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filled with copperheads and a broken cradle swing stood in the back
yard. A corn field and a field of shrubs, weeds, with an occasional
evergreen bordered each side of the house. Walking in the driveway
on the underbrush side of the house, Johnny could see that beyond
the short grass of the front yard in the underbrush near the road stood
a short eight-year-old Negro looking up at his friend in a great chest-
nut tree. Johnny knew how to get rid of them. Picking up a rock in
the driveway, he carried it cupped in his palm before him as he walked
briskly toward the tree.

When the Negro saw Johnny coming, he screamed to his friend
in the tree and ran down the road as fast as his short legs would take
him. The boy in the tree, a few years younger than Johnny, looked
over the situation and decided to keep on climbing.

"You're on our property. Come down and leave right now!"
"I's gonna leave jus' as soon as I git to der top."
"Now, I said! I'll give you ten and then I'll throw this rock."
About count three the Negro reached the top and by count ten
had begun his climb down. The stone missed its mark and scattered
the leaves below his feet bouncing off of a hollow sounding limb. The
next moment as the descender's foot came to rest upon that limb,
Johnny heard a cr-ra-k-k, rustle of leaves, and a shout as he saw the
fall of leaves, limb and body. The next instant he heard a thump and
another shout as the faller's back struck a great lower limb. A heap
of body and leaves fell to the ground.

Johnny looked at the twisted body, cut face and horrible blue
color coming to the black cheeks. It reminded him of the Negro that
had stopped breathing in a movie he had seen at Scouts. It was the
movie that taught mouth-to-mouth respiration.

"Can't give a nigger that though. I'll turn him over and give
him the back pressure ... Oh, Cod! I bet that limb broke his back.
His body is so twisted. That face is purple now. I can't ... I can't
touch my mouth to a nigger. No!"

Johnny gritted his teeth as his whole body shivered. He turned
to run to the house.

"Maybe Cramps or Mom ... no, he will die if I don't ... I
can't ... "

He turned to the victim, but as he moved his mouth toward him,
he ducked and struck his head on the ground. Tears came to his
eyes. Through his blurred vision he could see the once black skin, so
very purple now, and the fingernails so much worse.

With trembling hands he opened the mouth to reveal the shin-

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