The floor-like tops of these wells were delightful gathering places for the colored children of the neighborhood on moonlight nights. Here they would congregate for their merry games and romping; the pleasant sound of their happy voices becoming a sort of evening service for the old folks who came out of doors to sit on the gutter-curb and doorsteps, eager to enjoy a bit of friendly gossip after a long day’s toil. Tempe was sitting in the doorway of her house, in the glowing moonlight, smoking her pipe and listening to the singing children at the corner, when Chester came up to her. “’Deevnin’, Sis’ Tempe,” he greeted her politely. “I was wond’rin if I was goin’ fin’ you at yo’ house. You know who dis is, don’t you?” She looked at him quietly, making no sign of recognition. “Dis me, Sis’ Tempe,” he said, taking a seat near her. “Dis Chester. Chester Frackshun, w’at use to live ’longside you, yonder ’cross de green.” “I ain’ forgot who you is,” she told him, looking at him searchingly. “I ain’ forget nothin’.... An’ you ain’ need to tell me w’at you come after, either. Cause I’m sho goin’ give de thing back to de lawful owner, now you done come hyuh.” Getting up to go into the house, she said to him: “Set hyuh on de do’-step till I come back.” “Lemme come inside wid you, Sis’ Tempe,” Chester suggested, getting up to follow her. “I wan’ talk wid you on a li’l business.” “Stay right whah you is till I come back, I tell you,” she commanded, looking at him fixedly for several seconds before going inside. Chester sat down again and waited on the steps for her to return. After a while she came back with a cup of salt in her hand, and stood mumbling some unintelligible words, as she sprinkled the salt across the threshold, in the form of a cross. Having finished, she said to him: “De one dey call Chester kin come in, now. But w’at be fol’rin ’im, gotta stay out-do’s.” He made no comment about the strange invitation, but got up and went inside. The room was in semi-darkness; the only light being the reflected glow of a candle in the back room, and a narrow stream of moonlight coming through the open door at the front, falling across the well-scrubbed floor like a stripe of tarnished silver. “Set hyuh whah I kin seen you,” Tempe said; placing a chair near the door where the moonlight would fall across him. Chester took the offered seat, and Tempe sat down opposite, half-hidden in the shadow. “You mus’ bin know I wan’ see you?” she asked. And without waiting for his reply, she went on speaking in a kind of ecstasy: “Boy, de sperret o’ Gawd don’ never work in vain. “An’ don’t you never try to b’lieve de sperret gives up. “E knows ’is own strank; an’ ’e knows ’is time. “An’ soon or later, ’e sho goin’ track you down, an’ all de wrong-doin’ you done commit in de dark, de sperret o’ Gawd goin’ drag it fo’th an’ shame you in de light o’ day! “Yas, Jesus.... You hyeah me talkin’?”