from bondage. He was free to leave the widow’s house of sorrow. G. T. approached him, scowling, diffidently.
“I hear you’re leaving us,’Gene,” he said.
“Yes,” said Eugene.
“Is it because of the way I’ve acted?”
“Yes,” said Eugene.
“You take things too seriously,’Gene,” he said.
“Yes,” said Eugene.
“I don’t want you to go having hard feelings,’Gene. Let’s shake hands and be friends.”
He thrust his hand out stiffly. Eugene looked at the hard weak face, the furtive, unhappy eyes casting about for something they might call their own. The thick black hair was plastered stiff with grease; he saw white points of dandruff at the roots. There was an odor of talcum powder. He had been borne and nourished in the body of his white-faced mother—for what? To lap the scornful stroking fingers of position; to fawn miserably before an emblem. Eugene had a moment of nausea.
“Let’s shake hands,’Gene,” said the boy once more, waggling his out-thrust fingers.
“No,” said Eugene.
“You don’t hate me, do you?” whined G. T.
“No,” said Eugene.
He had a moment of pity, of sickness. He forgave because it was necessary to forget.
Eugene lived in a small world, but its ruins for him were actual. His misfortunes were trifling, but their effect upon his spirit was deep and calamitous. He withdrew deeply and scornfully into his cell. He was friendless, whipped with scorn and pride. He set his face blindly against all the common united life around him.
It was during this bitter and desperate autumn that Eugene first met Jim Trivett.
Jim Trivett, the son of a rich tobacco farmer in the eastern part of the State, was a good tempered young tough of twenty years. He was a strong, rather foul-looking boy, with a coarse protruding mouth, full-meated and slightly ajar, constantly rayed with
