HOAG was in a reflective mood as he rode along his field-road in the crisp morning air. The sockets of his eyes were puffed out, and he looked like a man who had lost much sleep, and was braced up for the duties of the day by drink. Within certain material limits he was satisfied with himself. The dew seemed to have added succulence to his fat corn-stalks and sugar-cane; his wheat and cotton were in prime condition, especially the latter, of which his judgment had prompted an unusually large planting, and according to the market reports the staple would bring a fine price.

The affair of the preceding night had gone off with quiet, order, and dignity. His followers had listened to his usual speech with respect and close attention, and he was sure he had never spoken better. His threat that if his wishes were disobeyed in the slightest he would renounce the leadership had had the desired effect of proving that he was not a man to be trifled with. He told them he was giving his valuable time to the office, and had held himself in duty bound to answer every call, and would continue to do so as long as they realized the importance of his advice and services.

As he rode into Grayson he saw the sheriff and Budd Tibbs, the village marshal, on a one-horse dray, followed by a motley group of men, women, and children afoot, and Hoag knew that they were bound for the spot where the body of the lynched man was still hanging. The sheriff would cut the rope, an inquest would be held, and the corpse would be taken away for burial. On the street-corners at the Square stood groups of storekeepers without their hats and coats, blandly gazing after the dray and officers. The thought came to Hoag that some of the men on the street might wonder why he did not stop and chat about the matter, as would be natural for an ordinary citizen to do, who, living out of the village, might only just have heard of the happening; but Hoag was not in the mood for the adroit part he would have to play. His brain felt heavy and his thoughts were sluggish. The sight of the grave faces stirred a vague, unaccountable discontent within him, and he urged his horse to move faster. Suddenly the crude sign of a boot and shoe painted on a swinging board over the door of Silas Tye's shop caught his attention, and reminded him of something he wanted to say to the cobbler, so he dismounted at the door, hitched his horse to a post in front, and went into the shop.

Silas was at work putting a half-sole on a shoe which he held tightly clamped between his knees, and looked up over his murky spectacles and nodded.

“Good momin', Brother Hoag,” he said. “Some'n I kin do for you?”

“Not at present, Uncle Si.” Hoag sat down in a chair, thrust his hand into his hip-pocket, and taking out a piece of plug-tobacco, bit off the corner and rolled it about in his mouth. “No, I hain't got no work for you to-day. In fact, I come to sponge on you—to see if you can't give me a piece o' business advice. They say every man to his line, an' I reckon you know as much about ready-made shoes as anybody else at Grayson.”

“Oh, I don't know; I don't know much about manufactured stuff.” Silas shook his bald head gently. “I kin tell good leather by the feel, look, an' smell of it; but mendin' has got to be my chief work now, an' mendin' shoddy goods at that. I kin make as good a boot as you or any other man would wear, but not at the machine-made price. A pair o' my boots will outwear any three from a box sold over a counter, but nobody round here will believe it.”

“I don't doubt it—I don't doubt it for a minute,” Hoag agreed, “and this is what I want to consult you about. I want your opinion. You know I've got that tannery, and I sometimes tan bigger quantities of hides, Uncle Si, than I am willin' to let go at the average price offered in Atlanta by the jobbers. So you see, in turnin' it over in my mind, it struck me all at once that I might put up a little factory on my place for makin' plain shoes by machinery, an' in that way work off surplus stock, increase my output of leather, and make the middleman's profit. If you will look out on the Square any day you'll see it perfectly black with idle niggers, an' I could put some of 'em to work, an'—”

The shoemaker glanced up and smiled faintly. “I reckon you won't see many in sight this momin',” he sighed, as he resumed his work. “The pore devils are scared out o' their senses by that thing last night. It's awful, awful!”

There was a pause. Hoag's eyelashes fluttered. “Yes, yes, I reckon so,” he said. “I was goin' on to say—”

But some sound in the street had caught Tye's attention and, forgetful of his customer, he rose and stood at the door and looked out. The wrinkles on his brow and about his kindly eyes were drawn and deepened as he peered over the brass rims of his glasses. Hoag heard him sigh again, and saw him rubbing the sole of the shoe absent-mindedly.

“What's goin' on?” the tanner asked, without moving from his chair.

“It's that poor nigger Pete Watson's wife an' daughters,” was the answer. “They've come to claim the body—Dick Morgan is showin' 'em which way to go. Lord, Lord, they do look pitiful! They ain't even cryin'—niggers seldom do at sech a time. Looks like they won't shed tears before the whites for fear it will make 'em mad. They learnt who the'r masters was before the war, an' they ain't over it. I knowed Pete Watson—I've mended shoes for 'im. He was always a civil nigger, an' clever enough. I've had talks with 'im, an' I've been astonished to hear what sensible ideas he had. He appeared to me to be a Christian—a Christian that understood what the Lord really meant when he was here on earth, an' that's rare even among the whites.”

Silas came back to his bench and slowly sat down. “Lord, Lord, what a pity, what a pity!” he continued to mutter.

“They say he was undoubtedly guilty.” Hoag felt his anger rising, and yet he realized that he must restrain himself. “That is the current report, anyway,” he said.

“It always is the report,” Silas said. “Even if a mistake was made the public would never know it. The gang that did the work would see to that.”

“We are gittin' away from what we was talkin' about,” Hoag said. “I was asking you what you thought about me startin' a little shoe-plant?”

“I'm afraid it wouldn't pay,” Silas said, deliberately. “They make shoes a sight cheaper in the big works up North than you possibly could down here in the backwoods with untrained help. It's been tried, without success, several times here an' thar. The Yankees understand the knack o' splittin' leather an' usin' both halves, an' even the middle, for different purposes. You can't make shoes right an' put in good stock at the prices Northern made-up goods fetch.” Silas selected a woman's shoe from a pile on the floor, and with his blackened thumb pried the worn bottom open. “Look at that—stuffed with leather shavin's an' glue! That's what you'd have to contend with. When folks go to buy they go by looks, not quality. Then yore help would fall down on you. You can't turn easy-goin', jolly singin' an' dancin' black boys an' gals into drudgin' machines all at once. They come from a drowsy, savage race an' a hot climate, an' you can't make 'em over in a day. La, la—” The shoemaker bent sideways to look out of the doorway toward the spot where the lynching had occurred. “That's why that thing seems so pitiful.”

Hoag felt his ire rising, but he curbed himself. “They say—folks say, I'm told—that the nigger was guilty,” he muttered. “When the neighbors first went to his house they found the old hat Rose had on when he was murdered. That fact may not be generally known.”

“Yes, it is,” Silas replied; “but if that's all the mob acted on they acted on powerful flimsy evidence. I've heard men say so this mornin'—good lawyers right here in town. Besides, I myself heard—why, a man set right whar you are a-settin' at this minute, Brother Hoag, an' told me not ten minutes ago that he seed Pete with his own eyes pick up the hat on the side o' the road long after the killin'. Now, you see, the fact that Pete had Rose's hat wouldn't actually condemn 'im in a court of law, while it would be proof enough for a drunken gang o' hotheaded nigger-haters. For all we know, somebody else done the killin' an' thro wed the hat down. I myself don't believe that even a fool nigger would kill a man an' tote his hat along a public road for everybody to see, an' take it home an' give it to one o' his boys to wear. It don't stand to reason.”

A grim look of blended anger and chagrin had settled on Hoag's face, He crossed his legs and tapped the heel of his boot with the butt of his riding-whip.

“I'm not takin' up for the—the men that did the job,” he said. “I have no idea who they are or whar they come from—all abouts in the mountains, I reckon; but any man with an eye in his head can see that the niggers in this country are gettin' out of all bounds. Thar is not a day that some white woman ain't mistreated or scared out o' her senses. I wouldn't trust a nigger an inch. I've seed the best of 'em—psalm-singers an' exhorters in meetin'—turn right round an' commit acts that only hell itself could devise.”

“I know, I know,” Silas sighed; “an' in my opinion that's exactly why we need law—an' good law at that. Niggers are natural imitators of the whites; they see lawlessness, an' they git lawless. Mob law stirs up the worst that's in 'em. They see injustice done—the wrong man lynched, for instance—an' they brood over it in secret an' want to hit back, an' they do it the first chance. I don't see you at meetin' often, Brother Hoag, an' you may not depend much on Scripture—many busy men don't, these days; but it is my chief guide, an' our Lord an' Master laid down rules of conduct that if they was half obeyed thar wouldn't be a speck o' strife betwixt white an' black. Lovin' the humblest—'the least of these,' as our Saviour put it—an' turnin' t'other cheek as a daily practice wouldn't leave an openin' for such as that last night.”

Silas put some wooden pegs into his mouth, and began to make holes in the shoe-bottom with an awl and a flat-headed hammer. Hoag glared steadily at the bald pate for a moment, and then, shrugging his shoulders, he stood up. There was a red spot on each of his cheeks, a sullen, thwarted sort of flare in his eyes.

“Well, I'll have to be goin',” he said, winding his pliant whip around his hand. “I see you won't help me build that shoe-factory. I may do it, an' I may not. Thar is another deal I may put the money in, but that's plumb out o' your line. So long.”

The cobbler raised his eyes and muttered an inarticulate something from his peg-filled mouth, and watched Hoag as he went out and unhitched his horse.

“He's one o' the big men o' the county,” Silas mused, “an' yet he don't seem to have the slightest inkling o' what rail justice means. I reckon the almighty dollar has plumb blinded him. He wasn't any more concerned with what I told 'im about that pore darky than if I'd been talkin' about a dead hog. Well, they say he's give up believin' in a God or a future life, an' if he has he's livin' up to his lights, or down to 'em—I don't know which.”