Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/132

 "Yeah. It must be kinda bad smelling that all day and night. 'Course niggers smell anyway."

"Not all of them," contradicted Gaylord, remembering the neat colored girl that helped his mother.

"Those I've been around do. They smell worse than this. 'Course after working in the sun all day anybody stinks."

"I guess they would … but they ought to do something about this sewage."

"The shit's got to go some place," Rogers replied jubilantly.

Gaylord's eyes beamed with mischief and joy; the expression was so sudden and coming from the quiet boy, it had both shocked and amused him. He threw back his head and laughed merrily.

"I agree," he announced. "It's just too bad they take it out on these Negroes."

"Guess someone had to get it in the neck … someone always does."

"You're not just akidding there."

"Say, Gay, do you like to hunt?"

"Don't know if I do or not, Glenn. I've only been a couple times and I don't think you'd call that hunting. Shot a few quail and doves along the road with an aunt of mine. She's a good shot and I'm not too bad. I did hit one once in a while."

For no reason at all, he remembered the time he had thrown a rock at a chicken busy scratching in his mother's rose bed; the rock had struck hard on the bright, feathered head. He was so shocked, it had taken seconds to realize he had hit it at all. Then, he had quickly drenched it under a water faucet but the bird was quite dead. It had made him both sad and happy; sorry he had killed it, but glad that his aim had been so perfect.

"That's one thing I'm going to miss living in town," Rogers added remorsefully.

"What?"

"Hunting."

"Oh."

"I wish I had a nickel for every squirrel I've killed. 'Possums too. Did you ever see an armadillo, Gay?"

Gaylord shook his head. 122