"Lawd bless me, look at dem long houses!" as he passed the lower end of Hewintown.
A white man eyed him closely, a short man with a tarnished metal badge on his ore-stained coat.
The guard relit his pipe. "Too old, nigger."
The guard continued to stare off at Shadow Mountain. Whistling good-naturedly, the old man continued down the track. "New houses! New fences! Things mus' be lookin' up!"
He observed the path that led to the crest just east of Hillcrest Cottage, and took instead the steep descent to the spring lot. He sniffed at the well-placed garden truck, noticed the ducks and the shiny duck house, skirted the widened concrete swimming pool, and came at last past the game house to the spring. From the tin dipper swinging on the twenty-penny nail he took a drink, first clearing out his mouth several times and spitting the warmed water into the spillway.
He looked furtively around, up toward the big estate, then along the path to the eastern crest. He took up the two buckets empty on a concrete pump base, filled them three-quarters, balanced them, and made his careful way up the latter path.
When he reached the top, he skirted the ramshackle house. At the back he paused at the two half-barrel tubs redolent with laundry soap. He stooped over it, pouring in the first big bucket.
A heavy voice rang from the kitchen above him. "Hey, nigger, what you doin'?"
He turned a puzzled face toward the window. "Ah'm--ah'm----"
A big roundish woman stepped out on the rickety porch. "Fuh Gawd's sake! Is you Tom?"
"Sho' Ah is." There was an aggrieved whine in his voice.
He emptied the bucket, and brought the other to the bench under the back steps. "Ah been wu'kin'. Ah come back."
"We done got a letter sayin' you wuz dead."
Tramping up the steps, he flung his wrinkled coat on its old nail above the lanterns, and sat down in a splint-bottomed chair, testing it carefully before he leaned back in it. "Got any breakfas', ole 'ooman? Ah's plumb starvin'."
She set out cold bacon, cold pone, a glass molasses pitcher with its top broken. "He'p yo'se'f, Tom. Ah's powerful glad you's home."
He spoke through a mouthful of bread and "long sweetening." "Ain't married agin, or nuthin'?"
She slid his emptied dishes into the loaded sink, and took up the two empty clothes baskets. "Come he'p me tote de clo'es back. Miss' Mary mebbe got somethin' for you to do."