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Authors: James Patterson
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broke it.
They were good days, Ben. Werent they?
They were great days.
We were friends! Right through it all.
The best, I said. We were like brothers.
We clinked our iced-tea glasses. Then Jacob spoke.
But there is one thing I need to make very clear to you, Ben.
Whats that? I tried to keep the note of concern out of my voice.
You said we were like brothers?
Yeah? Thats what I said.
I just need to remind you of something.
Well, go ahead, Jacob, I said.
I was always the pretty one.
Chapter 31
ENOUGH!
Enough idle thoughts about my long-ago romance with Elizabeth Begley.
Enough turning over in my mind the painful lack of affection between my father and me, the disgust in his face when he saw me for the first time in six years.
Enough reliving an old friendship like Jacobs and mine.
Theodore Roosevelt hadnt sent me to Eudora to take a rickety bicycle ride down memory lane. I had a job to do, and it might even help change history.
I paid the bill for our lunch, and Jacob left two bits for Miss Fanny. Then he headed off up Commerce Street to help Wylie frame a new roof for the front porch of the town hall.
An old black man stepped off the sidewalk as Jacob passed, not to avoid a collision, but simply making the customary show of respect. Black men of all ages had been stepping down off sidewalks to get out of my way since I was five years old.
I rode the bicycle back to Maybelles, changed my shirt, and set off on foot for the Eudora Quarters. On my way out, I made sure to tell Maybelle I had some interviews to attend to.
I considered trying to hire a horse and buggy, and couldnt think of anywhere in town to do such a thing. My father had three perfectly good horses in his barn, of course, but I was determined to do what I came to do without him.
ABRAHAM CROSS, EUDORA QUARTERS said the slip of paper the president had given me.
It was time for me to meet this Mr. Cross.
Chapter 32
I KNEW THE STREETS of the Quarters almost as well as I knew the rest of Eudora. I knew the history of how it came to be. After the war, the slaves from all the plantations and farms in the vicinity of Eudora had been freed. Most of them had either left their previous lodgings or been turned out by masters who no longer wanted to provide housing for people they didnt own.
So the freed slaves built their homes where no one else wanted to live, in a swampy, muddy, mosquito-ridden low place half a mile north of the center of Eudora.
They gathered fallen logs from the woods and lumber from derelict barns to build their little houses. They laid boards across the swampy, pestilential ground to keep their childrens feet out of the mud. They stuffed rags and old newspapers in the chinks in the walls to keep out the wind in winter.
They ate squirrel and possum, poke sallet and dandelion greens. They ate weeds from the field, horse corn, the leftover parts of a pig, and whatever else they could get their hands on.
Walking along there now, as the neighborhood changed from poor white to poorer black, I saw a colored man sitting on the porch of a shack painted a gay shade of blue. He nodded at me.
I returned his nod. Pardon me, do you know a man by the name of Cross? Abraham Cross?
He never blinked. His eyes didnt move from mine, but I had the feeling he was deciding whether or not I was worthy of the information I sought.
Yes, suh, he finally said. If you just keep walkin, you will come on a house with a strong smell of onions. That will be Abrahams house.
The sight of a white man walking on this street was not a welcome one for most of the people I came across. They kept their eyes down as they passed, which seemed to be customary now in Eudora but had not been the case when I was a boy.
Within minutes I caught the sharp tang of onions on the air. I saw thick patches of the familiar blue-green stalks in the yard of a
They were good days, Ben. Werent they?
They were great days.
We were friends! Right through it all.
The best, I said. We were like brothers.
We clinked our iced-tea glasses. Then Jacob spoke.
But there is one thing I need to make very clear to you, Ben.
Whats that? I tried to keep the note of concern out of my voice.
You said we were like brothers?
Yeah? Thats what I said.
I just need to remind you of something.
Well, go ahead, Jacob, I said.
I was always the pretty one.
Chapter 31
ENOUGH!
Enough idle thoughts about my long-ago romance with Elizabeth Begley.
Enough turning over in my mind the painful lack of affection between my father and me, the disgust in his face when he saw me for the first time in six years.
Enough reliving an old friendship like Jacobs and mine.
Theodore Roosevelt hadnt sent me to Eudora to take a rickety bicycle ride down memory lane. I had a job to do, and it might even help change history.
I paid the bill for our lunch, and Jacob left two bits for Miss Fanny. Then he headed off up Commerce Street to help Wylie frame a new roof for the front porch of the town hall.
An old black man stepped off the sidewalk as Jacob passed, not to avoid a collision, but simply making the customary show of respect. Black men of all ages had been stepping down off sidewalks to get out of my way since I was five years old.
I rode the bicycle back to Maybelles, changed my shirt, and set off on foot for the Eudora Quarters. On my way out, I made sure to tell Maybelle I had some interviews to attend to.
I considered trying to hire a horse and buggy, and couldnt think of anywhere in town to do such a thing. My father had three perfectly good horses in his barn, of course, but I was determined to do what I came to do without him.
ABRAHAM CROSS, EUDORA QUARTERS said the slip of paper the president had given me.
It was time for me to meet this Mr. Cross.
Chapter 32
I KNEW THE STREETS of the Quarters almost as well as I knew the rest of Eudora. I knew the history of how it came to be. After the war, the slaves from all the plantations and farms in the vicinity of Eudora had been freed. Most of them had either left their previous lodgings or been turned out by masters who no longer wanted to provide housing for people they didnt own.
So the freed slaves built their homes where no one else wanted to live, in a swampy, muddy, mosquito-ridden low place half a mile north of the center of Eudora.
They gathered fallen logs from the woods and lumber from derelict barns to build their little houses. They laid boards across the swampy, pestilential ground to keep their childrens feet out of the mud. They stuffed rags and old newspapers in the chinks in the walls to keep out the wind in winter.
They ate squirrel and possum, poke sallet and dandelion greens. They ate weeds from the field, horse corn, the leftover parts of a pig, and whatever else they could get their hands on.
Walking along there now, as the neighborhood changed from poor white to poorer black, I saw a colored man sitting on the porch of a shack painted a gay shade of blue. He nodded at me.
I returned his nod. Pardon me, do you know a man by the name of Cross? Abraham Cross?
He never blinked. His eyes didnt move from mine, but I had the feeling he was deciding whether or not I was worthy of the information I sought.
Yes, suh, he finally said. If you just keep walkin, you will come on a house with a strong smell of onions. That will be Abrahams house.
The sight of a white man walking on this street was not a welcome one for most of the people I came across. They kept their eyes down as they passed, which seemed to be customary now in Eudora but had not been the case when I was a boy.
Within minutes I caught the sharp tang of onions on the air. I saw thick patches of the familiar blue-green stalks in the yard of a
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