It may have been fate that sent Andy Foger along the rear road a
little later, and past the place where Eradicate was making the
fence less "disrupted." It may have been fate or Andy may have just
been sneaking along to see if he could overhear anything of Tom's
plans--a trick of which he was frequently guilty. At any rate, Andy
walked, past where Eradicate was whitewashing. The colored man saw
the red-haired lad coming and murmured:

"Dere's dat no 'count white trash! I jest wish Massa Tom was hear
now. He'd jest natchally wallop Andy," and Eradicate moved his
longhandled brush up and down, as though he were coating the Foger
lad with the white stuff.

As it happened, Eradicate was putting some of the liquid on a
particularly rough spot in the fence, a spot low down, and this
naturally made the handle of his brush stick out over the sidewalk,
and at this moment Andy Foger got there.

"Here, you black rascal!" the lad angrily exclaimed. "What do you
mean by blocking the sidewalk that way? It's against the law, and I
could have you arrested for that."

"No, could yo' really now?" asked Eradicate drawlingly for he was
not afraid of Andy.

"Yes, I could, and don't you give me any of your back-talk! Get that
brush out of the way!" and Andy kicked the long handle.

The natural result followed. The other end of the brush, wet with
whitewash, described a curve through the air, coming toward the mean