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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 sies had been stepping down off sidewalks to get out of my way since I was five years old

I rode the bicycle back to Maybelle’s, 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 couldn’t 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 thes or been turned out byfor people they didn’t 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 swaround to keep their children’s feet out of the s and old newspapers in the chinks in the walls to keep out the wind in winter

They ate squirrel and possureens They ate weeds fro, and whatever else they could get their hands on

Walking along there now, as the neighborhood changed fro 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 didn’twhether or not I orthy of the inforht