He had heard footsteps behind him—had seen, as he pulled back from the glass, the large black head on the short thin body reflected darkly before him, the figure not so tall as his father’s, hardly taller than himself.

Tucker Caliban entered the store and purchased a bag of feed, started out, then stopped and pointed to the window, speaking to Mister Thomason, who weighed out a full pound of peanuts and poured them into a brown paper sack. Then he came out onto the porch and stood in front of Mister Leland. “You Harry Leland’s boy?” He looked down at him as if he might hit him, not raising his hand, simply looking fierce.

Mister Leland ducked. “Yes, sir.” He’s a nigger—a Negro, but Papa says to say sir to anyone what’s older than me, even nig—Negroes.

“You wants peanuts, Mister Leland?” Tucker shoved the bag into his arms. “Here’s peanuts. Tell your pa I knows what he trying to do with you.” He turned and climbed into his wagon. He never looked at Mister Leland after that, never smiled or said good-by, just hit his horse with a piece of knotted rope tied to a short brown stick and drove away up the street, leaving Mister Leland to wonder what his father was trying to do with him. Tucker said it like there was something wrong with it, mad-like, but then if it was bad and he didn’t like it, why’d he buy me the peanuts? I reckon that’s just his way, like Papa and Mister Thomason is always arguing, with their faces all mad, but Papa says Mister Thomason is his best friend ever, except for Mama, but Mama and Papa is always fighting too, so it must not really matter at all how folks look or what they says, just what they does. He decided, however, he would ask his father what was being done to him, and when he did ask, his father had looked at him, very deeply, very seriously. “Your mama and me is trying to make you a passable human being.”

That did not really explain it to him, but he felt sure that if his father wanted him to be that, even if he did not quite understand what and why, it was all right with him. And if it earned him peanuts, that made it even more all right. He did not ponder it further.

This, then, had been all that passed between him and Tucker Caliban, all he had to bolster the belief in their friendship, except those times when they might meet in town and Tucker would nod or even say, “How do, Mister Leland.”