Page:The New Negro.pdf/205

Rh Maybe we wouldn't—you bein' white and we bein' black.

I didn't mean it like that. You know we've been neighbors for years and never had no kind o trouble. I mean if your boy Joe had 'a' been white and you all had 'a' been white

If our boy Joe had 'a' been white, we'd 'a' been white anyhow.

I know you would, and that's what I'm sayin'. If you'-all had 'a'been white, you couldn't 'a' got nothin' by goin' to law cause it wasn't nothin' but a accident out and out. When I shot up in that tree I didn't have no idea Joe was up there.

You didn't have to shoot.

I told you a hundred times, Jane, I done it to scare the boys. I told 'em to keep out o'my orchard, and when I seen a gang of 'em there, pickin' up apples under that tree, I got my gun and shot up in the tree to scare 'em. God knows I didn't know nobody was up there till Joe fell. I didn't know he was up there shakin' apples down.

That accident killed a lot o' hope in me. Ma man, Jim, took that hund'ed dollars and soon drunk hisself to death and that's two o' ma men-folks gone on account o' you.

Nobody felt it more than I did, Jane, unless it was you. And I hope you ain't harborin' no bad feelin's.