“Whut does you think about dis case, Marse John?” “I think Hitch was drunk,” Flournoy answered. “I doubt if Hitch himself knows whether he committed that crime or not. He talks a lot of stuff about meeting a man on the train, about losing some money, about giving his clothes away, about being stepped on by some man while he was lying asleep in a gulley--all of it a perfect mess. I hate to admit it, but I really believe that Hitch committed the crime while in an intoxicated condition. Dainty Blackum says that he took fourteen swallows of bust-head, pine-top, nigger whisky in her cabin, and that he and Dude took the jug with them when they left.” “My gosh!” Skeeter sighed. “When did de white folks ’terrogate Dainty Blackum?” “They questioned her in Sawtown the day after Dude was killed by the mob,” Flournoy replied. “Dainty is here now--in Ginny Babe Chew’s house. I’m keeping watch on her, because she’s a material witness.” “When am Hitch’s trial gwine be, Marse John?” Skeeter asked. “It begins a month from next Tuesday,” the sheriff said. “Pore old Hitchy!” Skeeter mourned. Two big tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped upon his brown hands. His lips began to tremble, and he hid his face with his hat and sat with his shoulders shaking with grief. Finally he said in a mournful voice: “Hitch is always been de bes’ nigger frien’ I’m had, Marse John--him an’ Vinegar Atts. I wus always a little runt nigger an’ I didn’t had no kinnery, an’ Hitch an’ Vinegar, dey always deefended me when de yuther nigger-boys pecked on me----” Skeeter began to sob and sat mourning for his friend as though he were already dead. Flournoy endured the racket as long as he cared to, then tossed his cigar-stub into a rose-bush, walked down the steps, and climbed into his automobile. Without a word to Skeeter, he shot down the runway into the street and turned toward the courthouse. In a moment he was swallowed up in a cloud of dust. XII HITCH’S MOTHER. Skeeter sat for two hours turning over the appalling array of facts which the sheriff had set before him for the condemnation of his friend. Nothing seemed to be lacking except Hitch’s confession that he had robbed the store and killed the watchman. “Dis here is awful!” he sighed. “I’s gwine over an’ git some religium advices from de Revun Vinegar Atts.” He found Vinegar occupying his customary seat under a chinaberry tree in front of the Shoofly Church. Vinegar moved his chair only when the shadow of the tree shifted and the sun shone upon his head. He called this diversion “settin’ de sun aroun’ de tree.” “Revun,” Skeeter began, “I been cornversin’ Marse John Flournoy about our chu’ch an’ lodge brudder, Hitch Diamond.” “No hope!” Vinegar grumbled. “Hitch is done flirted wid a hearse one time too many. He’s as good as dead.” “Cain’t we do nothin’ fer him?” Skeeter asked.