way up the street.

After they had left, Will Hanford switched off the flashlight and went for one of the empty packing cases to sit down on. Kathyanne hurriedly put on her dress before Will got back.

“Well, Kathyanne,” Will began talking to her, “you went and got yourself in trouble tonight, didn’t you? A good-looking girl like you ought to be more careful. You ought to know better than fool around with those school kids, anyhow. Kids like them will always get you in trouble. They don’t know nothing at that age.”

“I didn’t do anything, Mr. Hanford,” she protested earnestly. “It wasn’t my fault at all. It was those white boys. They made me come in this shed. That’s the truth, Mr. Hanford.”

Will laughed at her.

“I’m telling the honest truth, Mr. Hanford,” she pleaded.

“You ought to know it won’t do you no good to try to put the blame on them, Kathyanne. Nobody’ll ever believe it. You colored girls around town start all the trouble, and you know it. I’ve never seen a colored girl yet who wouldn’t egg on a white boy. You know good and well not a single one of those boys would’ve been in this shed if you hadn’t got them to come back here. You couldn’t lie out of me finding you in here naked to the skin with them, now could you? See how it is? You can’t fool me. I see too much of it around town to be fooled. I’ve heard all the tales you colored girls’ve made up, thinking some fancy story will keep you out of the jailhouse.”

“Mr. Hanford, they caught me out there in front of the drug store while I was on my way home and brought me back here. I didn’t want to come. I didn’t even see them till they jumped out and caught me. That’s the honest truth, Mr. Hanford. They’d tell you that, if you asked them. I just know they would. Please ask them.”

“I didn’t hear you yelling for help,” he remarked, laughing at her efforts to convince him. “I’ve been in this part of town since dark, too.”

“I didn’t try to do that, because I was afraid they’d hurt me if I did.”

“Is that so?” he said, with a loud mocking laugh. “If it went to court, and they testified you lured them to this alley, you wouldn’t want to see yourself stand up and swear on the Bible that five white boys were telling a lie, would you now, Kathyanne? That wouldn’t show good sense, would it?”

“No, sir, but—”

“Then quit that lying about it.”

“But, Mr. Hanford, I’m not—”

“If you’re smart, you’ll leave things just like they are. When you go to court in the morning, it’ll only be twenty-five days or twenty-five dollars. That’s all. Have you got twenty-five dollars to pay the fine with?”

“No, sir, Mr. Hanford,” she answered, frightened.

“I can do a little talking, and I could find somebody who’d maybe pay your fine for you, if all went well.”

“I don’t want you to do that, Mr. Hanford,” she told him.

Will lit a cigarette and then offered one to her. She shook her head. By that time, Will had moved close to her.

“I’ll tell you something, Kathyanne,” he began, moving the box until he was touching her. “I think maybe I could help you out, myself. I don’t always do it, you understand, but this time I might could. I’ve seen you around town a lot of times, and I always get the notion I’d like the chance to talk it over with you. This is the first really good chance I’ve had. How’s that strike you?”

“What do you mean, Mr. Hanford?”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind helping you out, instead of letting somebody else do it, if you want to listen to reason. I don’t have to make it hard on you, unless I want to. Nobody knows about it yet, except those kids, and I scared them out of opening their mouths. That’s what I’m getting around to. What do you say, Kathyanne? I think maybe I’d like to forget all about it and let you go on home tonight.”

He was watching her closely. She did not say anything.

“That’s right, Kathyanne. I’ll play ball with you, if you’ll play with me. You’ll have to promise not to say anything about it, though. I’ve got a job to protect. That’s the important thing. Now, me and you. There’s plenty of places around town where I can always get anything good I want, but I don’t know nobody that’s got your looks to go along with it. You’re one hell of a good-looking woman all the way from the ground up. I’d say that about you any time of the day or night. It’s a shame you had to go and get born colored instead of white. But that don’t bother me. I always could get crazier in the head over a half-and-half than I could over a pure white. I’d make a fool of myself over you. Now, what do you say, Kathyanne? Just me and you. Them kids’ll never talk. They’re too scared.”

He stopped and swung his knee against her leg.

“You don’t want to have to go to jail, do you, Kathyanne?” he said meaningfully. “And you don’t have to, neither, if you play ball with me. You know that. I don’t have to take you in. All you have to do is get agreeable and you can forget all about that jailhouse. There’s no sense in a good-looking girl like you going behind the bars. I know you don’t want to stand up in court tomorrow morning. What do you say now, Kathyanne? Want to get in the ball game?”

Kathyanne got up, shaking her head. While she waited before him, she could see his face harden with anger.

“Is that what you want to do—turn me down?”

She nodded.

“Too dumb to know when you’re well off, ain’t you?”

“Dumb—and too good for you.”

Will jumped up, knocking over the wooden crate. “I’ll learn you!” He drew back his fist and hit her.

She fell on the floor. Before she could move, he kicked her with the heel of his shoe. After that she was blinded by the bright beam of light in her eyes.

“Some day you’re going to get paid back for mistreating people the way you do,” she told him.

“I never could stand to be turned down cold by a nigger wench,” he was saying angrily. “I wish I’d let those white boys stay and rough you up like they wanted to. I’m sorry now I chased them off. Five of them would’ve roughed you up good and plenty. You goddam stuck-up nigger wenches never have learned to appreciate what a white man can do for you. Just let some flashy buck nigger come along and you’ll bust your buttons for him. But let some white man, who can do something for you, come along, and you get goody-goody all of a sudden. Looks like there’s no known way to get sense through a thick nigger skull. That’s one reason I never could like a nigger—you can’t learn them nothing.”

“One of these days somebody’s going to shoot you, Mr. Hanford, and I’ll be one of those who’s glad to hear about it.”

Catching her arm in a tight grasp, he jerked her to her feet. “Come on to the jailhouse, nigger. Maybe next time you get a chance to play ball with a white man you’ll have some sense in that nigger head of yours. Maybe you’ll listen next time. When you stand up in court tomorrow morning, you’re going to get the book thrown at you. I’ll see to that, unless some white man comes along and wants to make a deal with me. No stuck-up nigger wench’s going to turn me down cold like you done and get away with it. I’ll make you sorry. Come on!”

He pushed her forward toward the door and she went stumbling helplessly into the alley. When Will caught up with her, he gave another shove and took out his pistol to have it handy in case he wanted to use it.

Chapter 7

GANUS WAS STRETCHED OUT on the wooden bench drowsing in the shade of the awning when Harry Daitch came out of the store and shook him awake. It was a sultry August midafternoon, and ordinarily, there were no grocery orders to deliver at that time of day. Most of the housewives in town did their marketing in the early morning hours, especially during the hot summer months; and, since deliveries were usually completed by noon, Ganus, as a rule, was more than apt to find an opportunity to drowse for an hour or two between dinner-time and five o’clock. The hour from five to six, week in and week out, was the busiest time of day at Daitch’s Market, not that the dollar volume or the stock turnover was large then, as actually both were meager, but it was due to the great variety of small everyday household necessities that had been overlooked in the rush and turmoil of morning shopping. This was the time of day when people phoned Harry at the last minute and asked him please to hurry and send Ganus with a loaf of light bread or a bottle of catchup in time for supper. As most families in Estherville ate supper at six or six-thirty, Harry did his best to please his customers by promising that Ganus would get the bread or the catchup to them by the time they sat down at the table. It was not unusual to see Ganus Bazemore pedaling his bicycle at breakneck speed through the streets between five and six o’clock with a bottle of catchup bouncing around in the wire basket on the handlebar and trying to get to the Hunnicuts’ or to the Barksdales’ house in time for them to pour it on  the calf’s liver or the sausage cakes. Some families, such as the Watsons and the Crawfords, liked to spread catchup on their sliced bread before eating a bite of anything else and, if Ganus were late, they were the ones who became the most enraged, threatening to take their trade elsewhere if Harry Daitch ever let it happen again.

Sleepy-headed and with dragging feet, Ganus got up and followed Harry into the store. He stood at the counter beside the cash register rubbing his eyes and yawning while Harry wrapped up the order he had just taken over the telephone, and entered it in the charge-book.

Harry shoved the package across the counter to Ganus.

“Mrs. Vernice Weathersbee wants this loaf of bread and pack of Luckies delivered right away, Ganus. Don’t stop along the street and talk to somebody and forget where to take it, either. She’s in a big hurry, so don’t keep her waiting. I don’t want her to phone back in half an hour and complain that you haven’t even got there yet. You know where she lives up there on Cypress Street in that little yellow bungalow with the green trim. You’ve delivered to her lots of times. Now don’t get all balled up and make a mistake and leave her order at the wrong house. If you’d stop that napping every afternoon, you wouldn’t get so woozy. Now, get yourself wide awake before you leave here so you’ll know where you’re going and what you’re supposed to do.”

Ganus’ mouth had fallen open. His eyes were large and white. “Who—who—who did you say take it to, Mr. Harry?” he asked, coming fully awake at the realization that he had heard Vernice Weathersbee’s name spoken. “Are you sure about that, Mr. Harry—it couldn’t happen to be somebody else, could it, Mr. Harry?”

“Why wouldn’t I be sure?” Harry said. “I talked to her myself on the phone less than five minutes ago.”

Ganus’ head was bobbing around loosely on his neck. “You don’t mean that white lady up there in that little old yellow bungalow with the fig tree in the backyard—do you, Mr. Harry?”

“How would I know if she’s got a fig tree in her backyard, or up her chimney?” Harry said, becoming provoked. “I don’t snoop around my customers’ backyards to see what kind of trees they’ve got. I’m talking about Mrs. Vernice Weathersbee. The grass widow up there in Cypress Street. You know who I’m talking about. You made a delivery to her the first part of the week.”

Ganus drew a long deep breath. “Yes, sir,” he admitted with a dismal sigh. “I reckon I do know, Mr. Harry.”

“And she said tell you to bring the things in the house and put them on the kitchen table like you used to. She said the last time you dropped everything on the back steps and ran off. Now, I don’t want that to happen again. You hear, Ganus? You knock on her back door and go on in the kitchen like you ought to. Mrs. Weathersbee’s a good buying customer and pays her bills fairly on time—at any rate, she pays a hell of a lot sooner than some folks I could name. I don’t want her taking her trade somewhere else.”

With a fearsome feeling darting through his stomach, Ganus reluctantly picked up the package containing the bread and cigarettes as though it were the last thing on earth he wanted to touch. His lips moved wordlessly several times.

“What’s the matter now?” Harry asked him.

“Mr. Harry,” he said apprehensively, “you don’t happen to know offhand about somebody else who might just accidentally happen to be going up that way past that white lady’s house and might could do us a real big favor and leave off the groceries for her, do you?”

Harry had started to the stock room in the rear of the store. When he heard Ganus, he turned around with a puzzled look. He stood there tugging nervously at his left earlobe.

“What was that, Ganus?” he asked, looking still more puzzled.

Swallowing first, and then in halting speech, Ganus said, “I—I—I thought somebody else—he might could leave them off at her house—if it was all right with you, Mr. Harry. I sure would be mighty much obliged.”

Harry came striding all the way back to the counter.

“Ganus, do you want to quit your job—is that what all this beating around the bush is about?”

“No, sir, Mr. Harry!” Ganus was quick to assure him. “I wouldn’t go and do a downright foolish thing like that. I want to hold on to this job, Mr. Harry. It’s the finest job I ever had in all my life. I wouldn’t let it get away from me for anything in the world. No, sir, Mr. Harry!”

“Then what’s all this talk about not wanting to deliver Mrs. Weathersbee’s order?”

Seeing Harry’s unsympathetic attitude, Ganus began to worry. He was sorry now that he had allowed himself to say anything at all about  Vernice Weathersbee’s order. He clutched the package tightly in both arms as though afraid Harry would snatch it from him and hire another boy to make deliveries. He hastily backed toward the door with it. Harry followed him as far as the middle of the store.

“Now, look here, Ganus—” Harry began threateningly.

“Mr. Harry, I didn’t mean to say anything like that,” he pleaded, his voice rising to a high pitch and quavering with anxiety. “My tongue got slipped up somehow or other, it looks like. I want to hustle these groceries straightway up there to the white lady’s house just like you said. Anytime you want to send something up there, all you have to do is just mention it to me, and I’ll hustle it up there and put it smack-dab on the kitchen table just like you said. Please, sir, don’t go and hire another boy and take away my fine job. I’m always going to do exactly like you tell me every time. Don’t you worry, Mr. Harry. Don’t you worry one whit.”

“You’re the one who’d better start worrying, if I ever hear you talk like that again,” Harry warned him. “There’s plenty of other good boys who want this job. You’d better remember that, Ganus. If you don’t keep on your toes, and watch your talk, you’ll find yourself out of a job so quick it’ll make you dizzy. I’m not fooling, neither.”

Ganus ran out of the store and jumped on his bicycle. He pedaled furiously up Peachtree Street and, cutting the corner recklessly, went down Cypress Street as fast as he could toward the yellow clapboarded bungalow in the middle of the block. It was a small four-room dwelling with a weather-warped shingle roof. Volunteer grass and a rank growth of knee-high weeds covered the untended front yard. Powdery plow-dust drifting in from the country fields had settled on the front porch and blowing rain had hardened it into a reddish crust on the railings and floor. Plantings of camellias and blue iris were struggling valiantly to survive without care. Ganus was out of breath when he rode into the backyard and leaned his bicycle against the fig tree at the bottom of the kitchen steps.

The screen-door was unlatched. He opened it noiselessly and glanced cautiously around the kitchen before going any farther. There was no one within sight, and he tiptoed silently to the kitchen table and carefully laid the package down. After listening for a moment, and still not hearing any sound in the house, he tiptoed back to the door where, acting against his judgment, but remembering Harry’s warning, he knocked lightly one time. Almost instantly there was a stir and a commotion in the adjoining room. While he held his breath, Vernice Weathersbee ran into the kitchen. She was at the screen-door before he could open it and get away. He dared not look directly at her, clearly recalling how she had looked the last time he saw her. The kitchen felt stifling hot, and he pressed his face against the screen and panted for fresh air.

“Oh, it’s you, isn’t it, Ganus?” he heard her saying behind him. He pushed against the screen until his nose felt flattened against his face. “Now, don’t go away, Ganus,” she called out. “I want to be sure you brought everything I ordered from Mr. Daitch.”

Vernice was standing at the table tearing the wrapping paper from the bread and Luckies when he turned around. As he had feared from the beginning, she was wearing only part of a pair of pajamas. She was dressed in the same manner she had been the time he dropped the groceries on the back steps and rode off on his bicycle as fast as he could. She was wearing a pale blue butcherboy pajama jacket with a ruffled yoke and sweetheart neckline and a pair of one-strap high-heeled house slippers. Vernice was blond and tall and in her late twenties. She was far from being strikingly beautiful at first sight, but her features were softly feminine and she did have a slender attractive figure and long well-proportioned legs. She had left the house infrequently that summer, except for going to the post office once a week, but when she did go downtown, her colorful dresses and large hats always attracted attention on the streets. The remainder of the time, wearing a short pajama jacket and slippers, she stayed at home and listened to music on the radio, hour after hour. She had been married to Mike Weathersbee, a dentist, for five years. Mike divorced her when he found out that she had entertained an itinerant sewing-machine salesman during the whole time he was attending a dental clinic in Atlanta, and he moved away to Savannah to start life anew. He had been sending her small weekly alimony payments for the past year, and the money she received from him enabled her to pay the rent and make out a living. She was an orphan and had no known relatives. Vernice had hoped to remarry within a few months after the divorce, but Fred Finley, who had courted her for nearly a month with intentions of marriage, suddenly left town one morning without telling anybody where he was going. When that happened, the neighbors, who were the first to talk, said she had got Fred reeling drunk and hid his clothes and then had tried to make him promise to marry her right away, but that Fred had sobered up in time to realize what was happening and ran down the street wrapped in a red plaid tablecloth. Nothing had been heard from Fred since, except that he had written to the postmaster and asked to have his mail forwarded to general delivery in Birmingham. When Vernice felt discouraged about life, she told herself that she could always go to work in Macon or Augusta as a beauty culturist, which had been her trade when she married Mike Weathersbee, but so far she had stubbornly refused to give up hope of marrying somebody who would support her. She had spent a lonely, miserable summer, nobody having dated her for the past two months, but she hoped the coming of cooler autumn weather would soon bring a change in her fortunes. So far she had endured the loneliness of the hot summer afternoons and evenings by drinking bourbon-and-coke in the parlor and then going to bed to listen to the radio before finally crying herself to sleep. Her closest neighbor, Milton Wheat, who managed a soft-drink bottling plant, frequently heard her sobbing after he went to bed at night and several times he thought of going next door to try to comfort her. But Mrs. Wheat was unsympathetic. She refused to let Milton leave the house after dark unless he promised each time not to go anywhere near Vernice.

She had torn open the pack of cigarettes and was lighting one. “Everything’s here, Ganus,” she said, blowing smoke at the ceiling. “It’s a wonder Mr. Daitch didn’t get my order mixed up, like he’s forever doing.”

“I’ll go right straight back and tell Mr. Harry you got just exactly what you wanted, Miss Vernice,” Ganus said in haste, turning with an eager glance at the door. “I’ll be mighty glad to do that right away for you, Miss Vernice.”

He opened the door before she had a chance to say anything. He was almost safely out of the kitchen when he heard her calling. He stopped where he was, but he did not look back.

“Ma’m?” he said weakly. “Did you say something, Miss Vernice?”

“Yes, Ganus,” he heard her say in a drawling tone that made him catch his breath. “Come back here, Ganus.”

He came back into the kitchen. When he closed the screen-door, he saw that she was sitting at the table and blowing large puffs of cigarette smoke at the ceiling. There was a loud ringing noise in both of his ears.

“Miss Vernice,” he said, trembling slightly, “Mr. Harry wants me to hurry straight back to the store right now. Mr. Harry said so himself. He never wants me to waste time getting back down there, because somebody might call up any time and want something delivered in a big hurry. He said so himself, Miss Vernice. That’s why I’ve got to hurry back down there right this minute. The Good Man knows I’m telling the truth!” He turned and ran from the kitchen. After getting the screen-door open, he leaped from the top step to the ground.

When he got on his bicycle, he knew Vernice had opened the screen-door and was calling him, but he rode away as fast as he could, pretending all the time that he did not hear her. As he pedaled around the corner of the bungalow he could see with a sidelong glance that she had come partly down the steps and was frantically waving for him to come back. He lowered his head over the handlebar and pedaled with all his might.

It took him only a few minutes to get back to the store, and he was breathless and shaking when he walked inside. He hurried to where Harry Daitch was waiting for him at the counter.

“Well, I see you got back in a hurry, Ganus,” Harry told him with a pleased look. “Now, that’s the way to hold down a job.”

“I sure tried my best to hurry back, Mr. Harry. I hurried like I’d never hurried before.”

“You got back just in time, too,” Harry went on as he finished wrapping up a package. “As long as you keep on hustling these orders out, I’ll know you want to keep your job. Customers appreciate prompt deliveries. It’s a sure way to build up good will in the grocery business.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Harry—but I’d like to say—”

Harry ignored him with an impatient gesture of his hand. “Here’s another delivery to make right away. Now see if you can’t hustle this one, too. If you keep this up, I’ll have to think I can’t do without you, Ganus.”

Ganus picked up the package. “Who’s it for, Mr. Harry?”

“It’s another order Mrs. Weathersbee phoned in,” Harry told him casually as he leaned over the counter and made an entry in the charge-book. “She phoned down just before you got back and said she’d forgotten to order cokes the first time. She wants them right away, so hurry up there with them while they’re still cold, Ganus. Customers always appreciate it when they get their cokes ice-cold in the summertime.”

Ganus had backed away from the counter. “Mr. Harry—” he said weakly, swallowing several times. “Mr. Harry, I— I—”

Harry looked up at him with an annoyed frown. “What’s the matter with you now?”

“Mr. Harry, I—I—”

“This’s the second time in the past half-hour that you’ve acted peculiar. What’s ailing you? Do you want to keep this job, or don’t you? You’d better make up your mind in a hurry, because I want a boy working for me who I don’t have to worry about every time there’s a rush order to deliver.”

“Mr. Harry—I want to hustle the orders—I sure do—please don’t go and hire another boy—that’s the truth, Mr. Harry!”

“Well, what’s all this hemming and hawing about then?”

Ganus twisted his feet uncomfortably. At the moment all thoughts left his mind except the important one that would not let him forget the need to pay Dr. Lamar English five dollars every Saturday. He had already made six payments on the bicycle and he knew that if he lost his job at the market he might not be able to find another one in time to keep up his payments to Dr. English. That meant, he reminded himself worriedly, that Dr. English would come and take the bicycle away from him. He backed toward the door.

“Mr. Harry, I don’t want you to worry one whit,” he said urgently. “I’m going to hustle all the groceries you tell me to, just exactly like you want it done. You won’t have to tell me the second time what to do from now on. Don’t you worry about it at all, Mr. Harry. No sir! Don’t you worry at all!”

He ran out of the store before Harry had a chance to say anything more to him and got on his bicycle. He pedaled slowly up Peachtree Street, each time the wheels turned over feeling less confident of his ability to escape a second time from Vernice Weathersbee and dreading to think what might happen to him if he could not get away. He reluctantly turned down Cypress Street toward the yellow bungalow with the green trim. He tried to think about what he was going to do when he got to the kitchen door, but it made him so nervous to think of seeing Vernice again, and wondering what she was going to do this time, that he could not think clearly. Twice he rode around the block, unmindful of the hot afternoon sun, before he could make himself turn into the driveway.

With the fearsome feeling that he was doing something he would surely regret, but knowing no way to avoid it, he rode into the backyard and leaned the bicycle once more against the fig tree at the bottom of the brick steps. He remembered having looked overhead at the ripe, luscious figs hanging only an arm’s length away when he was there the first time that afternoon and wondering if it would be all right for him to eat some of them, but now he was too worried about what might take place in the house even to look up at the figs again. After getting off the bike and picking up the package, he listened carefully for several moments. A group of noisy children was playing in the alley, but he could not hear a sound of any kind in the house and he hoped the silence meant that Vernice was in one of the other rooms. While he stood there in the hot sun, he could see Vernice in her short pajama jacket as plainly as if she had been actually within sight, and his heart began thumping in his chest. He ran up the steps, threw open the screen-door, and went toward the kitchen table. He was not conscious of seeing Vernice until he was halfway there. She was seated in the same straightback chair smoking another cigarette. He stopped and stared at her in consternation, wondering why it was that she was always wearing only the top of her pajamas every time he delivered her groceries. He held his breath and listened to the racing thump of his heart.

“I’m glad you came back, Ganus,” she said with a disturbing smile. “I was really all out of cokes.”

He swallowed painfully. “You were, Miss Vernice?”

She got up and said, “But what I really needed you for was to do something for me.”

He wondered what she was talking about, but he dared not ask her at a time like that. “Yes, ma’m,” was all that he could say.

Vernice walked past him and latched the screen-door. Then she walked back across the kitchen again and continued on into the parlor. She was out of sight for only a few moments when he heard her calling him. Curious, and tense with excitement, he crossed the kitchen and looked through the doorway into the next room. She was sitting on the divan and holding up a bottle.

“You’ll have to open this for me, Ganus,” she said, beckoning to him. “I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t seem to be able to do anything with it.” When he did not move, she began beckoning insistently. “Come on in here, Ganus. It’s all right.” He hesitated for a long time before going a step farther, but finally he found himself crossing the threshold. She stood up and placed the bottle and corkscrew in his hands. He was shaking all over so much that he almost dropped the bottle. “Go on and open it, Ganus,” she told him. “It always takes a man to do things like this. I’m so helpless about such things.”

He was so nervous that he fumbled blindly with the corkscrew until she came and screwed it into the cork for him. He then twisted it deep into the neck of the bottle and, much to his surprise, easily pulled out the cork. Some of the whisky spilled on his shirt and pants and the odor made him think what Harry Daitch would say if he saw him now.

“Miss Vernice,” he said uneasily, “I’ve got to hurry back to the store right away. Mr. Harry said for me to. The Good Man knows that’s the truth.”

She was shaking her head at him with a scolding frown long before he could finish telling her.

“No, Ganus,” she said. “Don’t go away now.” She poured an unusually large portion of bourbon into two glasses and then some of the coke. “You’ve got to stay now. I’ll lose my mind if I have to keep on drinking alone.” She placed one of the glasses in his shaking hand. He hastily clutched the glass with both hands to keep from dropping it, but even then some of the bourbon-and-coke spilled over the rim and splashed on his shoes.

He tried to make her take the glass back by holding it out toward her. “I can’t drink this, Miss Vernice. Please don’t make me. Please take it back and let me go.”

“Haven’t you ever had bourbon-and-coke before, Ganus?”

“I’ve tasted it. I know what it’s like. But Mr. Harry wouldn’t want me to. I know that, for sure. If I lost my job at the market, I couldn’t pay Dr. English every Saturday and he’d come and take it away from me. The Good Man knows that’s the truth, Miss Vernice.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said lightly. “If you owe Dr. English money, let him get down and beg for it. Doctors make it too easy, anyway.” She winked at him. “Let’s me and you make it rough on doctors, Ganus.”

“But Mr. Harry—”

She laughed out loud. “What do we care about Harry Daitch!” she said in a loud hoarse voice, pushing his glass upward and holding it firmly against his lips. “Here we go! Shove off, Ganus! It’s every man for himself now! Let Harry Daitch get down on his bony knees and beg like Dr. English! Heave-ho!” Her body swayed rhythmically. “Heave-ho! Heave-ho!”

Ganus closed his eyes and gulped down the bourbon-and-coke. When he opened his eyes, Vernice was refilling both glasses. As she bent over the table, the flaring butcher-boy pajama jacket seemed to be shorter than it had ever looked before. The gleaming curves of her bare buttocks began to shimmer in his sight. He turned away long enough to glance fearfully at all the windows, fully expecting that somebody would surely have been there watching him and getting ready to dash off to tell the whole town. He had only momentary relief, however.

“Miss Vernice—a colored boy like me—you’re not in all your clothes. You know that, don’t you? I declare, Miss Vernice, I’m awfully worried—I got to go!”

She turned and handed him the refilled glass. “Don’t be silly, Ganus,” she chided him. “Heave-ho!”

“I know, Miss Vernice, but—”

“I’m very lonely, Ganus,” she said appealingly. “It’s plain hell to be so lonesome, all the time. Nobody’ll ever know. You don’t think I’d tell on you, do you?” She placed her hand under the bottom of the glass and pushed forward. “Heave-ho!” she said in a loud singsong manner, her body swaying. “Heave-ho!”

He drank it down as fast as he could, hoping she would let him leave as soon as he had finished the second glass. She had put only a small amount of coke into the glass this time, and his throat burned and his eyes watered. When he saw that she was pouring more whisky into the glasses, he ran to her and tried to take the bourbon bottle away from her. She easily pushed him aside with her elbow.

“Miss Vernice, I’ve just got to go. I’ll lose my job. I’ve got to give Dr. English five dollars every Saturday. You’re not staying in your clothes far enough like you ought to, neither.” He tried once more to wrest the bottle from her, but she was surprisingly strong. He watched the amber liquid gurgle into the glasses with a helpless feeling. “Miss Vernice, that little short coat—it looks like it’s getting shorter all the time—you’re near about out of all of it now. Maybe you don’t know it, but it’s rising up higher and higher all the time. If they caught me now—please, Miss Vernice!”

She pushed him backward and he dropped heavily to the divan. He felt as though he had fallen a mile through space. Once more the glass was coming toward him. He tried to evade it by moving his head from side to side, but it persisted in coming straight to his mouth. He could dodge it no longer. He shut his eyes and drank the glass dry. He did not open his eyes right away, but when he did, everything in the room seemed to be going around in circles. Even Vernice looked as if she might fall over, and he reached out and caught her just in time. Then he held on to her, because the room itself seemed to be revolving faster and faster with each breath he drew. In a little while both of them seemed to be turning over and over like a runaway wagon wheel on a steep hill, but it did not matter now because he was holding on to her with all his might.

“I’m going to lose my job, for sure,” he said, weeping. Tears began running down his cheeks. “Mr. Harry’s going to get himself another boy to hustle the groceries now.” He tried to pull Vernice’s short jacket down over her gleaming white thighs. He jerked and tugged at it desperately in an effort to cover the glow of her white skin. “I know what they do to colored boys who get in trouble,” he tried to tell her convincingly. “I don’t want to get in trouble—but I don’t know how to keep out of it now—I’ve tried to stay out of trouble all my life. But it looks like something’s always working against me. I can’t hold out much longer, Miss Vernice.” He stopped, weak with exertion, when he saw how useless it was to try to pull the jacket down. He looked up at her beseechingly while tears ran down his face. “It’s not my doing, Miss Vernice—when a white missy—”

She smiled comfortingly as she watched him in his agony. He found himself listening intently to something she was saying. “Ganus, have you ever had a party with a white missy before?” He tried to answer her right away, but his lips were dry and numb. “Have you, Ganus?”

“No, ma’m,” he managed to say after a while. “And I don’t have no business doing it, neither. A colored boy oughtn’t. I know that. I’ve known it all my life. The Good Man knows I’m telling the truth. I wish the white missies wouldn’t try to make me. They always get colored boys in trouble. I know that. I’m scared, Miss Vernice. I don’t want to get in bad trouble. That’s the worst thing could happen. A colored boy like me—”

He realized that she had been shaking him violently for a long time. He stopped and looked up at her.

“I want you to promise you won’t tell on me, Ganus. Promise me that!”

“Me—tell?” He looked at her uncomprehendingly. “I’d never tell on a white missy, Miss Vernice. I couldn’t do that. No, ma’m!”

“You promise?”

“I sure do! But, Miss Vernice—white missies oughtn’t be bad.”

“Ganus, I’m not bad. It’s just that I’m lonesome. I can’t help it. I’ve tried, but nobody wants me. I can’t stand it any longer. I’ve been so lonely.” There were tears in her eyes. “Maybe some day somebody will want me. There must be somebody!”

He could feel the rim of the glass between his lips, and for the first time he felt as though it would be too much trouble to push it away. He tilted back his head and felt the warm, burning whisky in his throat. He was surprised that he was no longer afraid.

After a while he could hear Vernice talking to him. “When it gets dark, it won’t make any difference, Ganus.” He wondered what she was talking about, but it was too much trouble to think about it. He lay back comfortably and felt his body sinking deeper and deeper into the clinging softness of the divan. All the rest of the world seemed to have gradually receded beyond his consciousness, making it unnecessary for him to worry about anything after that. It was like finding himself in a strange new world without care or worry. “Ganus, just forget you’re a colored boy now,” she was saying in a faraway voice. He could smile effortlessly now, because he no longer had to worry about such things. “It doesn’t matter now, Ganus. You don’t have to be afraid of anything, do you? Nobody will ever know. You’re just like anybody else now. You don’t have to be scared. As long as you stay here, there’s nothing to worry about. Now, doesn’t that feel good, Ganus? Doesn’t it feel awfully good to you?”

He wanted to open his eyes and tell her how good he felt, but as time went on he could think of no reason why it was necessary to go even to that much trouble. It was much nicer to lie there in the deep clinging softness of the divan and for the first time in his life not care what color his skin was.

Chapter 8

IT WAS TWILIGHT when Roy Blount, the general manager of the Estherville cottonseed oil mill, got back to the Pineland Hotel where Ernie Lumpkin and Joe Morningstar, the two oil-and-meal buyers from Atlanta, had been waiting most of the afternoon. When Roy left them at one o’clock, he had promised to be back by the middle of the afternoon to have some more drinks with them. He had purposely not told Ernie and Joe where he was going or what he was going to do, because all along he had been doubtful of being able to get his wife to consent. Nevertheless, he had gone home to try to persuade Elizabeth to let him invite them to Sunday dinner the next day.

Roy had tried for nearly three hours to convince Elizabeth that it was a matter of business expediency, as well as a personal obligation, to entertain Ernie and Joe. After pleading with her and making all sorts of rash promises, she still flatly refused to let Roy bring his out-of-town business acquaintances into the house. It had always been her greatest disappointment in life that she had not been fortunate enough in her youth to marry a distinguished professional man, preferably a lawyer or a doctor, and she had never reconciled herself to her lot. After all those years, even though the husbands of most of her friends were local merchants and commission men, she still steadfastly refused, as a matter of pride, to associate socially with outsiders connected with such common commercial enterprises as the cottonseed oil business. The sun had set when Roy finally gave up and went back downtown. It was the end of August and the days were steadily becoming shorter. He parked his car in front of the hotel and took the elevator to the fourth floor. He was disappointed, but he had expected Elizabeth to be stubborn, and for the past month he had been thinking of other ways, knowing Ernie and Joe to the extent he did, to entertain them when they came to town.

Ernie Lumpkin, with a drink in his hand, flung open the door as soon as Roy knocked the first time. Joe was propped up on one of the twin beds with his shoes off and with the electric fan whirling full on his perspiring, florid face. Both of them had taken off their coats and rolled up their shirtsleeves. It had been oppressively hot in the hotel room all afternoon and they were restless and uncomfortable.

“Where in the south side of hell have you been since Noah fell off the ark?” Ernie shouted at him.

“Ernie, honest, I didn’t think I’d be gone this long. I’m sorry I’m so late getting back.”

“Me and Joe are getting as drunk as peewees on a perch, waiting in this sweat-box for you. Damn if I’m coming back down here again to this god-forsaken rabbit hole on the backside of a pea field to pay you good money for meal-cake if you think you’re too good to drink my whisky. How about that, Joe? You think we’re going to do business with this peckerwood again?”

“Damn if I know why we should, Ernie,” Joe Morningstar said, shaking his head and puffing out his cheeks. Unlike Ernie Lumpkin, who was a tall thin man with thick black hair, Joe was short and stockily built. He wore a large, flashy diamond ring on his left hand and usually kept the stump of an unlighted cigar in his mouth. He was bald-headed, although both he and Ernie were in their early forties. His genial, round face was lined with a perpetual grin which was difficult for him to hide when he tried to appear stern and disapproving. He and Ernie traveled the cotton states for their company and bought up most of the oil, meal, and hulls produced by the independent cottonseed mills. They usually came to Estherville every summer, late in August, for two or three days, and contracted to buy the output of Roy Blount’s mill for the coming year. “Meal-cake’s the same the country over, they tell me,” Joe remarked for Roy’s benefit, at the same time holding his hand over his face to cover up his grin and trying to make his voice sound gruff. “Why should we come back here again to be insulted? I’d a hell of a lot rather be insulted in Jacksonville or Birmingham. They put nice trimmings on the insults everywhere else. This’s terrible, I’m telling you.”

“I swear I didn’t mean to be gone so long,” Roy tried to speak in a convincing manner. He was not quite sure just how serious they really were. He did not know them well enough to be able to tell, at a time like that, whether they were merely joking or actually offended. He had to be careful not to offend them, because next year’s contract was still in the process of being drawn up. They had agreed earlier to meet at nine o’clock Monday morning in the office of the mill’s attorney and sign the agreement. Roy was well aware that in the meantime he was expected to protect the stockholders’ interests by keeping Ernie and Joe entertained over the weekend, so that they would be in an amicable mood Monday morning. Charley Singfield, the president of the mill, had called him on the phone the day before when he heard that Ernie and Joe were coming to town, and had told Roy to see to it that they were well taken care of over the weekend, and to spare no expense for their entertainment. Roy owned his home out on Chestnut Street near the country club, his children attended senior high school, his wife had just recently been elected president of the College Club for the coming year, and he hated to think of losing his position at the mill and having to move away. He crossed the room and poured himself a drink, prompted by the thought that that would be the best and quickest way to get back on friendly terms with them. He was on the verge of confiding in them the fact that it was his wife’s fault that he was so late, thinking that was something both of them would understand, but on a second hasty thought he decided that it might be better not to mention his wife. “Anyway,” he said, flourishing his glass in a carefree gesture and trying to enliven their spirits, “I’m all clear now and ready for fun.” He tried to get Ernie and Joe to smile with him. Both regarded him with stolid unyielding scowls, as though he had proved to be someone they could never have faith in. “All my chores are taken care of, and I’m as free as the breeze. Here’s to success, boys!”

Ernie, giving the door an ill-tempered kick, walked to the window. He stood there with his back to the room and stared morosely at the lively street below. Electric store signs had been turned on and street lights among the trees twinkled over the tops of the buildings. The usual Saturday night din and clangor of automobile horns, mingling with loud street voices, filled the room.

Presently Ernie turned away from the window, thoroughly ill-humored and disgusted. He looked Roy up and down with a disdainful sweep of the eyes.

“Here it is Saturday night already and nobody’s done a goddam thing for the good of the fraternity,” he addressed Roy accusingly. “I feel like an enoch, or whatever that damn thing is.” He turned his back on Roy and strode to the table. Picking up one of the bottles, he held it upside down over a glass and watched the bourbon gurgle and splash. “I’ll be a sawed-off son-of-a-bitch in a South Carolina post hole if I’m going to stand here like a Foot-Washing Baptist waiting for a dry towel and see a brand-new Saturday night get by me. Where I come from, no Saturday night ever got past me till I could draw a bead and pull the trigger, and I don’t mind telling the world I’ve got one hell of a load tonight.”

He swung around on his heels and glared at Roy Blount.

“Ernie, what would you and Joe like to do tonight?” Roy asked, not for a moment having forgotten what Charley Singfield had said to him on the phone.

“God damn it, Blount, get off that dime and flush a covey out of the piney woods. This’s your town. You know where the best coveys perch after dark. Now, get busy, Blount.”

“I know just what you mean, Ernie,” Roy said, forcing a grin to his face. He put his arm over Ernie’s shoulder in a friendly gesture. “I know exactly. But I want to explain something to you and Joe. This’s a small town. A hell of a small town. It’s not like Atlanta or New Orleans. You know that. You can’t expect too much in a little old place like Estherville. That’s right, isn’t it, Joe?”

Joe Morningstar, placid and chuckling, would not give any indication that he agreed with Roy. He rolled the unlit cigar stump to the other corner of his mouth with a practiced movement of his lips and tongue.

Ernie flung Roy’s arm away. “The hell I can’t expect, bud!” he said. “You don’t know Ernie Lumpkin. I hope you don’t think I’d let my train get sidetracked at a flagstop like this over the weekend just for a fistful of funny money. Me and Joe can always take care of the money angle. What we’re counting on is you taking care of the important things in life. You’re a hell of an oil-and-meal man if you don’t take care of a couple of true-blood friends who only want the best there is. That’s right, ain’t it, Joe? You tell them!”

“Ernie’s never been righter, Roy,” Joe promptly agreed with a wide infectious grin. “All we want is the best in town, and plenty of it on the line. It’s never hurt yet to have some left over for a rainy day, either.”

“There you are, Blount,” Ernie told him with a nod. “Now, count the votes.”

“But wait a minute,” Roy pleaded nervously. “You and Ernie don’t quite understand, Joe. You know I’m a right kind of fellow. I’d do anything for friends like you and Ernie. But when you live in a small town like Estherville, you get in the habit of going home every night and your wife takes care of everything. That’s the way it is in a small town. It’s not like—”

“Ernie, we’d better put in another pitcher,” Joe said. “That bush-leaguer out there can’t find the plate.”

“Yeah!” Ernie agreed. He started shaking a warning finger at Roy, and shouted, “Don’t give me that kind of talk, bud! Your wife might, but mine don’t. Not when she’s a couple of a hundred miles from here.” He continued shaking his finger at Roy. “Like the engineer told the fireman when the girl lost her panties on the track, I’ve got to look out for myself.”

Roy glanced appealingly at Joe on the bed. Joe chewed his cigar stump busily.

To Roy’s surprise, Ernie strolled over to him and put his arm around his neck and smiled friendlily for the first time. “You know what my wife said to me when I left home on this trip, Roy? Well, I’ll tell you. She said, ‘Ernest, if you’re determined to misbehave yourself, for God’s sake get it over with in a hurry every time.’ That’s what she said, bud, and I always obey the little lady. Let’s get going!”

Ernie stooped over and picked up Joe Morningstar’s shoes and threw them at Joe on the bed. Roy began walking nervously up and down the floor.

“Here’s how it is, Ernie,” he said from the other side of the room, not looking at either of them. “Everything’s pretty well spoken for in a place like this. There’s not much leeway. It’s a hell of a closed corporation—a town like this.” He stopped and walked to the foot of Joe’s bed. “It oughtn’t be hard for you to understand that, Joe. It’s logical, now ain’t it? Anybody who’s traveled around the country as much as you and Ernie know’s that’s a fact. I’m not trying to tell you something you don’t already know. I’m not that kind of a fellow.”

“What in hell are you driving at now, Blount?” Ernie demanded suspiciously. “It sounds to me mighty much like you’re trying to beg off.”

“No, I wouldn’t try to do that to you, Ernie,” he tried to speak convincingly. “It’s like this. In a place like Atlanta or New Orleans it wouldn’t hold water, and you’d know I was lying. But here it is true. I’ve lived in Estherville for fifteen years, and I know the place like the inside of my hand. If you were in my place—”

“So what!” Ernie demanded ruthlessly.

Roy looked hopefully at Joe Morningstar on the bed, wanting at least one of them to believe he was truthful and sincere. Joe, in spite of his grin, tried to appear indifferent. He shrugged his shoulders, giving the impression that he was unimpressed by Roy’s explanations.

“It’s like this,” Roy began again, glancing anxiously from one to the other. “Around here if you want to make certain plans, you can’t count on certain things.”

“Uh-huh!” Ernie said as he and Joe exchanged pained looks.

“There’s no doubt about it, Ernie,” Joe said with a solemn understanding. “Our pal’s trying to ditch us. I’ve heard that kind of talk before.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Joe, you and Ernie,” Roy said quickly. “What I mean by certain things is—”

“You mean certain things like counting on hot biscuits and sorghum molasses every morning for breakfast?” Ernie said in a sorrowful tone. The corners of his mouth drooped. “You mean me and Joe can’t count on that around here?”

Joe tried to conceal his grin by rolling his cigar to the other side of his mouth.

“You know what I mean, Ernie,” Roy appealed. “You have to make up your mind in advance to be satisfied with what you can get. It’s not like—”

Ernie clapped his hand on Roy’s shoulder. “I don’t know if I can stand to listen to that sad story any longer, Blount. It’s the saddest goddam story I’ve heard since they told me about the cat house burning down back in the old home town. I cried my eyes out when they told me about it. You’re breaking my heart, Blount. Please shut your goddam mouth!”

“Ernie,” Roy said seriously, “Ernie, what I meant was that if you go out on a party around here, you ought to know beforehand that it won’t be with a—ah—well, I mean it won’t be with a—ah—a white girl, Ernie.”

The whisky glass dropped from Ernie’s hand and shattered on the floor. He took a step backward, as though to regain his balance, and looked at Joe Morningstar. Joe’s round florid face broke into a wide grin.

“Joe,” Ernie said in a loud whisper, jerking his head at Roy, “Joe, he’s a hometown boy. What the hell do you know about that? Who would of guessed it?” He swung around on his heel, snatched up Roy’s hand, and began pumping it enthusiastically. “Bud, you don’t know how good it makes me feel all the way down to my itching toes to run into a hometown boy like this. How in hell have you been? Hear from the folks lately? How’s the world treating you? When was the last time you went back for a visit, bud? Tell me all about it!”

“I hope you know what I mean, Ernie,” Roy said uneasily as soon as he could get a word in. “I wouldn’t want you and Joe to be disappointed about anything.”

“Do I know what you mean! Roy, I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart. I really do. I mean it, bud. I had you down all wrong in my book.” He held up two fingers and wrapped them around each other. “From now on we’re just like that, Roy, and don’t you never let anybody tell you different. Sock them on the jaw, if they do.” He walked up and down in front of Roy, at the same time rubbing his hands together excitedly. “There’s no prettier sight in the whole world than three hometown peckers helling around together on a Saturday night. Isn’t that right, Joe? You’re goddam tooting it is! To tell the truth, Roy, me and Joe thought we were going to have trouble with you. That’s why I want to apologize. From now on we’re pals for life—all three of us. Come on, Joe! Get the hell off that bed!” He flung his arms around Roy’s neck. “Bud, when you started telling that sad story, I thought for sure me and Joe were getting our toes turned up, while you were fixing to get yours turned down. Now, just to show there’s no hard feelings, Roy, I don’t mind taking the one with the two little sofa pillows. I’m sort of used to it now, and I don’t mind a bit. I’ll be glad to do that for a pal like you. Joe! Get the hell up off there!”

Roy was trying to say something. There was a pained expression on his face when he reached out and caught Ernie’s arm. “I want to explain, Ernie,” he said urgently. “It’s not all that easy—I mean the way you make it sound. I think I can fix it, but we’ll have to go slow. The first thing to do—”

“Get your shoes on, Joe!” Ernie yelled out, ignoring Roy. “It’s Saturday night again, son! I thought for a while the calendar was all shot to hell. Get a move on, Joe!”

“It’s going to take a little time,” Roy was trying to tell them. “You’ll have to be patient, Ernie.”

Ernie turned up the bottle and took a long drink from it. Then he slapped his hat on his head and flung the door open.

“Bud, maybe you don’t know me very well, but they’ll tell you all over that I’ve always been willing to cooperate by waiting just long enough. Where the hell are you, Joe!”

Joe Morningstar had his shoes on by that time, and he wrapped one of the bottles in a newspaper and followed Ernie and Roy down the hall to the elevator. They stopped in the lobby and bought cigarettes and three cigars for Joe before going out to the car in front of the Pineland.

After getting into the back seat of the sedan, Ernie slapped Roy on the shoulder. “What a night for three hometown boys to hell around, Blount! But I knew we couldn’t miss, didn’t you, Joe?”

“How could we miss when we’ve got a lodge brother to take care of things?” Joe readily agreed.

“That’s it!” Ernie shouted, jarring Roy with his hand. “We’re lodge brothers from the old hometown. Let’s get going, brother!”

Roy began to feel uneasy as soon as they left Peachtree Street and turned into Gwinnet Alley. He stopped the car half a block from the cabin where Aunt Hazel Teasley lived and switched off the lights. After that he sat there looking straight ahead and wishing he had never allowed himself to get into such a situation. If his wife had only agreed to let him bring Ernie and Joe to Sunday dinner, he could have gone back to the hotel that afternoon, had a few drinks, put them to bed, and then gone on home. He knew the longer he sat there, the more impatient Ernie and Joe would become now. He opened the door and stepped out to the ground, begging them to stay where they were and not to try to follow him.

He walked down the dark lane under the leafy water-oaks. There were several Negro children playing in the alley and he could hear other children farther away. He could see a Negro man and woman sitting on a doorstep, and others were seated in rocking chairs in the sandy yards. He walked slowly in the warm summer darkness. From all directions came the shrill, excited cries of children playing and the noisy blare of radios. When he got to the front of Aunt Hazel’s cabin, he stopped and looked at the ginkgo trees in the yard while he tried to think what he could do next. There was no one in the front yard or on the doorstep, but a lamp in the hallway cast a bright beam of light all the way to the gate. He turned around and leaned on the fence, hoping he had not been recognized, when a Negro man and a girl walked past.

He had been standing there for several minutes, still undecided about what to do, when he saw Ganus Bazemore coming up the alley from the direction of the grocery store. He walked over to the gate and stood in front of it so Ganus would not be able to go into the house before he could speak to him. Ganus recognized him right away.

“Good evening, Mr. Roy,” he said, coming closer.

“Good evening, Ganus,” he said, keeping his voice low. “How are you tonight?”

“I’m all right, Mr. Roy.” He paused before saying anything more. Then he cautiously inquired, “Are you down here looking for somebody, Mr. Roy?”

“Well, I just happened to be walking past here, Ganus,” he said quickly, trying to sound convincing. He leaned against the fence in an attitude of unhurried ease. “Is this where you live?” He nodded his head toward the small unpainted cabin behind the ginkgo trees.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Roy. This’s Aunt Hazel’s house. We all live here.”

Roy tried not to give the impression that he was in a hurry, and he drummed his fingers on a paling, trying to keep count of the seconds as they passed.

“Well, since I’m down here,” he said presently, “I’d like to speak to your sister, Ganus. If she’s at home, I mean. I’ll wait right here.”

“You want to see Kathyanne about something?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll go tell her right away, Mr. Roy. I know she’s at home. And she’s been talking about hoping to get a steady job somewhere soon. She’s been looking all over town for steady work. You wait right here, Mr. Roy. It won’t take any time at all.”

Ganus opened the gate and ran into the cabin. Roy took out a cigarette, but, just as he was getting ready to strike a match, he heard voices on the other side of the alley and he threw the cigarette away. Just then he saw Kathyanne come to the door and look in his direction. She stood there a moment, before coming down the steps and walking slowly toward him at the gate. He waited until she was standing on the sidewalk before speaking to her.

“I guess Ganus told you I was out here, Kathyanne,” he began uncertainly. He wondered if he would ever be able to get around to telling her why he was there. “I happened to be down here, and I thought—” His voice faltered in the middle of what he was saying. He felt ill at ease in her presence, and he wondered what Ernie and Joe would say to her if they had been in his place.

“Yes, Mr. Roy?” she said, looking directly at him.

“That’s what I mean,” he muttered indistinctly, still groping for something to say. He wanted to sound casual and friendly. He had seen her at a distance several times before, usually when he was driving home from the mill and she was walking- along the street, but this was the first time he had ever spoken to her. He was surprised to see how good-looking she was, and he felt awkward standing there and not being able to talk to her naturally. He wished he could have stopped right there, and walked away. He had no idea how he could get away now, though, and the longer he waited, the more danger there was of Ernie and Joe coming down the alley. He wondered if he looked as much like a bashful schoolboy as he felt when he tried to smile at her. “How—how’re you tonight, Kathyanne?” he muttered.

“Oh, I’m just fine, Mr. Roy,” she answered so quickly that he was convinced she was reading his thoughts. “Do you want to see me about something?” He knew at once that he would never be able to forget how unmistakably innocent she had made the question sound. It made him feel as though he were betraying someone who had trusted him. “Was that why you came down here, Mr. Roy?”

“Well,” he said, wondering how he could answer the question, “that’s right.” He saw her smiling at his flustered appearance. “I did want to talk to you about something, Kathyanne.”

He was certain he saw a change come over her as she watched his nervous manner.

“What do you want to talk to me about, Mr. Roy?” she then asked forthrightly. “Is it about working at your house?”

“Well, not exactly—my wife usually—but it’s about something. I mean, it’s about something else.”

“About what?”

He took a step backward, at the same time nodding up the alley. “If we went up this way—we could talk better. There’s not so many people around—up that way.”

She hesitated at first, and then she walked past him. Roy hurried to catch up with her and they went past the next house in silence. Nothing was said until he suddenly glimpsed his car ahead.

“Kathyanne, I’d appreciate it a lot if you’d help me out,” he said earnestly. He grasped her arm in a tight grip to prevent her from getting away now. “This’s awfully important to me. I don’t know you very well, but I’ve heard a lot about you. A couple of lodge brothers came to town today, and I thought—”

“You thought what, Mr. Roy?”

“Well, these lodge brothers—they’re nice people—”

“What lodge do they belong to, Mr. Roy?” she asked without a trace of a smile. He stared at her bewilderedly. He was unable to decide whether or not she was being sarcastic. “What’s the name of the lodge, Mr. Roy?” she insisted. This time he thought he saw a fleeting smile on her lips.

“Well, it’s a hometown lodge. Anyway, just a lodge.”

“Do you belong to it, Mr. Roy?”

“Me?”

This time there was no doubt about it. She laughed outright at him.

“I guess so, Kathyanne,” he replied meekly. “Anyway,” he then said anxiously as he watched the sedan under the water-oak, “you’d be doing me a great favor. That’s how it is.”

“But, Ganus said—”

“He did?” he spoke up hastily, getting a tighter grip on her arm. By that time he was willing to promise anything. He could see Ernie and Joe opening the door of the sedan. “Jobs are a little scarce right now, Kathyanne. Everybody knows that. But something’ll be sure to open up for you soon. I’ll certainly keep it in mind. You can count on that. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day. Who knows?”

“Why are you asking me to do a favor for you, Mr. Roy?”

“Well, I did a favor for you not long ago, Kathyanne, and I thought maybe you’d appreciate it.”

“What favor did you do, Mr. Roy?”

“I got you out of jail a few weeks ago.”

She shook her head. “The judge let me off, Mr. Roy.”

He could feel her pulling away from him, and he held her with both hands. “The judge let you off because I paid your fine, Kathyanne.” He began urging her toward the car. “I heard Will Hanford talking about it in the post office, and I fixed it up with Will and sent the money over before court opened that morning. I paid that twenty-five-dollar fine for you.”

“I wish you hadn’t done it, Mr. Roy.”

“Why?”

“Because then you wouldn’t come down here and try to make me go off in that car.” She suddenly began struggling to free herself. “I hate you—all you white men! Why don’t you go after white girls—and leave us alone!”

He could see Ernie and Joe watching them from the rear seat, and he pulled her across the sidewalk.

Ernie jumped out and grabbed her.

“Look here!” Ernie said in a loud voice. “God damn, just look here, would you!”

He was glad to be able to turn her over to Ernie and be relieved of the responsibility. Ernie pushed Kathyanne into the car, got in behind her, and slammed the door shut. Roy walked around the front of the car and got under the steering wheel. As he started the engine, he wondered what Kathyanne thought of him at that moment. The fact that she was sitting silently in the rear seat hurt him more than she could have done by violently cursing him. He turned the car around and drove rapidly toward the country. They had gone eastward several blocks when Joe leaned over his shoulder.

“Turn this apparatus around, Roy,” Joe told him, chewing on the cigar stump.

He was planning to go to the fishing camp ten miles from town and he wanted to get there as quickly as possible. “Why, Joe?” he asked, slowing down.

“We’ve got to go back to the hotel and get some wet bottles, Roy. Ernie’s sucked this one dry.”

The empty bottle sailed past his head and through the open window. It crashed in a shower of glass on the pavement. Roy turned the car around in the middle of the block and drove back to the Pineland, carefully avoiding Peachtree Street and going through the alleys. The last thing he wanted to happen was for somebody to see him driving through town on a Saturday night with a mulatto girl in his car. He stopped at the rear of the hotel where the street was unlighted and switched off the engine while Joe went up to the room and got two more bottles of bourbon.

He was sitting there slumped in the seat, wondering what his wife would say if she ever found out what he had done, when Ernie hit him a jarring blow on the shoulder.

“Roy, bud, you’re a dream out of a bellyful of whipped cream,” Ernie said, shaking him. “I never thought you’d get up a decent party for us tonight. Why didn’t you tell me what was coming up? I couldn’t have got up a better party if I’d been doing it myself. But you sure had me and Joe worried sick all this time. And now you come through like a gentleman. I’ll bet you had this planned a month ago—didn’t he, Kathyanne? You had it all figured out in advance that two peckers like me and Joe would rather get our toes turned down on a Saturday night than have to go to your house for Sunday dinner and watch our talk in front of your wife. You’re one hell of a smart oil-and-meal operator, Blount. You know what? Well, I’ll tell you. You’ll end up owning that goddam cottonseed grinder out there one of these days. Believe me, it’s the smart boys like you who know how to climb that old tough titty of a ladder to success. You’re on your way up, bud, old pal, and I’m proud to know you. You can teach me a thing or two about getting ahead in this cockeyed world.” He jarred Roy again with his fist. “If it wasn’t for the wonderful people like you in it, the oil-and-meal business wouldn’t have no more romance than a virgin stuck in a zipper. Ain’t that right, brother?”

“I guess so, Ernie,” Roy said, slumping deeper into the seat.

Part Three

LATE  AUTUMN

Chapter 9

SINCE A FEW MINUTES before eight that chilly autumn morning, Ganus had been trudging behind the creaking pushcart, hopefully stopping at house after house to ring the big brass dinner bell, and, when noon came, he was almost at the end of Woodbine Street in the west side of town.

The pavement had ended several blocks behind him, and a short distance ahead, where ragged brown stalks of the past summer’s cotton stood lifeless in the red clay earth, the country began. With the last house in sight, he bent over once more and wearily pushed the heavy cart down the street.

When he stopped, he reached for the brass bell in the cart and began ringing it in a mournful tolling rhythm. There he stood in the middle of the street shivering and shaking as the cold damp wind from the Piedmont in the north, sweeping over the low clay hills and sandy ridges under the leaden sky, flapped his faded patched overalls against his legs.

“I-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!” he called out in a doleful voice. “Here’s your i-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!”

Squeezing his arms against his body for warmth, he watched the dilapidated weather-gray dwelling expectantly to see if anybody would come to the door. It was a one-story shingle-roof breezeway of five rooms, with dusty-leaf Spanish bayonets, stunted and curled for want of care, standing gauntly at each side of the front steps. Blue wood-smoke was drifting southward from the kitchen chimney on the ell-side of the dogtrot, but there was no other sign of life about the place, and he wondered if Mrs. Kettles was at home to hear the bell. After a while the sound of the mournful tolling gradually died away as he put the bell back into the cart.

Walking as far as the gate, he cupped his hands around his mouth and called out again in the same doleful sing-song voice.

“I-c-y-m-i-s-s-y! Here’s your i-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!” He waited several moments, cocking his ear to hear the sound of the slightest movement inside the house, and then resumed the chant. “I-c-y-m-i-s-s-y! Here’s your i-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!”

He was heartened to see the flutter of a curtain as it was pulled aside at one of the windows, and then he caught a glimpse of a woman’s face. He unlatched the gate, stepped into the yard, and called with renewed persistence.

“I-c-y-m-i-s-s-y! Here’s your i-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!”

Just as he finished, the door opened several inches and he saw Mrs. Kettles looking out at him. Kitty was a young woman, not yet twenty-three, and of medium height; and as usual, in winter and summer alike, she was carelessly dressed. In the hot summer months she went about the house wearing a wrap-around apron and a flimsy pink brassiere. It now being the beginning of the cold months, she had already made a seasonal change. She had on a wrinkled mauve petticoat and, instead of a brassiere, a close-fitting emerald-green sweater that bulged conspicuously with her remarkably prominent breasts. She rarely left the house, but when she did go downtown, many men, unaccustomed to such a display, and seeing her for the first time as she walked along the street, had been startled speechless by her extraordinary appearance; other men, suddenly remembering important business in the post office or at the drug store she patronized, followed her in order to convince themselves that her unique appearance was a natural development. During such trips downtown, Kitty invariably lost her temper completely and, in a language not often heard in Estherville, cursed at the small boys who ran along beside her gawking at such an unusual sight. The reaction of most of the wives, upon hearing Kitty Kettles described by their husbands, was either outright skeptical or bitterly sarcastic. Her straight, pale, blond hair always looked uncombed and, unless she were going out, she rarely bothered to keep it brushed back from her face.

Kitty was alone most of the time, because Levi Kettles was usually away from home hauling baled cotton on his trailer-truck to spinning mills in Augusta and Clearwater, and she sprawled in bed and read love-story and confession magazines hour after hour. Levi had seen her in a company town one day while he was trucking baled cotton to the mill and, after unloading, he drove back to the house to see if he had been daydreaming or if he had actually seen what he thought he had. He was amazed when he walked up the steps and had had a good look at her. Kitty liked his looks, too, and his bold manner, and it had been easy to persuade her to leave. After half an hour of his bantering talk and free promises, she had packed her best clothes in a suitcase, left word with a neighbor so her parents would not worry about her, got into the truck cab, and ridden away with Levi. They had been living together for about two years, and, although she had begged him many times to keep his promise, Levi was in no hurry to get married. He always told her that there was plenty of time to go to all that trouble later. Levi, a large burly man of thirty, was rough and loud-talking and accustomed to having his own way with women. Kitty had decided, from the first, that no matter how Levi treated her, she would be much better off staying with him than going back home and having to return to work in the spinning mill tending bobbins. Her parents had sent her to work when she was thirteen and she had been waiting for an opportunity to escape from mill life and the company town since she was eighteen. She considered herself lucky to have attracted Levi’s attention and to have made him want her enough to take her away with him. However she was lonely, and she cried in bed several times a day.

“I-c-y-m-i-s-s-y! Here’s your i-c-y-m-i-s-s-y!” Ganus chanted urgently as he watched Kitty in the doorway.

She opened the door a little wider.

“What in the world are you selling, Ganus?” she asked.

“I’m trying to sell folks some ice, Miss Kitty.”

“In this ungodly weather?”

“I reckon so,” he admitted dolefully. “Nobody wants to buy it, though, it looks like. You wouldn’t happen to want to buy some, would you, Miss Kitty?”

“Jesus Christ, I should say not, in this god-awful weather! Can’t you find something else to sell, Ganus?”

“I dug a big bucket of fishing worms in our backyard and tried to sell bait, but since cold weather started in nobody’s been going fishing much lately, it looks like. I scooped out a big hole and put them all back in the ground so they’d be there next year.”

He could see her whole body shake as a blast of cold wind struck the side of the house and went whistling through the dogtrot. He hugged his chest with both arms.

“Jesus Christ, Ganus, you look half-frozen,” she remarked with a sympathetic shaking of her head. “I hate to see anybody look so forlorn and cold on a god-awful day like this. This weather’d hang an icicle on a rich man’s pokey. Don’t you even have no gloves to put on?”

“No, ma’m,” he said, with a convulsive shiver shaking him all over. He expected her to close the door at any moment and to leave him with no choice but to turn the heavy cart around and start pushing it homeward. “It sure enough is a mighty cold day, Miss Kitty,” he said, with another pathetic spasm of shaking and trembling. “I don’t know when I’ve ever felt so cold before. It’s got down inside my bones, too.”

Kitty opened the door a little wider and carefully looked up the street toward town to see if anyone were coming from that direction. Ganus had been the only person on the street during the past hour.

“How’ve you been lately, Miss Kitty?” he asked, hoping to keep her engaged in conversation so she would not shut the door. “Have you been staying well lately?”

She looked at him for a moment before answering. “I’ve been pretty well, Ganus,” she told him. “This goddam weather’s enough to kill off the rich and poor alike, though.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed. “It sure might do just that.”

Once more she looked up Woodbine Street toward town. Ganus felt his teeth begin to chatter.

“I don’t want no part of that damn ice, Ganus,” she said quickly, “but you can come in the kitchen and get warm if you want to. It’s colder out here than the backside of a privy on top of a hill in a snowstorm.”

“I sure would appreciate that, Miss Kitty—but—”

“But what but?” she asked impatiently, her arms hugging her huge protruding breasts to protect herself from the cold piercing wind. “What’s the matter with you, Ganus? Looks like you’d trip over your pole for a chance to get out of that god-awful cold.”

His teeth were chattering uncontrollably as he stared at her in the tight green sweater.

“Yes, ma’m, but—but—”

“Oh, stop that fidgeting around like that out there in the cold, Ganus,” she said scoldingly. “For Christ’s sake, hitch up the slack in the seat of your pants and come on in the house and get your nubbin warm. It gives me the shivers just to look at you.”

He moved his head from side to side resolutely.

“I sure would like to get warm, Miss Kitty, but—but I sure don’t want to get in trouble. I’ve done had my share of that already, and I don’t want no more of it. I wouldn’t say it’s your fault, Miss Kitty, but it looks like something always comes along and gets me in trouble, when I don’t take care. That’s the Good Man’s own truth, Miss Kitty.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, provoked with him. “I’m only trying to let you get warm, Ganus. I can’t stand to see anybody look so cold and miserable. It’s a goddam shame any human has to be out on a day like this.”

“Would you want to buy a little piece of ice then, Miss Kitty?”

“Good God, no!” She beckoned to him with her hand. “Come on around to the kitchen door, Ganus. I’ll let you in.”

“You reckon it’ll be all right, Miss Kitty?” he asked doubtfully. “I mean, couldn’t nothing go wrong, could it?”

“Oh, quit gabbling, Ganus, and come on in.”

“Yes, ma’m,” he said obediently.

As soon as she had closed the front door, he looked up the street. Seeing no one within sight, he then trotted around the corner of the house to the kitchen.

He was standing at the door before she could get there to open it, and he waited on the step and rubbed his numb fingers together and tried to keep his teeth from chattering. When she opened the door, he stooped over, his hands and knees almost touching the floor, and got past her into the warm kitchen with a nimble movement that enabled him to keep from touching the green sweater in the narrow passage. He could feel the sensation of the chill leaving his body as soon as the warmth of the stove reached him through the thin clothing.

“Now, stand there by the stove and get yourself thawed out, Ganus,” she spoke as though scolding him for having come out in such weather. “Go on and do like I tell you. You’d better get yourself some gloves, and a big overcoat, too, if you’re going out in this god-awful weather again.”

“Yes, ma’m,” he said.

He watched her from the corners of his eyes as she opened the fire-box and shoved sticks of wood inside. Hunching his shoulders, he crouched over the hot stove and rubbed the warmth into his hands. When she had finished replenishing the fire, she sat down on one of the kitchen chairs. He looked straight ahead and tried to keep from glancing in her direction after he had noticed the careless way she had pulled up the tight mauve petticoat and crossed her leg over her knee.

“Jesus only knows how sorry I felt for you out there in the street,” she said sympathetically, watching him with concern. “I said to myself, “That poor boy’s liable to get frostbitten—nubbin and all.’ I just can’t stand seeing people suffer. It does something to me, deep down inside where it hurts the worst. Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been big-hearted, to the rich and poor alike, when I see somebody I can do something for. Some folks say it’s hell to be so big-hearted, but I like it. It makes me feel good to give somebody what they want real bad. Rich or poor, I’ll do it every chance I get. If a stranger walked in that door right now, I wouldn’t be satisfied till I’d been big-hearted to him. See how it is with me, Ganus?”

“Yes, ma’m,” he said, bothered by a persistent feeling of misgiving. He wished now he had stayed out in the street instead of listening to her. He could not put out of mind the memory of what had happened when he made the mistake of going into Vernice Weathersbee’s bungalow. Presently he asked, “Miss Kitty, where’s Mr. Levi now?”

“Levi? Oh, I don’t know where he’s at now,” she replied indifferently. Continuing in the same casual manner, she said, “All I know is that the son-of-a-bitch’s off somewhere driving that goddam truck of his. If he ain’t hung up somewhere, likely as not.”

He was shocked, and it was several moments before he could say anything again. “When’s Mr. Levi coming home, Miss Kitty?”

“How the hell would I know!” she said with a short laugh. “I never expect to see the bastard till I see him.” She shrugged her shoulders. “When he does come home the next time, I know one thing, though, and that is that he won’t be here long. All he cares about is driving that damn truck-and-trailer of his to hell and gone all over the country day and night.”

She lit a cigarette and blew smoke across the kitchen.

“Are you getting warm?” she asked after a while.

“Yes, ma’m, Miss Kitty,” he answered gratefully. “You sure are good to me.” He allowed himself to turn and look at her with a brief appreciative glance. “All morning long nobody else let me come in and get warm. Looks like most folks don’t care how cold it gets outside for the colored. They just don’t want me in their house, I reckon.”

“How much ice have you sold today?”

“None at all, Miss Kitty. But Mrs. Upshaw over there in that little red house on Oak Street near the white-folks’ Baptist church gave me a quarter for splitting up some stove-wood for her about an hour ago. I made that much so far today, but that’s all.” He shook his head to himself. “It looks like it’s just as hard for me these days to make a dime as it is to make a dollar. Things sure have tightened up for me since the middle of last summer.”

“I thought you had a good job at Daitch’s Market. Why did you quit such a fine job?”

“That’s when things started tightening up for me, Miss Kitty. But I didn’t exactly quit it.” He looked down at the top of the stove with a sad expression. “I was trying as hard as I could to hold on to that fine job, but something bad came along and I didn’t get to finish work one day and when I went to go to work the next morning, Mr. Harry told me he’d hired another boy because I’d stayed off the job nearly one whole afternoon. Dr. English found out about it somehow, and he sent over and took my bicycle away from me, too. I started out to hustle some groceries up to Mrs. Vernice Weathersbee’s little house up there on Cypress Street and, I declare, that’s how all the trouble started. Looks like something bad’s always on the lookout for me. I don’t try to get in trouble, but somehow trouble always finds out where I am and creeps up on me before I can watch out for it. The Good Man knows that’s the truth, Miss Kitty. I hate to say it, but it’s the white folks who always do the harm. My sister’s been hunting for steady work all the past summer, but the white folks just won’t leave her alone, neither, and she’s afraid to tell on white men when they bother her. Some white man did her real bad, and she’s afraid to tell about that, too. Looks like it gets worse all the time for both of us—ever since we moved to town more than a year ago to live with Aunt Hazel. I reckon it wouldn’t help none to tell on them, anyway—it’d just make everything a lot worse in the end. I’ve been looking all over to find me a steady job since Mr. Harry made me quit that day, but I can’t seem to find one. That’s why I started out trying to sell a little ice this morning. I reckon it was the wrong thing to do, though, with so much cold weather coming along. Most folks get all the ice they want at this time of year just by setting a pan of water on the back steps at night and letting it freeze up tight.”

“When do you eat then, Ganus, if you’re not working?” Kitty asked with a worried look.

“We don’t none of us always eat, on time, every day, Miss Kitty.”

“Are you hungry now?”

“I sure am, Miss Kitty. I’d do anything for a little bite of something to eat right now. I’d be mighty glad to go out there in the backyard and chop up all your wood for you. I’d sure be thankful if I could take a little bite of something home for Kathyanne and Aunt Hazel, too. They get mighty hungry sometimes, just like I do.”

Kitty got up. “I didn’t know you were that bad off, Ganus,” she said, deeply concerned. “It’s a goddam shame. Nobody ought to have to go hungry. There ought to be enough to eat for everybody. There’s plenty of things grown in the ground. It’s a goddam shame for everybody not to get his share of it. You do look awfully gaunt and hungry. There’s some sweet potatoes baking in the oven, and I’ll fry some sausage for you. I can’t stand to see anybody go hungry, white or black.”

He motioned her away from the stove with a quick gesture of his arms.

“I’ll do all that, Miss Kitty,” he told her. “You let me do all the cooking, if there’s any to be done. You just go and sit down somewhere nice and comfortable and don’t bother yourself. I’ll fix everything just right.”

He pulled off his sweater and tied a dry dishtowel around his waist. Then he got the frying pan and put it on the stove to heat. Leaving the kitchen, Kitty went to the bedroom. She lay down on the bed and read some more. She could hear Ganus moving around lightly in the kitchen for the next quarter-hour, and soon after that there was a knock on the bedroom door.

“Miss Kitty, everything’s all ready and hot,” he said with a pleased grin. “I made some fine coffee and short biscuits. I found a jar of strawberry preserves in the pantry, too. If you’ll come and sit down at the table, I’ll have your sweet potatoes and sausage all ready for you to eat.”

She went into the kitchen, and, to her surprise, saw that he had put a clean white cloth over the stained oilcloth on the table. The water glasses sparkled and he had found a white napkin somewhere and had folded it on her plate. She had never seen a table set so invitingly before; she had always been accustomed to putting plates and cups-and-saucers in front of the chairs and then sitting down to eat. And when Ganus pulled her chair back and then pushed it forward as she sat down, she remembered she once had seen the same thing done in a moving picture. Without a word, she leaned over the table and began eating the sausage and sweet potatoes and hot biscuits. Ganus served himself and then sat down on the woodbox behind the stove and began eating hungrily. Halfway through the meal she noticed that Ganus was watching her over the top of the stove with a worried frown.

“What’s the matter, Ganus?” she asked.

“Miss Kitty, where’d you say Mr. Levi is now?” he asked as though he had been dissatisfied with her answer ever since he had asked her the first time.

“Only God Himself knows,” she said, looking out the window at the trash-littered yard. “All I ever know about him is that he’s here when he gets here, and that he won’t stay long after that. He only stays long enough to eat a meal and take a nap and change his clothes. Then he’s gone again for God only knows how long—maybe three days, four days, a week. If he came home at midnight, he’d be gone again by three or four o’clock to load cotton somewhere and truck it to the mill. I get mad as hell at him sometimes. It’s lonesome staying here all by myself, but he won’t listen to me. All he ever says is, button up and sit tight and wait for him to come back the next time. It’s always the next time, God damn him.” She stopped and looked at Ganus behind the stove, grateful to be able to talk to anybody about the things her mind had dwelt on for so long a time.

Ganus nodded solemnly, wondering why she was saying such things to him. “Yes, ma’m,” he said when she continued to look at him.

“God only knows how bad in the dumps I get sometimes. I get the worst blue funks a girl ever had waiting for a man to get the notion. It’s plain hell to want a man real bad and, God damn it, know you can’t get him, at least not when you want the son-of-a-bitch the most. Even when he does come home, it’s just as apt as not to do you no damn good. Half the time he’s been all petered out already. Some female in Augusta or somewhere along the road comes along and frazzles him to a fare-you-well before I get a chance. It’s a hell of a note for somebody like me who’s been used to taking it or leaving it all my life to have to wait for him to get hard up for me. Rich or poor, that’s a shame for any girl. What I ought to do is walk out and leave him, but the bastard does something to me, and it gets under my skin, and I get all tingly all over when he walks in and gives me that up and down look of his. Oh, God help me! Something hits me like a ton of frozen brickbats. I never want to quit after that starts. The rest of the time I know damn well I’d have better chances hiding out in a Methodist belfry. But I don’t know what to do about it. If I left him, I might be sorry, and get a worse deal from the next one I took up with. Men sure can be as mean as a snake till they get the notion. Rich or poor, nothing’s too good for a girl then. They shuck off and crawl around and treat me like a gypsy queen in a feather bed on a rainy night down in Florida. But just wait till they get limber, and then it’s the same old hell all over again till the next time they get the notion, and start shucking off and begging some more. The goddam bastards. They’ll ruin your life every time, every frigging one of them, rich or poor. They’re nothing but stingy, mean, selfish liars. I wish to God I could get along without men. But who can? I know I can’t keep away from them. Just let one come along with the notion, and I get in the mood like nobody’s business. I’ve never known it to fail yet.” She looked straight at Ganus. “I reckon my big trouble is that, rich or poor, a man can always get me where he wants me, God help me.”

Ganus jumped up and busied himself with the dishes. He did not say anything to her until the dishes had been rinsed and dried and put away. Then he sat down on the floor between the stove and the wall and leaned back against the woodbox.

“It sure would be nice if you could stay here and do all the work, Ganus,” she said, nodding to herself. “It would be nice to have you here to do all the cooking and cleaning and things like that.” Then she laughed to herself. “He wouldn’t let you stay, though. He wouldn’t even let you stay and work for nothing. That’s the kind he is.” She got up and went to the door. “The bastard,” she said hoarsely.

After leaving the kitchen, she went back to bed to read some more. As soon as she was out of sight, Ganus stretched out beside the woodbox and went to sleep. Later when Kitty tiptoed into the kitchen to see why he was so quiet, she got a quilt and spread it over him. Then she went back to bed and cried.

It was about five o’clock when she heard a truck rumble into the yard and she jumped up and looked out the window. It was Levi. She was so glad to see him that she forgot all about Ganus. She waited for him to come into the house but, instead of coming to the front door, he went around to the rear. When she did remember Ganus, it was too late to get him out of the house. Levi was opening the kitchen door and coming inside when she ran from the bedroom. She started back, hoping that Levi would follow her but, instead, he caught her by the arm. She had time to glance behind the stove, and she was relieved to see that Ganus was still covered with the quilt.

“You’re looking mighty good, Kitty,” he told her, pulling her into his arms.

“Gee, it’s good to see you, Levi,” she said as she put her arms around his neck. “I’ve been thinking about you all day. And now, here you are!”

“I seem to be at the right place.” He chuckled with a good feeling.

“There’s only one place for you, Levi.”

“I guess you’re right, Kitty. I got to thinking I’d come home and take off my shoes for a while. It’s easy to get out of the habit, the way I ride the road all the time.”

“Come on and let me take them off for you, Levi,” she urged him, pulling him toward the door.

Just then Ganus woke up, and, with a frightened look, threw the quilt aside. Levi stepped back to the middle of the room.

“Say! What’s this nigger doing here?” he demanded, his whole manner changed.

“That’s Ganus Bazemore, Levi,” she said, trying to remain calm.

“I know goddam well it is!” he shouted at her. “What I’m asking is, what in hell’s a nigger doing in my house sleeping behind the stove like that! What the hell’s going on around here, anyhow!”

“He was cold, Levi,” she pleaded, going to him and trying to put her arms around him. “I just had to let him come in and get warm. I couldn’t stand seeing him out there in the street, shaking all over. And after that he went to sleep.”

“Yeh?” he said, shoving her away. “Well, let me tell you something! No goddam nigger’s coming in my house and act like he was good enough to pick himself out a place to sleep. Any nigger with the sense he’s born with ought to know better than that. If that yellow-skin ain’t got that much sense, I’ll sure-God learn him quick.” He went behind the stove and kicked Ganus. “Get out of here, nigger, before I bash your head in! You goddam sneaking yellow-skin! Coming in here to hang around a white woman when you know damn well I ain’t home!”

“If you’d come home oftener, and do like you ought to do, you wouldn’t of found him here,” Kitty said with a taunting smile.

“What in hell are you talking about?” he said, amazed. “What in the goddam hell are you saying?”

Ganus began to tremble. “Mr. Levi, I don’t know what Miss Kitty’s, talking about, but, please, sir, all I wanted to do was sell a little piece of ice. I’d been out in the cold all morning and—”

“Shut your mouth, nigger! Why would I give a good goddam if you froze stiff in a chunk of ice! If I want to know something from you, I’ll do the talking!” He caught Kitty by both arms and shook her violently. Her pale blond hair tumbled over her face. “Now what in hell’s this all about? What’s been going on around here?”

Kitty began to cry. “Nothing, Levi! Honest to God! I was only saying that to try to make you feel bad for staying away so much. Ganus came in here and cooked dinner for me and cleaned up the kitchen and then went to sleep.” She tried to smile reassuringly through her tears. “That’s all, Levi. It’s the truth. He was just a cold boy, and I didn’t think it made any difference because he’s colored.”

“Just a cold boy, huh!” He released her arms and shoved her roughly. “That’s a hot one. Just a cold boy. Laying around the house where there’s a white woman in it. I know all about these yellow-skin niggers. They’re always after white women like ducks taking to water.” He started toward Kitty again, backing her against the kitchen table. “By God, I was ready to believe you once, but I’m not so sure, no more. I don’t like the looks of it. And, by God, I don’t like to see a white woman take up for a nigger, neither. It don’t sound right to me.” He stopped abruptly and slapped her face, knocking her away from the table. She ran to the other side of the kitchen and got behind one of the chairs. She was no longer crying. She had become angry.

“I don’t have friends like other people and I get lonesome, Levi Kettles. Even the women on this same street won’t have nothing to do with me, because they know we’re not married. I stay here day after day in this god-forsaken house waiting for you to come home, and I want to talk to somebody. I don’t care who it is—white or black, it makes no difference. I can’t stand being lonesome all my life. When I saw Ganus out there selling ice this morning, I just had to talk to him, because there wasn’t nobody else to open my mouth to. You never come home long enough to fix the roof where it leaks and clean up the yard. I even have to go out there and split kindling and stove-wood for myself. You promised to marry me, too, but you never did, you liar you! Ever since you brought me here you’ve treated me like a Savannah whore, and I’m getting tired of it, God damn you. I want to be treated like a lady. That’s what I want. There’s plenty of men who’d treat me like a lady, too, for what I’d do for them, if I gave them the chance. I know how to get next to a man. I could even pick and choose, if I wanted to. And none of them would do like you do, God damn you! They’d treat me nice.”

“If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be up there whoring around in that mill-town.”

“If I was, I’d be a lady-whore, by God! I wouldn’t be your kind!”

Levi knocked the chair aside and hit her until she fell in the corner. She lay there whimpering and crying to herself while he stood over her.

“I’ve been wondering about you for a long time,” he told her with a harsh glare. “Maybe you’ve been playing me for a damn fool. How do I know what you do while I’m away from home? How would I know about your kind? Answer me that! I wouldn’t believe you now, noway, even if you swore on a stack of Bibles. The place for your kind is in a whorehouse with all the rest of your kind of whores. And don’t think I wouldn’t put you there, neither. If I say so, that’s where you’re going to find yourself mighty damn quick.”

Kitty sat up and tried to wipe the tears from her face. She was frightened by the threats. She threw her arms around Levi’s legs and held to him desperately.

“Please don’t do that, Levi,” she pleaded tearfully. “For God’s sake, don’t make me go. I want to stay here. I’ll never complain again. Please don’t make me go there.” She sobbed brokenly. “I swear this’s the first time Ganus’s ever been in the house. And nobody else, neither. And he wouldn’t be here now if it hadn’t turned so cold outside. I had to take care of somebody. I couldn’t help the feeling. You know how sorry I feel for people sometimes. I just can’t stand to see anybody suffer. It’s the way I am. I can’t help it. I got to feeling sorry for him, seeing him shivering out there in the cold, and it made me go all to pieces. That, and wanting to talk to somebody, too. I had to tell him to come in the kitchen and get warm. He didn’t want to come, because he was scared, but I told him to. That’s the way it was. It wasn’t any other way. I swear it! Don’t make me go where you said. Please, Levi! For God’s sake, don’t do it! God have mercy on me—don’t let him send me off to a whorehouse! I want to stay here with you, Levi! I’ll never leave you!”

Levi kicked his legs free of her grip and walked away. Kitty was on her knees. The stringy blond hair hanging over her face was wet with tears.

“Don’t you believe me, Levi?” she begged. “Please say you do!”

He turned and watched her undecidedly.

“I’m telling you the precious truth, Levi,” she said beseechingly. “You know I don’t lie to you, don’t you, Levi?”

“I don’t know,” he said, subdued, as he walked toward the stove. “But I’ll find out. I’ve got ways.”

He went to the woodbox and selected a heavy stick of oak. Ganus, fearful, watched his actions.

“I’m not through with you, nigger,” he told Ganus. “There’s only one way to learn niggers a lesson when they’re caught hanging around a white woman, but I haven’t got time to fool with you now. I’ll get you one of these days, if somebody else don’t get you first. I don’t forget when I’ve got it in for a nigger. You’ll find that out. Now get out of my house and stay out, but you’d better not try to leave town. You’ve got enough sense to know what happens to niggers who try to run off.” He drew back his arm and hurled the heavy oak stick at Ganus. Ganus tried to dodge it, but it struck him on the chest.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Levi,” he said, clutching at his chest and trying to reach the door without being hit again. “I’m going to do everything you say.”

“Don’t hit him again, Levi!” Kitty cried out. She covered her face with her hands. “Please don’t hurt him, Levi! I can’t stand to see anybody hurt!”

“Shut up!” he shouted at her. “I’m not through with you yet, neither. I’ll get you when I’m finished with him.”

Ganus darted past Levi and got the door open. Before he could reach the yard, however, another stick of wood struck him on the back of the head, and he went tumbling headlong down the steps. He lay on the ground partly stunned while Levi stood in the doorway watching him and cursing. As soon as he could get to his feet, he ran as fast as he could around the house toward the street.

Chapter 10

IT WAS A BRIGHT and cloudless Sunday afternoon with the low southern sun beaming warmly upon the side of the weathered cabin. Now and then the handful of English sparrows on the fence chirped feebly and wintering robins in the hedges fluttered in quarrelsome outbursts of squabbling. Frosty nights, earlier in November, had shriveled the clumps of violets in the yard and withered the gourd vine over the back porch, but the hardy rose tree, protected from northerly winds and warmed by the brick fireplace chimney, was green and luxuriant, and velvety ruby-red petals were unfolding in the sun. Several young couples, some hand-in-hand and all dressed in Sunday best, had strolled up and down Gwinnet Alley during the past hour. Beyond the yard and over the vacant lots could be seen the stooping ragged figures of a man and a woman gathering small chunks of coal from the railroad right-of-way and carefully putting them into tow-sacks. Farther away could be heard the musical tinkle of a bell on a cow browsing for green shoots in a fencerow.

The tall, awkward brown-skin boy, dressed in freshly creased blue serge trousers, shiny yellow shoes, and gray tweed leisure jacket, put the harmonica back into his pocket. He had played the harmonica several times during the past hour, the tunes first sounding gay and lilting, but afterward becoming mournful and sad and yearning. He was about twenty years old, with bulging work-hardened muscles that made his coat fit snugly across his chest and shoulders. His wiry black hair had been cropped close to his skull.

“Kathyanne—how about—what about—me and you getting ourselves up close?” He gazed at her admiringly and lovingly as though he had yearned all his life for her. “You sure been acting stand-offish with me, Kathyanne. Why you do me like you do? You ain’t never broke down all this time and give me the good word. You know you ain’t the loving mama you ought to be. Ain’t I the right man for you? I sure would treat you right, Kathyanne, if I only had the chance. There’s nothing in this whole big world I wouldn’t do for you. That’s the true truth.”

He could see that even though she continued to give the impression that she was preoccupied with her sewing she did not appear to be displeased. That made him more hopeful, and he slid the rocking chair a little closer with an eager movement of his long muscular body.

“What you say about that, Kathyanne?”

She answered him, sighing a little, after a long wait. “You wouldn’t want to do that, Henry.”

“What makes you say that kind of talk, Kathyanne?” he protested plaintively. In spite of what she had said, he could not keep from gazing at her longingly. The warm bright sun on her golden skin was a dazzling sight for him to see, and made him all the more want to get her into his arms and hug her until she screamed with delight. It was a thrilling experience for him merely to be with her again after a whole week had passed, even though he could only sit there and long for her. He had been waiting all afternoon for a chance to tell her that he would never be satisfied with any other girl. He moved his chair a little closer. “How come you say like you do, Kathyanne? How you know what I would and what I wouldn’t? Tell me that.”

“Because you just wouldn’t, that’s why.”

“That don’t make no sense at all to me.”

“There’s a lots of things you don’t know.”

“What’s it I don’t know? Tell me that.”

“You wait a while and find out, Henry.”

The curtness and finality of her answer hurt him. All that late summer and early fall he had tried his best to court her, and it made him sad to realize that he did not seem to be any closer to winning her now than he had been in the beginning. As he sat there, miserable and discouraged, he had the feeling that for some reason she had become more unattainable than she was when he first began coming to see her on Sunday afternoons.

“Maybe it’s all the truth what I heard talk about,” he said, hoping she would feel badly for having treated him this way. “It sure enough looks like it to me,” he added mysteriously, shaking his head regretfully from side to side as he watched her expression change. “It’s a mighty awful thing. It sure made me sad to hear about it.”

“What did you hear, Henry?”

He leaned forward in the rocking chair and twisted the toe of his shoe into the moist soil, making patterns of cottonfield terracing on the sandy yard. He knew she was looking at him anxiously, and he wanted to take full and complete advantage of her uneasiness of mind. He was not consciously being cruel, but just the same he felt that her distress would eventually help his cause. He studied the tracings in the sand with an absorbed interest. Somebody was riding down Gwinnett Alley on a bicycle and ringing the thumb-bell with a jangling sound. He looked around distractedly.

“Henry Beck, what did you hear about me?” she repeated with harsh persistence. “You tell me.”

Now that he knew he had aroused her interest, he was in no hurry to answer her. He had time to recall all the Sunday afternoons he had spent vainly pleading with her. He told himself that it was enough to make anybody feel resentful, and he hoped she was suffering a little, anyway.

“Henry Beck!” he heard her say sharply.

He leaned back in the rocking chair and looked her straight in the face.

“The same as everybody else in Gwinnett Alley who keeps his ears halfway open, that’s what,” he accused her bluntly. “Maybe it’s the real truth that you won’t pay no mind at all to a black boy and rather go out good-timing white men.” He found that he was angry with her now, and he was glad he had had the courage to speak out. “What you aiming at—to go passing?”

“No! All that’s a big lie! I don’t care who said it. It’s still a mean big lie.”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly, watching her with a doubtful expression. He hoped the gossip was not true, but he had heard it so many times lately that he was beginning to believe it now. “There’s been a heap of talk—low-down talk, too,” he stated suspiciously. “Somebody must know something, or you wouldn’t be hearing it spread all around all the time like I do when I come to town. They say nobody’s seen or heard tell of a colored boy making time with you ever since you and Ganus moved to town over a year ago. But they do tell about seeing you ride off in the night to good-time white men, though. Why you do that? Why you good-timing no-account white trash? Ain’t your own color good enough for you? You ain’t all that white your own self, even if you do have got that fancy high-yellow look. You know good and well the white folks ain’t going to stand for you to go passing around this here town. They know how to make it real hard on the colored who don’t stay in their place. Ain’t you got that much sense, gal? You must be clear out of your head. This ain’t no place to be passing. What’s got in you, anyhow, Kathyanne?”

She wanted to say something in defense of herself, even though she knew some of the things he had said were partly true, but while Henry was scolding her, she had seen Clyde Picquet unlatch the front gate and step into the yard. Clyde was carrying a small leather briefcase under his arm and, even though it was Sunday, she knew why he was there. The briefcase did not contain anything of importance, and in fact it was usually empty or stuffed with an old newspaper, but Clyde had found by long experience that it gave him a businesslike appearance and helped to create the impression wherever he went that he was attending to serious matters.

Clyde was a slightly built man whose weight had never exceeded a hundred and twenty pounds. He was forty-seven years old with thinning brown hair and a small carefully trimmed graying mustache. He had studied law in his youth and had passed the bar examinations by the time he was twenty-five, but soon after coming to Estherville to practice he had given up his profession to accept the position of business manager for Sam Verdery. At that time Sam Verdery was the wealthy owner of several cotton plantations, half a dozen gins, and the three largest sawmills in Tallulah County. In addition to all that, he had accumulated a considerable amount of rental property in town. It was not long until Clyde realized that actually his job was that of bookkeeper, secretary, auditor, and general handyman and office boy for Sam, but as the years went by he hesitated more and more to give up, at his age, an assured monthly salary for the precarious practice of law in Estherville. When Sam died at the age of fifty-six from the effects of overeating at a sheriff’s Fourth of July barbecue, his widow, Effie Verdery, who was strong-willed and ruthless concerning money matters, sold the out-of-town properties to settle Sam’s debts and applied to the court for a year’s support, pleading for all the rental property in town. The year’s support law, as it was generally called, had been so worded as to give a widow immediate possession of and clear title to the deceased husband’s property, and this, in effect, provided her with a dowry, and encouraged immediate proposals of marriage that otherwise might not have been forthcoming until the will had been probated. The law was an especially valuable aid to widows who were rapidly aging and a godsend to those who otherwise probably would have found it extremely difficult to remarry if some vindictive or dissatisfied relative contested the provisions of the will and tied up the estate in court for several years of wrangling. Effie had no intention of remarrying, because she had no desire to run the risk of having to support some man who had married her only for her money, but she nevertheless took full advantage of the year’s support law as it was written and interpreted. After that she ordered Clyde Picquet to double the income from rental properties. To carry out Effie’s orders, and thereby to assure himself of his job, Clyde had to find ways to raise rents, and, at the same time, to threaten eviction of tenants whose rents became thirty days past due. More than that, Effie had told him that she was going to hold him personally responsible for every dollar he failed to collect, regardless of the pitiful tales tenants always thought up from time to time. He had little difficulty with collections of payments on store and warehouse leases, but much of the residential property was single-family housing scattered over the south side, which included the Negro quarter of town, and some of the tenants there were in the habit of not making their weekly or monthly payments promptly, and then pleading that the money had to be spent for medicine and other such necessities. Clyde Picquet had become a familiar figure in the south side in recent years and he could be seen every week-day standing doggedly on a front porch until he had knocked long enough and loud enough to convince somebody that it was useless to pretend not to hear him. He had learned to vary the timing of his calls, too, because some of the renters, knowing when to expect him, had developed the annoying practice of going off to visit relatives in the country in order to avoid him.

As Kathyanne knew, it was unusual for Clyde Picquet to make a rent call on Sunday, as that was the day he usually took his wife and four children for a long automobile ride in the country, but Effie Verdery had called him on the phone just as he was sitting down to eat Sunday dinner and had told him to come to her house right away. When he got to the wide-veranda white colonial on Poinsettia Street, thinking Effie had suddenly become ill and wanted to make changes in her will, he was disappointed and angry to find out that she had called him away from his Sunday dinner because she had been upset by something the Baptist minister had said that morning in his sermon. Clyde wanted to tell her that it was a matter that could have waited until business hours Monday morning, but he could not afford to let Effie know he was angry, and he concealed his feelings the best he could by being outwardly affable and accommodating in her presence. He then had to sit and listen to a tiresome recital of the Baptist pastor’s complaints against the members of the congregation, but all the time he was secretly pleased that he was a Methodist, and that it was the Baptists who were having financial troubles. What had upset Effie was her pastor’s outspoken charge that the church-supporting members had failed to contribute enough money, as they had pledged themselves to do earlier in the year, to support the church’s mission program. Effie looked upon the Estherville Baptist church as her church, and the minister as her minister, and she had gone up to the pulpit after the services and wept in the Reverend Stovall’s arms in full view of the congregation. He took her home in his own car and comforted her and, as he was leaving, Effie tearfully promised to contribute five hundred dollars to the mission fund the next day. As soon as the Reverend Stovall was out of the house, Effie dried her tears and phoned Clyde and told him to come immediately. She had the account books spread over the parlor table when he got there and was soon pointing out instances where rents were long overdue. The page that annoyed her the most was the one that showed how far behind Aunt Hazel Teasley was with her rent. Aunt Hazel, she pointed out accusingly, was four months and three weeks in arrears. She ordered Clyde to collect it at once, every red cent of it, regardless of Aunt Hazel’s pitiful tales of hardship. He tried to tell her that as soon as either of Aunt Hazel’s grandchilden found a steady job he was planning to take a portion of their weekly pay and apply it on the unpaid rent, but that in the meantime he did not feel they would be ethically justified in evicting a bedridden woman of Aunt Hazel’s age and circumstance. Effie would not listen to him. First she wept some more over the plight of the missions, and then she dried her tears and ordered him to get the money that very day, or she herself would call the sheriff. Clyde, well aware that if she were sufficiently provoked she would not hesitate to fire him, had picked up his hat and briefcase and gone down to Gwinnett Alley.

Henry stood up as Clyde walked around the corner of the cabin. Clyde nodded to Kathyanne, and she nodded to him in return. He had been there so regularly during the past several months that he did not feel it was necessary to go through the usual routine of explaining why he was there now. He had never seen Henry before, and he looked at the boy closely. His first thought was that perhaps Aunt Hazel was taking in paying boarders, which might provide some money for the rent, and he was encouraged by the prospects.

“What’s your name?” he asked Henry.

“Henry Beck.”

He nodded to himself as he inspected Henry’s expensive-looking tweed jacket.

“Who do you work for, Henry?” he then asked.

“I’m a wage-hand out there in the country at Mr. Tyson Porcher’s place.”

“Where do you stay?”

“I stay out there at Mr. Porcher’s.”

“You get your meals at Mr. Porcher’s, too?”

“Yes, sir,” Henry replied.

Disappointed, Clyde turned his back on Henry. He walked toward the vacant rocking chair.

“Well, I’ve got business to attend to here, Henry,” he said, speaking over his shoulder in a curt manner. “Go on away for a while, and you can come back later, if you want to.” Henry, watching both Clyde and Kathyanne suspiciously, remained where he was. Clyde sat down in the rocking chair and placed his briefcase prominently on his lap. Henry still had not left, and Clyde turned and looked at him with an annoyed frown. Henry scowled back at him.

“Well?” Clyde said impatiently.

“What did you come here to see her about?” Henry said surlily. He was not in the habit of talking to white men in such a manner, and in fact it was the first time in his life that he had ever used such a tone of voice in speaking to anyone outside his own race, but he had become angry as well as suspicious. Kathyanne, afraid that he might forget himself and say something even worse, was silently pleading with him to go away. When he still did not leave, she began urging him to go with an excited motion of her hand. Henry was still glaring at Clyde. “You’d better leave her alone now,” he muttered in a threatening manner. “I don’t like it about all this good-timing that folks talk about going on. She’s got so she won’t have nothing to do with me, and that’s the cause of it. You white folks ought to stick to your own color and leave us alone. She hasn’t got no business studying about white men. I don’t want her to go passing, neither. That’s what.”

Neither was Clyde accustomed to hearing a Negro talk to him like that and he did not know whether to be angry or afraid. He wondered if he would be able to protect himself against anyone as strong-looking and as muscular as Henry Beck.

“Henry,” Kathyanne begged, “please go away now. It’s all right. Don’t make trouble.”

He stood there in the yard undecidedly for several moments before walking away. He went as far as the gate at first, and then, after watching Clyde and Kathyanne for a while, walked slowly out of sight down the alley.

Clyde was relieved to see Henry go. He leaned back in the chair for the first time.

“That’s a mighty biggety boy to be so black,” he commented with a shaking of his head. “He’s going to get in bad trouble one of these days if he don’t watch his talk. You’d better speak to him about it, Kathyanne. There’re white men around town who wouldn’t stand for the way he acted just now. They’d get rid of him in no time. You’d better have a good talk with him.”

“Henry forgot himself, Mr. Clyde,” she said nervously. “He’s worried about something, and he didn’t mean all the things he said. He’s a good boy, and I’m going to help him get along in life. Everything’s going to work out all right. Please don’t say anything about it to anybody. I’ll see to it that he doesn’t forget himself like that again. Henry’s a good boy.”

“What’s he worried about, to make him act like that?”

“Just something he heard, Mr. Clyde. He’ll get over that soon, though.”

“Just the same, I don’t like the way he talks now,” Clyde told her. He recrossed his legs and patted the briefcase on his lap. “Well, I reckon you know what I’m doing here, don’t you, Kathyanne? Well, something’s got to be done. That’s all there is to it. How’s Aunt Hazel today? Is she any better?”

“She’s just about the same as usual, Mr. Clyde.”

“You mean she’s still’ in bed?”

“She’s been in bed all the past year.”

“What’d you say was wrong with her?”

“Dr. Plowden says it’s bad rheumatism. He says it’s so bad she’ll never walk any more.”

“That is bad,” he remarked sympathetically. He rubbed the leather briefcase with his thumb. “I hate to see anybody in a fix like that, white or colored.” He studied the grain of the leather glistening in the sun. “But I reckon there’s always been and always will be a lot of sickness in the world. It’s liable to strike any of us, just like it did Aunt Hazel.”

Kathyanne, knowing that he would soon be talking about the rent, began sewing again. She noticed that he glanced over his shoulder in the direction Henry had gone as though he thought Henry was still somewhere in the neighborhood watching him.

“You haven’t found a steady job yet, have you, Kathyanne?” His head began moving from side to side even before she could have had an opportunity to answer him. “How about your brother? Has he found steady work yet?” This time he did not look as if he expected an answer. He took a pencil and an envelope from his coat pocket and began figuring on the paper. “We might as well call it five months now,” he said as though he were talking to himself. “There’s only one more week left in this month, anyway. That makes five months, all told. Fifteen dollars a month times five is five times five and that makes twenty-five and one to carry, and five times one is five and add two makes seventy-five. That’s what it comes to. Seventy-five dollars. It sure adds up fast when you let yourself get behind like this. And every month makes it bigger, too. Now, how much can you pay on it today, Kathyanne?”

She glanced up at him, solemnly shaking her head.

“You mean you can’t pay anything at all?”

“Mr. Clyde, we don’t have any money. That’s the truth. Even before you raised the rent, it was just as hard to pay it. It’s hard enough just to get enough together to buy something to eat now and then. If the kind neighbors hadn’t helped a lot, we wouldn’t have had much of that.”

“I know, Kathyanne, but Mrs. Effie Verdery wants her rent money. She’s downright hard-headed about it, and there’s nothing I can do to make her wait any longer. You see, I only work for her. I have no say-so about it, personally. She might take it into her head to send the sheriff down here. What do you and your brother think you can do about it? I’d hate to see the sheriff come down here and carry Aunt Hazel out to the street and put her down out there. That’s an awful thing to happen to any human being. But, it’s the law, and there’s no getting around the law, you know. That’s how things are in this world.”

Kathyanne nodded almost imperceptibly as she threaded the needle.

“How did you ever get in this fix, anyway, Kathyanne?” he asked seriously, frowning with deep concern. “Didn’t you used to have a good job with Mrs. Swayne when you first moved to town, and after that at Mrs. Pugh’s? Why did you quit working for them?”

“Maybe it was because I didn’t know how to get along with white people, Mr. Clyde.” She looked straight at him in a thoughtful manner. “Maybe it was because I was raised in the country and didn’t know any white people until I moved to town and started to work for them. Before that, I didn’t know I’d have to do what white people told me, no matter what it was. I found that out, though, when I worked for Mrs. Swayne and Mrs. Pugh. But I still didn’t want to have to do some of the things they told me to do, and that’s why I quit working for them. After that I found out that I’d still have to do what they said, if I wanted a steady job. And then, there’s this thing about the white men—”

“What do you mean—what white men?”

“All of them, Mr. Clyde.”

Clyde, embarrassed, looked down at his briefcase. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “maybe you did think you were doing the right thing at the time, but it’s probably true that colored people don’t have much say-so these days. They have to do pretty much what they’re told, if they want to get along with white people in Estherville. I don’t know what anybody can do about it, but it won’t be like it is always, though. Things change.”

He looked over his shoulder at the low sun. It was getting late in the afternoon and it was not so warm as it had been when he first walked into the yard.

“Now, look here, Kathyanne,” he said resolutely, trying to put everything else out of mind. “It’s up to you from now on. Some things can’t be put off time after time, and rent’s one of them. What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Clyde.”

He got up and walked to the fence and back. He had come there with only one purpose in mind, which was to collect the rent, all or in part, but he was becoming confused by other thoughts that refused to be driven away. Kathyanne had provoked him, and yet at the same time he felt sorry for her. He had conditioned himself against permitting himself to feel any compassion whatsoever for tenants who could not or would not meet their rents, because he had learned that otherwise he was emotionally unsuited to the task of getting rent money from those persons who were capable of devising the most heart-rending excuses. But while sitting there alone with Kathyanne in the warm sun, and hearing her speak of her helplessness in the presence of white men, an unfamiliar yet exceedingly pleasant sensation had come over him. Her predicament gave him a compelling desire to help her and, at the same time, to take advantage of her. She looked more attractive to him at that moment than anyone he had ever seen before. Recalling what Henry had said about her and white men, he wondered why it was that he had never allowed himself to think of her in that way until now. He had just about given up hope of getting seventy-five dollars, or any part of it, to be handed over to Effie Verdery, and yet he knew he could not go back and admit to Effie that he had failed to collect it. He would be out of a job before he could get out of Effie’s parlor. There was a little money in the savings bank, not much, but enough. He could draw it out the first thing Monday morning and take it to Effie and she would never know the difference. With that problem out of the way, he stopped his calculations abruptly and stared adventurously at Kathyanne. She looked beautiful and increasingly attractive there before him; she was becoming more desirable with each jolting throb of his heartbeat. Things like this happened to men all the time, he told himself with assurance; it was the way things were in the world. Life had a way of taking a man along a planned course, if he had the courage to follow; existence was not necessarily haphazard. His wife would never know the money was missing from the savings account He would attend to that. Kathyanne had long straight blue-black hair, large dark brown eyes, and softly tinted skin; there were not many women in the world who could compare favorably with her. He had been attending strictly to business since he married and had allowed nothing of a personal nature to interfere with rent collections for Effie Verdery. When it was all over and he had more time to apply his mind to it, he could undoubtedly find a way to post the account books in such a way that the seventy-five dollars was charged off to Effie herself as an expense of some kind, and he could then redeposit the withdrawal from his savings account. His mind worked rapidly. He might never have another opportunity like this as long as he lived. She was the most exciting mulatto girl he had ever seen in all his life. Fumbling in his pocket, he found the receipt pad and hurriedly scribbled on the form.

“Kathyanne, here’s your rent receipt for five months,” he said nervously, going close to her. He found himself breathing with difficulty, and he could not utter another word until he had stopped and gasped for breath. His chest felt constricted. His head felt a little dizzy, too. “It’s getting late now, and I’ve got to hurry along.” He paused, getting his breath painfully and slowly, and wondered what it was about Kathyanne that made him feel so strange in her presence. “I’m going to take care of the rent for you, Kathyanne. You won’t have to worry about it now.” He thrust the rent receipt at her clumsily and held it before her in trembling hand. “I’ll come back. A little later. After dark. And sign it. Here. Go on and take it, Kathyanne.” He tried to smile disarmingly, but all he could feel of the effort was a taut and unyielding constriction of the muscles of his mouth and cheeks.

Kathyanne leaned forward and looked at the scribbling on the yellow slip of paper, still not touching it. The apathetic chirping of the English sparrows on the fence was annoying and irritating. He wished somebody would come along with a shotgun and blast every last one of them to smithereens.

“Mr. Clyde, you’d better sign it now, if you ever mean to,” she told him, looking straight at him with unblinking eyes.

“What—what—do you mean, Kathyanne?” he asked, stumbling over the words. “What do you think I mean?”

“But couldn’t I—”

“Don’t you come back down here, Mr. Clyde,” she said harshly. “You stay away from me.”

He felt as if he were a misbehaving child being gently but firmly scolded by a loving mother.

“That’s the way it is,” she told him in a firm voice.

“But, Kathyanne—”

“No, Mr. Clyde,” she said, shaking her head.

The mocking chirp of the sparrows was maddening. He felt dazed and unsteady on his feet. He could see her head moving from side to side as if to remind him of what she had said, and then all at once, as though overcome by some unseen weight, his arm fell numbly at his side. He looked down and saw the slip of yellow paper clinging to his fingers.

Unable to face her after that, he found himself scrawling his signature on the rent receipt. His hand trembling, he laid the receipt on her lap and turned away to pick up his briefcase.

“Thank you, Mr. Clyde,” he heard her say distinctly as he walked away in the direction of the gate.

He turned the switch and started the engine. He thought he should be angry with her, and he was surprised to find that he was not. He was merely stunned by his failure. As soon as the automobile began to move down the alley, he saw Henry Beck standing beside the fence. Before he was out of sight, Henry leaped over the pickets and ran across the yard.

“I knew what that white trash was up to,” he said, loud and excited with anger. “I was watching all the time. I saw it with my own eyes. I know what I’m talking about now.”

“Saw what, Henry?” she asked, her large brown eyes sparkling in the low sun.

“Saw that white man give you something. After all that talking. That’s what. I saw as plain as day. White trash don’t come around handing out things for nothing. I know.”

She held up the rent receipt for him to see. “You mean this, Henry?”

“What’s it for?” he demanded. “Tell me that, gal.”

Smiling, she carefully tore the yellow paper into small pieces and let them fall to the ground between them.

“I don’t think we’ll need it, Henry,” she spoke to him in a gentle voice as she came closer and stood looking up admiringly at his troubled face.

Chapter 11

CROSSING INDIAN CREEK a mile south of town, Ganus shifted the weight of the rabbit box from one shoulder to the other and, treading cautiously on the slippery cypress roots in the dank shadows of the overhanging Spanish moss, started up the ridge toward the blackjack thicket he had seen the day before. It was midmorning, and calm for a December day, although an ominous bank of yellowish-gray storm clouds was piling up over the western horizon, and here and there on the north slope of Pawpaw Ridge there still remained jagged gleaming patches of the past night’s frost sparkling in the winter sun.

Ganus was whistling in a carefree happy mood as he trudged up the ridge with the weight of the heavy wooden box first on one shoulder and then on the other, occasionally glancing ahead at a solitary sweet-gum tree near the crest of Pawpaw Ridge in order to keep his bearings. He had finished making the rabbit trap the night before and was anxious to set it, along with the nine other traps he had previously built and already set in thickets and rabbit runs on the west side of Indian Creek.

He had not yet looked at his traps that morning and he intended making the rounds as soon as he had set the new box and baited it with the fresh cabbage leaves from his sweater pocket. For the past several weeks, after giving up the attempt to sell ice from door to door in winter weather, he had been trapping from two to five cottontails almost every night and selling them for twenty-five cents each at a grocery store in Gwinnet Alley. Every day he took one of the rabbits home for Kathyanne to cook, and, besides, he could always sell the fur skin for ten cents, sometimes getting fifteen or twenty cents if the cottontail happened to be an exceptionally large buck.

After climbing the steep bank of one of the gullies in the ridge, which had never been contoured and terraced, and which, consequently, had been washed and deeply eroded by the heavy autumn rains for many years, he found that he was only about fifty yards from one of the tenant houses belonging to Glover Grimball, who owned most of the farm land between Indian Creek and the county line. Stooping forward, he lowered the heavy oakboard box to the ground and then sat down on it to rest a while. At first he did not pay particular attention to the tenant house, because it appeared to be unoccupied and abandoned, and he was more interested in getting to the blackjack thicket which he could see a quarter of a mile away near the crest of the ridge.

It was only a few minutes, however, before he found himself looking curiously at the desolate house on the sloping hillside. Like most of the dwellings Glover Grimball provided for his tenants—wage-hands, renters, and share-croppers alike—it was old and dilapidated and in want of paint and repairs. It had a flapping rusty tin roof, sagging joists, and a ridgepole that reminded Ganus of an old sway-back gray horse he had once seen turned out to pasture near the end of his days. The house consisted of two rooms and a lean-to kitchen. The bleak, weather-dark structure perched high off the ground on four time-bleached posts that looked as if they would surely collapse the next time the wind blew hard. A bare, windswept, sandy yard surrounded the building. A stunted lone Chinaberry tree, on the limbs of which were hanging a rotted mule collar and several rusting plowshares with broken points, stood beside the dug-well and windlass in the rear. The house, appearing to be anything but inhabited when Ganus first saw it, suddenly ceased to look deserted when a puff of pale wood-smoke drifted lazily from the flue.

He got up right away and shouldered the rabbit box and started walking toward the blackjacks. As he was crossing the corner of the yard, the flimsy front door swung open on squeaking hinges and Burgess Tarver’s wife, Mozelle, strolled pertly across the narrow sagging porch and leaned against the railing. Burgess Tarver, who was about twenty-five years old and blustery and burly, was one of Glover Grimball’s rent-farmers who raised cotton in summer and chopped wood in winter. Early in life he had become obsessed with a nagging, quarrelsome hatred for Negroes and it was generally said that the only means a Negro had of avoiding trouble with Burgess was to keep out of his sight at all times. Burgess liked to go to town on Saturday afternoons when the streets were crowded with Negroes from the country and try to pick a quarrel with some Negro by bumping him off the sidewalk and then daring him to do anything about it. If the Negro even said anything at all, it gave Burgess the opportunity to hit him with his fist or slash him with his pocketknife and warn him never to come back to Estherville again. No Negro, since all were fearful of the consequences, had ever been known to hit back at Burgess since he stabbed the first one who protested against being shoved off the sidewalk. Clearly remembering all that, and in dread of Burgess Tarver’s willful cruelty, Ganus, keeping his eyes straight ahead, began walking faster.

“Hello, Ganus,” Mozelle called from the porch as she sat down on the railing and watched him.

He recognized the dangerously insinuating tone of her voice at once and he walked faster than ever.

“Ganus! Hello!” she called again.

“Howdy, Miss Mozelle,” he replied politely, barely glancing at her as he hurried away from Burgess Tarver’s house.

He had reached the open field when he heard her calling him once more. At the same moment he felt a griping pain in the depths of his stomach. He went several steps farther before the acuteness of the pain forced him to stop and drop the rabbit box on the ground. It was agonizing to find himself in the presence of Burgess Tarver’s wife even though it was broad daylight and he was at that relatively safe distance from her, and he wished he had been able to get past the house without being seen. Mozelle, emaciated and sickly in appearance as the result of many years of malarial fever, was a tall pale-faced girl, still only fifteen years old, with colorless long hair usually tied with a strip of red muslin at the back of her neck. She was wearing a pair of mud-caked black oxfords and a single, shift-like, flannelette garment, garish-green in color, that drooped baggily from her shoulders and reached just short of her skinny bare knees. She had been married to Burgess Tarver for a little more than a year, and during that time she had twice run away from home. The first time she ran away, she went to Augusta with a Carolina fruit-tree salesman who saw her waving as he drove down the paved highway, which was a mile south, and stayed with him in a rooming house on Greene Street for five days. She came home after he left her and told Burgess a long involved tale about having been kidnapped and taken to a cave by three Holy Roller evangelists with long red beards. She was gone for three weeks the second time she ran away, finally coming home after having been taken to Orlando by the driver of an orange truck, then north to Baltimore in another orange truck, and, in the end, riding with one truck driver after another as far as Mobile. On this latter occasion, believing her actual experiences had been exciting enough to impress anybody, and that they could not be improved upon by exaggeration, she told Burgess truthfully what had happened to her during the three weeks she was gone, but he was sure she was making up such a fantastic tale and he never believed a word of it. The only other time she had given Burgess serious trouble was when he took her to a camp meeting near Lucyville one Sunday morning in July and she disappeared in the woods with three older boys and stayed the remainder of that day and all that night and did not come back to the church grounds until noon the following day. Her story that time was that she fell into the creek and was swept downstream by flood waters until she was rescued by a mud-cat fisherman just as she was about to be drowned in the Savannah River. Burgess, skeptical as usual, had threatened to chain her to the iron bed in the house unless she promised never to run away again, and, after he had beaten her, she tearfully promised not to give him any more trouble. However, lately she had been doing one thing after another to attract Reeves Houck’s attention. Reeves, another tenant farmer on Glover Grimball’s place who frequently worked with Burgess and shared labor, was afraid of what Burgess might do if he listened to Mozelle’s suggestions, and he tried to avoid her. Just the same she continued to egg on Reeves whenever she could find an opportunity.

Mozelle, squirming around on the railing all that time to attract Ganus’ attention, finally got up and walked to the end of the porch.

“What’s that funny-looking box for?” she asked Ganus in her drawling, whiny voice.

“It’s just an ordinary rabbit trap, Miss Mozelle.”

“Where’re you taking it to?”

“Just over yonder to the thicket,” he told her with a serious nod of his head toward the brownish clump of blackjacks on the other side of the cotton field. “I’ve got to hurry, Miss Mozelle. It’s getting mighty late in the morning.”

“Why you taking it over there?”

“To try to catch me some rabbits.”

“Why you want to catch rabbits?”

“I sell them, Miss Mozelle.”

“Why?”

He looked at her wonderingly, thoroughly distracted by the sight of her squirming body.

“Why, Ganus?”

“To make me some money, that’s why,” he said shortly.

Mozelle giggled.

“What you going to do with the money when you get it?”

“Buy me things with it.”

“What kind of things?”

“Just things.”

She giggled again. Ganus frowned worriedly.

“Will you buy me something, Ganus?”

“What—what’s that you say, Miss Mozelle?” he asked, wondering if she had actually said what he thought he had heard her say. “I didn’t hear you, exactly.”

“I want you to buy me something, Ganus.”

He was distressed by the proposal. The griping pain darted deep into his stomach, making him double up and squeeze his stomach with his arms for relief. He hastily looked behind him to see if Burgess Tarver had come over Pawpaw Ridge and had heard what Mozelle was suggesting.

“Will you, Ganus?” she said, giggling some more in her thin childish voice. “You’ll do it for me, won’t you now, Ganus? Huh, Ganus?”

He did not answer her.

“Please do it,” she insisted enticingly.

“You don’t mean—buy something to give you, do you, Miss Mozelle?”

She nodded eagerly. “Won’t you, Ganus?”

“Buy you what?” He held his breath after that until she had answered.

“Something pretty.”

He was deeply worried now. He shook his head determinedly.

“Please do it, Ganus.” She giggled, and then said, “Don’t you want to?”

“I couldn’t, Miss Mozelle.”

She was smiling temptingly at him. “I bet you would if you wanted to enough.”

“No, ma’m!” he told her emphatically, as though he knew there was unquestioned danger of his being lured to his ruin. “I couldn’t ever do something like that. I just couldn’t, Miss Mozelle. No, ma’m!”

“Why won’t you get me something pretty, Ganus?” she begged, drawling ingratiatingly.

“Miss Mozelle, you know good and well I couldn’t go and do something like that.”

“Why not?”

Because I’m a colored boy, and you’re a white missy, that’s why.”

“You don’t have to be scared.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I won’t tell.”

“That wouldn’t help none.”

“Nobody’ll ever know.”

“No, ma’m! I know what I’m doing, Miss Mozelle.”

“I swear-to-God-as-His-little-lamb and promise never to tell a single living soul and hope to die if I do. Now, don’t you believe me?”

“Miss Mozelle,” he pleaded, acutely distressed, “please quit talking like that. Mr. Burgess would grab something and flail the living daylights out of me if he heard you saying things like that while I was anywhere around. No, ma’m! I know what’s good for me—and that’s bad!”

He reached down and lifted the heavy wooden box.

“I’m not scared of him, Ganus,” she said.

“I can’t help that. You ought to be. I know I am.”

“You don’t have to be scared of him, Ganus. He won’t never know.”

“You ought to be scared, Miss Mozelle, just like I am. I sure wish the Good Man would make you scared, and keep you that way, too.”

“Will you come back tomorrow and bring me something pretty, Ganus?”

“Not so you’ll notice it, Miss Mozelle,” he told her harshly. “That’s a fact.”

“You’d better get me something pretty, Ganus Bazemore,” she told him, her whiny voice rising to a threatening note. “You’d better listen to me, now.”

“Why?” he asked, catching his breath.

“You’ll wish you had.”

“What makes you say that, Miss Mozelle?” he asked, trembling and fearful.

“Because I’ll get even with you if you don’t, that’s why.”

Ganus had already shouldered the rabbit box and he started walking away so he would not hear anything more she said. He wanted to get as far away from her as he could, and to stay away after that. He looked back only once, and when he saw Mozelle in the bare sandy yard watching him, he hurried into the thicket and out of her sight.

After finding a rabbit run in the growth of blackjacks, he set the trigger carefully so that it would be sure to drop the trap door when a cottontail went inside, baited it with a fresh cabbage leaf, and then started walking along the crest of Pawpaw Ridge to look at his other boxes. He had gone about a hundred yards when he saw Mozelle running across the cotton field toward the oak grove ahead and he wondered if she were running away from home again. He was glad he had got away from her as safely as he had, and he told himself that the next time he came to the ridge to look at the traps, he was going to keep as far away from Burgess Tarver’s house as he possibly could. He even thought it would be wise to move the traps nearest his house to some place farther away.

Mozelle soon disappeared from sight in the grove. While he was going down the ridge, he could hear the resounding echoes of axes in the grove, but soon after that the echoes suddenly vanished. He stopped and listened, but the chopping did not start again, and he trotted down the ridge toward the first trap on the edge of the cypress lowland to see if he had caught a cottontail in it during the night.

After running all the way to the oak grove where Burgess and Reeves Houck were cutting cordwood, Mozelle was too breathless to say anything at first. She leaned against a tree while Burgess wondered what had happened to make her look so wild-eyed and excited. Every few moment she glanced behind her in the direction of the cotton field.

“What’s the matter with you, Mozelle?” Burgess asked her several times before she answered.

Panting, she finally told him, “I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Niggers.”

“What niggers?”

She turned around and pointed down the wagon road in the direction from which she had come.

“The big strong nigger who crept up on me in the house when I wasn’t looking and grabbed me.”

“Done what?” he said, looking at Reeves.

“He did, too! A nigger grabbed me!”

Burgess studied her closely for several moments. “Is this another big lie you’ve made up?”

“It’s not a lie. It’s the truth. I swear-to-God-as-His-little-lamb. A big nigger grabbed me and made me do it.”

Burgess and Reeves looked at each other, both wondering if this was one time when she was telling the truth.

“What’d you say somebody done to you?” Reeves asked her. He was the smaller of the two men and had wiry brown hair. He was unmarried and lived alone on the west side of Pawpaw Ridge. “Who done what, Mozelle?”

She turned to Reeves with an eager smile as if she had been waiting for such an opportunity. “Just like this, Reeves,” she told him, lifting her dress and twisting it around her neck. “He done it just like this and I couldn’t make him quit. He was too strong. He was the strongest man I ever heard tell about. He just kept on and on all the time and wouldn’t quit. There wasn’t nothing I could do about it, was there? Everybody knows how weak and puny I am. I can’t even wring off a little old pullet’s neck. Everybody knows that. Men can always make me do everything they want. I just never could make them quit. I’ve always been that way ever since I can remember. Even little boys can make me, if they try hard enough.”

Reeves, after the first startling sight of her, had become embarrassed by the bold display of her naked body. He lowered his head and looked down at the ground until she spoke again.

“Pull your clothes down and cover yourself up,” Burgess told her roughly, trying to snatch at her dress. Eluding him with an agile excited leap, she ran to the other side of Reeves, still holding the green flannelette garment around her neck. Her thin gaunt body looked childish and her small undeveloped breasts clung motionlessly to her chest. “All that sounds to me mighty like another of your big lies,” Burgess accused her suspiciously. “I don’t believe no nigger came nowhere near you.”

“He did, though,” she spoke up quickly, watching Reeves Houck. “I’ll show you just exactly how he done it, if you don’t believe me. He done it just like this. He was too big and strong for me to try to make him quit. He was the strongest thing. He just kept on and on for the longest time. It was the strangest thing. He acted like he never wanted to quit. I never had nobody want to keep on so long before. I swear to God and hope to die, if that ain’t the truth. You believe me, don’t you, Reeves? Don’t you, now?”

“What nigger done it?” Reeves asked her, impressed by her eagerness to make him believe her. “What’s his name?”

“He was a strange nigger, Reeves,” she answered unhesitatingly, looking straight into his eyes as though she were incapable of telling him a falsehood. “He was black all over, but sort of light-colored, too—like a real bright gingerbread nigger—with great big hands and long feet. I never saw him before in my life. I don’t know where he came from. Maybe from somewhere off in another country somewhere. He just crept up behind me when I wasn’t looking and grabbed me and made me keep quiet, and then he started in and done it like this. He was so big and strong I couldn’t make him quit for the longest time. You believe me, Reeves, don’t you, now?”

“Which way did he go?” Burgess asked her, still not convinced she was telling the truth.

“Down that way, on the other side of the ridge toward the cypress swamp,” she told him, pointing toward the cotton field. “I saw him go down that way.”

“Where’s he at now?”

“He’s hiding out down there somewhere on the other side of the newground, where you and Reeves cut down the trees the last time. He’s hiding out down there this very minute. I saw him go in there with my own eyes. I swear-to-God-as-His-little-lamb and hope to die!”

“Hell, I don’t know if she’s telling the truth this time or not,” Burgess said doubtfully. “It don’t look to me like no nigger would dare go near my house, and she’s told so many whopping big lies, I don’t know one from another no more. But if she’s telling anywhere near the truth this time, we’ll get the black bastard.” He went to Mozelle, snatched her clothes down, and pushed her away. “Go on home now and lock up all the doors till I get there. Keep your face away from the windows, too. If one black went after you, more’ll get the notion.”

Looking back at them over her shoulder, and smiling at Reeves, she ran down the wagon road toward home as they picked up their axes and started toward the newground. Neither of them said anything until they got to the edge of the field. Mozelle was out of sight by that time.

“Reckon she’s lying about it, Burgess?” Reeves asked him earnestly. “Looks like you ought to be able to tell. You ought to know by the way she talks and acts by now. I don’t want to get mixed up in no race trouble, unless it’s something that ought to be done. The rest of the time I’m willing to live and let live. I don’t have no grudges against the blacks like you do. I figure they ought to be left alone to mind their own business, as long as things go all right.”

“I’ll be God damned if I know if she’s lying this time or telling the truth,” Burgess admitted, shaking his head to himself. “She’s such a big liar I never know. She makes up the damnedest tales sometimes. Nobody could believe half what she says, half the time. But if there’s a nigger hiding out in that thicket, by God, I’ll get him. No black son-of-a-bitching nigger’s going to jump my wife and not pay for it, even if he didn’t do nowhere near what she claims he done to her. Even if all he done was just pass by and look at her hard, that’s all I need to know.”

Ganus was kneeling on the ground at one of his rabbit boxes when he heard footsteps on the dry brush behind him. He looked around and saw Burgess and Reeves only a few steps away. He saw at once that something was wrong. He jerked off his cap and smiled, but the expression on the faces of both of them remained stern and unrelenting.

“Howdy, Mr. Burgess and Mr. Reeves,” he said hurriedly. “How’re you all white folks today?” He tried to talk to them in a manner that they would be less likely to find fault with. “You all looking for something?”

“What you doing, nigger?” Burgess said in a gruff tone.

“Just looking at my rabbit boxes, that’s all, Mr. Burgess.”

“Who you think gave you leave to set out rabbit traps all over this part of the country?”

“Nobody did, Mr. Burgess, but I thought it’d be all right to catch rabbits most anywhere. Mr. Glover Grimball wouldn’t want the cottontails eating up all the crops, would he, Mr. Reeves?”

“That’s his business, not yours, nigger,” Burgess said.

“Yes, sir,” he said meekly, frightened by the increasingly hostile attitude of the two men. He wondered if they had seen him standing at the edge of the yard talking to Mozelle. Then, for the first time, he realized that each of the men had an ax gripped by the handle. “Yes, sir, Mr. Burgess,” he said through trembling lips, “if you say so, it sure is right. I don’t have no business at all trapping rabbits around here. I’ll just go on away now and never do it again, please, sir.”

He scrambled to his feet and started to move away from them.

“Come back here, nigger!” Burgess shouted.

Ganus took a few reluctant steps in the direction of the two men, asking, “What do you white folks want with me, please, sir, Mr. Burgess?”

“What do you reckon?” Reeves Houck said to him.

“I sure don’t know, Mr. Reeves. I sure enough don’t.”

Burgess came toward him. “You went in my house a little while ago and jumped my wife, didn’t you, you yellow-skin bastard!”

“What you say, Mr. Burgess?”

He began to shake and tremble as the full meaning of what he was being accused of came to him.

“You heard me, nigger.”

“Yes, sir, I heard you, but I sure enough don’t know what you’re talking about at all, please, sir, Mr. Burgess.”

“Like so much hell you don’t know! I know damn well you done it now. You act like it. It’s sticking out all over you. I can tell when a nigger’s lying. I ain’t no fool.”

“Done—what—what did you say, Mr. Burgess?”

“You heard me the first time, you goddam coon. You ain’t deaf. You know damn well what you done. You went in my house and jumped my wife. I got the proof. She said you done it. That’s all I need to know.”

“Who—who—who said I did that, please, sir, Mr. Burgess?”

“My wife said it, that’s who, and she’s the one who’d know. You wouldn’t call her a liar, would you? She came running over the field a while ago to where me and Reeves was chopping cordwood and told all about how you done it. It’s a damn lucky thing I caught you before you sneaked away. You’d been clean out of the country by dark, if me and Reeves hadn’t caught you in here.”

“Mr. Burgess, please, sir, I wouldn’t want to dispute any white folks’ word, but that’s sure not the truth about me. Maybe somebody else did what you said, but I sure didn’t. I know better than get myself in that kind of trouble. I’ve got a lot better sense than that. When I went past your house about an hour ago, I just barely stepped on the far corner of your front yard, and I sure didn’t go nowhere near enough to Miss Mozelle to bother her. I’ve got plenty better sense than do something like you said. I’m always out to stay away from that kind of trouble. Somebody made a bad mistake about that, Mr. Burgess.”

“You calling my wife a liar, nigger?”

“No, sir, I wouldn’t do that, but I just naturally didn’t do anything like what you said. I just didn’t. The Good Man would tell you that’s the real truth. You believe me, don’t you, Mr. Burgess? You know I’m telling the Good Man’s own truth, don’t you, Mr. Reeves? Please say you know it’s all the real truth. Won’t you say it, Mr. Burgess?”

“Hell, no. I ain’t never seen a nigger yet who wouldn’t try to lie out of something when he’s caught at it.”

“But I just naturally didn’t nowhere do what you said, Mr. Burgess,” he pleaded. “Miss Mozelle must be all mixed up about something. Please, sir, you go ask her again, and beg her to please tell the real truth about me this time. She ought to do that. If she said what was the truth, that’d prove it, wouldn’t it, Mr. Reeves?”

“To hell with that, nigger,” Burgess told him. “No son-of-a-bitching black coon tells me what to do. You said yourself you went past my house, and I ain’t taking no chances. There’s been a lot of talk about you around town. You got in some kind of trouble at Charley Singfield’s house and had to quit working there, and Harry Daitch fired you for something you done once when you delivered groceries at a white woman’s house. Everybody says you’re a bad nigger. I heard Levi Kettles tell about coming home not long ago and finding you hiding behind the kitchen stove. He said he was out to get you, but, by God, I’m going to get you first. Maybe you didn’t jump none of those white women, but that ain’t no sign you wouldn’t if you got the chance. And now my wife comes along and swears you done it to her. That’s all I need to know. Once a nigger starts jumping white women, there ain’t but one way to break him of the habit.”

“But if you’d only ask Miss Mozelle to tell the truth—”

Burgess raised the ax. Reeves ran to him and tried to wrest it from his grip. He flung Reeves aside.

“Now hold on, Burgess,” Reeves said, running back and standing between him and Ganus. “Don’t go and do something you can’t undo after it’s too late. The nigger swore all he done was go past your house, and he could be telling the truth. You know that. You’d better go make Mozelle tell you the truth about what happened. I wouldn’t believe her so far, if I was you. You go ask her. I’ll watch this boy and keep him from running off till you get back.”

“Get out of my way,” Burgess told him, flourishing the ax threateningly. “You talk like a goddam nigger-lover. I know what I’m doing. Now, stay out of my way like I told you!”

He shoved Reeves aside.

“What—what—what you fixing to do to me, Mr. Burgess, please, sir!” Ganus pleaded, terrified. “What you fixing to do with that ax, Mr. Burgess!”

“If you don’t know now, you’ll never know.”

Ganus was crouching on his knees when he saw Burgess grasp the ax handle with both hands and swing the gleaming, sun-bright blade at him. The ax struck him on the neck just above his shoulder. The force of the blow knocked him sprawling on the ground, and while he lay there looking helplessly at the faces of the two white men standing above him, Burgess hit him again, this time with the flat head of the ax.

“You shouldn’t have done it, Burgess,” Reeves Houck said as he backed away.

“I had to protect myself,” Burgess said, breathing hard. “That nigger was getting ready to hit me.”

“You might get in bad trouble for this, anyhow. You don’t know what’s liable to happen now.”

“Hell, it’s just another dead nigger.”

“I ain’t saying so myself, but just the same if I was you, and somebody starts asking questions, I wouldn’t put too much trust in what she’ll say. If she lied to you once about it, she can lie some more, and bigger than ever. She didn’t exactly act like somebody who’d just been raped. Not by a black, anyhow. I wouldn’t want to say what it was, but she acted like she had some kind of scheme in the back of her mind. She could of made up that tale in her own head.”

“You shut your goddam mouth about my wife, if you want to stay alive. If I thought you’d tell on me, I’d chop your head off right now and be done with it. Maybe I ought to play safe and go on and do it. I don’t like the way she’s been acting around you, anyhow. If I ever catch you eyeing her, I’ll kill you just as quick as I did that nigger.”

“If you don’t like what goes on, talk to her. She’s the one who’s been doing all the monkeyshining, and you know it.”

“She won’t no more after this,” Burgess said, turning away. “Not after I get through with her for trying to get that nigger to jump her.”

Saying nothing after that, Burgess swung the ax over his shoulder and started walking over the field toward home. Reeves followed him as far as the newground clearing, and then watched him until he was out of sight. After that Reeves went back to the grove to finish stacking the cordwood and get it ready to haul to town.

Chapter 12

DR. HORATION LOWDEN had been sleeping soundly for several hours when he was awakened by loud persistent blowing of an automobile horn in the graveled driveway just outside his window. He lifted himself to a sitting position on the edge of the double-bed and turned on the light. His wife, Betty, in bed beside him, and accustomed and resigned to his being called from his rest at all hours of the night to attend births, deaths, and common stomach aches, turned over with a fitful groan and went back to sleep.

He saw by his watch that the time was a few minutes past two o’clock in the morning. As usual, after more than forty years of responding promptly and uncomplainingly to sick calls from white and Negro alike in all sections of Tallulah County, he was fully awake by the time he had turned on the bedside light, and he reached for his bathrobe and slippers and went to the front door.

When he switched on the porch light, the green sedan, which had been standing in the driveway with engine running, quickly turned around and speeded out of sight down the street before he could get a good look at it. Shivering in the cold December night while he wondered if someone were playing a prank on him, he was about to go back into the house when he saw a large white envelope pinned to the screen-door. He reached for it and looked at it carefully. It was a sealed plain envelope with no identifying marks on it other than the penciled lettering:

Kathyanne Bazemore,

Gwinnett Alley.

Expecting to find some explanation inside, he tore open the flap and saw to his surprise a crisp new hundred-dollar treasury note. The envelope contained nothing else. As he studied the envelope and crinkly bill curiously, the only thought that came to mind was that these days the most likely place in town where a person would ordinarily see a new hundred-dollar bill was in the hands of the cashier of the Estherville State Bank. Chuckling to himself over the implications, and fully intending to joke about it the next time he saw George Swayne, he went back into the house and got dressed to go down to Gwinnett Alley.

He had no idea why he was being called upon, in such a mysterious manner, and at that time of night, to go to see Kathyanne Bazemore. He had arranged only a few weeks previously, it was true, for Aunt Hazel Teasley to be admitted to the ward for the aged and infirm at the county hospital, so she would be assured of receiving proper medical care as long as she lived, but he could see no connection between the two incidents. He had not seen Kathyanne since the latter part of summer, when he spoke to her on the street one day, and at that time she had appeared to be in normal health and spirits.

Dr. Plowden was a kindly, benevolent man in his middle sixties, completely gray for the past twelve years and slightly enfeebled with age, but still firm-fleshed and sure of hand, and his greatest fault was that he was more concerned with his medical practice and the health of his patients than he was with his own welfare. He had always been so engrossed in his work that he had neither taken the time to go away on a vacation, nor, as his wife often complained, had he ever had any time of his own to devote to his family. The only activity he had ever enjoyed, aside from medicine itself, was bird hunting, but he had not fired a shotgun in fifteen years. Betty had for many years tried to persuade him to retire and turn his practice over to a younger man, but he liked the profession of medicine and took pride in it, and he wanted to continue actively as long as he lived. He had often expressed the hope that when he died he would either be on his way to attend some ill person or, else, be returning from attending a patient. He had begun his career as a general practitioner, immediately after graduating from medical college, in the days when country doctors had to keep three or four sturdy horses, one of which was always kept by turn harnessed and standing to a buggy at all hours of the day and night so that there would be no delay in case of an emergency. Since the time when adequate roads were constructed in the county and he could visit his patients in a car, each year he had consistently worn out one automobile after another, and his greatest regret now was that he was not young enough to undertake to pilot a small two-place airplane in responding to emergencies and routine house calls in the country. He was privileged, because of his advanced age and respected standing in the community, to criticize in outspoken candor what he considered unethical conduct on the part of some of the other physicians in Estherville. It was his conviction that most of the younger men, selfishly thinking of their own bodily comfort or their wives’ social engagements, were abusing an honored profession by secretly agreeing among themselves to keep brief office hours during the day and declining to make outside home calls during the night, no matter how serious the emergency. For the others, particularly such men as Dr. Lamar English, who more and more were using the wealth they had accumulated as physicians to become outright money-lenders, he had the utmost contempt. On the way through town from his home on Palmetto Street to Gwinnett Alley, he stopped to drink coffee at the Round-The-Clock Cafe. It was a few days before Christmas and holly wreaths on the cash register and suspended over the windows and doors gave the restaurant a cozy festive atmosphere that was lacking during the other months of the year. In addition to the night cook and the counterman, there were three other men in the restaurant when he went in and sat down on the nearest stool. Being in a hurry, he unbuttoned his heavy gray overcoat but did not take it off. One of the men in the restaurant was Will Hanford, the night patrolman, who admittedly spent very little time walking the streets on winter nights, and the two others were orange-truck drivers from Florida who were playing the jukebox and eating ham and eggs. Will Hanford, swaggering and loudmouthed, walked up to the front of the cafe and clapped his hand familiarly on Dr. Plowden’s shoulder.

“Well, Doc, I see you’re up again when a man your age ought to be home in bed,” Will said for all to hear. “Why don’t you stop getting up like this in the middle of the night and let the younger doctors sew up the guts of some slashed nigger?”

“I don’t know why I do it, Will,” he said seriously. He knew Will was trying to find out where he was going, because Will liked to appear unexpectedly at a gathering of Negroes and make an arrest on some pretext, but he had no intention of telling him that he was going to see Kathyanne Bazemore. “Maybe it’s because there’s always somebody who needs medical attention, and I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t try to do what I could. That’s probably why God put men like you and me in the world—to stay up late at night and look after people who need help.”

Will came right out with the question, “Who’re you going to see at this time of night, Doc? Some nigger who ought to be dead anyway? If you’ll tell me who it is, I’ll pitch him in the jailhouse and save you the trouble of keeping him alive.”

“We’re all human beings, Will,” he said kindly. “You’re going to have to learn to treat all people alike, white and colored, or else there won’t be any place for you one of these days. I know that you and a lot more like you think you can keep this a white man’s town, but you’re wrong. The world has changed a great deal in the last generation. I may not live to see the whole change come, but I hope you do.”

He sipped the hot coffee while records changed with a clang in the jukebox. Will was momentarily subdued.

“Well, you may be right, Doc,” he agreed solemnly. He looked at the two youthful truck drivers at the other end of the restaurant. He did not say anything more until the counterman came within hearing distance. Then, in a voice loud enough for all to hear, he said, “I reckon the only difference between me and you, Doc, is that you like to help other folks, and I like to be as mean as hell to the ones I come across in my business. I’d hate to have to turn in my gun and go to bed every night at nine o’clock now. I wouldn’t think life was worth living no more if I couldn’t scare hell out of some nigger every night and throw him in the lock-up.”

“That’s probably the only difference between us, Will,” Dr. Plowden commented quietly as he hurried to finish his coffee. It was a quarter to three when he left the Round-The-Clock, and a few minutes later, lugging his heavy satchel, he was getting out of his car in Gwinnett Alley. All the wooden window blinds were tightly closed, but he could see a flickering light shining through the crack over the threshold when he went to the door of the cabin and knocked. At first there was the expected loud scuffle of feet on the bare floor, and a chair was tipped over, and then there was complete silence inside the cabin. He waited a few moments and knocked again, this time more urgently. Presently the door was unlatched and cautiously opened a few inches. When he saw somebody peering at him in the darkness, he rapped impatiently on the weathered door. It opened another inch or so.

“Who’s that?” somebody asked in a guarded voice barely above a whisper.

“Dr. Plowden,” he answered brusquely, irritated by the delay.

“It is?” the voice said in a high note of surprise.

“Of course,” he said sharply. “Let me in.”

There were excited whispers behind the door. After a while he was asked through the narrow opening, “You want something down here, Dr. Plowden?”

“I want in! Open the door, whoever you are! I can’t stand out here in this freezing weather all night. What’s the matter with you? Open the door!”

He could hear the usual agitated discord of a hurriedly whispered conversation behind the door, but he still could not understand anything that was being said. He stamped his cold feet noisily on the wooden doorstep.

“Is anybody else out there, Dr. Plowden?” he was asked. “Anybody like Mr. Will Hanford, or somebody?”

“No. I’m by myself. Open the door!”

Presently the door swung slowly open, and he immediately went inside. In the bright flickering flames of the logs in the fireplace he recognized Henry Beck as he walked past him toward the hearth. Beyond Henry were two Negro women, Nettie Dunn and her daughter, Alethea, watching him with unconcealed concern. In the far corner of the cabin’s single room, bundled in brightly colored patchwork quilts in a big poster bed, was Kathyanne. He could see only enough of her face to be able to recognize her as he walked over the creaking floor to the fireplace and stood with his back to the blazing warmth of the oak logs. Several Christmas decorations had been placed over the windows and there was a large cluster of mistletoe hanging on a nail over the mantelpiece. Aside from the large double-bed, the only other furniture in the room consisted of several straight-back chairs, two rockers, a dresser, and a table. The exposed clapboard walls had been papered with colorful illustrations and advertisements cut from magazines.

“Good morning,” Dr. Plowden said pleasantly after a moment, looking from one face in the room to another as he rubbed his hands behind his back in the heat of the log fire. “We’re having a cold winter again this year. There’s been one cold spell right after the other all fall. There’ll probably be ice in the bucket by daylight. Maybe our climate’s changing. Some folks think it is.”

“Yes, sir,” Henry spoke up nervously.

Then one by one, Henry and the women huddled at the other end of the hearth nodded dutifully in response to his comments on the weather, but each of them continued to watch him with cautious, inquiring wonderment. He took off his heavy gray overcoat and dropped it on the nearest chair.

“Well, you seem to be the patient, Kathyanne,” he said briskly peering at her over the rims of his glasses as she lay still and quiet in the huge wooden poster bed.

“I’ll be all right, Dr. Plowden,” she said, trying to disguise her noticeably weak voice.

The older woman standing at the corner of the hearth, Nettie Dunn, still had not spoken since he came into the cabin and he turned to her questioningly. As he did so, it was then that he observed for the first time that the large wicker clothes basket on the edge of the hearth contained a newly born infant. The midwife and her daughter watched him tensely as he leaned over the basket for a closer look.

“What’ve we got here?” he said, taken completely by surprise. He reached for a chair and sat down beside the basket. Then he carefully pulled the cotton blankets back from the baby’s face. “Well, I’ll be doggone!” he exclaimed, his attitude completely changed. He smiled for the first time as he proceeded to uncover the baby.

The two women got down on their knees beside the basket and took the covering as he removed it.

“And a girl-baby, too, at that!” he said with a pleased expression. He was soon nodding to Nettie with professional approval. “I can see that she’s been in very capable hands, Nettie. You midwives seem to do these things as well as I could. Maybe better, after all.” He chuckled as he examined the infant more thoroughly. “Well, another girl’s born to make this old world of ours stay in balance,” he remarked after a while as though he were talking to himself. “And a pretty one, too. We’d be in an awful fix, if things didn’t happen just like they do. She’s a lot lighter in color than a lot of people who pass for white, and it’s my guess she’s a quadroon, Nettie. Nature still knows what she’s doing, all right. The baby’s going to outdo her mother for looks, and that’s going a far piece, I can tell you. You can count on that till kingdom come. I’ve brought enough babies into this world and seen them grow up to know that’s a certainty. It’s just what nature always strives for—to produce a beautiful woman—and there’s no arguing with nature in this life. Nature’s been striving for perfection for a long time now, and this’s just about as close to perfection as I’ll live to see.”

He carefully covered the infant and picked up his satchel and crossed the room to the poster bed.

The first thing Kathyanne said was, “Is she all right, Dr. Plowden? Please tell me!”

“As perfect as a picture, and as pretty, too, Kathyanne. Don’t you worry about anything. You’ve got a wonderful girl-baby. You’ve been in good hands, and the baby, too. I’ve never known Nettie Dunn to take a false step yet. How are you feeling now?”

“I feel all right.”

He pulled up a chair and sat down. After examining her, he patted her hand comfortingly.

“You’re a healthy girl, Kathyanne, and now you’ve got a fine baby, too. There’s nothing to worry about. But you should have sent for me for the delivery, though.” He shook his head at her in a reproving manner. “I could’ve given Nettie and her daughter a helping hand. Why didn’t you send for me sooner?”

“But we didn’t send for you at all, Dr. Plowden,” she told him, shaking her head and looking at him wonderingly. “How did you know about it?”

He leaned back and thought about what she had said before answering her. He was able now to understand why Henry had been so reluctant to open the door and let him in when he first knocked.

“Well, I guess news travels fast these days, Kathyanne,” he said at last. “Anyway, I came down as soon as I knew about it.” He stopped and studied her face meditatively as his thoughts continued to pass through his mind in confusion. “I didn’t know you were having a baby, though. Why didn’t you come to my office to see me before this? How long have you been married?”

She glanced across the room at the others before answering him. Henry was standing on the hearth facing them.

“I’m not married, Dr. Plowden,” she told him, lowering her voice.

He was unprepared to hear her say that. Leaning closer, and in a lower voice, he asked, “Who’s the father, Kathyanne?”

She looked straight at him, but made no reply.

“What about that boy over there?” he asked, indicating Henry with a motion of his head.

“Henry Beck?” She glanced at Henry on the hearth. “No, it wasn’t Henry, Dr. Plowden.”

“No, I guess it couldn’t be,” he was quick to say in confirmation. “Who was the white man, Kathyanne?”

Again she would not answer him.

“It seems to me that you were doing housework at the Swaynes at one time,” he said as if to himself. “That was back in the early spring, if I remember correctly. You went to work there about a year or more ago, when you and your brother first moved to town.”

When he stopped, he could see tears glistening in her eyes. “That’s all right, Kathyanne,” he said in haste, reaching over and patting her hand tenderly. “I understand.”

Nothing was said for a long time. Presently he turned around in his chair and looked at Henry standing in front of the fire.

“What’s Henry Beck doing here, Kathyanne?”

“He just came to help out.”

“Is that all?”

“He says he wants to marry me.”

“Now—after this?”

She nodded.

“Do you want to marry him?”

“I’ve thought about it.”

“Does he have a job?”

“Yes, sir. He still works at Mr. Tyson Porcher’s place.”

He watched the expression on her face until both of them were smiling.

“Good,” he approved, nodding to her. “You’ll need somebody to look after you now, Kathyanne.”

“I’ve thought of that, too,” she said.

His eyes were fixed upon the bright colorful patches on the quilt. “You don’t have your brother alive any more—an outrage if I ever heard of one. They’ll never bring Burgess Tarver to trial—and even if they did, he’s got a witness who’ll take the stand and swear it was self-defense. And now that your Aunt Hazel’s gone to the hospital to stay, you’re all alone. That is, except for your parents, I suppose.”

“My mother’s dead, Dr. Plowden.” There was a pause. “And I never had a father—I mean, I never knew him.” She lifted her head and looked at the wicker basket on the hearth. “But she’s mine. I have her now.”

“What are you going to name her?”

“Celeste.”

“That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl,” he approved. “What’ll her last name be?”

Without looking at him, she slowly shook her head. “I don’t know, Dr. Plowden. Unless—”

“I know. I think it’d be a fine thing for you to marry Henry Beck, if both of you want that. Does he really want to marry you—now?”

She turned her head on the pillow and looked at Henry. Henry still had not been able to overhear anything that had been said, and he was scowling unhappily at both of them.

“Henry,” Dr. Plowden called across the room, “what’s on your mind, son?”

The tall muscular boy twisted his body awkwardly. “I ain’t had much on my mind, except worrying about her, Dr. Plowden. Is she going to be all right now?”

“She’s going to be all right, Henry.”

“I sure am glad to hear that. I sure am.” He smiled at Kathyanne. “That’s mighty good news to hear.”

Dr. Plowden leaned back in the chair. “Let’s see. It’s now about five days until Christmas.” He nodded to himself. “By New Year’s Day she’ll be doing anything she wants to, Henry.”

Henry was looking at the wicker basket beside Nettie Dunn. “I didn’t know about—about that—till just a little while ago, Dr. Plowden,” he spoke out complainingly. “She never told me. And every time I came around to see her and asked her how come she was so different, she wouldn’t tell me a single word. She went and acted all the time like she had a whopping big secret up her sleeve and it wasn’t none of my business. I was positive something was going on around here that I didn’t know the first thing about, but I didn’t know for sure till just tonight. I never did like for nobody to gull me that way. She oughtn’t do it, neither. No, sir!”

“Well, Henry,” he said, trying to dispel the boy’s resentment, “everybody knows that girls have little secrets of their own. A man can’t expect to know everything about them. That’s the way all girls are. It’s natural for them to be like that. It’s part of their stock in trade, you might say. They wouldn’t be the same without it. They’d be in a bad fix if they couldn’t have their little secrets, son.”

“Leastways, looks like she’d of told me that, anyhow,” he replied, unconvinced. “But I reckon I still like her just like I always did, just the same.”

“That’s the spirit, Henry,” he told the boy approvingly. “A lot of things sometimes happen to a girl like Kathyanne that can’t be helped. You don’t want to blame her too much for that. She’s a good girl. Always remember that. Now, you and Kathyanne will have a fine start with a family. And it’s up to you to support them. You’ll have to stop throwing your money away from now on. It’s a great responsibility for a man.” He smiled at Henry. “Are you willing, son?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, taking a deep, resigned breath. “I’m willing.” He was frowning a moment later. “But she’s got to listen to me from now on, and quit acting like she’s hiding secrets from me like she’s been doing. I don’t want to be tied down to no bossy woman, neither. But I won’t stand back none at all if she’ll speak right out and promise that and get married to me. That’s what I want to do.”

“That takes care of everything then, Henry. All you have to do now is ask her.”

“Yes, sir,” he said with a hopeful look at Kathyanne.

Dr. Plowden could see from the corners of his eyes that Kathyanne was watching Henry admiringly. Her countenance was glowing with pleased expectancy. He stood up, and at the same time took the envelope from his pocket. When he placed the envelope in her hand, she looked at it closely in the dim light and then hurriedly opened it. The crisp new bill fell on the quilt.

“What’s all this money for, Dr. Plowden?” she asked him, amazed by what she saw. “Where’d it come from—who does it belong to?”

Henry came closer, gaping at the sight of so much money.

“It’s all yours, Kathyanne. It’s a present for you and the baby. It’ll buy a lot of nice things, too. Now, be sure and spend some of it on yourself.”

“I don’t know why you should give it to me, Dr. Plowden. I’ve never seen this much money before in all my life. It’s a hundred dollars!”

He nodded toward Henry. “Don’t hand that over to Henry, now. It all belongs to you. Before you spend any of it, you’d better take it up to the bank and ask George Swayne to change it into smaller bills for you. I think he’ll be glad to know that you’ve got that much money.”

He turned his back and walked away, leaving her watching him speechlessly. He was confident now that sooner or later, if she had not already done so, she would realize where the money came from. After warming himself thoroughly at the fireplace, he put on his heavy gray overcoat with Henry’s help.

“You’d better get busy now, Henry,” he said with friendly admonition, “if you’re going to support a wife and family. It takes all a man’s time and ability to raise a family these days.” He smiled at the boy. Then he reached for Henry’s hand and shook it warmly. “But if it’s for Kathyanne, it’s worth it, isn’t it, Henry?”

“Yes, sir, Dr. Plowden,” Henry said solemnly. “I’ll take good care of them. I sure will.”

He walked to the door and waited while Henry was opening it for him. Over his shoulder he called to Nettie Dunn. “I’ll be back again late this afternoon to see how mother and child are doing, Nettie. Take good care of them in the meantime. Don’t forget to use scalding water when you rinse the dishes and things like that. You can never be too careful.”

“Yes, sir,” Dr. Plowden,” she promised. “I won’t forget that at all.”

As he turned to walk through the doorway, he saw Kathyanne lift her head from the pillow. Her eyes were sparkling with reflected firelight. “Dr. Plowden—”

“Yes, Kathyanne?”

“Dr. Plowden—God bless you!”

He did not know what was coming over him, but he could feel warm tears of gratitude filling his eyes. As his vision blurred, he reached out in time to find the side of the doorway for support. Clinging to the doorjamb, he felt as though he were being privileged to live his whole life over again in the space of a few short seconds. He had helped thousands of men, women, and children in his lifetime, saving the lives of some, prolonging the lives of others, and comforting those who were discouraged and heartbroken, and now it seemed as if each and every one he had helped in some way during the past forty years was thanking him with heartfelt appreciation. He could still hear, over and over again, the words that Kathyanne had spoken. This mulatto girl, on this cold December night in the squalor of Gwinnett Alley, unknowingly had rewarded him for a lifetime of labor. He was satisfied with his life now. Blindly groping in the direction of his car, he stumbled down the creaking loose-boarded steps into the yard.

“Dr. Plowden—are you all right?” Henry called anxiously, running after him.

“Yes—yes!” he said tersely, waving Henry away. “I’m all right, son. Leave me alone.”

Instead of going back to the cabin door, Henry stood in the yard listening to the resounding crunch of his heels in the cold winter night. The gate swung open on squeaking hinges. And then, suddenly, and without a murmur of protest, the gray overcoated body fell to the freezing ground of Gwinnett Alley.

A Biography of Erskine Caldwell

Erskine Caldwell (1903–1987) was the author of twenty-five novels, numerous short stories, and a dozen nonfiction titles, most depicting the harsh realities of life in the American South during the Great Depression. His books have sold tens of millions of copies, with God’s Little Acre having sold more than fourteen million copies alone. Caldwell’s sometimes graphic realism and unabashedly political themes earned him the scorn of critics and censors early in his career, though by the end of his life he was acknowledged as a giant of American literature.

Caldwell was born in 1903 in Moreland, Georgia. His father was a traveling preacher, and his mother was a teacher. The Caldwell family lived in a number of Southern states throughout Erskine’s childhood. Caldwell’s tour of the South exposed him to cities and rural areas that would eventually serve as backdrops for his novels and stories. After high school, he briefly attended Erskine College in Due West, South Carolina, where he played football but did not earn a degree. He also took classes at the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania. During this time, Caldwell began to develop the political sensibilities that would inform much of his writing. A deep concern for economic and social injustice, also partly influenced by his religious upbringing, would become a hallmark of Caldwell’s writing.

Much of Caldwell’s education came from working. In his twenties he played professional sports for a brief time, and was also a mill worker, cotton picker, and held a number of other blue collar jobs. Caldwell married his college sweetheart and the couple began having children. After the family settled in Maine in 1925, Caldwell began placing stories in magazines, eventually publishing his first story collection after F. Scott Fitzgerald recommended his writing to famed editor Maxwell Perkins.

Two early novels, Tobacco Road (1932) and God’s Little Acre (1933), made Caldwell famous, but this was not initially due to their literary merit. Both novels depict the South as beset by racism, ignorance, cruelty, and deep social inequalities. They also contain scenes of sex and violence that were graphic for the time. Both books were banned from public libraries and other venues, especially in the South. Caldwell was prosecuted for obscenity, though exonerated.

The 1930s and 1940s were an incredibly productive time for Caldwell. He published a number of novels and nonfiction works that brilliantly captured the tragedy of American life during the Depression years. His novels took an unflinching look at race and murder, as in Trouble in July (1940), religious hypocrisy, as in Journeyman (1935), and greed, as in Georgia Boy (1943). In 1937 he partnered with his second wife, Margaret Bourke-White, a photographer, to produce a nonfiction travelogue of the Depression-era South called You Have Seen Their Faces.

Through the decades, Caldwell continued to focus his attention on the dehumanizing force of poverty, whether in the South or overseas. Caldwell’s reputation as a novelist grew even as he pursued journalism and screenwriting for Hollywood. He adapted some of his best-known novels into screenplays, including God’s Little Acre and Tobacco Road, directed by John Ford. As a journalist, he worked as a war correspondent during World War II and wrote travel pieces from every corner of the globe. In 1965 he traveled through the South and wrote about the racial attitudes he encountered in his heralded In Search of Bisco.

Caldwell spent much of his later years traveling and writing while living with his fourth wife, Virginia, in Arizona. A lifelong smoker, Caldwell died of lung cancer in 1987.

A baby portrait of Erskine Caldwell. Born December 17, 1903, in White Oak, Georgia, to a Presbyterian minister and a schoolteacher, Caldwell would later describe his childhood home as “an isolated farm deep in the piney-woods country of the red clay hills of Coweta County, in middle Georgia.” (Image courtesy of Dartmouth College Library.)

Erskine Caldwell as a child. With a minister father, Caldwell spent many of his early years traveling the South’s numerous tobacco roads. During these years, he observed firsthand the trials of isolated rural life and the poverty of tenant farmers—themes he would later engage with in his novels. (Image courtesy of Dartmouth College Library.)

Caldwell’s early novels linked him forever to the Tobacco Road region of the South. This photograph, taken by Caldwell’s second wife, photographer Margaret Bourke-White, references the title of his most famous work, Tobacco Road. Published under legendary editor Maxwell Perkins in 1932, the novel was adapted by Jack Kirkland for Broadway, where the play ran for 3,182 performances from 1933–1941, making it the longest-running play in history at that time, and earning Caldwell royalties of $2,000 a week for nearly eight years. (Image courtesy of Dartmouth College Library.)

Publisher Kurt Enoch (left) presenting Erskine Caldwell with the Signet paperback edition of God’s Little Acre, published in 1934, the year following its hardcover publication with Viking. Enoch would reprint God’s Little Acre fifty-seven times by 1961. The novel was not without controversy: The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice fought to have God’s Little Acre declared obscene, leading to Caldwell’s arrest and trial. Caldwell was exonerated, and God’s Little Acre went on to sell more than fourteen million copies and see life as a film adaptation in 1958. (Image courtesy of Dartmouth College Library.)

Erskine Caldwell’s passport photo from 1946 to 1950. His occupation on this heavily stamped passport identifies him as a journalist, and he traveled extensively as a reporter throughout his adult life. During World War II, he had received special permission from the U.S.S.R. to travel to the Ukraine, reporting on the war effort there. (Image courtesy of Dartmouth College Library.)

An accomplished reporter, novelist, and short story writer, Caldwell also spent five years writing Hollywood scripts. This is the first page of a first draft shooting script he wrote for Thomas Wolfe’s beloved Southern bildungsroman, Look Homeward, Angel. A contemporary of Wolfe’s, Caldwell rejected being included as part of the “Southern tradition” in which critics attempted to place him. (Image courtesy of Dartmouth College Library.)

Pictured here in Rome, Erskine Caldwell and his fourth wife, Virginia, traveled the world together. Caldwell was an avid traveler throughout his later life—visiting Japan, South America, and a multitude of other locales. His notebooks from these trips are kept in the Erskine Caldwell Birthplace and Museum in Moreland, Georgia, where the house in which he was born has been moved and preserved. (Image courtesy of Dartmouth College Library.)

The last photo of Erskine Caldwell, taken March 19, 1987. He passed away from lung cancer in Paradise Valley, Arizona, on April 11, 1987, survived by his wife, Virginia, and four children. (Image courtesy of Dartmouth College Library.)

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1949 by Erskine Caldwell

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

978-1-4532-1713-9

This edition published in 2011 by Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Part One: Early Spring

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part Two: Midsummer

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part Three: Late Autumn

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

A Biography of Erksine Caldwell

Copyright