"See de po' white trash man, walkin' home!"
But there were some Bob Whites singing in the bushes over the rail fences, singing, singing!
A bird at the side of the road rested momentarily on a long, keen switch of a blackberry bush, the switch bent earthward, the bird flew off and the twig bent back again.
At sight of him ground squirrels sped into the underbrush.
Somewhere on the other side of the rail fences little negroes sang. They were too young yet to jerk their thumbs at him and say:
"Po' white!"
Now that he was so near to Celia his heart misgave him. How would she receive him, coming home to her a tramp, a dusty, tired, footsore tramp, wet, chilled to the bone, footsore and tired! So tired!
He forged ahead, trying hard to throw off these thoughts. It was the scornful negroes who had engendered them.
A mile from Harrodsburg he came to the toll gate. A woman whose yellow hair showed streaks of gray, raised the pole for him, smiling at him.
"That man had eyes like Seth Lawsons," she said to her husband, who smoked his pipe on the porch while she raised and lowered the poles and so supported the family.