The old woman gave a yawn that changed to a groan.

"I--I ain't feelin' so good."

"What's the matter, Mother?"

"My stomach, my--" But at that moment her sentence changed to an inarticulate sound, and she doubled up in bed as if caught in a spasm of acute agony.

Peter hurried to her, thoroughly frightened, and saw sweat streaming down her face. He stared down at her.

"Mother, you are sick! What can I do?" he cried, with a man's helplessness.

She opened her eyes with an effort, panting now as the edge of the agony pa.s.sed. There was a movement under the quilts, and she thrust out a rubber hot-water bottle.

"Fill it--fum de kittle," she wheezed out, then relaxed into groans, and wiped clumsily at the sweat on her shining black face.

Peter seized the bottle and ran into the kitchen. There he found a brisk fire popping in the stove and a kettle of water boiling. It showed him, to his further alarm, that his mother had been trying to minister to herself until forced to bed.

The man scalded a finger and thumb pouring water into the flared mouth, but after a moment twisted on the top and hurried into the sick-room.

He reached the old negress just as another knife of pain set her writhing and sweating. She seized the hot-water bottle, pushed it under the quilts, and pressed it to her stomach, then lay with eyes and teeth clenched tight, and her thick lips curled in a grin of agony.

Peter set the lamp on the table, said he was going for the doctor, and started.

The old woman hunched up in bed. With the penuriousness of her station and sacrifices, she begged Peter not to go; then groaned out, "Go tell Mars' Renfrew," but the next moment did not want Peter to leave her.

Peter said he would get Nan Berry to stay while he was gone. The Berry cabin lay diagonally across the street. Peter ran over, thumped on the door, and shouted his mother's needs. As soon as he received an answer, he started on over the Big Hill toward the white town.

Peter was seriously frightened. His run to Dr. Jallup's, across the Big Hill, was a series of renewed strivings for speed. Every segment of his journey seemed to seize him and pin him down in the midst of the night like a bug caught in a black jelly. He seemed to progress not at all.

Now he was in the cedar glade. His m.u.f.fled flight drove in the sentries of the c.r.a.p-shooters, and gamesters blinked out their lights and listened to his feet stumbling on through the darkness.

After an endless run in the glade, Peter found himself on top of the hill, amid boulders and outcrops limestone and cedar-shrubs. His flash- light picked out these objects, limned them sharply against the blackness, then dropped them into obscurity again.

He tried to run faster. His impatience subdivided the distance into yards and feet. Now he was approaching that boulder, now he was pa.s.sing it; now he was ten feet beyond, twenty, thirty. Perhaps his mother was dying, alone save for stupid Nan Berry.

Now he was going down the hill past the white church. All that was visible was its black spire set against a web of stars. He was making no speed at all. He panted on. His heart hammered. His legs drummed with Lilliputian paces. Now he was among the village stores, all utterly black. At one point the echo of his feet chattered back at him, as if some other futile runner strained amid vast s.p.a.ces of blackness.

After a long time he found himself running up a residential street, and presently, far ahead, he saw the glow of Dr. Jallup's porch light. Its beam had the appearance of coming from a vast distance. When he reached the place, he flung his breast against the top panel of the doctor's fence and held on, exhausted. He drew in his breath, and began shouting, "h.e.l.lo, Doctor!"

Peter called persistently, and as he commanded more breath, he called louder and louder, "h.e.l.lo, Doctor! h.e.l.lo, Doctor! h.e.l.lo, Doctor!" in tones edging on panic.

The doctor's house might have been dead. Somewhere a dog began barking.

High in the Southern sky a star looked down remotely on Peter's frantic haste. The black man stood in the black night with cries: "h.e.l.lo, Doctor! h.e.l.lo, Doctor! h.e.l.lo, Doctor!"

At last, in despair, he tried to think of other doctors. He thought of telephoning to Jonesboro. Just as he decided he must turn away there came a stirring in the dead house, a flicker of light appeared on the inside now here, now there; it steadied into a tiny beam and approached the door. The door opened, and Dr. Jallup's head and breast appeared, illuminated against the black interior.

"My mother's sick, Doctor," began Peter, in immense relief.

"Who is it?" inquired the half-clad man, impa.s.sively.

"Caroline Siner; she's been taken with a--"

The physician lifted his light a trifle in an effort to see Peter.

"Lemme see: she's that fat n.i.g.g.e.r woman that lives in a three-roomed house--"

"I'll show you the way," said Peter. "She's very ill."

The half-dressed man shook his head.

"No, Ca'line Siner owes me a five-dollar doctor's bill already. Our county medical a.s.sociation made a rule that no n.i.g.g.e.rs should--"

With a drying mouth, Peter Siner stared at the man of medicine.

"But, my G.o.d, Doctor," gasped the son, "I'll pay you--"

"Have you got the money there in your pocket?" asked Jallup, impa.s.sively.

A sort of chill traveled deliberately over Peter's body and shook his voice.

"N-no, but I can get it--"

"Yes, you can all get it," stated the physician in dull irritation. "I'm tired of you n.i.g.g.e.rs running up doctors' bills n.o.body can collect. You never have more than the law allows; your wages never get big enough to garnishee." His voice grew querulous as he related his wrongs. "No, I'm not going to see Ca'line Siner. If she wants me to visit her, let her send ten dollars to cover that and back debts, and I'll--" The end of his sentence was lost in the closing of his door. The light he carried declined from a beam to a twinkling here and there, and then vanished in blackness. Dr. Jallup's house became dead again. The little porch light in its gla.s.s box might have been a candle burning before a tomb.

Peter Siner stood at the fence, licking his dry lips, with nerves vibrating like a struck bell. He pushed himself slowly away from the top plank and found his legs so weak that he could hardly walk. He moved slowly, back down the unseen street. The dog he had disturbed gave a few last growls and settled into silence.

Peter moved along, wetting his dry lips, and stirring feebly among his dazed thoughts, hunting some other plan of action. There was a tiny burning spot on the left side of his occiput. It felt like a heated cambric needle which had been slipped into his scalp. Then he realized that he must go home, get ten dollars, and bring them back to Dr.

Jallup. He started to run, but almost toppled over on his leaden legs.

He plodded through the darkness, retracing the endless trail to n.i.g.g.e.rtown. As he pa.s.sed a dark ma.s.s of shrubbery and trees, he recalled his mother's advice to ask aid of Captain Renfrew. It was the old Renfrew place that Peter was pa.s.sing.

The negro hesitated, then turned in at the gate in the bare hope of obtaining the ten dollars at once. Inside the gate Peter's feet encountered the scattered bricks of an old walk. The negro stood and called Captain Renfrew's name in a guarded voice. He was not at all sure of his action.

Peter had called twice and was just about to go when a lamp appeared around the side of the house on a long portico that extended clear around the building. Bathed in the light of the lamp which he held over his head, there appeared an old man wearing a worn dressing gown.

"Who is it?" he asked in a wavery voice.

Peter told his name and mission.

The old Captain continued holding up his light.

"Oh, Peter Siner; Caroline Siner's sick? All right I'll have Jallup run over; I'll phone him."

Peter was beginning his thanks preparatory to going, when the old man interrupted.

"No, just stay here until Jallup comes by in his or He'll pick us both up. It'll save time. Come on inside. What's the matter with old Caroline?"

The old dressing-gown led the way around the continuous piazza, to a room that stood open and brightly lighted on the north face of the old house.