"Dar now! Now, nigguh, I knows Adamsville, forrards an' back'ards. You git off at de Union Depot, den walk down to Avenoo C, an' go east twill you gits to de lodge. 'Bout Thuhty-fo'th Street. Dey'll fix you up."
They reached the lodge; its chairs furnished a place for the younger Coles to munch cold fish sandwiches and cram overripe bananas, while Tom went househunting. "Jus' you walk out to Joneses' Hill, in West Adamsville. You kin find a house, an' maybe a job with it." The business agent was full of suggestions.
At the first corner, the old negro considered carefully. West?... One horizon appeared an endless level; the other ended in a gentle hill climbing high above the houses at its base. "Dat mus' be dis Joneses' Hill."
He walked due east. On and on he plodded, on the lookout for the railroad yards that ran just below the hill; but there were no tracks to be seen. At last he struck Highland Boulevard, and then the slope to the mountain. The railroad must lie beyond it. He ambled aimlessly up the long dummy line to the breezy gap, then followed the curving road to the south. There were no houses here, only a sleepy July woodland.
Jays jawed at him from towering blackgums and bluegums, tiny hedge birds, flushed by his approach, whirred noisily into leafy coverts. He feasted on plump blackberries pocketed in a moist hollow, disturbing two quarrelsome chipmunks, who continued to scold after he had passed them. A homeless cur sidled cautiously, sniffed, was satisfied, joined his train.
He found a good stick, and walked on. Must be a railroad somewhere.
He stopped at last before a vacant house, old and decrepit, with sagging front porch, broken panes stuffed with weathered brown newspapers, a general air of run-downness. Maybe he had gone the wrong way. He decided to knock and ask. He knocked at the front door. No answer. He peered through the dusty, fly-scarred windows. Nothing inside, except one broken-down bed and piles of dusty yellowed papers on the floor. He walked laboriously around the house, looking in at each window. No one within. There was a good table in the kitchen, a rusted stove, an old clothes basket hanging on the wall beside a broken lantern, a dilapidated splint-bottomed chair. He came around to the front again.
The shade of the lonely spreading oak before the front porch was attractive. He sat down upon some cushioning chigger-weed. The July afternoon wore on; he slept.
He woke at the sound of feet sending the gravel flying. A white man approached.
"Hey, nigger, what you doing there?"