"WM. S. CARROLL # 512" was waiting at the curb while the rush-hour traffic crept forward in the darkness at the foot of the John Hancock Building. The press bus was on time, if I wasn't, and its fog-covered windows held forth some hope of reportorial warmth inside, even if those 14 black letters and numerals on its side dimmed my hopes that this would be a presidential campaign press junket worthy of Tim Crouse, Hunter Thompson or Teddy White.

"Wm.S. Carroll #512," you see, is the verbal-digital designation of a yellow, butt-bruising school bus. Hardly the Greyhound luxury-cruise type that the hotshots of the campaign press corps deign to ride in and complain about, but then again, the hotshots aren't riding Jimmy Carter's band-wagon--yet. Whether they will be come May and the second onslaught of state primaries was something I wanted to try to find out. But more than wanting to ruminate over darkhorse Jimmy Carter's staying power as a candidate for President in 1976, on a cold night two weeks ago I wanted to see the peanut farmer from Plains, Ga., and the surviving hero of Macon, Ga., Gregg Allman, stand together on the hustings down in the Providence Civic Center, and kiss each other on the cheek.

They didn't exactly kiss five hours later, but they did hug each other with evident enough emotion before 10,000 paying customers at The Allman Brothers Band-Jimmy Carter for President concert to leave me wondering what is going on in the New South--specifically, whether the kinds of minor generation-gap-bridging miracles taking place in the plush northwest suburbs of Atlanta are also taking place in Knoxville, Greenville, Pahokee, Biloxi, Bogalusa, Tuscaloosa, Arkadelphia, and Nacogdoches.

If they are, then Jimmy Carter, in his projected image as rock-music fan and friend of youth, civil rights advocate and friend of blacks, down-home farmboy and friend of city folks, deep-dyed populist and friend of everybody but big business, may be closer to the New South Zeitgeist than his less reconciliatory Democratic opponent George Wallace. Certainly, a strong showing by Carter in the states Wallace has dominated for a decade would seriously undercut the Alabama governor's paraplegic presidential bid. And obviously, a strong regional showing is a must for Carter, who must prove that he can carry the South before he can sell himself as a national candidate.

But if toleration and progressivism in the Southern backwaters are not growing apace with Jimmy Carter's brand of toleration and progressivism, then the hug of Gregg Allman, and all that it represents in terms of Carter's easy-going, all-embracing campaign style, though remunerative ($6.50 tickets to the Providence concert drew almost 10,000 takers, while a $25-a-couple cocktail party drew only a couple hundred well-heeled citizens), may prove to be counterproductive. Because harmony has, after all, hardly been the watchword for recent presidential politics in the South, and the former Georgia governor may just be playing Mr. Good Ol' Boy to too many people at once...

The last time I had seen Jimmy Carter before the Providence junket was over a year ago, when he was already stumping the land to feel out his prospects for '76. He was in Dallas, where he was giving his Christian testimony to a packed house of the faithful at the Southern Baptist Convention. The most distinct image I recall from the occasion is that of a mouse-like man with a choir-boy's face and a Sunday schooler's plaintive, sincerely righteous voice, leaning in to the mike to tell of his conversion experience and waving somewhat embarrassedly to the throng of Baptist delegates, his arm draped around president-elect Jaroy Weber, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lubbock, Texas, a man who last made national headlines when he called a press conference this summer to denounce Betty Ford for her libertinism.

"I'm a Christian. And I'm a politician. I disagree with those who think the two can't mix. I think they have to."

When Carter stood on another stage some 2000 miles away, arm-in-arm with hell-raisin', needle-poppin', perversely angelic Gregg Allman, waving to a generally stoned-out, dismal and politically-indifferent throng of the type that drab-and-dreary Providence seems to muster best, he seemed once again ill-at-ease but nevertheless convivial. Once again, he gave the crowd what it wanted--this time, a short speech, and the Allman Brothers Band. To a chorus of chortles and hisses, Carter raised his arms like a quarterback beckoning for audibility, and said:

"I have just four things to tell you. (Holding up his index finger.) One, my name is Jimmy Carter. (Holding up two fingers) I'm running for president. (Three fingers.) I need your help. (Four fingers) I'm gonna win. And now I want to introduce some very good friends of mine from Macon, Georgia...the Allman Brothers."

As several thousand bodies directly in front of the stage roared in approval, I thought of Dallas and the kind of flexibility it takes to embrace first Jaroy Weber and then Gregg Allman. It was enough to make me shout into the ear of a photographer friend, "Politics makes strange bedfellows, I know, but how many different people can this man pack together beneath his wingspan?"

"Not as many as Don Cheney, but more than Richard Nixon, because his armpits don't smell," came the reply.

Jimmy Carter does present a clean image (his 1970-1974 governorship went without heinous scandal and was highlighted by Sunshine Laws that opened up closed meetings of state agencies; he is not a lawyer and is not from Washington, as he repeatedly tells acquaintances soon after the introductory handshake; and, federal campaign spending regulations notwithstanding, his grass-roots campaign is at a distinct financial disadvantage to those of other "liberal" Democratic candidates because Carter has relatively few fatcat backers). And his friendship with the Allman Brothers Band and other Capricorn Recording artists out of Macon is, it seems, genuine, if highly profitable of late--the four Carter benefits scheduled to date may net up to $200,000, with ticket stubs serving as proof of donation that will make Carter eligible for matching federal funds in January, Rolling Stone reported last week.

The Capricorn-Carter courtship began, legend around Atlanta has it, when the newly-elected governor paid Phil Walden, the Macon rock mogul, a visit, promising the nascent Georgia recording industry protection from tape-making copyright pirates. Carter got tight with Gregg Allman, Dicky Betts et al when they showed up late--5 a.m.--at the Governor's Mansion for a post-concert get-together that Carter hosted for Bob Dylan, the Band and the "Brothers."

"We sat up all night and listened to records," the 51-year-old, modishly-coiffed, naval-physicist-turned-peanut-farmer-turned-politician recalled at the end of a press conference before he left to join the Allman Brothers Band backstage. "I've listened to all their records, sometimes when I didn't want to," Carter said with his characteristic bridgeworked, sheepish grin, referring to the listening habits of his three grown sons. Then his face reassumed its rote, campaign-coached, presidential weightiness:

"I've had a long series of friendships with performing artists. Bob Dylan, Van Cliburn, Robert Shaw, conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Gregg and Dickie and Marshall Tucker and all the artists on the Capricorn lable.