Place Called Estherville by Erskine Caldwell Read Free Book Online Page A

snapped it open. “All niggers all over the country ought to have their gizzards cut out.”
    “Wait a minute, Hank,” Pete Tilghman said, pushing him aside. “I want to find out something first.” He faced Ganus and asked, “Boy, where’d you come from? Where’d you live before you moved to town?”
    “Out near Blackburn’s Mill in the country.”
    “Say ‘sir’ when you talk to me, nigger!”
    “Out near Blackburn’s Mill, please, sir.”
    “That’s Mister Blackburn’s Mill to you, boy!”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Why’d you move to Estherville?”
    “To go to work, please, sir.”
    “Why didn’t you stay out there in the country, where you belonged, and go to work?”
    “My mother died and I moved to town to live with Aunt Hazel.”
    Pete snickered. “Hank, reckon he wants us to blubber because some old nigger woman died?”
    “It’d be just like a coon,” Hank agreed.
    Pete came closer, watching him cautiously. Ganus drew himself as far back against the fence as he could.
    “Come on, Hank,” Pete said, waving his arm. “Let’s give him what’s coming to him and stop all this jawing. It’s getting late. My folks’ll be mad as hell if I don’t get home soon. I told them I was going to the movies.”
    “That’s what I say,” Vern Huff said. “Let’s give it to him, Hank.”
    Hank jabbed the knife at Ganus several times, gradually coming closer. Ganus squeezed against the wooden palings, trying to get beyond the range of the knife. Hank suddenly lunged forward and jabbed the point of the blade into Ganus’ thigh.
    “Please, sir, white folks,” he pleaded, “don’t hurt me with that knife. I haven’t done anything.”
    “You stop hurting him, Hank,” Robbie said, his lips trembling.
    “Just listen to the nigger try to lie out of it, Pete,” Vern said, ignoring Robbie Gunsby. “You’d know he’s a bad nigger by the way he’s started lying already.”
    “He’s got a funny way of talking, ain’t he?” Pete remarked, trying to imitate Ganus’ speech. “He sounds like he thinks he’s one of these educated niggers. What makes you talk like that, boy?”
    “It’s the only way I know how,” he answered quickly.
    “Have you ever been to school?”
    “Yes, sir. I went to the colored grade school out at—at—in the country out there.”
    “So that’s where you got that educated talk. Why’d you waste all that time going to school instead of working? What good do you think it’s going to do you?”
    “I don’t know,” he said, afraid to speak any more than necessary.
    “Hear that, Hank?” Pete asked. “He says he’s educated, but he don’t know why. Maybe he figured on being a nigger preacher.”
    “I’ll bet he figured he could move to town and talk to white girls if he had an education,” Vern said.
    “Drop your pants, boy,” Hank ordered.
    He looked from one face to the other. “Please, sir, what do you want me to do that for?” he asked, trembling.
    “Never mind what for,” Vern told him. “You’d better skin off those breeches in a hurry and quit that arguing.”
    He unbuckled his trousers with nervous fingers and let them fall to the ground.
    Robbie pulled at Pete’s arm. “Why’d Hank make Ganus do that, Pete?” he asked. “Why does Ganus have to take his pants off?”
    “Step out of those breeches, nigger,” he told Ganus, ignoring Robbie. “And hurry up about it, too. When I say something, I mean it.”
    Ganus was quick to obey. He stepped out of his pants and hurriedly pressed his body back against the fence as Hank’s knifeblade flashed close to him.
    “Do you have a sister living in town?” Pete asked him.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “What’s her name?”
    “Kathyanne.”
    The three older boys looked at each other knowingly.
    “Is she that good-looking high-yellow who’s been working for Mrs. Swayne on Holly Street?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You and her both are half white, ain’t you?”
    “I don’t know anything about that, please,