Chapter Seven
 
Cameron leaned back, reading the last sentence.  He smiled and then immediately frowned.  Looking around the apartment with its four rickety chairs and Formica-covered table, he wondered where all that effort expended in becoming a success had gone.  He had grasped the brass ring, and in America, had clambered up the greasy pole.  All he had needed was a wide pair of shoulders on which to stand.  He had found two. That thought brought his mind around to his cousin Fran. 

EARLY IN JANUARY nineteen t’irty-seven, t’ings change.  It was tense befo’e, but it get worse now, an’ t’ings gettin’ real bad ’pon de plantations.  De overseers gettin’ vex dat de people complainin’ an’ dey makin’ de people work harduh in order to frighten dem into submission.  But dat ain’t workin’. An’ den I hear dat Lemmey, who live by Miss Ida house in a hut near de bottom uh de gap, slap one uh de overseers, an’ it turn out bad ’cause de overseer try to hit Lemmey widuh whip, and Lemmey slice ’im up widuh cutlass.