“Washed its face, and it was paint all over it made it look red. It all come off. And it could talk—as good as me or you. But they’d tole it not to, so it never did. They’d tole it if anybody was to come near it they was comin’ to git it—and for it to hit ’em quick with that iron bar an’ growl. So nobody ever come near it—until that man. I was yellin’ outside, tellin’ ’em to keep away, keep away. You could see where they’d whup it. They had to whup it some to make it eat all the chickens. It was awful dirty. They let it go back home free, to where they got it in the first place. They made them pay its ticket from Little Oil, Texas, to Cane Springs, Miss’ippi.”

“You got a good memory,” said Max.

“The way it started was,” said Steve, in a wondering voice, “the show was just travelin’ along in ole trucks through the country, and just seen this little deformed nigger man, sittin’ on a fence, and just took it. It couldn’t help it.”

Little Lee Roy tossed his head back in a frenzy of amusement.

“I found it all out later. I was up on the Ferris wheel with one of the boys—got to talkin’ up yonder in the peace an’ quiet—an’ said they just kind of happened up on it. Like a cyclone happens: it wasn’t nothin’ it could do. It was just took up.” Steve suddenly paled through his sunburn. “An’ they found out that back in Miss’ippi it had it a little bitty pair of crutches an’ could just go runnin’ on ’em!”

“And there they are,” said Max.

Little Lee Roy held up a crutch and turned it about, and then snatched it back like a monkey.

“But if it hadn’t been for that man, I wouldn’t of knowed it till yet. If it wasn’t for him bein’ so bold. If he hadn’t knowed what he was doin’.”

“You remember that man this fella’s talkin’ about, boy?” asked Max, eying Little Lee Roy.

Little Lee Roy, in reluctance and shyness, shook his head gently.

“Naw suh, I can’t say as I remembas that ve’y man, suh,” he said softly, looking down where just then a sparrow alighted on his child’s shoe. He added happily, as if on inspiration, “Now I remembas this man.”

Steve did not look up, but when Max shook with silent laughter, alarm seemed to seize him like a spasm in his side. He walked painfully over and stood in the shade for a few minutes, leaning his head on a sycamore tree.