Thomason, who, because he did so little business, was hardly ever in his store, stood just behind Mister Harper, his back pressed against the dirty plate glass of his show window. Bobby-Joe McCollum, the youngest member of the group, barely twenty, sat on the porch steps with his feet in the gutter, smoking a cigar. Loomis, a habitual member of the group, was in a chair, reared back on its two hind legs. He had been upstate to the university at Willson, though he had lasted only three weeks, and thought Mister Harper’s explanation of the happenings too fantastic, too simple. “Now, I just can’t believe this here blood business.”

“What else can it be?” Mister Harper turned to Loomis and squinted through his hair. He spoke differently from the rest of the men; his voice, high, breathy, dry, distinct, like a New Englander’s. “Mind you, I’m not one of these superstitious folks; I don’t take account of ghosts and such. But the way I see it, it’s pure genetics: something special in the blood. And if anybody in this world got something special in his blood, his name is Tucker Caliban.” He lowered his voice, spoke almost in a whisper. “I can see whatever was in his blood just a-laying there sleeping, waiting, and then one day waking up, making Tucker do what he did. Can’t be no other reason. We never had no trouble with him, nor him with us. But all at once his blood started to itch in his veins, and he started this here…this here revolution. And I know all about revolution; that’s one of the things we studied at the Point. Why d’you reckon I thought it was important enough to get up out of my chair?” He stared across the street. “It’s got to be the African’s blood! That’s simple!”

Bobby-Joe’s chin was cupped in his hands. He did not turn around to look at the old man, and so Mister Harper did not realize immediately the boy was making fun of him. “I hear tell about this African, and can even remember somebody telling the story to me a long time ago, but I just can’t seem to remember how it went.” Mister Harper had told the story the day before, and many times before that. “Why don’t you tell it, Mister Harper, and let us see how it got something to do with all this. How about that?”

By now Mister Harper realized what was going on, but it did not matter. He knew too some of the men thought he was too old and ought to be dead instead of coming to the porch each morning. But he liked to tell the story. Even so, they would have to coax him. “You all know that story as well as me.”