Place Called Estherville by Erskine Caldwell Read Free Book Online

quietly as he could, hoping he could persuade them to let him leave. “I was just on my way home. I wish you’d let me go now. I wasn’t bothering anybody. You white boys oughtn’t to chunk rocks at folks like that.”
    “Pete, you going to let one of them talk to you that way?” somebody said with a challenging snicker.
    “Maybe he don’t know any better,” Pete Tilghman, the tallest of the four boys, said with a jeering laugh. Pete, whose father owned a brickyard, played center on the high-school basketball team. “He ought to be learned better than to keep on talking like that after he answers questions. Boy, you talk mighty big for a nigger, don’t you? Who do you think you are, anyhow?”
    He wanted to say something in defense of himself, if only to try to make them understand that he did not intend to appear arrogant or presumptuous, but he decided it would be better not to say anything just then.
    “I’ll learn him a lesson, Pete,” Hank Newgood, the boy with the heavy stick, said. Hank had quit school in the tenth grade. He hit the principal, one morning during recess, with a baseball bat, and his father, who operated a sawmill on Indian Creek south of town, said he already had enough schooling anyway. Hank drew back his arm as if to hit Ganus on the head with the stick. “I’ll only have to whang him once with this club, and that’ll stop him from growing up to be a back-talking nigger.”
    “Wait a minute, Hank,” Pete said, holding his arm. “I want to ask him something first.” Pete dropped the large rock he had been holding. “What’s your right name, boy?”
    “Ganus Bazemore.”
    “That’s a funny name,” Vern Huff said. “How’d you ever get a queer name like that? Who gave it to you?”
    “Now, hold on, Vern,” Hank said, pushing him aside. “I want to be sure this’s the right nigger. I don’t want to waste time on the wrong one.”
    “That’s him, I told you,” Vern tried to convince him. “He’s the one I saw through the crack in the garage. I know him when I see him.”
    Ganus, becoming frightened, not knowing what Vern was talking about, tried to move away. Hank hit him on the face as hard as he could with his fist. Ganus fell against the fence, dropping to his knees for a moment, and then slowly got to his feet. He could see Robbie Gunsby watching him and he wanted to ask Robbie to make the boys stop. Robbie was on the verge of crying, and he wondered if the little boy could do anything to help him.
    “We’d better tie him up, Hank, before he gets away,” Pete said.
    “Hell, he won’t try that again,” Hank said, laughing confidently. “He knows what’ll be coming to him the next time if he does.” He drew up his fist in a threatening gesture. “Do you work for Mr. Charley Singfield, boy?”
    “Yes, sir, I work for him,” he answered promptly.
    “Didn’t I tell you so, Hank?” Vern said. “Why didn’t you listen to me? I’d know that nigger in the bottom of a coal mine on a cloudy night.”
    Robbie pulled at Hank’s sleeve. “What are you going to do now, Hank?” he asked in a trembling voice. “Pete hit him with a rock, and you’ve hit him once with your fist. He’s bleeding where the rock hit him. You shouldn’t hurt him any more. He never did anything to anybody. You leave him alone now, Hank Newgood!”
    Hank shoved Robbie away. “Look who’s talking!” he said with a contemptuous laugh. “What’s the matter with you, Robbie? What’d you come along for if you’re going to act like a sissy?”
    “I thought we were just going to scare him and then stop. I like Ganus. He shoots marbles with me in Mr. Singfield’s backyard everytime I ask him to. You stop hurting him now.”
    “Aw, dry up, Robbie!” he said, scowling and making a threatening motion with his hand. He turned to Ganus. “What that nigger needs is his gizzard cut out. I’ve got a knife to cut it out, too.” He took a long bone-handled knife from his pocket and