“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.”