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shrunk a dozen sizes since he first put it on.
    “He’s the queerest man,” Dene said, giggling a little.
    Clay looked up at her, not knowing she had come into the room. Semon did not move.
    “I don’t see why you think I was due to look out for you so much,” Clay said. “Looks like you was the one who wouldn’t ask no advice.”
    “He’s one of those God-damn yellow niggers,” Semon said. “That the whole trouble. You ought to have told me he was that kind. I can handle the black ones, but it’s dangerous to get tangled up with those yellow sons of bitches. They act like they’re just as good as a white man.”
    Clay moved across the room, his shadow covering Dene.
    “Looks to me like a man of your sense would have known Sugar’s man was yellow like herself,” Clay said. “Yellow girls don’t do much mixing with the black ones. They nearly always pick out a man with the lightest color.”

Chapter V
    I T WAS LATE when Clay got up the next morning. Usually he was out of bed by five. There was never much for him to do, except to see that the darkies got started to the fields on time. Some mornings he walked down the road as far as the bridge, and turned around and came back; by seven, at the latest, he was ready to sit on the front porch and put his feet on the railing.
    This morning the sun was two hours high when he opened his eyes. He lay on his side wondering why he had slept so late. It was not long before he remembered what had happened in the next room.
    Clay jumped out of bed, hurrying into his pants and shirt, and went to the kitchen. Sugar was not there, but Dene had breakfast ready. He sat down at the table and ate quickly.
    When he had finished, he spoke to Dene for the first time that morning. She had already eaten, and she was clearing the table.
    “Where’s Semon Dye?” he asked her, pushing back his chair. “You haven’t seen him this morning?”
    Dene made a trip to the stove and back before she answered him.
    “He hasn’t been out here. I suppose he’s still in bed asleep,” she said. “He’s the queerest thing.”
    Clay went to the front porch, passing the closed door of Semon’s room without noticing it. At the threshold of the outside door he stopped. Semon’s old car was still there, standing in the green shade of the magnolia tree where he had left it. While he was standing there wondering, Semon’s door opened, and out he stepped, straightening his stringy black tie and flicking dust from his coat.
    Clay waited for him to come to the porch.
    “I didn’t know where you were,” Clay said. “I was looking everywhere for you. Somehow, I didn’t think you’d get up and fly off into the night.”
    “I feel fresh as a daisy,” Semon said, beaming upon Clay. “I never felt better in my life. You take an April morning and a man like me, and the combination can’t be beat. We feel like a young rooster.”
    “That’s good,” Clay nodded. “I had been thinking that maybe last night sort of did you up.”
    Semon looked down-upon Clay, laughing.
    “Things like that never upset me, Horey,” he explained, rubbing his hands together. “I’ve never let little things like that set me bottom side up. I’ve got accustomed to knocking about from pillar to post. For the past twenty years I’ve been first here, next there, and then someplace else.”
    “Things like shooting darkies never upset you none?”
    Semon shook his head firmly.
    “You’re used to winging them?” Clay said.
    “Yes and no,” he said; “I am and I ain’t.”
    “Now look here,” Clay said, squinting up at the tall man. “If I was to ask you if you was Semon Dye, would you say that, too?”
    “Coz, don’t let anybody tell you different. I am Semon Dye. And don’t you forget it.”
    “I don’t reckon I’ll be apt to forget it,” Clay said. “I’ve always heard there was such a creature as Semon Dye, but I never looked for him down here in Rocky Comfort.”
    Semon sniffed the air in the