Page:The Geranium.pdf/53

21 It is trying on Liberals in Dilton.

After the Democratic White Primary, Rayber changed his barber. Three weeks before it, while he was shaving him, the barber asked, "who you gonna vote for?"

"Darmon," Rayber said.

"You a nigger-lover?"

Rayber started in the chair. He had not expected to be approached so brutally. "No," he said. If he had not been taken off balance, he would have said, "I am neither a negro nor a white-lover." He had said that before to Jacobs, the philosophy man, and--to show you how trying it is for liberals in Dalton--Jacobs--a man of his education--had muttered, "That's a poor way to be."

"Why?" Rayber had asked bluntly. He knew he could argue Jacobs down.

Jacobs had said, "Skip it." He had a class. His classes frequently ocourred, Rayber noticed, when Rayber was about to get him in an argument.

"I am neither a negro nor a white-lover," Rayber would have said to the barber.

The barber drew a clean path through the lather and then pointed the razor at Rayber. "I'm tellin' you,"