There was evidence here and there of former dependence on wells for water.  One or two had been simply boarded over.  One, a front yard affair had been ingeniously converted into a huge flower pot.  The well had been filled in, its circular brick walls covered with a thick layer of cement.  Into this, while still damp, had been pressed crystals.  Even in January the vessel bore evidence of summer blooming.

“PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD” admonished the electrified box sign attatched to the front porch of one dwelling.  Its border was of black wood.  The sign itself was of white frosted glass.  Letters of the slogan were in scarlet.

Next doer was another religious reminder.  It was a modest pasteboard window card and announced Bible Study at 2:  P.M. daily.

Three blocks up Walnut the pavement ends.  Beyond that sidewalks too, listlessly peter out.  A young, but enthusiastically growing ditch is beginning to separate path from street.  Houses begin to take on a more dilapidated appearance.  They lean uncertainly.

A colored woman stops to stare at the white one, plants herself directly in the stranger’s path and demands, “Is you the investigator?  No?  Well who is you looking for?  Oh, Mose, he’s at his son’s.  Good thing I stopped you.  Cause you would have gone too far.  He’s at his son’s.  His grandson just done had his tonsils out.  He’s over there.”

The interviewer climbed the ladder-like steps leading to “his son’s house”.  No Mose wasn’t there.  He had just left.  Maybe he’d gone home.  The de-tonsiled child proved to be a bright eyed, saddle-colored youngster of three, enormously interested in the stranger.  He wore whip-cord jodphurs—­protruding widely on either side of his plump thighs—­and knee high leather riding boots.  Plump and smiling, he looked for all the world like a kewpie provided with a kink ey crown and blistered to a rich chocolate by a friendly sun.

The child eyed the interviewer’s pencil.  Since, she was carrying a “spare” she offered it to him.  He smiled and accepted with alacrity.  Later when the interviewer had found Mose and brought him back to the house to be questioned, the grandson brought forth his long new pencil and showed it with heartfelt pride.

On up the street went the interviewer.  Arrived at 451 she approached the house through a yard strewn, with wood chips and piled with cordwood.  Nobody answered her knock.  Two blocks back toward town she was stopped by the same woman who had accosted her before.  “Did you find him?” “No,” replied the interviewer.  “Well he’s somewhere on the street.  He’s a’carrying a cane.  You just stop any man you see with a cane and ask him if he ain’t Mose Evans.”  The advice was sound/ The first elderly man coming north was carrying a cane.  He was Mose Evans.