n
him--Uncle Buzz. It was as though the world had swallowed him up. He
would have to seek elsewhere. He was on the point of dismissing the
matter, of going elsewhere, when a thought suddenly came to him.

"You and he were to have some business last night?" he said, looking
at Zeke intently.

Zeke grinned a sheepish grin. "Yessuh, we wuz--we had a little
bisnis."

"But you didn't meet him? Sure you didn't meet him?"

"Sho I neveh. I ain' able to git de--I was detain'." Zeke had learned
from experience and considerable instinct to hedge his utterances
about with much generality. It was a good principle. It meant less to
retract.

Joe thought another moment. "Take me," he said suddenly, "to the place
where you get the business." There he might find a connecting link in
his chain, he felt growingly certain.

"Oveh to Mist' Bushrod's?" The inflection was perfectly naive.

"No. Of course not--out where you get it. Over to Fillmore or wherever
it is."

"Now, Mist' Joe," very reproachfully and with a quick, nervous
flashing of the eyes.

Joe frowned. "You needn't put on anything with me, Zeke. I'm not going
to give you away. Let's go get your car." He stretched out his arm as
though to sweep Zeke into doing his bidding and started for the door.

"But I ain' eveh had no bisnis to Fillmo'," Zeke began in a last
effort to stem the tide. "They ain' no bisnis theh."

"That's more like it. That may be the truth," said Joe pressing him
on. And Zeke reluctantly passed out and descended the steps.

As Joe turned to close the front door behind him he caught a look back
in the room. Framed in the doorway stood a very small pickaninny,
barely reaching to the knob. She was barefoot, in a blue calico dress,
with her hair done in two kinky braids that stood out in front like
diminutive horns. In her arms she held tightly clutched an old corn
shock wrapped in a red rag. One hand grasped the doorpost. And she was
watching him wide eyed and very gravely.

"That's good advice you gave me," Joe said to her, as he closed the
door.

They made their way around a corner to a ramshackle shed, Joe urging
on the reluctant Zeke by the menace of an encroaching shoulder. Zeke
paused at the entrance. He groped in his pocket and directly pulled
forth a key on a very dirty, greasy string. Fumblingly he inserted it
in the lock. Then he paused again and lifting his eyes, thoughtfully
inspected the sky.

"Look powahful lak rain," he reflected