"Oh, hell! I wish I was in college."

"What are you sitting out here thinking about?" inquired Peter of the
ingenuous youngster.

"Oh--football and--women and God and--how to stack cards. You think
about ever'thing, in the woods. Damn it! I got to git out o' this little
jay town. D' reckon I could git in the navy, Siner?"

"Don't see why you couldn't, Sam. Have you seen Tump Pack anywhere?"

"Yeah; on Hobbett's corner. Say, is Cissie Dildine at home?"

"I believe she is."

"She cooks for us," explained young Arkwright, "and Mammy wants her to
come and git supper, too."

The phrase "get supper, too," referred to the custom in the white homes
of Hooker's Bend of having only two meals cooked a day, breakfast and
the twelve-o'clock dinner, with a hot supper optional with the mistress.

Peter nodded, and passed on up the path, leaving young Arkwright seated
on the ledge of rock, a prey to all the boiling, erratic impulses of
adolescence. The negro sensed some of the innumerable difficulties of
this white boy's life, and once, as he walked on over the silent
needles, he felt an impulse to turn back and talk to young Sam
Arkwright, to sit down and try to explain to the youth what he could of
this hazardous adventure called Life. But then, he reflected, very