When William Wallace came back, with a string of Malones just showing behind him on the hilltop, he found Virgil with the two little Rippen boys waiting behind him, solemn little towheads. As soon as he walked up, Grady, the one in front, lifted his hand to signal silence and caution to his brother Brucie who began panting merrily and untrustworthily behind him.

Brucie bent readily under William Wallace’s hand-pat, and gave him a dreamy look out of the tops of his round eyes, which were pure green-and-white like clover tops. William Wallace gave him a nickel. Grady hung his head; his white hair lay in a little tail in the nape of his neck.

“Let’s let them come,” said Virgil.

“Well, they can come then, but if we keep letting everybody come it is going to be too many,” said William Wallace.

“They’ll appreciate it, those little-old boys,” said Virgil. Brucie held up at arm’s length a long red thread with a bent pin tied on the end; and a look of helpless and intense interest gathered Grady’s face like a drawstring—his eyes, one bright with a sty, shone pleadingly under his white bangs, and he snapped his jaw and tried to speak. . . . “Their papa was drowned in the Pearl River,” said Virgil.

There was a shout from the gully.

“Here come all the Malones,” cried William Wallace. “I asked four of them would they come, but the rest of the family invited themselves.”

“Did you ever see a time when they didn’t,” said Virgil. “And yonder from the other direction comes the Doyles, still with biscuit crumbs on their cheeks, I bet, now it’s nothing to do but eat as their mother said.”

“If two little niggers would come along now, or one big nigger,” said William Wallace. And the words were hardly out of his mouth when two little Negro boys came along, going somewhere, one behind the other, stepping high and gay in their overalls, as though they waded in honeydew to the waist.

“Come here, boys. What’s your names?”

“Sam and Robbie Bell.”

“Come along with us, we’re going to drag the river.”

“You hear that, Robbie Bell?” said Sam.

They smiled.

The Doyles came noiselessly, their dogs made all the fuss. The Malones, eight giants with great long black eyelashes, were already stamping the ground and pawing each other, ready to go. Everybody went up together to see Doc.

Old Doc owned the wide net. He had a house on top of the hill and he sat and looked out from a rocker on the front porch.

“Climb the hill and come in!” he began to intone across the valley. “Harvest’s over . . . slipped up on everybody . . . cotton’s picked, gone to the gin . . . hay cut . . . molasses made around here. . . . Big explosion’s over, supervisors elected, some pleased, some not. . . . We’re hearing talk of war!”