Read When I Crossed No-Bob for Free Online Page B

company." Mr. Smith leans close to see who else is on the porch. Mr. Tempy steps forward then.
    "Don't I know you?" Mr. Smith says to Mr. Tempy.
    "I don't believe so," Mr. Tempy says, smiling.
    I seen the looks on lots of men's faces in No-Bob just before a brawl, usually right after Sunday church, when the men go down to the creek to water their horses and pass the bottle. Put a few O'Donnell men together with a bottle, and before too long, you got a fight. I seen the way an O'Donnell man looks before he's fixing to cut someone, and that is the look on Mr. Smith's face right now.
    "You want to come in, sit a spell?" Mr. Frank says. I' spect Mr. Frank seen the look on Mr. Smith's face too.
    "No, sir. I just come to pay you a visit, Frank. Already stopped and spoke with your pa. I have some business to discuss."
    I wonder why Miss Irene and Zula aren't coming out to the porch to greet Mr. Smith. They stay inside the hen house, peeking out every now and then.

    "Addy," Mr. Tempy says. "Show me where the well is. I'm powerful thirsty."
    "What kind of business?" Mr. Frank says to Mr. Smith. Mrs. Smith and Rew just stand aside like they're not even there.
    I know Mr. Tempy knows where the well is because he fetched the first bucket of water for Miss Irene, but I lead him over there all the same.
    I walk real slow so I can hear what Mr. Smith's got to say. I hear, "Shanks, you're one of our best wide-awake citizens." I hear, "You and I both know niggers ain't supposed to always know right from wrong. They ain't got masters anymore to teach 'em." I hear Mr. Frank say that the Bible doesn't say anything about slavery being right. "You know that," he says. I hear Mr. Smith say, "Right or wrong, with deadly fear, we dread the possibility of Negro rule." I hear, "We're here to help. You should join up and help too, Frank. You missed the war, Frank. Don't miss this. You're a good Christian, ain't you?"
    I am still wearing the shoes that I am not used to. They pinch my heels and I would rather be barefooted. These here
shoes are the hardest shoes. I can't bend them so much as crack them. I will wear out before they ever get soft.

    "I was no secessionist, I will tell the truth about it, Addy," Mr. Tempy says. "Some of these boys thought it was big to get the big guns on. Not me." He pulls up the bucket of well water and drinks, then wipes his mouth with his sleeve.
    "My momma was only telling me what my pappy says." I tell Mr. Tempy that when I first heard about Mr. Lincoln, I thought he was partly God, but Pappy set me straight. He says Mr. Lincoln was more devil than God.
    "What else did yer pappy say about us?" His hogs are in the pen nearby, sniffing around.
    "Y'all are nothing more than a band of criminals. You got a hideout?"
    He looks me up and down. "Maybe."
    "You got treasure? Like pirates?" I head on over to the smokehouse. I need to get the dirt into barrels, and while I do this, Mr. Tempy helps, and he tells me a story about a man named Newt Knight who was a poor man, and even though he didn't own any Negroes, he thought that the twenty-Negro law wasn't fair, that it enabled the rich men who had at least twenty slaves to avoid serving in the army and that the Confederacy wasn't right to ask him to risk his life for people
who rated themselves so far above him. So this man, Newt Knight, stayed behind and camped out on the Leaf River. Some call it Deserters' Den. He stayed there all during the Civil War. Some say there is Yankee treasure soldiers brought back from all over buried all around Knight's camp.

    I pour water over the dirt. After we boil it down, we will have salt. Cornmeal without salt is hardly worth eating. Salt is up to ten cents a pound and Mr. Frank isn't going to New Orleans or the coast anytime soon.
    "All I know is if there was a war right now, I'd join up." I put away our shovels and slap my hands to get rid of the salty smokehouse dirt.
    "Now, Addy, why in the deuce would you say that?"
    "I'm from No-Bob,