It was when he paused to rest, to wait for his breathing to return to normal, that he was first aware of the silence. And suddenly this was all he could think of. Up ahead, submerged in the gray dawn, sat the village; and nowhere could he find a sign of life, a sign that anyone was truly here. The gravel street was empty. Dogs should have been frisking in the littered yards, but there were no dogs, and there were no chickens, either. Just the houses, with their eyes closed, and the store fronts, and the street, and, high above, the telephone wires still as harpstrings.

Tom held his breath a moment, listened, then walked to the third apartment, went up the steps and knocked on the door.

It opened slowly.

A middle-aged Negro man stood tall in the gray light. “Yes?”

“Are you Mr. Green?” Tom said.

“That’s right.” The door did not open farther.

“My name is McDaniel. I think we met once. I’m editor of the Messenger.”

The man frowned. “What do you want?”

“To talk with your son Joey. If I may.”

“What for?”

Tom looked downward, wondering how he could answer the question. It took all of last night, lying awake, thinking, sorting things out and putting them in orderly piles and examining them, to reach a decision; and even then, he was afraid it was not the thinking that had done it. He only knew that when the first cool wash of sun had spread across the sky, he’d thought of the frightened children and realized that there was only one thing for him to do. So, in a sense, it wasn’t a decision after all. And it wasn’t an act of bravery, either, for he knew equally well that if he did not do this thing he would never be able to face himself.

So quietly he’d dressed and started out. And when Ruth had awakened and asked him the question, he’d answered it truthfully. And she had stared at him, saying nothing, her eyes searching and full of fear.

“What do you want with my son, Mr. McDaniel?”

“I want to accompany him down to school,” Tom said.

The man shook his head. “He ain’t going to school.”

A young boy appeared at the door. “I’m going,” he said.

“I said no!” Abel Green clenched his hands, looked at his son for a moment, then back at Tom. “You come here to gloat?” he said. “Well, get on back to town, hear? Get on back. You all done your job. Put it in the paper—us niggers give up. You don’t have to kill any more of us, we—”

“Pop!”