An idea sprang full-grown to Williams’ mind. Kenneth Harper was getting far too popular through the organization of his co-operative societies. Williams was shrewd enough to see that if they were as successful as they gave promise of being, Kenneth would be the leading Negro of the town, if not of that entire section of Georgia. And correspondingly he, Williams, would become less and less the prominent figure he had been before Kenneth had come back from France to Central City. That was it! Stewart was one of the biggest planters in Smith County. It was also rumoured he was prominent in the Ku Klux Klan. Stewart’s fortunes would be the hardest hit in the county if Kenneth’s societies achieved their purpose, for he, Stewart, had as many share-croppers and tenant-farmers as any other man in the county if not more. Stewart also had the reputation, a long-standing one, of being the hardest taskmaster on his Negro tenants in the county—the one who profited most through juggled accounts and fraudulent dealings. He could have cut, had he chosen, five notches in the handle of his gun, each one signifying a Negro who had dared to dispute the justness of settlements for crops raised.
All these thoughts raced through Williams’ brain while Stewart waited for a reply to his questions. Williams had no intention of the exaggeration of his statements which Stewart later made. He merely intended that by telling Stewart of the societies, Kenneth’s rapidly increasing prominence in the community should receive a check through obstacles which Stewart and his fellow-landlords might put—in fact, were sure to put—in the way of success of the farmers’ organizations.
“No, sir, they ain’t holdin’ revivals, Mr. Stewart. I reckon if you white folks knew what was goin’ on, you wouldn’t feel so comfortable.”
Williams was playing with Stewart as is done so often by Negroes in the South with the whites, though the latter, in their supreme confidence that they belong to an eternally ordained “superior race,” seldom realize how often and how easily they are taken in by Negroes. Williams enjoyed the look of concern that had come to Stewart’s face at his words.
“What’s goin’ on, Doc?” he asked in an eager tone, from which he tried with but little success to keep the anxiety that he felt.
“Heh, heh, heh!” laughed Williams in a throaty chuckle. “These Negroes are figurin’ on takin’ some of these landlords to court that’s been cheatin’ them on their crops. Of course,” he added hastily, “that don’t need to worry you none, Mr. Stewart, but from what I hear, there are some ’round here that the news will worry.”
Stewart flushed, for he was conscious of a vague feeling that Williams might have been indirectly hitting at him when he had said that the court proceedings wouldn’t affect him. He fell back on the old custom of flattering and praising fulsomely the Negro from whom a white man wants information regarding the activities of other Negroes. Williams, like every other Negro in the South, knew what value to put on it, but he was playing a far deeper game than Stewart suspected.
“Doc, why ain’t all these niggers good, sensible ones like you? If all the niggers in the South were like you, there never would be any trouble.”
“That’s right, Mr. Stewart, that’s right. As I was sayin’ to some of the folks out your way this mornin’, they’d better stop followin’ after the fool ideas of these coloured men who’ve been up No’th.”
He looked at Stewart shrewdly and appraisingly to see if he had penetrated the subtlety of his remark. Stewart, slow of thought, had not fully done so, it seemed. Williams continued: