Free Nazareth's Song by Patricia Hickman Page B

goin’ to get hurt. They set fire to a likeness of Banker Mills. Not a good likeness, neither, come to think of it. Just some straw man with a sign around its neck that said ‘Rich Old Mills.’ Wonder who’d do such a thing? It’s looking bad down there; talk goin’ around like they’s goin’ to set fire to downtown. I hope they don’t burn down Honeysack’s place. Supposed to be a good sale tomorrow on quiltin’ goods.”
    Jeb thanked Mrs. Foley for dropping Willie by and then jerked on his boots.
    “You’re going downtown, Jeb? Now?” Angel held a pan of corn bread with two stained mitts.
    “Somebody’s going to get hurt. It’s best I go see about things.”
    Willie tried to follow him back out the front door.
    “Not you, Willie Boy! Back inside with you. Your sister’s got supper fixed. You stay behind, keep an eye on the girls, and have your dinner.”
    “Beck Hopper said something like this might happen,” said Angel.
    Jeb’s eyes darted to meet Angel’s. She started to turn away, but before she could, Jeb said, “Things like that are best not kept a secret, Angel.” Jeb did not like the fact she had been hanging around with the Hopper boy anyway. His daddy was getting a bad reputation of late for starting fights.
    “He didn’t say exactly, just that people was tired of seeing their kids go hungry, and someone was going to do something about it. Beck don’t see his daddy as mean like the rest of us do. Kind of like he’s blind to his daddy’s ways. I kind of see his side of it.”
    Angel called Ida May to the table and sent Willie to wash up. She wrapped two pieces of corn bread in a napkin and handed them to Jeb. “Eat these on the way and we’ll save stew for later.”
    Even before the truck could reach the main street of downtown Nazareth, the intensity of the fire could be seen—red and billowing black smoke from one of the buildings, although Jeb was not certain about what building had caught fire. Several screaming women with babies or older children in tow ran down the street away from the mob of men lining Front Street. Jeb slowed and parked several blocks down the street to keep the Ford away from the fire.
    One building on Waddle had been torched. Several men who had been in the middle of a shave and haircut at Lincoln’s Barbershop waited bewildered on the corner of Waddle and Front, their bodies still swathed in the barber’s white capes. The barber, Hal Lincoln, tried to pass out buckets of water to the patrons to help him douse the front of his shop. Too stunned, the men watched mesmerized as the flames reached the old warehouse next to the barbershop.
    Tom Plummer ran past Jeb’s truck.
    “Tom, has the whole town gone crazy?” Jeb opened the truck door.
    “Don’t know how things was started. Some say Asa Hopper riled up the bunch of jobless men living down by the railroad tracks, but I can’t say as I know for sure. Asa’s two oldest boys has set fire to one of the buildings, but they’s fifty or more men out in front of the bank. I heard one say they were going to break into Will Honeysack’s store and take all of the food. Will don’t deserve that kind of bi’ness at all.” Tom ran off.
    Jeb left the truck parked on the side of the road and ran down Front Street toward Will’s grocery store.
    In the middle of Front Street, Asa Hopper swung a lantern. He shouted Horace Mills’s name. Some of the men with him shouted too and threw fists into the air. One hurled a rock at the bank; it hit the brick and fell to the walk. The blinds had been pulled down on all the bank windows. Jeb figured Mills and his staff might have slipped out the back way.
    Inside Honeysack’s Grocery, Freda and Will thrust an iron bar across the inside of the doors. Jeb tapped on the window and Freda shrieked. He mouthed instructions telling them both to meet him at the back door.
    A Coke bottle hit the walk and shattered next to Jeb’s feet. Dolittle’s dairy truck had been left in