Chick feels the need to pay Lucas for helping him. However, when Lucas refuses to take Chick’s money in return for the hospitality, as Chick feels a black man should, he becomes angry and leaves. In the next four years, Chick develops his sense of obligation to Lucas and fails to recognize the relationship Lucas has made between them. Lucas opened his home to Chick because he is a kind man, but due to his race, Chick thinks that a black man should not be kind to a white man without repayment. Simply, because white people are told to believe that they are higher than black people are. Chick’s competitive nature begins when he starts sending Lucas gifts to repay him. However, Lucas always sends or returns gifts to Chick and once Lucas, “had commanded a white hand to pick up his money and give it back to him” (23). Chick believes having a white person deliver a gift is offensive and injures his pride. This competitive nature between the two slows down and increases at certain times, though. The two begin their relationship in an awkward position, but when the time comes, Chick helps prove Lucas’ innocence. When Lucas is falsely accused of murdering Vinson Gowrie, Chick steps in to help. He initially acts due to his never-ending …show more content…
Only a few people know about the gifts, and the fact that Chick is helping Lucas, except Chick’s uncle, Alek Sander, and Miss Habersham. Chick’s uncle is the first to call Lucas Chick’s friend, he says, “your friend Beauchamp seems to have done it this time” (31). Chick and Lucas' relationship is not open because the mob would not only come after Lucas but Chick too. In the world they live in, black people were looked down upon, and protecting one is something a white boy should not do. Part of the reason that Lucas is disliked is that he refuses to behave like a lesser human being. Lucas does not allow any white man to belittle him and, “refuse to bear them” (154). Lucas behaves in a way that subjects him to accusations, not only for his behavior but because he is a black man who behaves in a defiant