No white man can equal the absolute absorption in thought, the intense concentration of attention and interest which a negro displays when he comes face to face with a crisis in his career. And no white man can foretell a negro’s mental conclusions in that hour of stress and need.
Pap did not want to leave Tickfall, yet he knew he had to go. Marse Tom’s word was law just as much so as if the big, red-brick court-house had suddenly formed a mouth and had spoken.
Pap rose from his chair, gave his shoulders a vigorous shake, lit a vile-smelling corn-cob pipe, changed the location of his chair from the porch to the shade of the chinaberry tree, and began to talk aloud to himself:
“Dat white man shore knifed me right under de fifteenth rib! Treated me jes’ like I wus a houn’-dawg—‘git outen dis town!’ Mebbe it’s all a play-like an’ he didn’t mean nothin’——”
But the more he thought about the manner and the speech of Colonel Gaitskill, the more the facts compelled the conviction that it was his move. Then the thought occurred to him:
“I wonder if dese here town niggers tipped Marse Tom off ’bout me? A whole passel of ’em hates me—I beats ’em gamblin’, an’ I beats ’em tradin’, an’ dey all knows dey ain’t vigorous in deir mind like me——”
Pap pondered for many minutes, his thick lips pouting, his protruding eyes half closed, great drops of sweat rolling down his face. His pipe went out, the bowl became loosened and fell from the stem, but he took no notice.
“Mebbe dem niggers is wucked a buzzo on me, an’ mebbe dey ain’t,” he declared at last. “I cain’t seem to make up my remembrance ’bout dat. But I done decided on one fack: ef ole Pap Curtain is gotter leave dis town, he’s gwine gib dese here nigger bad-wishers of his’n a whole lot to remember him by!”
He rose and walked down the street to the Hen-Scratch saloon.
In the rear of the building he found Figger Bush. Walking up to him with an air of great secrecy and importance, Pap inquired: