“Mr. Green,” Tom said, “I know that you don’t have any reason to trust me. I don’t have any right to expect you to, either. Like a lot of people, I’ve been pretty mixed up by this thing. But I’m not mixed up any more. I’m on your side—”

The man laughed harshly.

“Please! Please believe me,” Tom said. “I don’t know who planted that dynamite. But neither do you. It isn’t fair for you to blame me—”

“You talking about fair, mister?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you think it was a colored man killed the reverend and blown up his church, huh?”

“No, no, no. It was a white man, I’m sure of that. But—it was just one man, or one small group. It wasn’t the people of Caxton. They’re not that way. I mean—if one of the men here on the Hill came into town and shot the sheriff, would you feel responsible? Would it be right to blame everyone here for it who happened to be the same color? There’s a bunch of bad apples in town, Mr. Green—you’ll find them in every town. They’re hateful and mean and vicious. But you mustn’t judge the town by them! The people of Caxton are good.”

“Sure. Down deep, what they want more’n anything is to see our kids go to their schools, don’t they?”

“No. I’ve heard that you’re an intelligent man, Green. You have sense enough to know that it’s going to take time for this thing to start working smoothly. Most of the people don’t want this form of integration. But most of them are law-abiding citizens, and if the Supreme Court gives an order, they’ll obey it.”

“Except for blowing up a few churches and riding the Klan through town, you mean.”

“Pop!” Joey Green stepped forward. “Give the man a chance. Maybe he’s telling the truth.”

“I am,” Tom said. “If you give up now, Mr. Green, you’ll lose everything you’ve been fighting for all these years. It won’t be the town that beat you, though. It’ll be a little bunch of ignorant fanatics­ who think they’re strong enough to defy the United States government. Are you going to help them do this? Are you going to give them the power they think they have?”

“That’s a lot of nice talk,” Abel Green said. “I been hearing it from my wife for twenty years. But ain’t all the talk in the world going to bring Finley Mead back to life! Whether it was a little group like you say, or every white man in Caxton, that church was dynamited and that preacher was killed. Them are facts. And if whoever done it decides to do it again, that’s what’ll happen. Maybe we’ll be next. What’ll you do then?”