Thomason laughed nervously. Harry came to the door and put his hand on the boy’s head. “Next time say it’s Mister Harper right off. You about killed Thomason there.” The storekeeper blushed.

They went back onto the porch. Harry leaned against his post; the boy stood next to him. Mister Harper, late this morning, was being wheeled down the center of the Highway by his daughter. When he reached the porch the men lifted the chair into their midst and exchanged greetings with him. Almost at once his daughter started up the street back home. The old man leaned back. “Well, what’s happening today, Harry?”

“Nothing much. A truck—” He started but Mister Harper had turned to Harold.

“How’s Mister Leland, there?”

Harry felt the boy slide in behind him, jamming between his hip and the post: Funny how he don’t like Mister Harper, who never done him no harm. I reckon he don’t understand how a man can be so old and still be human. “He’s okay, Mister Harper.”

They lounged on the porch and talked. Harry embraced the post with one arm, his boy sitting in front of him, a stick in his hand, carving in the cracks at the edge of the Highway and every so often leaning back so his head bumped gently against Harry’s knee. Behind them, the men would ask Mister Harper questions of world events and when he answered, whether they really understood or not, they would nod and grumble. Then, as it neared lunch time, they started to vacate the porch, knowing the old man wanted to be alone while he ate. Soon, his daughter came briskly down the center of the Highway carrying a gray metal lunch box under her arm.

Harry and the boy went into the store and Harry bought their meal. They went around to the back of the store and sat in the sun. When they finished the cheese and crackers and milk in waxed containers, Harry lit one of the cigars Miss Rickett had sent him. He watched Harold as he pretended to smoke a faded yellow straw, and reached over, struck a match, burned the end of it so there was an ash. The boy moved closer to him and rested his head on his shoulder. “Papa, why’d Tucker buy all that salt? You know?”

“No, son.” He drew on the cigar. “Tucker’s strange, ain’t he? I heard tell of him doing stranger things than that even.” Suddenly remembering, he turned sharply. “And say now, what did your mama and me tell you about using nigger?”

The boy cast his head downward, searched the ground between his legs for the answer. “You said…you said not to use it any.”

“You remember why?” Harry did not want to sound too stern: It’s hard for him. Everybody uses it hereabouts. It’s even hard for me not to use it.