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the darkness of the room. His voice was not unkind, but it sounded as though he wished Sonny would go away.
    “I just can’t run off like you said, Henry,” he pleaded. “I don’t know how to go nowhere at all. I want to stay here. I ain’t done nothing, Henry.”
    He could hear Vi and Henry whispering to each other, but he could not hear any of the words. He waited, hanging onto the window sill by his fingertips.
    “If you ain’t going away off like I told you,” Henry said through the crack, “then just go off somewhere as far as you can from here and hide the best you can in the woods. But don’t hang around here no longer, because the white folks is liable to come busting in here any minute from now on. You got sense enough to know they’re going to get on the hunt. Go somewhere or other and find yourself a good place to hide, and just squat down and stay there. I’ll come looking for you when the trouble dies down, if it ever does.”
    “You’ll sure do that, Henry?” You’ll come and find me?”
    “Ain’t I always done like I promised?” Henry was pleading with him. “You strike out for the deep piney woods as fast as you can. Get going, boy, like I told you.” His voice was urgent.
    “All right, Henry,” he said obediently. “I’m going just like you told me.”
    He dropped from the sill, feeling a lot better since Henry had told him he would not have to leave the plantation country. He could hide out in the woods near by any length of time as long as he knew he could come back when the trouble had died down and go back to work for Bob Watson in the cotton.
    He tiptoed to the corner of the cabin and stood listening with head bent a little on one side. The dogs had stopped barking and howling, and there was no sound anywhere that he could hear. Some crickets chirped near by, but they did not matter. He felt safe and comforted standing there at the corner of Henry’s cabin.
    All at once he was hungry. He remembered that he had missed his supper that night. He had never felt so hungry before in his life. If he went off into the woods as hungry as he was, and had to stay there several days, maybe a whole week, he knew he would starve. He turned around quickly on his heel and looked at the dark shuttered window. He called Henry’s name several times, but there was no answer. He remembered that he had had only some cold turnip greens for dinner that day. He hugged his stomach with both arms, trying to ease the pain that had suddenly gripped him there.
    He tried to pull the heavy window shutter open, but it was locked fast on the inside. Then he put his mouth against the only crack he could find and called Henry for a while, and then finally Vi. There was no answer.
    Looking carefully in all directions first, Sonny crept to the front door and tapped on it. There was no answer, and he knocked louder.
    Henry came to the door and whispered.
    “Who’s that?”
    “It’s me, Henry,” Sonny told him desperately. “It’s Sonny.”
    There was a long period of silence.
    “Why don’t you go on off like I already told you?” Henry said harshly. “There’s still time for you to go somewhere and hide out, boy.”
    “I’m hungry, Henry.”
    There was another interval of silence before Henry spoke again.
    “Boy, you sure does hang on. I never saw the like of it before in all my life. You hang on and on, just like a new-born calf onto the old cow’s teat. Ain’t you got one drop of sense?” he asked impatiently, his voice rising.
    “I’m hungry, Henry,” he said meekly.
    Henry and Vi whispered behind the door.
    “I just can’t go off to them woods hungry as I is. I ain’t had a bite to eat at all.”
    “There won’t be no need for you to eat,” Henry warned him, “if you hang around here and let the white folks catch you. Dead people don’t never have no craving to eat.”
    Sonny heard Henry’s bare feet padding towards the kitchen, and he knew he was going to get something to eat after