“But what about that nigger?” he said. “A white man ought to get some kind of ree-ward for handlin’ a nigger.”

“Well, maybe you will,” I said. “If not in this world, the next one.”

He went on arguing about it. Some of the people in the crowd picked up the argument, debating it back and forth between themselves. They were about evenly divided on the subject, one group claiming that Henry Clay was entitled to a reward, and the other saying that a white that was fool enough to bother with a nigger didn’t deserve nothing but an ass-kicking.

I grabbed hold of a couple of colored fellas, and told ‘em to carry Uncle John’s body back to his folks. And they kind of dragged their feet, but of course they did it. Then, me and Robert Lee and one of his clerks carried Tom into Taylor’s Emporium, Furniture and Undertaking.

I told Robert Lee I’d kind of like his opinion on things, and he turned on me, looking sickish. “Can’t you at least let me wash my hands?” he snapped. “Are you in such an all-fired hurry I can’t even do that?”

“Not me,” I said. “I ain’t in no more hurry than ol’ Tom is, and I sure don’t see him bein’ in one, do you, Robert Lee? Kind of hard to tell which is the biggest, ol’ Tom or the hole in him!”

We all washed up in the rear of the Emporium, Robert Lee looking awful pale and sickish. Then his clerk went on back to the hardware store, me an’ Robert Lee following him maybe ten minutes later. We couldn’t make it any sooner than that, because Robert Lee had to make himself another quick trip and a long visit to the wash-sink.

He held himself straight and tight-lipped as we left, still as pale as a ghost. Then, just as we stepped out the door, Henry Clay Fanning latched hold of him.

That Henry Clay was a real case, what we call a cotton-patch lawyer down here. He knew all the privileges he was entitled to—and maybe three or four million others besides—but he didn’t have much sense of his obligations. None of his fourteen kids had ever been to school, because making kids go to school was interferin’ with a man’s constitutional rights. Four of his seven girls, all of ‘em that were old enough to be, were pregnant. And he wouldn’t allow no one to ask ‘em how they’d got that way, because that was his legal responsibility, it was a father’s job to care for his children’s morals, and he didn’t have to tolerate any interference.

Of course, everyone had a pretty good idea who’d gotten those girls pregnant. But under the circumstances, there wasn’t any way of proving it, and with Henry Clay being kind of mean-tempered no one talked much about it.

So here he was now, exercisin’ his rights again. Grabbing Robert Lee Jefferson by the arm and whirling him around.