Bonard was already away at college, and Rooster had absorbed about as much of Mr. Bartram’s teaching as he was able to. He stoutly declared that he wanted nothing but to learn farming and that he would refuse to follow his brother away to school no matter what threats or promises were made. In truth Edna and Benjamin were pleased with their younger son for this staunchness of resolve, and they made no protest when Mr. Bartram told them of his decision to return to the city.

Nothing had been settled about Leon’s future education.

Now this had happened. No one had taught Leon how to feel about Negroes; he had absorbed and accepted what those around, black and white, did and felt. He knew that white men fucked black women and that, generally speaking, no one thought the worse of them for it, and certainly no one could call them to account. In the stories Bonard told them before he went away to college, the idea was a constant. A common joke of the time was, “Hell, I didn’t know white women had pussies till I was twenty years old.” There was even a word for black sex: poontang. White boys had their first sexual encounters with black girls, who were always said to be compliant, if they did not actually seek such encounters. It was supposed that their compliance was partly the pleasure of their earthy natures, partly a hope of favors and advancement for themselves and their families.

Leon wanted to forget about Clovis, and let things be as they’d been before her; and at the same time he wanted to do it with her again. He thought not of her but of her titties and pussy, her heat and motion. In a sweat of repulsion and lust he thought of her. With Floyd’s drawing away from him, he was lonely and ready for any plan that popped into his mind. The simplest and most obvious one did.

One day, seeing Floyd go off to the fields with the others after noon dinner and a rest under the trees, Leon took care to walk past the kitchen window where Clovis was working. He stared in until she looked out, and then he walked off to the woods, looking back one time meaningfully before he disappeared. He waited, desperate with fear and desire, for almost an hour before she came. When she found him, they took off their clothes and fucked without a word said. But when it was over, he put his clothes on quickly, resolving to take them off again and wash himself in the creek with sand as soon as she had gone away. But she lay there staring at him sullenly.

Finally he asked her if anything was the matter, and she said, “You ought to give me something.”

“What can I give you?” he replied, offended.

“I don’t know. Something.” She turned her head away.