ooked at the hobbledehoy for several seconds before he recognized in
the lanky youth a little Arkwright boy whom he had known and played with
in his pre-college days. Now there was such an exaggerated wistfulness
in young Arkwright's attitude that Peter was amused.

"Hello, Sam," he called. "What you doing out here?"

The Arkwright boy turned with a start.

"Aw, is that you, Siner?" Before the negro could reply, he added: "Was
you on the Harvard football team, Siner? Guess the white fellers have a
pretty gay time in Harvard, don't they, Siner? Geemenettie! but I git
tired o' this dern town! D' reckon I could make the football team? Looks
like I could if a nigger like you could, Siner."

None of this juvenile outbreak of questions required answers. Peter
stood looking at the hobbledehoy without smiling.

"Aren't you going to school?" he asked.

Arkwright shrugged.

"Aw, hell!" he said self-consciously. "We got marched down to the
protracted meetin' while ago--whole school did. My seat happened to be
close to a window. When they all stood up to sing, I crawled out and
skipped. Don't mention that, Siner."

"I won't."

"When a fellow goes to college he don't git marched to preachin', does
he, Siner?"

"I never did."

"We-e-ll," mused young Sam, doubtfully, "you're a nigger."

"I never saw any white men marched in, either."

"Oh, hell! I wish I was in college."

"What are you sitting out here thinking about?" inquired Peter of the
ingenuous youngster.

"Oh--football and--women and God and--how to stack cards. You think
about ever'thing, in the woods. Damn it! I got to git out o' this little
jay town. D' reckon I could git in the navy, Siner?"

"Don't see why you couldn't, Sam. Have you seen Tump Pack anywhere?"

"Yeah; on Hobbett's corner. Say, is Cissie Dildine at home?"

"I believe she is."

"She cooks for us," explained young Arkwright, "and Mammy wants her to
come and git supper, too."

The phrase "get supper, too," referred to the custom in the white homes
of Hooker's Bend of having only two meals cooked a day, breakfast and
the twelve-o'clock dinner, with a hot supper optional with the mistress.

Peter nodded, and passed on up the path, leaving young Arkwright seated
on the ledge of rock, a prey to all the boiling, erratic impulses of
adolescence. The negro sensed some of the innumerable difficulties of
this white boy's life, and once, as he walked on over the silent
needles, he felt an impul