“I’ll ask you just one question,” Robert Lee cut in. “Are you or aren’t you going to start enforcing the law?”

“Sure I am,” I said. “I sure ain’t going to do nothing else but.”

“Good, I’m relieved to hear it.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m really going to start cracking down. Anyone that breaks a law from now on is goin’ to have to deal with me. Providing, o’ course, that he’s either colored or some poor white trash that can’t pay his poll tax.”

“That’s a pretty cynical statement, Nick!”

“Cynical?” I said. “Aw, now, Robert Lee. What for have I got to be cynical about?”

18

The fire was on late Friday night, and it was almost dawn Saturday before I got home. I scrubbed myself up, and put on some clean clothes. Then I went out into the kitchen, and started to fix breakfast.

Myra came out fuming and fussing, asking me what in the world I was up to. I told her about the fire and how people were criticizin’ me, and she shut up fast. Because she didn’t want to be an ex-sheriff’s wife any more than I wanted to be an ex-sheriff, and she knew I was going to have to do some humpin’ or we might be.

She finished cooking breakfast for me. I ate and went downtown.

It being Saturday, all the stores were open extra early, and any farmers that weren’t already in town were on their way in. They stood around on the sidewalks, their black cloth hats brushed and cleanlooking, their Sunday shirts fairly clean, and their overalls ranging from middling-dirty to downright filthy.

Their wives wore starched-stiff sunbonnets and Mother Hubbards made out of calico or gingham. Their kids’ clothes—except the kids that were old enough for hand-me-downs—were made out of meal sacks, with the faded labels still showing on some of ‘em. Men and women, and practically every boy and girl over twelve, were chewing and spitting snuff. The men and boys poured the snuff down inside their lower lip. The women and girls used snuff-sticks, frayed twigs that they dipped in their snuff cans and then put in the corners of their mouths.

I moved around among the men, shakin’ hands and slapping backs and telling ‘em to just come and see me any time they had a problem. I told all the women that Myra had been askin’ about ‘em and that they just had to come and see her sometime. And I patted the kids on the head, if their heads weren’t too high up, and gave them pennies and nickels, depending on how tall they were.

Naturally, I was busy with the townspeople too, doing my dangdest to make friends or to get back any I’d lost. But I couldn’t be sure I did any better with them than I did with the farmers, and I couldn’t be sure I did any good with the farmers.

Oh, almost everyone was pleasant, and no one was what you’d call downright unfriendly. But too many of ‘em were cautious, kind of cagey when I hinted around at the subject of voting. And if there’s one thing I know it’s this: a fella that’s going to vote for you don’t lose much time in declaring himself.