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diff --git a/10621-0.txt b/10621-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ab4b31 --- /dev/null +++ b/10621-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8646 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10621 *** + +[Illustration: "Yes, Cissie, I understand now"] + + + + + BIRTHRIGHT + + A NOVEL + + BY T.S. STRIBLING + + + Illustrated by + F. Luis Mora + + + 1922 + + + + + TO MY MOTHER + + AMELIA WAITS STRIBLING + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"Yes, Cissie, I understand now" + +Peter recognized the white aprons and the swords and spears of the +Knights and Ladies of Tabor + +Up and down its street flows the slow negro life of the village + +In the Siner cabin old Caroline Siner berated her boy + +The old gentleman turned around at last + +"You-you mean you want m-me--to go with you, Cissie?" he stammered + +"Naw yuh don't," he warned sharply. "You turn roun' an' march on to +Niggertown" + +The bridal couple embarked for Cairo + + + + + + BIRTHRIGHT + + + + CHAPTER I + + +At Cairo, Illinois, the Pullman-car conductor asked Peter Siner to take +his suitcase and traveling-bag and pass forward into the Jim Crow car. +The request came as a sort of surprise to the negro. During Peter +Siner's four years in Harvard the segregation of black folk on Southern +railroads had become blurred and reminiscent in his mind; now it was +fetched back into the sharp distinction of the present instant. With a +certain sense of strangeness, Siner picked up his bags, and saw his own +form, in the car mirrors, walking down the length of the sleeper. He +moved on through the dining-car, where a few hours before he had had +dinner and talked with two white men, one an Oregon apple-grower, the +other a Wisconsin paper-manufacturer. The Wisconsin man had furnished +cigars, and the three had sat and smoked in the drawing-room, indeed, +had discussed this very point; and now it was upon him. + +At the door of the dining-car stood the porter of his Pullman, a negro +like himself, and Peter mechanically gave him fifty cents. The porter +accepted it silently, without offering the amenities of his whisk-broom +and shoe-brush, and Peter passed on forward. + +Beyond the dining-car and Pullmans stretched twelve day-coaches filled +with less-opulent white travelers in all degrees of sleepiness and +dishabille from having sat up all night. The thirteenth coach was the +Jim Crow car. Framed in a conspicuous place beside the entrance of the +car was a copy of the Kentucky state ordinance setting this coach apart +from the remainder of the train for the purposes therein provided. + +The Jim Crow car was not exactly shabby, but it was unkept. It was half +filled with travelers of Peter's own color, and these passengers were +rather more noisy than those in the white coaches. Conversation was not +restrained to the undertones one heard in the other day-coaches or the +Pullmans. Near the entrance of the car two negroes in soldiers' uniforms +had turned a seat over to face the door, and now they sat talking loudly +and laughing the loose laugh of the half intoxicated as they watched the +inflow of negro passengers coming out of the white cars. + +The windows of the Jim Crow car were shut, and already it had become +noisome. The close air was faintly barbed with the peculiar, penetrating +odor of dark, sweating skins. For four years Peter Siner had not known +that odor. Now it came to him not so much offensively as with a queer +quality of intimacy and reminiscence. The tall, carefully tailored negro +spread his wide nostrils, vacillating whether to sniff it out with +disfavor or to admit it for the sudden mental associations it evoked. + +It was a faint, pungent smell that played in the back of his nose and +somehow reminded him of his mother, Caroline Siner, a thick-bodied black +woman whom he remembered as always bending over a wash-tub. This was +only one unit of a complex. The odor was also connected with negro +protracted meetings in Hooker's Bend, and the Harvard man remembered a +lanky black preacher waving long arms and wailing of hell-fire, to the +chanted groans of his dark congregation; and he, Peter Siner, had +groaned with the others. Peter had known this odor in the press-room of +Tennessee cotton-gins, over a river packet's boilers, where he and other +roustabouts were bedded, in bunk-houses in the woods. It also recalled a +certain octoroon girl named Ida May, and an intimacy with her which it +still moved and saddened Peter to think of. Indeed, it resurrected +innumerable vignettes of his life in the negro village in Hooker's Bend; +it was linked with innumerable emotions, this pungent, unforgetable odor +that filled the Jim Crow car. + +Somehow the odor had a queer effect of appearing to push his +conversation with the two white Northern men in the drawing-room back to +a distance, an indefinable distance of both space and time. + +The negro put his suitcase under the seat, hung his overcoat on the +hook, and placed his hand-bag in the rack overhead; then with some +difficulty he opened a window and sat down by it. + +A stir of travelers in the Cairo station drifted into the car. Against a +broad murmur of hurrying feet, moving trucks, and talking there stood +out the thin, flat voice of a Southern white girl calling good-by to +some one on the train. Peter could see her waving a bright parasol and +tiptoeing. A sandwich boy hurried past, shrilling his wares. Siner +leaned out, with fifteen cents, and signaled to him. The urchin +hesitated, and was about to reach up one of his wrapped parcels, when a +peremptory voice shouted at him from a lower car. With a sort of start +the lad deserted Siner and went trotting down to his white customer. A +moment later the train bell began ringing, and the Dixie Flier puffed +deliberately out of the Cairo station and moved across the Ohio bridge +into the South. + +Half an hour later the blue-grass fields of Kentucky were spinning +outside of the window in a vast green whirlpool. The distant trees and +houses moved forward with the train, while the foreground, with its +telegraph poles, its culverts, section-houses, and shrubbery, rushed +backward in a blur. Now and then into the Jim Crow window whipped a +blast of coal smoke and hot cinders, for the engine was only two cars +ahead. + +Peter Siner looked out at the interminable spin of the landscape with a +certain wistfulness. He was coming back into the South, into his own +country. Here for generations his forebears had toiled endlessly and +fruitlessly, yet the fat green fields hurtling past him told with what +skill and patience their black hands had labored. + +The negro shrugged away such thoughts, and with a certain effort +replaced them with the constructive idea that was bringing him South +once more. It was a very simple idea. Siner was returning to his native +village in Tennessee to teach school. He planned to begin his work with +the ordinary public school at Hooker's Bend, but, in the back of his +head, he hoped eventually to develop an institution after the plan of +Tuskeegee or the Hampton Institute in Virginia. + +To do what he had in mind, he must obtain aid from white sources, and +now, as he traveled southward, he began conning in his mind the white +men and white women he knew in Hooker's Bend. He wanted first of all to +secure possession of a small tract of land which he knew adjoined the +negro school-house over on the east side of the village. + +Before the negro's mind the different villagers passed in review with +that peculiar intimacy of vision that servants always have of their +masters. Indeed, no white Southerner knows his own village so minutely +as does any member of its colored population. The colored villagers see +the whites off their guard and just as they are, and that is an attitude +in which no one looks his best. The negroes might be called the black +recording angels of the South. If what they know should be shouted aloud +in any Southern town, its social life would disintegrate. Yet it is a +strange fact that gossip seldom penetrates from the one race to the +other. + +So Peter Siner sat in the Jim Crow car musing over half a dozen +villagers in Hooker's Bend. He thought of them in a curious way. +Although he was now a B.A. of Harvard University, and although he knew +that not a soul in the little river village, unless it was old Captain +Renfrew, could construe a line of Greek and that scarcely two had ever +traveled farther north than Cincinnati, still, as Peter recalled their +names and foibles, he involuntarily felt that he was telling over a roll +of the mighty. The white villagers came marching through his mind as +beings austere, and the very cranks and quirks of their characters +somehow held that austerity. There were the Brownell sisters, two old +maids, Molly and Patti, who lived in a big brick house on the hill. +Peter remembered that Miss Molly Brownell always doled out to his +mother, at Monday's washday dinner, exactly one biscuit less than the +old negress wanted to eat, and she always paid her in old clothes. Peter +remembered, a dozen times in his life, his mother coming home and +wondering in an impersonal way how it was that Miss Molly Brownell could +skimp every meal she ate at the big house by exactly one biscuit. It was +Miss Brownell's thin-lipped boast that she understood negroes. She had +told Peter so several times when, as a lad, he went up to the big house +on errands. Peter Siner considered this remembrance without the faintest +feeling of humor, and mentally removed Miss Molly Brownell from his list +of possible subscribers. Yet, he recalled, the whole Brownell estate had +been reared on negro labor. + +Then there was Henry Hooker, cashier of the village bank. Peter knew +that the banker subscribed liberally to foreign missions; indeed, at the +cashier's behest, the white church of Hooker's Bend kept a paid +missionary on the upper Congo. But the banker had sold some village lots +to the negroes, and in two instances, where a streak of commercial +phosphate had been discovered on the properties, the lots had reverted +to the Hooker estate. There had been in the deed something concerning a +mineral reservation that the negro purchasers knew nothing about until +the phosphate was discovered. The whole matter had been perfectly legal. + +A hand shook Siner's shoulder and interrupted his review. Peter turned, +and caught an alcoholic breath over his shoulder, and the blurred voice +of a Southern negro called out above the rumble of the car and the roar +of the engine: + +"'Fo' Gawd, ef dis ain't Peter Siner I's been lookin' at de las' twenty +miles, an' not knowin' him wid sich skeniptious clo'es on! Wha you fum, +nigger?" + +Siner took the enthusiastic hand offered him and studied the heavily +set, powerful man bending over the seat. He was in a soldier's uniform, +and his broad nutmeg-colored face and hot black eyes brought Peter a +vague sense of familiarity; but he never would have identified his +impression had he not observed on the breast of the soldier's uniform +the Congressional military medal for bravery on the field of battle. Its +glint furnished Peter the necessary clew. He remembered his mother's +writing him something about Tump Pack going to France and getting +"crowned" before the army. He had puzzled a long time over what she +meant by "crowned" before he guessed her meaning. Now the medal aided +Peter in reconstructing out of this big umber-colored giant the rather +spindling Tump Pack he had known in Hooker's Bend. + +Siner was greatly surprised, and his heart warmed at the sight of his +old playmate. + +"What have you been doing to yourself, Tump?" he cried, laughing, and +shaking the big hand in sudden warmth. "You used to be the size of a +dime in a jewelry store." + +"Been in 'e army, nigger, wha I's been fed," said the grinning brown +man, delightedly. "I sho is picked up, ain't I?" + +"And what are you doing here in Cairo?" + +"Tryin' to bridle a lil white mule." Mr. Pack winked a whisky-brightened +eye jovially and touched his coat to indicate that some of the "white +mule" was in his pocket and had not been drunk. + +"How'd you get here?" + +"Wucked my way down on de St. Louis packet an' got paid off at Padjo +[Paducah, Kentucky]; 'n 'en I thought I'd come on down heah an' roll +some bones. Been hittin' 'em two days now, an' I sho come putty nigh +bein' cleaned; but I put up lil Joe heah, an' won 'em all back, 'n 'en +some." He touched the medal on his coat, winked again, slapped Siner on +the leg, and burst into loud laughter. + +Peter was momentarily shocked. He made a place on the seat for his +friend to sit. "You don't mean you put up your medal on a crap game, +Tump?" + +"Sho do, black man." Pack became soberer. "Dat's one o' de great +benefits o' bein' dec'rated. Dey ain't a son uv a gun on de river whut +kin win lil Joe; dey all tried it." + +A moment's reflection told Peter how simple and natural it was for Pack +to prize his military medal as a good-luck piece to be used as a last +resort in crap games. He watched Tump stroke the face of his medal with +his fingers. + +"My mother wrote me; about your getting it, Tump. I was glad to hear +it." + +The brown man nodded, and stared down at the bit of gold on his barrel- +like chest. + +"Yas-suh, dat 'uz guv to me fuh bravery. You know whut a skeery lil +nigger I wuz roun' Hooker's Ben'; well, de sahgeant tuk me an' he drill +ever' bit o' dat right out 'n me. He gimme a baynit an' learned me to +stob dummies wid it over at Camp Oglethorpe, ontil he felt lak I had de +heart to stob anything; 'n' 'en he sont me acrost. I had to git a new +pair breeches ever' three weeks, I growed so fas'." Here he broke out +into his big loose laugh again, and renewed the alcoholic scent around +Peter. + +"And you made good?" + +"Sho did, black man, an', 'fo' Gawd, I 'serve a medal ef any man ever +did. Dey gimme dish-heah fuh stobbin fo' white men wid a baynit. 'Fo' +Gawd, nigger, I never felt so quare in all my born days as when I wuz a- +jobbin' de livers o' dem white men lak de sahgeant tol' me to." Tump +shook his head, bewildered, and after a moment added, "Yas-suh, I never +wuz mo' surprised in all my life dan when I got dis medal fuh stobbin' +fo' white men." + +Peter Siner looked through the Jim Crow window at the vast rotation of +the Kentucky landscape on which his forebears had toiled; presently he +added soberly: + +"You were fighting for your country, Tump. It was war then; you were +fighting for your country." + + * * * * * + +At Jackson, Tennessee, the two negroes were forced to spend the night +between trains. Tump Pack piloted Peter Siner to a negro cafe where they +could eat, and later they searched out a negro lodging-house on Gate +Street where they could sleep. It was a grimy, smelly place, with its +own odor spiked by a phosphate-reducing plant two blocks distant. The +paper on the wall of the room Peter slept in looked scrofulous. There +was no window, and Peter's four-years régime of open windows and fresh- +air sleep was broken. He arranged his clothing for the night so it would +come in contact with nothing in the room but a chair back. He felt dull +next morning, and could not bring himself either to shave or bathe in +the place, but got out and hunted up a negro barber-shop furnished with +one greasy red-plush barber-chair. + +A few hours later the two negroes journeyed on down to Perryville, +Tennessee, a village on the Tennessee River where they took a gasolene +launch up to Hooker's Bend. The launch was about fifty feet long and had +two cabins, a colored cabin in front of, and a white cabin behind, the +engine-room. + +This unremitting insistence on his color, this continual shunting him +into obscure and filthy ways, gradually gave Peter a loathly sensation. +It increased the unwashed feeling that followed his lack of a morning +bath. The impression grew upon him that he was being handled with tongs, +along back-alley routes; that he and his race were something to be kept +out of sight as much as possible, as careful housekeepers manoeuver +their slops. + +At Perryville a number of passengers boarded the up-river boat; two or +three drummers; a yellowed old hill woman returning to her Wayne County +home; a red-headed peanut-buyer; a well-groomed white girl in a tailor +suit; a youngish man barely on the right side of middle age who seemed +to be attending her; and some negro girls with lunches. The passengers +trailed from the railroad station down the river bank through a slush of +mud, for the river had just fallen and had left a layer of liquid mud to +a height of about twenty feet all along the littoral. The passengers +picked their way down carefully, stepping into one another's tracks in +the effort not to ruin their shoes. The drummers grumbled. The youngish +man piloted the girl down, holding her hand, although both could have +managed better by themselves. + +Following the passengers came the trunks and grips on a truck. A negro +deck-hand, the truck-driver, and the white master of the launch shoved +aboard the big sample trunks of the drummers with grunts, profanity, and +much stamping of mud. Presently, without the formality of bell or +whistle, the launch clacked away from the landing and stood up the wide, +muddy river. + +The river itself was monotonous and depressing. It was perhaps half a +mile wide, with flat, willowed mud banks on one side and low shelves of +stratified limestone on the other. + +Trading-points lay at ten- or fifteen-mile intervals along the great +waterway. The typical landing was a dilapidated shed of a store half +covered with tin tobacco signs and ancient circus posters. Usually, only +one man met the launch at each landing, the merchant, a democrat in his +shirt-sleeves and without a tie. His voice was always a flat, weary +drawl, but his eyes, wrinkled against the sun, usually held the +shrewdness of those who make their living out of two-penny trades. + +At each place the red-headed peanut-buyer slogged up the muddy bank and +bargained for the merchant's peanuts, to be shipped on the down-river +trip of the first St. Louis packet. The loneliness of the scene embraced +the trading-points, the river, and the little gasolene launch struggling +against the muddy current. It permeated the passengers, and was a +finishing touch to Peter Siner's melancholy. + +The launch clacked on and on interminably. Sometimes it seemed to make +no headway at all against the heavy, silty current. Tump Pack, the white +captain, and the negro engineer began a game of craps in the negro +cabin. Presently, two of the white drummers came in from the white cabin +and began betting on the throws. The game was listless. The master of +the launch pointed out places along the shores where wildcat stills were +located. The crap-shooters, negro and white, squatted in a circle on the +cabin floor, snapping their fingers and calling their points +monotonously. One of the negro girls in the negro cabin took an apple +out of her lunch sack and began eating it, holding it in her palm after +the fashion of negroes rather than in her fingers, as is the custom of +white women. + +Both doors of the engine-room were open, and Peter Siner could see +through into the white cabin. The old hill woman was dozing in her +chair, her bonnet bobbing to each stroke of the engines. The youngish +man and the girl were engaged in some sort of intimate lovers' dispute. +When the engines stopped at one of the landings, Peter discovered she +was trying to pay him what he had spent on getting her baggage trucked +down at Perryville. The girl kept pressing a bill into the man's hand, +and he avoided receiving the money. They kept up the play for sake of +occasional contacts. + +When the launch came in sight of Hooker's Bend toward the middle of the +afternoon, Peter Siner experienced one of the profoundest surprises of +his life. Somehow, all through his college days he had remembered +Hooker's Bend as a proud town with important stores and unapproachable +white residences. Now he saw a skum of negro cabins, high piles of +lumber, a sawmill, and an ice-factory. Behind that, on a little rise, +stood the old Brownell manor, maintaining a certain shabby dignity in a +grove of oaks. Behind and westward from the negro shacks and lumber- +piles ranged the village stores, their roofs just visible over the top +of the bank. Moored to the shore, lay the wharf-boat in weathered greens +and yellows. As a background for the whole scene rose the dark-green +height of what was called the "Big Hill," an eminence that separated the +negro village on the east from the white village on the west. The hill +itself held no houses, but appeared a solid green-black with cedars. + +The ensemble was merely another lonely spot on the south bank of the +great somnolent river. It looked dead, deserted, a typical river town, +unprodded even by the hoot of a jerk-water railroad. + +As the launch chortled toward the wharf, Peter Siner stood trying to +orient himself to this unexpected and amazing minifying of Hooker's +Bend. He had left a metropolis; he was coming back to a tumble-down +village. Yet nothing was changed. Even the two scraggly locust-trees +that clung perilously to the brink of the river bank still held their +toe-hold among the strata of limestone. + +The negro deck-hand came out and pumped the hand-power whistle in three +long discordant blasts. Then a queer thing happened. The whistle was +answered by a faint strain of music. A little later the passengers saw a +line of negroes come marching down the river bank to the wharf-boat. +They marched in military order, and from afar Peter recognized the white +aprons and the swords and spears of the Knights and Ladies of Tabor, a +colored burial association. + +Siner wondered what had brought out the Knights and Ladies of Tabor. The +singing and the drumming gradually grew upon the air. The passengers in +the white cabin, came out on the guards at this unexpected fanfare. As +soon as the white travelers saw the marching negroes, they began joking +about what caused the demonstration. The captain of the launch thought +he knew, and began an oath, but stopped it out of deference to the girl +in the tailor suit. He said it was a dead nigger the society was going +to ship up to Savannah. + +The girl in the tailor suit was much amused. She said the darkies looked +like a string of caricatures marching down the river bank. Peter noticed +her Northern accent, and fancied she was coming to Hooker's Bend to +teach school. + +One of the drummers turned to another. + +"Did you ever hear Bob Taylor's yarn about Uncle 'Rastus's funeral? +Funniest thing Bob ever got off." He proceeded to tell it. + +Every one on the launch was laughing except the captain, who was +swearing quietly; but the line of negroes marched on down to the wharf- +boat with the unshakable dignity of black folk in an important position. +They came singing an old negro spiritual. The women's sopranos thrilled +up in high, weird phrasing against an organ-like background of male +voices. + +But the black men carried no coffin, and suddenly it occurred to Peter +Siner that perhaps this celebration was given in honor of his own home- +coming. The mulatto's heart beat a trifle faster as he began planning a +suitable response to this ovation. + +Sure enough, the singing ranks disappeared behind the wharf-boat, and a +minute later came marching around the stern and lined up on the outer +guard of the vessel. The skinny, grizzly-headed negro commander held up +his sword, and the Knights and Ladies of Tabor fell silent. + +The master of the launch tossed his head-line to the wharf-boat, and +yelled for one of the negroes to make it fast. One did. Then the +commandant with the sword began his address, but it was not directed to +Peter. He said: + +[Illustration: Peter recognized the white aprons and the swords and +spears of the Knights and Ladies of Tabor] + +"Brudder Tump Pack, we, de Hooker's Ben' lodge uv de Knights an' Ladies +uv Tabor, welcome you back to yo' native town. We is proud uv you, a +colored man, who brings back de highes' crown uv bravery dis Newnighted +States has in its power to bestow. + +"Two yeahs ago, Brudder Tump, we seen you marchin' away fum Hooker's +Ben' wid thirteen udder boys, white an' colored, all marchin' away +togedder. Fo' uv them boys is already back home; three, we heah, is on +de way back, but six uv yo' brave comrades, Brudder Pack, is sleepin' +now in France, an' ain't never goin' to come home no mo'. When we honors +you, we honors them all, de libin' an' de daid, de white an' de black, +who fought togedder fuh one country, fuh one flag." + +Gasps, sobs from the line of black folk, interrupted the speaker. Just +then a shriveled old negress gave a scream, and came running and half +stumbling out of the line, holding out her arms to the barrel-chested +soldier on the gang-plank. She seized him and began shrieking: + +"Bless Gawd! my son's done come home! Praise de Lawd! Bless His holy +name!" Here her laudation broke into sobbing and choking and laughing, +and she squeezed herself to her son. + +Tump patted her bony black form. + +"I's heah, Mammy," he stammered uncertainly. "I's come back, Mammy." + +Half a dozen other negroes caught the joyful hysteria. They began a +religious shouting, clapping their hands, flinging up their arms, +shrieking. + +One of the drummers grunted: + +"Good God! all this over a nigger getting back!" + +At the extreme end of the dark line a tall cream-colored girl wept +silently. As Peter Siner stood blinking his eyes, he saw the octoroon's +shoulders and breasts shake from the sobs, which her white blood +repressed to silence. + +A certain sympathy for her grief and its suppression kept Peter's eyes +on the young woman, and then, with the queer effect of one picture +melting into another, the strange girl's face assumed familiar curves +and softnesses, and he was looking at Ida May. + +A quiver traveled deliberately over Peter from his crisp black hair to +the soles of his feet. He started toward her impulsively. + +At that moment one of the drummers picked up his grip, and started down +the gang-plank, and with its leathern bulk pressed Tump Pack and his +mother out of his path. He moved on to the shore through the negroes, +who divided at his approach. The captain of the launch saw that other of +his white passengers were becoming impatient, and he shouted for the +darkies to move aside and not to block the gangway. The youngish man +drew the girl in the tailor suit close to him and started through with +her. Peter heard him say, "They won't hurt you, Miss Negley." And Miss +Negley, in the brisk nasal intonation of a Northern woman, replied: "Oh, +I'm not afraid. We waste a lot of sympathy on them back home, but when +you see them--" + +At that moment Peter heard a cry in his ears and felt arms thrown about +his neck. He looked down and saw his mother, Caroline Siner, looking up +into his face and weeping with the general emotion of the negroes and +this joy of her own. Caroline had changed since Peter last saw her. Her +eyes were a little more wrinkled, her kinky hair was thinner and very +gray. + +Something warm and melting moved in Peter Siner's breast. He caressed +his mother and murmured incoherently, as had Tump Pack. Presently the +master of the launch came by, and touched the old negress, not ungently, +with the end of a spike-pole. + +"You'll have to move, Aunt Ca'line," he said. "We're goin' to get the +freight off now." + +The black woman paused in her weeping. "Yes, Mass' Bob," she said, and +she and Peter moved off of the launch onto the wharf-boat. + +The Knights and Ladies of Tabor were already up the river bank with +their hero. Peter and his mother were left alone. Now they walked around +the guards of the wharf-boat to the bank, holding each other's arms +closely. As they went, Peter kept looking down at his old black mother, +with a growing tenderness. She was so worn and heavy! He recognized the +very dress she wore, an old black silk which she had "washed out" for +Miss Patti Brownell when he was a boy. It had been then, it was now, her +best dress. During the years the old negress had registered her +increasing bulk by letting out seams and putting in panels. Some of the +panels did not agree with the original fabric either in color or in +texture and now the seams were stretching again and threatening a rip. +Peter's own immaculate clothes reproached him, and he wondered for the +hundredth, or for the thousandth time how his mother had obtained +certain remittances which she had forwarded him during his college +years. + +As Peter and his mother crept up the bank of the river, stopping +occasionally to let the old negress rest, his impression of the meanness +and shabbiness of the whole village grew. From the top of the bank the +single business street ran straight back from the river. It was stony in +places, muddy in places, strewn with goods-boxes, broken planking, +excelsior, and straw that had been used for packing. Charred rubbish- +piles lay in front of every store, which the clerks had swept out and +attempted to burn. Hogs roamed the thoroughfare, picking up decaying +fruit and parings, and nosing tin cans that had been thrown out by the +merchants. The stores that Peter had once looked upon as show-places +were poor two-story brick or frame buildings, defiled by time and wear +and weather. The white merchants were coatless, listless men who sat in +chairs on the brick pavements before their stores and who moved slowly +when a customer entered their doors. + +And, strange to say, it was this fall of his white townsmen that moved +Peter Siner with a sense of the greatest loss. It seemed fantastic to +him, this sudden land-slide of the mighty. + +As Peter and his mother came over the brow of the river bank, they saw a +crowd collecting at the other end of the street. The main street of +Hooker's Bend is only a block long, and the two negroes could easily +hear the loud laughter of men hurrying to the focus of interest and the +blurry expostulations of negro voices. The laughter spread like a +contagion. Merchants as far up as the river corner became infected, and +moved toward the crowd, looking back over their shoulders at every tenth +or twelfth step to see that no one entered their doors. + +Presently, a little short man, fairly yipping with laughter, stumbled +back up the street to his store with tears of mirth in his eyes. A +belated merchant stopped him by clapping both hands on his shoulders and +shaking some composure into him. + +"What is it? What's so funny? Damn it! I miss ever'thing!" + +"I-i-it's that f-fool Tum-Tump Pack. Bobbs's arrested him!" + +The inquirer was astounded. + +"How the hell can he arrest him when he hit town this minute?" + +"Wh-why, Bobbs had an old warrant for crap-shoot--three years old-- +before the war. Just as Tump was a-coming down the street at the head of +the coons, out steps Bobbs--" Here the little man was overcome. + +The merchant from the corner opened his eyes. + +"Arrested him on an old crap charge?" + +The little man nodded. They gazed at each other. Then they exploded +simultaneously. + +Peter left his obese mother and hurried to the corner, Dawson Bobbs, the +constable, had handcuffs on Tump's wrists, and stood with his prisoner +amid a crowd of arguing negroes. + +Bobbs was a big, fleshy, red-faced man, with chilly blue eyes and a +little straight slit of a mouth in his wide face. He was laughing and +chewing a sliver of toothpick. + +"O Tump Pack," he called loudly, "you kain't git away from me! If you +roll bones in Hooker's Bend, you'll have to divide your winnings with +the county." Dawson winked a chill eye at the crowd in general. + +"But hit's out o' date, Mr. Bobbs," the old gray-headed minister, Parson +Ranson, was pleading. + +"May be that, Parson, but hit's easier to come up before the J.P. and +pay off than to fight it through the circuit court." + +Siner pushed his way through the crowd. "How much do you want, Mr. +Bobbs?" he asked briefly. + +The constable looked with reminiscent eyes at the tall, well-tailored +negro. He was plainly going through some mental card-index, hunting for +the name of Peter Siner on some long-forgotten warrant. Apparently, he +discovered nothing, for he said shortly: + +"How do I know before he's tried? Come on, Tump!" + +The procession moved in a long noisy line up Pillow Street, the white +residential street lying to the west. It stopped before a large shaded +lawn, where a number of white men and women were playing a game with +cards. The cards used by the lawn party were not ordinary playing-cards, +but had figures on them instead of spots, and were called "rook" cards. +The party of white ladies and gentlemen were playing "rook." On a table +in the middle of the lawn glittered some pieces of silver plate which +formed the first, second, and third prizes for the three leading scores. + +The constable halted his black company before the lawn, where they stood +in the sunshine patiently waiting for the justice of the peace to finish +his game and hear the case of the State of Tennessee, plaintiff, versus +Tump Pack, defendant. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + +On the eastern edge of Hooker's Bend, drawn in a rough semicircle around +the Big Hill, lies Niggertown. In all the half-moon there are perhaps +not two upright buildings. The grimy cabins lean at crazy angles, some +propped with poles, while others hold out against gravitation at a +hazard. + +Up and down its street flows the slow negro life of the village. Here +children of all colors from black to cream fight and play; deep-chested +negresses loiter to and fro, some on errands to the white section of the +village on the other side of the hill, where they go to scrub or cook or +wash or iron. Others go down to the public well with a bucket in each +hand and one balanced on the head. + +The public well itself lies at the southern end of this miserable +street, just at a point where the drainage of the Big Hill collects. The +rainfall runs down through Niggertown, under its sties, stables, and +outdoor toilets, and the well supplies the negroes with water for +cooking, washing, and drinking. Or, rather, what was once a well +supplies this water, for it is a well no longer. Its top and curbing +caved in long ago, and now there is simply a big hole in the soft, +water-soaked clay, about fifteen feet wide, with water standing at the +bottom. + +Here come the unhurried colored women, who throw in their buckets, and +with a dexterity that comes of long practice draw them out full of +water. Black mothers shout at their children not to fall into this pit, +and now and then, when a pig fails to come up for its evening slops, a +black boy will go to the public well to see if perchance his porker has +met misfortune there. + +The inhabitants of Niggertown suffer from divers diseases; they develop +strange ailments that no amount of physicking will overcome; young wives +grow sickly from no apparent cause. Although only three or four hundred +persons live in Niggertown, two or three negroes are always slowly dying +of tuberculosis; winter brings pneumonia; summer, malaria. About once a +year the state health officer visits Hooker's Bend and forces the white +soda-water dispensers on the other side of the hill to sterilize their +glasses in the name of the sovereign State of Tennessee. + +The Siner home was a three-room shanty about midway in the semicircle. +Peter Siner stood in the sunlight just outside the entrance, watching +his old mother clean the bugs out of a tainted ham that she had bought +for a pittance from some white housekeeper in the village. It had been +too high for white people to eat. Old Caroline patiently tapped the +honeycombed meat to scare out the last of the little green householders, +and then she washed it in a solution of soda to freshen it up. + +The sight of his bulky old mother working at the spoiled ham and of the +negro women in the street moving to and from the infected well filled +Peter Siner with its terrible pathos. Although he had seen these +surroundings all of his life, he had a queer impression that he was +looking upon them for the first time. During his boyhood he had accepted +all this without question as the way the world was made. During his +college days a criticism had arisen in his mind, but it came slowly, and +was tempered by that tenderness every one feels for the spot called +home. Now, as he stood looking at it, he wondered how human beings lived +there at all. He wondered if Ida May used water from the Niggertown +well. + +He turned to ask old Caroline, but checked himself with a man's +instinctive avoidance of mentioning his intimacies to his mother. At +that moment, oddly enough, the old negress brought up the topic herself. + +"Ida May wuz 'quirin' 'bout you las' night, Peter." + +A faint tingle filtered through Peter's throat and chest, but he asked +casually enough what she had said. + +"Didn' say; she wrote." + +Peter looked around, frankly astonished. + +"Wrote?" + +"Yeah; co'se she wrote." + +"What made her write?" a fantasy of Ida May dumb flickered before the +mulatto. + +[Illustration: Up and down its street flows the slow negro life of the +village] + +"Why, Ida May's in Nashville." Caroline looked at Peter. "She wrote to +Cissie, astin' 'bout you. She ast is you as bright in yo' books as you +is in yo' color." The old negress gave a pleased abdominal chuckle as +she admired her broad-shouldered brown son. + +"But I saw Ida May standing on the wharf-boat the day I came home," +protested Peter, still bewildered. + +"No you ain't. I reckon you seen Cissie. Dey looks kind o' like when you +is fur off." + +"Cissie?" repeated Peter. Then he remembered a smaller sister of Ida +May's, a little, squalling, yellow, wet-nosed nuisance that had annoyed +his adolescence. So that little spoil-sport had grown up into the girl +he had mistaken for Ida May. This fact increased his sense of +strangeness--that sense of great change that had fallen on the village +in his absence which formed the groundwork of all his renewed +associations. + +Peter's prolonged silence aroused certain suspicions in the old negress. +She glanced at her son out of the tail of her eyes. + +"Cissie Dildine is Tump Pack's gal," she stated defensively, with the +jealousy all mothers feel toward all sons. + +A diversion in the shouts of the children up the mean street and a +sudden furious barking of dogs drew Peter from the discussion. He looked +up, and saw a negro girl of about fourteen coming down the curved +street, with long, quick steps and an occasional glance over her +shoulder. + +From across the thoroughfare a small chocolate-colored woman, with her +wool done in outstanding spikes, thrust her head out at the door and +called: + +"Whut's de matter, Ofeely?" + +The girl lifted a high voice: + +"Oh, Miss Nan, it's that constable goin' th'ugh the houses!" The girl +veered across the street to the safety of the open door and one of her +own sex. + +"Good Lawd!" cried the spiked one in disgust, "ever', time a white +pusson gits somp'n misplaced--" She moved to one side to allow the girl +to enter, and continued staring up the street, with the whites of her +eyes accented against her dark face, after the way of angry negroes. + +Around the crescent the dogs were furious. They were Niggertown dogs, +and the sight of a white man always drove them to a frenzy. Presently in +the hullabaloo, Peter heard Dawson Bobbs's voice shouting: + +"Aunt Mahaly, if you kain't call off this dawg, I'm shore goin' to kill +him." + +Then an old woman's scolding broke in and complicated the mêlée. +Presently Peter saw the bulky form of Dawson Bobbs come around the +curve, moving methodically from cabin to cabin. He held some legal- +looking papers in his hands, and Peter knew what the constable was +doing. He was serving a blanket search-warrant on the whole black +population of Hooker's Bend. At almost every cabin a dog ran out to +blaspheme at the intruder, but a wave of the man's pistol sent them +yelping under the floors again. + +When the constable entered a house, Peter could hear him bumping and +rattling among the furnishings, while the black householders stood +outside the door and watched him disturb their housekeeping +arrangements. + +Presently Bobbs came angling across the street toward the Siner cabin. +As he entered the rickety gate, old Caroline called out: + +"Whut is you after, anyway, white man?" + +Bobbs turned cold, truculent eyes on the old negress. "A turkey +roaster," he snapped. "Some o' you niggers stole Miss Lou Arkwright's +turkey roaster." + +"Tukky roaster!" cried the old black woman, in great disgust. "Whut you +s'pose us niggers is got to roast in a tukky roaster?" + +The constable answered shortly that his business was to find the +roaster, not what the negroes meant to put in it. + +"I decla'," satirized old Caroline, savagely, "dish-heah Niggertown is a +white man's pocket. Ever' time he misplace somp'n, he feel in his pocket +to see ef it ain't thaiuh. Don'-chu turn over dat sody-water, white man! +You know dey ain't no tukky roaster under dat sody-water. I 'cla' 'fo' +Gawd, ef a white man wuz to eat a flapjack, an' it did n' give him de +belly-ache, I 'cla' 'fo' Gawd he'd git out a search-wa'nt to see ef some +nigger had n' stole dat flapjack goin' down his th'oat." + +"Mr. Bobbs has to do his work, Mother," put in Peter. "I don't suppose +he enjoys it any more than we do." + +"Den let 'im git out'n dis business an' git in anudder," scolded the old +woman. "Dis sho is a mighty po' business." + +The ponderous Mr. Bobbs finished with a practised thoroughness his +inspection of the cabin, and then the inquisition proceeded down the +street, around the crescent, and so out of sight and eventually out of +hearing. + +Old Caroline snapped her chair back beside her greasy table and sat down +abruptly to her spoiled ham again. + +"Dat make me mad," she grumbled. "Ever' time a white pusson fail to lay +dey han' on somp'n, dey comes an' turns over ever'thing in my house." +She paused a moment, closed her eyes in thought, and then mused aloud: +"I wonder who is got Miss Arkwright's roaster." + +The commotion of the constable's passing died in his wake, and +Niggertown resumed its careless existence. Dogs reappeared from under +the cabins and stretched in the sunshine; black children came out of +hiding and picked up their play; the frightened Ophelia came out of +Nan's cabin across the street and went her way; a lanky negro youth in +blue coat and pin-striped trousers appeared, coming down the squalid +thoroughfare whistling the "Memphis Blues" with bird-like virtuosity. +The lightness with which Niggertown accepted the moral side glance of a +blanket search-warrant depressed Siner. + +Caroline called her son to dinner, as the twelve-o'clock meal is called +in Hooker's Bend, and so ended his meditation. The Harvard man went back +into the kitchen and sat down at a rickety table covered with a red- +checked oil-cloth. On it were spread the spoiled ham, a dish of poke +salad, a corn pone, and a pot of weak coffee. A quaint old bowl held +some brown sugar. The fat old negress made a slight, habitual settling +movement in her chair that marked the end of her cooking and the +beginning of her meal. Then she bent her grizzled, woolly head and +mumbled off one of those queer old-fashioned graces which consist of a +swift string of syllables without pauses between either words or +sentences. + +Peter sat watching his mother with a musing gaze. The kitchen was +illuminated by a single small square window set high up from the floor. +Now the disposition of its single ray of light over the dishes and the +bowed head of the massive negress gave Peter one of those sharp, tender +apprehensions of formal harmony that lie back of the genre in art. It +stirred his emotion in an odd fashion. When old Caroline raised her +head, she found her son staring with impersonal eyes not at herself, but +at the whole room, including her. The old woman was perplexed and a +little apprehensive. + +"Why, son!" she ejaculated, "didn' you bow yo' haid while yo' mammy ast +de grace?" + +Peter was a little confused at his remissness. Then he leaned a little +forward to explain the sudden glamour which for a moment had +transfigured the interior of their kitchen. But even as he started to +speak, he realized that what he meant to say would only confuse his +mother; therefore he cast about mentally for some other explanation of +his behavior, but found nothing at hand. + +"I hope you ain't forgot yo' 'ligion up at de 'versity, son." + +"Oh, no, no, indeed, Mother, but just at that moment, just as you bowed +your head, you know, it struck me that--that there is something noble in +our race." That was the best he could put it to her. + +"Noble--" + +"Yes. You know," he went on a little quickly, "sometimes I--I've thought +my father must have been a noble man." + +The old negress became very still. She was not looking quite at her son, +or yet precisely away from him. + +"Uh--uh noble nigger,"--she gave her abdominal chuckle. "Why--yeah, I +reckon yo' father wuz putty noble as--as niggers go." She sat looking at +her son, oddly, with a faint amusement in her gross black face, when a +careful voice, a very careful voice, sounded in the outer room, gliding +up politely on the syllables: + +"Ahnt Carolin'! oh, Ahnt Carolin', may I enter?" + +The old woman stirred. + +"Da''s Cissie, Peter. Go ast her in to de fambly-room." + +When Siner opened the door, the vague resemblance of the slender, creamy +girl on the threshold to Ida May again struck him; but Cissie Dildine +was younger, and her polished black hair lay straight on her pretty +head, and was done in big, shining puffs over her ears in a way that Ida +May's unruly curls would never have permitted. Her eyes were the most +limpid brown Peter had ever seen, but her oval face was faintly +unnatural from the use of negro face powder, which colored women insist +on, and which gives their yellows and browns a barely perceptible +greenish hue. Cissie wore a fluffy yellow dress some three shades deeper +than the throat and the glimpse of bosom revealed at the neck. + +The girl carried a big package in her arms, and now she manipulated this +to put out a slender hand to Peter. + +"This is Cissie Dildine, Mister Siner." She smiled up at him. "I just +came over to put my name down on your list. There was such a mob at the +Benevolence Hall last night I couldn't get to you." + +The girl had a certain finical precision to her English that told Peter +she had been away to some school, and had been taught to guard her +grammar very carefully as she talked. + +Peter helped her inside amid the handshake and said he would go fetch +the list. As he turned, Cissie offered her bundle. "Here is something I +thought might be a little treat for you and Ahnt Carolin'." She paused, +and then explained remotely, "Sometimes it is hard to get good things at +the village market." + +Peter took the package, vaguely amused at Cissie's patronage of the +Hooker's Bend market. It was an attitude instinctively assumed by every +girl, white or black, who leaves the village and returns. The bundle was +rather large and wrapped in newspapers. He carried it into the kitchen +to his mother, and then returned with the list. + +The sheet was greasy from the handling of black fingers. The girl spread +it on the little center-table with a certain daintiness, seated herself, +and held out her hand for Peter's pencil. She made rather a graceful +study in cream and yellow as she leaned over the table and signed her +name in a handwriting as perfect and as devoid of character as a copy- +book. She began discussing the speech Peter had made at the Benevolence +Hall. + +"I don't know whether I am in favor of your project or not, Mr. Siner," +she said as she rose from the table. + +"No?" Peter was surprised and amused at her attitude and at her precise +voice. + +"No, I'm rather inclined toward Mr. DuBois's theory of a literary +culture than toward Mr. Washington's for a purely industrial training." + +Peter broke out laughing. + +"For the love of Mike, Cissie, you talk like the instructor in Sociology +B! And haven't we met before somewhere? This 'Mister Siner' stuff--" + +The girl's face warmed under its faint, greenish powder. + +"If I aren't careful with my language, Peter," she said simply, "I'll be +talking just as badly as I did before I went to the seminary. You know I +never hear a proper sentence in Hooker's Bend except my own." + +A certain resignation in the girl's soft voice brought Peter a qualm for +laughing at her. He laid an impulsive hand on her young shoulder. + +"Well, that's true, certainly, but it won't always be like that, Cissie. +More of us go off to school every year. I do hope my school here in +Hooker's Bend will be of some real value. If I could just show our +people how badly we fare here, how ill housed, and unsanitary--" + +The girl pressed Peter's fingers with a woman's optimism for a man. + +"You'll succeed, Peter, I know you will. Some day the name Siner will +mean the same thing to coloured people as Tanner and Dunbar and +Braithwaite do. Anyway, I've put my name down for ten dollars to help +out." She returned the pencil. "I'll have Tump Pack come around and pay +you my subscription, Peter." + +"I'll watch out for Tump," promised Peter in a lightening mood, "--and +make him pay." + +"He'll do it." + +"I don't doubt it. You ought to have him under perfect control. I meant +to tell you what a pretty frock you have on." + +The girl dimpled, and dropped him a little curtsy, half ironical and +wholly graceful. + +Peter was charmed. + +"Now keep that way, Cissie, smiling and human, not so grammatical. I +wish I had a brooch." + +"A brooch?" + +"I'd give it to you. Your dress needs a brooch, an old gold brooch at +the bosom, just a glint there to balance your eyes." + +Cissie flushed happily, and made the feminine movement of concealing the +V-shaped opening at her throat. + +"It's a pleasure to doll up for a man like you, Peter. You see a girl's +good points--if she has any," she tacked on demurely. + +"Oh, just any man--" + +"Don't think it! Don't think it!" waved down Cissie, humorously. + +"But, Cissie, how is it possible--" + +"Just blind." Cissie rippled into a boarding-school laugh. "I could wear +the whole rue del Opera here in Niggertown, and nobody would ever see it +but you." + +Cissie was moving toward the door. Peter tried to detain her. He enjoyed +the implication of Tump Pack's stupidity, in their badinage, but she +would not stay. He was finally reduced to thanking her for her present, +then stood guard as she tripped out into the grimy street. In the +sunshine her glossy black hair and canary dress looked as trim and +brilliant as the plumage of a chaffinch. + +Peter Siner walked back into the kitchen with the fixed smile of a man +who is thinking of a pretty girl. The black dowager in the kitchen +received him in silence, with her thick lips pouted. When Peter observed +it, he felt slightly amused at his mother's resentment. + +"Well, you sho had a lot o' chatter over signin' a lil ole paper." + +"She signed for ten dollars," said Peter, smiling. + +"Huh! she'll never pay it." + +"Said Tump Pack would pay it." + +"Huh!" The old negress dropped the subject, and nodded at a huge double +pan on the table. "Dat's whut she brung you." She grunted +disapprovingly. + +"And it's for you, too, Mother." + +"Ya-as, I 'magine she brung somp'n fuh me." + +Peter walked across to the double pans, and saw they held a complete +dinner--chicken, hot biscuits, cake, pickle, even ice-cream. + +The sight of the food brought Peter a realization that he was keenly +hungry. As a matter of fact, he had not eaten a palatable meal since he +had been evicted from the white dining-car at Cairo, Illinois. Siner +served his own and his mother's plate. + +The old woman sniffed again. + +"Seems to me lak you is mighty onobsarvin' fuh a nigger whut's been off +to college." + +"Anything else?" Peter looked into the pans again. + +"Ain't you see whut it's all in?" + +"What it's in?" + +"Yeah; whut it's in. You heared whut I said." + +"What is it in?" + +"Why, it's in Miss Arkwright's tukky roaster, dat's whut it's in." The +old negress drove her point home with an acid accent. + +Peter Siner was too loyal to his new friendship with Cissie Dildine to +allow his mother's jealous suspicions to affect him; nevertheless the +old woman's observations about the turkey roaster did prevent a complete +and care-free enjoyment of the meal. Certainly there were other turkey +roasters in Hooker's Bend than Mrs. Arkwright's. Cissie might very well +own a roaster. It was absurd to think that Cissie, in the midst of her +almost pathetic struggle to break away from the uncouthness of +Niggertown, would stoop to--Even in his thoughts Peter avoided +nominating the charge. + +And then, somehow, his memory fished up the fact that years ago Ida May, +according to village rumor, was "light-fingered." At that time in +Peter's life "light-fingeredness" carried with it no opprobrium +whatever. It was simply a fact about Ida May, as were her sloe eyes and +curling black hair. His reflections renewed his perpetual sense of +queerness and strangeness that hall-marked every phase of Niggertown +life since his return from the North. + + * * * * * + +Cissie Dildine's contribution tailed out the one hundred dollars that +Peter needed, and after he had finished his meal, the mulatto set out +across the Big Hill for the white section of the village, to complete +his trade. + +It was Peter's program to go to the Planter's Bank, pay down his +hundred, and receive a deed from one Elias Tomwit, which the bank held +in escrow. Two or three days before Peter had tried to borrow the +initial hundred from the bank, but the cashier, Henry Hooker, after +going into the transaction, had declined the loan, and therefore Siner +had been forced to await a meeting of the Sons and Daughters of +Benevolence. At this meeting the subscription had gone through promptly. +The land the negroes purposed to purchase for an industrial school was a +timbered tract tying southeast of Hooker's Bend on the head-waters of +Ross Creek. A purchase price of eight hundred dollars had been agreed +upon. The timber on the tract, sold on the stump, would bring almost +that amount. It was Siner's plan to commandeer free labor in Niggertown, +work off the timber, and have enough money to build the first unit of +his school. A number of negro men already had subscribed a certain +number of days' work in the timber. It was a modest and entirely +practical program, and Peter felt set up over it. + +The brown man turned briskly out into the hot afternoon sunshine, down +the mean semicircular street, where piccaninnies were kicking up clouds +of dust. He hurried through the dusty area, and presently turned off a +by-path that led over the hill, through a glade of cedars, to the white +village. + +The glade was gloomy, but warm, for the shade of cedars somehow seems to +hold heat. A carpet of needles hushed Siner's footfalls and spread a +Sabbatical silence through the grove. The upward path was not smooth, +but was broken with outcrops of the same reddish limestone that marks +the whole stretch of the Tennessee River. Here and there in the grove +were circles eight or ten feet in diameter, brushed perfectly clean of +all needles and pebbles and twigs. These places were crap-shooters' +circles, where black and white men squatted to shoot dice. + +Under the big stones on the hillside, Peter knew, was cached illicit +whisky, and at night the boot-leggers carried on a brisk trade among the +gamblers. More than that, the glade on the Big Hill was used for still +more demoralizing ends. It became a squalid grove of Ashtoreth; but now, +in the autumn evening, all the petty obscenities of white and black +sloughed away amid the religious implications of the dark-green aisles. + +The sight of a white boy sitting on an outcrop of limestone with a strap +of school-books dropped at his feet rather surprised Peter. The negro +looked at the hobbledehoy for several seconds before he recognized in +the lanky youth a little Arkwright boy whom he had known and played with +in his pre-college days. Now there was such an exaggerated wistfulness +in young Arkwright's attitude that Peter was amused. + +"Hello, Sam," he called. "What you doing out here?" + +The Arkwright boy turned with a start. + +"Aw, is that you, Siner?" Before the negro could reply, he added: "Was +you on the Harvard football team, Siner? Guess the white fellers have a +pretty gay time in Harvard, don't they, Siner? Geemenettie! but I git +tired o' this dern town! D' reckon I could make the football team? Looks +like I could if a nigger like you could, Siner." + +None of this juvenile outbreak of questions required answers. Peter +stood looking at the hobbledehoy without smiling. + +"Aren't you going to school?" he asked. + +Arkwright shrugged. + +"Aw, hell!" he said self-consciously. "We got marched down to the +protracted meetin' while ago--whole school did. My seat happened to be +close to a window. When they all stood up to sing, I crawled out and +skipped. Don't mention that, Siner." + +"I won't." + +"When a fellow goes to college he don't git marched to preachin', does +he, Siner?" + +"I never did." + +"We-e-ll," mused young Sam, doubtfully, "you're a nigger." + +"I never saw any white men marched in, either." + +"Oh, hell! I wish I was in college." + +"What are you sitting out here thinking about?" inquired Peter of the +ingenuous youngster. + +"Oh--football and--women and God and--how to stack cards. You think +about ever'thing, in the woods. Damn it! I got to git out o' this little +jay town. D' reckon I could git in the navy, Siner?" + +"Don't see why you couldn't, Sam. Have you seen Tump Pack anywhere?" + +"Yeah; on Hobbett's corner. Say, is Cissie Dildine at home?" + +"I believe she is." + +"She cooks for us," explained young Arkwright, "and Mammy wants her to +come and git supper, too." + +The phrase "get supper, too," referred to the custom in the white homes +of Hooker's Bend of having only two meals cooked a day, breakfast and +the twelve-o'clock dinner, with a hot supper optional with the mistress. + +Peter nodded, and passed on up the path, leaving young Arkwright seated +on the ledge of rock, a prey to all the boiling, erratic impulses of +adolescence. The negro sensed some of the innumerable difficulties of +this white boy's life, and once, as he walked on over the silent +needles, he felt an impulse to turn back and talk to young Sam +Arkwright, to sit down and try to explain to the youth what he could of +this hazardous adventure called Life. But then, he reflected, very +likely the boy would be offended at a serious talk from a negro. Also, +he thought that young Arkwright, being white, was really not within the +sphere of his ministry. He, Peter Siner, was a worker in the black world +of the South. He was part of the black world which the white South was +so meticulous to hide away, to keep out of sight and out of thought. + +A certain vague sense of triumph trickled through some obscure corner of +Peter's mind. It was so subtle that Peter himself would have been the +first, in all good faith, to deny it and to affirm that all his motives +were altruistic. Once he looked back through the cedars. He could still +see the boy hunched over, chin in fist, staring at the mat of needles. + +As Peter turned the brow of the Big Hill, he saw at its eastern foot the +village church, a plain brick building with a decaying spire. Its side +was perforated by four tall arched windows. Each was a memorial window +of stained glass, which gave the building a black look from the outside. +As Peter walked down the hill toward the church he heard the and +somewhat nasal singing of uncultivated voices mingled with the snoring +of a reed organ. + +When he reached Main Street, Peter found the whole business portion +virtually deserted. All the stores were closed, and in every show-window +stood a printed notice that no business would be transacted between the +hours of two and three o'clock in the afternoon during the two weeks of +revival then in progress. Beside this notice stood another card, giving +the minister's text for the current day. On this particular day it read: + + + GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD + + Come hear Rev. E.B. Blackwater's great + Missionary Address on + + CHRISTIANIZING AFRICA + + ELOQUENT, PROFOUND, HEART-SEARCHING. + ILLUSTRATED WITH SLIDES. + + +Half a dozen negroes lounged in the sunshine on Hobbett's corner as +Peter came up. They were amusing themselves after the fashion of blacks, +with mock fights, feints, sudden wrestlings. They would seize one +another by the head and grind their knuckles into one another's wool. +Occasionally, one would leap up and fall into one of those grotesque +shuffles called "breakdowns." It all held a certain rawness, an +irrepressible juvenility. + +As Peter came up, Tump Pack detached himself from the group and gave a +pantomime of thrusting. He was clearly reproducing the action which had +won for him his military medal. Then suddenly he fell down in the dust +and writhed. He was mimicking with a ghastly realism the death-throes of +his four victims. His audience howled with mirth at this dumb show of +the bayonet-fight and of killing four men. Tump himself got up out of +the dust with tears of laughter in his eyes. Peter caught the end of his +sentence, "Sho put it to 'em, black boy. Fo' white men--" + +His audience roared again, swayed around, and pounded one another in an +excess of mirth. + +Siner shouted from across the street two or three times before he caught +Tump's attention. The ex-soldier looked around, sobered abruptly. + +"Whut-chu want, nigger?" His inquiry was not over-cordial. + +Peter nodded him across the street. + +The heavily built black in khaki hesitated a moment, then started across +the street with the dragging feet of a reluctant negro. Peter looked at +him as he came up. + +"What's the matter, Tump?" he asked playfully. + +"Ain't nothin' matter wid me, nigger." Peter made a guess at Tump's +surliness. + +"Look here, are you puffed up because Cissie Dildine struck you for a +ten?" + +Tump's expression changed. + +"Is she struck me fuh a ten?" + +"Yes; on that school subscription." + +"Is dat whut you two niggers wuz a-talkin' 'bout over thaiuh in yo' +house?" + +"Exactly." Peter showed the list, with Cissie's name on it. "She told me +to collect from you." + +Tump brightened up. + +"So dat wuz whut you two niggers wuz a-talkin' 'bout over at yo' house." +He ran a fist down into his khaki, and drew out three or four one-dollar +bills and about a pint of small change. It was the usual crap-shooter's +offering. The two negroes sat down on the ramshackle porch of an old +jeweler's shop, and Tump began a complicated tally of ten dollars. + +By the time he had his dimes, quarters, and nickels in separate stacks, +services in the village church were finished, and the congregation came +filing up the street. First came the school-children, running and +chattering and swinging their books by the straps; then the business men +of the hamlet, rather uncomfortable in coats and collars, hurrying back +to their stores; finally came the women, surrounding the preacher. + +Tump and Peter walked on up to the entrance of the Planter's Bank and +there awaited Mr. Henry Hooker, the cashier. Presently a skinny man +detached himself from the church crowd and came angling across the dirty +street toward the bank. Mr. Hooker wore somewhat shabby clothes for a +banker; in fact, he never could recover from certain personal habits +formed during a penurious boyhood. He had a thin hatchet face which just +at this moment was shining though from some inward glow. Although he was +an unhandsome little man, his expression was that of one at peace with +man and God and was pleasant to see. He had been so excited by the +minister that he was constrained to say something even to two negroes. +So as he unlocked the little one-story bank, he told Tump and Peter that +he had been listening to a man who was truly a man of God. He said +Blackwater could touch the hardest heart, and, sure enough, Mr. Hooker's +rather popped and narrow-set eyes looked as though he had been crying. + +All this encomium was given in a high, cracked voice as the cashier +opened the door and turned the negroes into the bank. Tump, who stood +with his hat off, listening to all the cashier had to say, said he +thought so, too. + +The shabby interior of the little bank, the shabby little banker, +renewed that sense of disillusion that pervaded Peter's home-coming. In +Boston the mulatto had done his slight banking business in a white +marble structure with tellers of machine-like briskness and neatness. + +Mr. Hooker strolled around into his grill-cage; when he was thoroughly +ensconced he began business in his high voice: + +"You came to see me about that land, Peter?" + +Yes, sir." + +"Sorry to tell you, Peter, you are not back in time to get the Tomwit +place." + +Peter came out of his musing over the Boston banks with a sense of +bewilderment. + +"How's that? why, I bought that land--" + +"But you paid nothing for your option, Siner." + +"I had a clear-cut understanding with Mr. Tomwit--" + +Mr. Hooker smiled a smile that brought out sharp wrinkles around the +thin nose on his thin face. + +"You should have paid him an earnest, Siner, if you wanted to bind your +trade. You colored folks are always stumbling over the law." + +Peter stared through the grating, not knowing what to do. + +"I'll go see Mr. Tomwit," he said, and started uncertainly for the door. + +The cashier's falsetto stopped him: + +"No use, Peter. Mr. Tomwit surprised me, too, but no use talking about +it. I didn't like to see such an important thing as the education of our +colored people held up, myself. I've been thinking about it." + +"Especially when I had made a fair square trade," put in Peter, warmly. + +"Exactly," squeaked the cashier. "And rather than let your project be +delayed, I'm going to offer you the old Dillihay place at exactly the +same price, Peter--eight hundred." + +"The Dillihay place?" + +"Yes; that's west of town; it's bigger by twenty acres than old man +Tomwit's place." + +Peter considered the proposition. + +"I'll have to carry this before the Sons and Daughters of Benevolence, +Mr. Hooker." + +The cashier repeated the smile that bracketed his thin nose in wrinkles. + +"That's with you, but you know what you say goes with the niggers here +in town, and, besides, I won't promise how long I'll hold the Dillihay +place. Real estate is brisk around here now. I didn't want to delay a +good work on account of not having a location." Mr. Hooker turned away +to a big ledger on a breast-high desk, and apparently was about to +settle himself to the endless routine of bank work. + +Peter knew the Dillihay place well. It lacked the timber of the other +tract; still, it was fairly desirable. He hesitated before the tarnished +grill. + +"What do you think about it, Tump?" + +"You won't make a mistake in buying," answered the high voice of Mr. +Hooker at his ledger. + +"I don' think you'll make no mistake in buyin', Peter," repeated Tump's +bass. + +Peter turned back a little uncertainly, and asked how long it would take +to fix the new deed. He had a notion of making a flying canvass of the +officers of the Sons and Daughters in the interim. He was surprised to +find that Mr. Hooker already had the deed and the notes ready to sign, +in anticipation of Peter's desires. Here the banker brought out the set +of papers. + +"I'll take it," decided Peter; "and if the lodge doesn't want it, I'll +keep the place myself." + +"I like to deal with a man of decision," piped the cashier, a wrinkled +smile on his sharp face. + +Peter pushed in his bag of collections, then Mr. Hooker signed the deed, +and Peter signed the land notes. They exchanged the instruments. Peter +received the crisp deed, bound in blue manuscript cover. It rattled +unctuously. To Peter it was his first step toward a second Tuskegee. + +The two negroes walked out of the Planter's Bank filled with a sense of +well-doing. Tump Pack was openly proud of having been connected, even in +a casual way, with the purchase. As he walked down the steps, he turned +to Peter. + +"Don' reckon nobody could git a deed off on you wid stoppers in it, does +you?" + +"We don't know any such word as 'stop,' Tump," declared Peter, gaily. + +For Peter was gay. The whole incident at the bank was beginning to +please him. The meeting of a sudden difficulty, his quick decision--it +held the quality of leadership. Napoleon had it. + +The two colored men stepped briskly through the afternoon sunshine along +the mean village street. Here and there in front of their doorways sat +the merchants yawning and talking, or watching pigs root in the piles of +waste. + +In Peter's heart came a wonderful thought. He would make his industrial +institution such a model of neatness that the whole village of Hooker's +Bend would catch the spirit. The white people should see that something +clean and uplifting could come out of Niggertown. The two races ought to +live for a mutual benefit. It was a fine, generous thought. For some +reason, just then, there flickered through Peter's mind a picture of the +Arkwright boy sitting hunched over in the cedar glade, staring at the +needles. + +All this musing was brushed away by the sight of old Mr. Tomwit crossing +the street from the east side to the livery-stable on the west. That +human desire of wanting the person who has wronged you to know that you +know your injury moved Peter to hurry his steps and to speak to the old +gentleman. + +Mr. Tomwit had been a Confederate cavalryman in the Civil War, and there +was still a faint breeze and horsiness about him. He was a hammered-down +old gentleman, with hair thin but still jet-black, a seamed, sunburned +face, and a flattened nose. His voice was always a friendly roar. Now, +when he saw Peter turning across the street to meet him, he halted and +called out at once: + +"Now Peter, I know what's the matter with you. I didn't do you right." + +Peter went closer, not caring to take the whole village into his +confidence. + +"How came you to turn down my proposition, Mr. Tomwit," he asked, "after +we had agreed and drawn up the papers?" + +"We-e-ell, I had to do it, Peter," explained the old man, loudly. + +"Why, Mr. Tomwit?" + +"A white neighbor wanted me to, Peter," boomed the cavalryman. + +"Who, Mr. Tomwit?" + +"Henry Hooker talked me into it, Peter. It was a mean trick, Peter. I +done you wrong." He stood nodding his head and rubbing his flattened +nose in an impersonal manner. "Yes, I done you wrong, Peter," he +acknowledged loudly, and looked frankly into Peter's eyes. + +The negro was immensely surprised that Henry Hooker had done such a +thing. A thought came that perhaps some other Henry Hooker had moved +into town in his absence. + +"You don't mean the cashier of the bank?" + +Old Mr. Tomwit drew out a plug of Black Mule tobacco, set some gapped, +discolored teeth into corner, nodded at Peter silently, at the same time +utilizing the nod to tear off a large quid. He rolled tin about with his +tongue and after a few moments adjusted it so that he could speak. + +"Yeah," he proceeded in a muffled tone, "they ain't but one Henry +Hooker; he is the one and only Henry. He said if I sold you my land, +you'd put up a nigger school and bring in so many blackbirds you'd run +me clean off my farm. He said it'd ruin the whole town, a nigger school +would." + +Peter was astonished. + +"Why, he didn't talk that way to me!" + +"Natchelly, natchelly," agreed the old cavalryman, dryly.--"Henry has a +different way to talk to ever' man, Peter." + +"In fact," proceeded Peter, "Mr. Hooker sold me the old Dillihay place +in lieu of the deal I missed with you." + +Old Mr. Tomwit moved his quid in surprise. + +"The hell he did!" + +"That at least shows he doesn't think a negro school would ruin the +value of his land. He owns farms all around the Dillihay place." + +Old Mr. Tomwit turned his quid over twice and spat thoughtfully. + +"That your deed in your pocket?" With the air of a man certain of being +obeyed he held out his hand for the blue manuscript cover protruding +from the mulatto's pocket. Peter handed it over. The old gentleman +unfolded the deed, then moved it carefully to and from his eyes until +the typewriting was adjusted to his focus. He read it slowly, with a +movement of his lips and a drooling of tobacco-juice. Finally he +finished, remarked, "I be damned!" in a deliberate voice, returned the +deed, and proceeded across the street to the livery-stable, which was +fronted by an old mulberry-tree, with several chairs under it. In one of +these chairs he would sit for the remainder of the day, making an +occasional loud remark about the weather or the crops, and watching the +horses pass in and out of the stable. + +Siner had vaguely enjoyed old Mr. Tomwit's discomfiture over the deed, +if it was discomfiture that had moved the old gentleman to his +sententious profanity. But the negro did not understand Henry Hooker's +action at all. The banker had abused his position of trust as holder of +a deed in escrow snapping up the sale himself; then he had sold Peter +the Dillihay place. It was a queer shift. + +Tump Pack caught his principal's mood with that chameleon-like mental +quality all negroes possess. + +"Dat Henry Hooker," criticized Tump, "allus was a lil ole dried-up snake +in de grass." + +"He abused his position of trust," said Peter, gloomily; "I must say, +his motives seem very obscure to me." + +"Dat sho am a fine way to put hit," said Tump, admiringly. + +"Why do you suppose he bought in the Tomwit tract and sold me the +Dillihay place?" + +Asked for an opinion, Tump began twiddling military medal and corrugated +the skin on his inch-high brow. + +"Now you puts it to me lak dat, Peter," he answered with importance, "I +wonders ef dat gimlet-haided white man ain't put some stoppers in dat +deed he guv you. He mout of." + +Such remarks as that from Tump always annoyed Peter. Tump's intellectual +method was to talk sense just long enough to gain his companion's ear, +and then produce something absurd and quash the tentative interest. + +Siner turned away from him and said, "Piffle." + +Tump was defensive at once. + +"'T ain't piffle, either! I's talkin' sense, nigger." + +Peter shrugged, and walked a little way in silence, but the soldier's +nonsense stuck in his brain and worried him. Finally he turned, rather +irritably. + +"Stoppers--what do you mean by stoppers?" + +Tump opened his jet eyes and their yellowish whites. "I means nigger- +stoppers," he reiterated, amazed in his turn. + +"Negro-stoppers--" Peter began to laugh sardonically, and abruptly quit +the conversation. + +Such rank superiority irritated the soldier to the nth power. + +"Look heah, black man, I knows I _is_ right. Heah, lonme look at +dat-aiuh, deed. Maybe I can find 'em. I knows I suttinly is right." + +Peter walked on, paying no attention to the request Until Tump caught +his arm and drew him up short. + +"Look heah, nigger," said Tump, in a different tone, "I faded dad deed +fuh ten iron men, an' I reckon I got a once-over comin' fuh my money." + +The soldier was plainly mobilized and ready to attack. To fight Tump, to +fight any negro at all, would be Peter's undoing; it would forfeit the +moral leadership he hoped to gain. Moreover, he had no valid grounds for +a disagreement with Tump. He passed over the deed, and the two negroes +moved on their way to Niggertown. + +Tump trudged forward with eyes glued to paper, his face puckered in the +unaccustomed labor of reading. + +His thick lips moved at the individual letters, and constructed them +bunglingly into syllables and words. He was trying to uncover the verbal +camouflage by which the astute white brushed away all rights of all +black men whatsoever. + +To Peter there grew up something sadly comical in Tump's efforts. The +big negro might well typify all the colored folk of the South, +struggling in a web of law and custom they did not understand, +misplacing their suspicions, befogged and fearful. A certain penitence +for having been irritated at Tump softened Peter. + +"That's all right, Tump; there's nothing to find." + +At that moment the soldier began to bob his head. + +"Eh! eh! eh! W-wait a minute!" he stammered. "Whut dis? B'lieve I done +foun' it! I sho is! Heah she am! Heah's dis nigger-stopper, jes lak I +tol' you!" Tump marked a sentence in the guaranty of the deed with a +rusty forefinger and looked up at Peter in mixed triumph and accusation. + +Peter leaned over the deed, amused. + +"Let's see your mare's nest." + +"Well, she 'fo' God is thaiuh, an' you sho let loose a hundud dollars uv +our 'ciety's money, an' got nothin' fuh hit but a piece o' paper wid a +nigger-stopper on hit!" + +Tump's voice was so charged with contempt that Peter looked with a +certain uneasiness at his find. He read this sentence switched into the +guaranty of the indenture: + + +"Be it further understood and agreed that no negro, black man, Afro- +American, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, or any person whatsoever of +colored blood or lineage, shall enter upon, seize, hold, occupy, reside +upon, till, cultivate, own or possess any part or parcel of said +property, or garner, cut, or harvest therefrom, any of the usufruct, +timber, or emblements thereof, but shall by these presents be estopped +from so doing forever." + + +Tump Pack drew a shaken, unhappy breath. + +"Now, I reckon you see whut a nigger-stopper is." + +Peter stood in the sunshine, looking at the estoppel clause, his lips +agape. Twice he read it over. It held something of the quality of those +comprehensive curses that occur in the Old Testament. He moistened his +lips and looked at Tump. + +"Why that can't be legal." His voice sounded empty and shallow. + +"Legal! 'Fo' Gawd, nigger, whauh you been to school all dese yeahs, +never to heah uv a nigger-stopper befo'!" + +"But--but how can a stroke of the pen, a mere gesture, estop a whole +class of American citizens forever?" cried Peter, with a rising voice. +"Turn it around. Suppose they had put in a line that no white man should +own that land. It--it's empty! I tell you, it's mere words!" + +Tump cut into his diatribe: "No use talkin' lak dat. Our 'ciety thought +you wuz a aidjucated nigger. We didn't think no white man could put +nothin' over on you." + +"Education!" snapped Siner. "Education isn't supposed to keep you away +from shysters!" + +"Keep you away fum 'em!" cried Tump, in a scandalized voice. "'Fo' Gawd, +nigger, you don' know nothin'! O' co'se a aidjucation ain't to keep you +away fum shysters; hit's to mek you one 'uv 'em!" + +Peter stood breathing irregularly, looking at his deed. A determination +not to be cheated grew up and hardened in his nerves. With unsteady +hands he refolded his deed and put it into his pocket, then he turned +about and started back up the village street toward the bank. + +Tump stared after him a moment and presently called out: + +"Heah, nigger, whut you gwine do?" A moment later he repeated to his +friend's back: "Look heah, nigger, I 'vise you ag'inst anything you's +gwine do, less'n you's ready to pass in you' checks!" As Peter strode on +he lifted his voice still higher: "Peter! Hey, Peter, I sho' 'vise you +'g'inst anything you's 'gwine do!" + +A pulse throbbed in Siner's temples. The wrath of the cozened heated his +body. His clothes felt hot. As he strode up the trash-piled street, the +white merchants lolling in their doors began smiling. Presently a laugh +broke out at one end of the street and was caught up here and there. It +was the undying minstrel jest, the comedy of a black face. Dawson Bobbs +leaned against the wide brick entrance of the livery-stable, his red +face balled into shining convexities by a quizzical smile. + +"Hey, Peter," he drawled, winking at old Mr. Tomwit, "been investin' in +real estate?" and broke into Homeric laughter. + +As Peter passed on, the constable dropped casually in behind the brown +man and followed him up to the bank. + +To Peter Siner the walk up to the bank was an emotional confusion. He +has a dim consciousness that voices said things to him along the way and +that there was laughter. All this was drowned by desperate thoughts and +futile plans to regain his lost money, flashing through his head. The +cashier would exchange the money for the deed; he would enter suit and +carry it to the Supreme Court; he would show the money had not been his, +he had had no right to buy; he would beg the cashier. His head seemed to +spin around and around. + +He climbed the steps into the Planter's Bank and opened the screen-door. +The cashier glanced up briefly, but continued busily at his ledger. + +Peter walked shakenly to the barred window in the grill. + +"Mr. Hooker." + +"Very busy now, Peter," came the high voice. + +"I want to know about this deed." + +The banker was nimbly setting down long rows of figures. "No time to +explain deeds, Peter." + +"But--but there is a clause in this deed, Mr. Hooter, estopping colored +persons from occupying the Dillihay place." + +"Precisely. What about it?" Mr. Hooker snapped out his inquiry and +looked up suddenly, catching Peter full in the face with his narrow-set +eyes. It was the equivalent of a blow. + +"According to this, I--I can't establish a school on it." + +"You cannot." + +"Then what can I do with it?" cried Peter. + +"Sell it. You have what lawyers call a cloud on the title. Sell it. I'll +give you ten dollars for your right in it, just to clear up my title." + +A queer trembling seized Peter. The little banker turned to a fantastic +caricature of a man. His hatchet face, close-set eyes, harsh, straight +hair, and squeaky voice made him seem like some prickly, dried-up gnome +a man sees in a fever. + +At that moment the little wicket-door of the window opened under the +pressure of Peter's shoulder. Inside on the desk, lay neat piles of +bills of all denominations, ready to be placed in the vault. In a +nervous tremor Peter dropped in his blue-covered deed and picked up a +hundred-dollar bill. + +"I--I won't trade," he jibbered. "It--it wasn't my money. Here's your +deed!" Peter was moving away. He felt a terrific impulse to run, but he +walked. + +The banker straightened abruptly. "Stop there, Peter!" he screeched. + +At that moment Dawson Bobbs lounged in at the door, with his perpetual +grin balling up his broad red face. He had a toothpick, in his mouth. + +"'S matter?" he asked casually. + +"Peter there," said the banker, with a pale, sharp face, "doesn't want +to stick to his trade. He is just walking off with one of my hundred- +dollar bills." + +"Sick o' yo' deal, Peter?" inquired Bobbs, smiling and shifting the +toothpick. He bit down on it. "Well, whut-chu want done, Henry?" + +"Oh," hesitated the cashier in a quandary, "nothing, I suppose. Siner +was excited; you know how niggers are. We can't afford to send every +nigger to the pen that breaks the law." He stood studying Peter out of +his close-set eyes. "Here's your deed, Peter." He shoved it back under +the grill. "And lemme give you a little friendly advice. I'd just run an +ordinary nigger school if I was you. This higher education don't seem to +make a nigger much smarter when he comes back than when he starts out." +A faint smile bracketed the thin nose. + +Dawson Bobbs roared with sudden appreciation, took the bill from Peter's +fingers, and pushed it back under the grill. + +The cashier picked up the money, casually. He considered a moment, then +reached for a long envelop. As he did so, the incident with Peter +evidently passed from his mind, for his hatchet face lighted up as with +some inward illumination. + +"Bobbs," he said warmly, "that was a great sermon Brother Blackwater +preached. It made me want to help according as the Lord has blessed me. +Couldn't you spare five dollars, Bobbs, to go along with this?" + +The constable tried to laugh and wriggle away, but the cashier's gimlet +eyes kept boring him, and eventually he fished out a five-dollar bill +and handed it in. Mr. Hooker placed the two bills in the envelop, sealed +it, and handed it to the constable. + +"Jest drop that in the post-office as you go down the street, Bobbs," he +directed in his high voice. Peter caught a glimpse of the type-written +address. + +It was + + Rev. Lemuel Hardiman, + c/o United Missions, + Katuako Post, + Bahr el Ghazal, + Sudan, + East Africa. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + +The white population of Hooker's Bend was much amused and gratified at +the outcome of the Hooker-Siner land deal. Every one agreed that the +cashier's chicanery was a droll and highly original turn to give to a +negro exclusion clause drawn into a deed. Then, too, it involved several +legal points highly congenial to the Hooker's Bend intellect Could the +Sons and Daughters of Benevolence recover their hundred dollars? Could +Henry Hooker force them to pay the remaining seven hundred? Could not +Siner establish his school on the Dillihay place regardless of the +clause, since the cashier would be estopped from obtaining an injunction +by his own instrument? + +As a matter of fact, the Sons and Daughters of Benevolence sent a +committee to wait on Mr. Hooker to see what action he meant to take on +the notes that paid for his spurious deed. This brought another harvest +of rumors. Street gossip reported that Henry had compromised for this, +that, and the other amount, that he would not compromise, that he had +persuaded the fool niggers into signing still other instruments. Peter +never knew the truth. He was not on the committee. + +But high above the legal phase of interest lay the warming fact that +Peter Siner, a negro graduate of Harvard, on his first tilt in Hooker's +Bend affairs had ridden to a fall. This pleased even the village women, +whose minds could not follow the subtle trickeries of legal disputation. +The whole affair simply proved what the white village had known all +along: you can't educate a nigger. Hooker's Bend warmed with pleasure +that half of its population was ineducable. + +White sentiment in Hooker's Bend reacted strongly on Niggertown. Peter +Siner's prestige was no more. The cause of higher education for negroes +took a mighty slump. Junius Gholston, a negro boy who had intended to go +to Nashville to attend Fisk University, reconsidered the matter, packed +away his good clothes, put on overalls, and shipped down the river as a +roustabout instead. + +In the Siner cabin old Caroline Siner berated her boy for his stupidity +in ever trading with that low-down, twisting snake in the grass, Henry +Hooker. She alternated this with floods of tears. Caroline had no +sympathy for her offspring. She said she had thrown away years of self- +sacrifice, years of washing, a thousand little comforts her money would +have bought, all for nothing, for less than nothing, to ship a fool +nigger up North and to ship him back. + +Of all Niggertown, Caroline was the most unforgiving because Peter had +wounded her in her pride. Every other negro in the village felt that +genial satisfaction in a great man's downfall that is balm to small +souls. But the old mother knew not this consolation. Peter was her +proxy. It was she who had fallen. + +The only person in Niggertown who continued amiable to Peter Siner was +Cissie Dildine. The octoroon, perhaps, had other criteria by which to +judge a man than his success or mishaps dealing with a pettifogger. + +Two or three days after the catastrophe, Cissie made an excursion to the +Siner cabin with a plate of cookies. Cissie was careful to place her +visit on exactly a normal footing. She brought her little cakes in the +role of one who saw no evil, spoke no evil, and heard no evil. But +somehow Cissie's visit increased the old woman's wrath. She remained +obstinately in the kitchen, and made remarks not only audible, but +arresting, through the thin partition that separated it from the poor +living-room. + +Cissie was hardly inside when a voice stated that it hated to see a gal +running after a man, trying to bait him with a lot of fum-diddles. + +Cissie gave Peter a single wide-eyed glance, and then attempted to +ignore the bodiless comment. + +"Here are some cookies, Mr. Siner," began the girl, rather nervously. "I +thought you and Ahnt Carolin'--" + +"Yeah, I 'magine dey's fuh me!" jeered the spectral voice. + +"Might like them," concluded the girl, with a little gasp. + +"I suttinly don' want no light-fingered hussy ma'yin' my son," proceeded +the voice, "an' de whole Dildine fambly 'll bear watchin'." + +[Illustration: In the Siner cabin old Caroline Siner berated her boy.] + +"Won't you have a seat?" asked Peter, exquisitely uncomfortable. + +Cissie handed him her plate in confusion. + +"Why, no, Mr. Siner," she hastened on, in her careful grammar, "I just-- +ran over to--" + +"To fling herse'f in a nigger's face 'cause he's been North and got +made a fool uv," boomed the hidden censor. + +"I must go now," gasped Cissie. + +Peter made a harried gesture. + +"Wait--wait till I get my hat." + +He put the plate down with a swift glance around for his hat. He found +it, and strode to the door, following the girl. The two hurried out into +the street, followed by indistinct strictures from the kitchen. Cissie +breathed fast, with open lips. They moved rapidly along the semicircular +street almost with a sense of flight. The heat of the early autumn sun +stung them through their clothes. For some distance they walked in a +nervous silence, then Cissie said: + +"Your mother certainly hates me, Peter." + +"No," said Peter, trying to soften the situation; "it's me; she's +terribly hurt about--" he nodded to-ward the white section--"that +business." + +Cissie opened her clear brown eyes. + +"Your own mother turned against you!" + +"Oh, she has a right to be," began Peter, defensively. "I ought to have +read that deed. It's amazing I didn't, but I--I really wasn't expecting +a trick, Mr. Hooker seemed so--so sympathetic--" He came to a lame halt, +staring at the dust through which they picked their way. + +"Of course you weren't expecting tricks!" cried Cissie, warmly. "The +whole thing shows you're a gentleman used to dealing with gentlemen. But +of course these Hooker's Bend negroes will never see that!" + +Peter, surprised and grateful, looked at Cissie. Her construction of the +swindle was more flattering than any apology he had been able to frame +for himself. + +"Still, Cissie, I ought to have used the greatest care--" + +"I'm not talking about what you 'ought,'" stated the octoroon, crisply; +"I'm talking about what you are. When it comes to 'ought,' we colored +people must get what we can, any way we can. We fight from the bottom." +The speech held a viperish quality which for a moment caught the brown +man's attention; then he said: + +"One thing is sure, I've lost my prestige, whatever it was worth." + +The girl nodded slowly. + +"With the others you have, I suppose." + +Peter glanced at Cissie. The temptation was strong to give the +conversation a personal turn, but he continued on the general topic: + +"Well, perhaps it's just as well. My prestige was a bit too flamboyant, +Cissie. All I had to do was to mention a plan. The Sons and Daughters +didn't even discuss it. They put it right through. That wasn't healthy. +Our whole system of society, all democracies are based on discussion. +Our old Witenagemot--" + +"But it wasn't _our_ old Witenagemot," said the girl. + +"Well--no," admitted the mulatto, "that's true." + +They moved along for some distance in silence, when the girl asked: + +"What are you going to do now, Peter?" + +"Teach, and keep working for that training-school," stated Peter, almost +belligerently. "You didn't expect a little thing like a hundred dollars +to stop me, did you?" + +"No-o-o," conceded Cissie, with some reserve of judgment in her tone. +Presently she added, "You could do a lot better up North, Peter." + +"For whom?" + +"Why, yourself," said the girl, a little surprised. + +Siner nodded. + +"I thought all that out before I came back here, Cissie. A friend of +mine named Farquhar offered me a place with him up in Chicago,--a string +of garages. You'd like Farquhar, Cissie. He's a materialist with an +absolutely inexorable brain. He mechanizes the universe. I told him I +couldn't take his offer. 'It's like this,' I argued: 'if every negro +with a little ability leaves the South, our people down there will never +progress.' It's really that way, Cissie, it takes a certain mental +atmosphere to develop a people as a whole. A few individuals here and +there may have the strength to spring up by themselves, but the run of +the people--no. I believe one of the greatest curses of the colored race +in the South is the continual draining of its best individuals North. +Farquhar argued--" just then Peter saw that Cissie was not attending his +discourse. She was walking at his side in a respectful silence. He +stopped talking, and presently she smiled and said: + +"You haven't noticed my new brooch, Peter." She lifted her hand to her +bosom, and twisted the face of the trinket toward him. "You oughtn't to +have made me show it to you after you recommended it yourself." She made +a little _moue_ of disappointment. + +It was a pretty bit of old gold that complimented the creamy skin. Peter +began admiring it at once, and, negro fashion, rather overstepped the +limits white beaux set to their praise, as he leaned close to her. + +At the moment the two were passing one of the oddest houses in +Niggertown. It was a two-story cabin built in the shape of a steamboat. +A little cupola represented a pilot-house, and two iron chimneys served +for smoke-stacks. + +This queer building had been built by a negro stevedore because of a +deep admiration for the steamboats on which he had made his living. +Instead of steps at the front door, this boat-like house had a stage- +plank. As Peter strolled down the street with Cissie, admiring her +brooch, and suffused with a sense of her nearness, he happened to glance +up, and saw Tump Pack walk down the stage-plank, come out, and wait for +them at the gate. + +There was something grim in the ex-soldier's face and in the set of his +gross lips as the two came up, but the aura of the girl prevented Peter +from paying much attention to it. As the two reached Tump, Peter had +just lifted his hand to his hat when Tump made a quick step out at the +gate, in front of them, and swung a furious blow at Peter's head. + +Cissie screamed. Siner staggered back with flames dancing before his +eyes. The soldier lunged after his toppling man with gorilla-like blows. +Hot pains shot through Peter's body. His head roared like a gong. The +sunlight danced about him in flashes. The air was full of black fists +smashing him, and not five feet away, the bullet head of Tump Pack +bobbed this way and that in the rapid shifts of his attack. A stab of +pain cut off Peter's breath. He stood with his diaphragm muscles tense +and paralyzed, making convulsive efforts to breathe. At that moment he +glimpsed the convexity of Tump's stomach. He drop-kicked at it with +foot-ball desperation. Came a loud explosive groan. Tump seemed to rise +a foot or two in air, turned over, and thudded down on his shoulders in +the dust. The soldier made no attempt to rise, but curled up, twisting +in agony. + +Peter stood in the dust-cloud, wabbly, with roaring head. His open mouth +was full of dust. Then he became aware that negroes were running in from +every direction, shouting. Their voices whooped out what had happened, +who it was, who had licked. Tump Pack's agonized spasms brought howls of +mirth from the black fellows. Negro women were in the crowd, grinning, a +little frightened, but curious. Some were in Mother-Hubbards; one had +her hair half combed, one side in a kinky mattress, the other lying flat +and greased down to her scalp. + +When Peter gradually became able to breathe and could think at all, +there was something terrible to him in Tump's silent attack and in this +extravagant black mirth over mere suffering. Cissie was gone,--had fled, +no doubt, at the beginning of the fight. + +The prostrate man's tortured abdomen finally allowed him to twist around +toward Peter. His eyes were popped, and seemed all yellows and streaked +with swollen veins. + +"I'll git you fuh dis," he wheezed, spitting dust "You did n' fight +fair, you--" + +The black chorus rolled their heads and pounded one another in a gale of +merriment. + +Peter Siner turned away toward his home filled with sick thought. He had +never realized so clearly the open sore of Niggertown life and its great +need of healing, yet this very episode would further bar him, Peter, +from any constructive work. He foresaw, too plainly, how the white town +and Niggertown would react to this fight. There would be no +discrimination in the scandal. He, Peter Siner, would be grouped with +the boot-leggers and crap-shooters and women-chasers who filled +Niggertown with their brawls. As a matter of simple fact, he had been +fighting with another negro over a woman. That he was subjected to an +attack without warning or cause would never become a factor in the +analysis. He knew that very well. + +Two of Peter's teeth were loose; his left jaw was swelling; his head +throbbed. With that queer perversity of human nerves, he kept biting his +sore teeth together as he walked along. + +When he reached home, his mother met him at the door. Thanks to the +swiftness with which gossip spreads among black folk, she had already +heard of the fight, and incidentally had formed her judgment of the +matter. Now she looked in exasperation at her son's swelling face. + +"I 'cla' 'fo' Gawd!--ain't been home a week befo' he's fightin' over a +nigger wench lak a roustabout!" + +Peter's head throbbed so he could hardly make out the details of +Caroline's face. + +"But, Mother--" he began defensively, "I--" + +"Me sweatin' over de wash-pot," the negress went on, "so's you could go +up North an' learn a lil sense; heah you comes back chasin' a dutty +slut!" + +"But, Mother," he begged thickly, "I was simply walking home with Miss +Dildine." + +"Miss Dildine! Miss Dildine!" exploded the ponderous woman, with an +erasing gesture. "Ef you means dat stuck-up fly-by-night Cissie Dildine, +say so, and don' stan' thaiuh mouthin', 'Miss Dildine, Miss Dildine'!" + +"Mother," asked Peter, thickly, through his swelling mouth, "do you want +to know what did happen?" + +"I knows. I tol' you to keep away fum dat hussy. She's a fool 'bout her +bright color an' straight hair. Needn't be givin' herse'f no airs!" + +Peter stood in the doorway, steadying himself by the jamb. The world +still swayed from the blows he had received on the head. + +"What girl would you be willing for me to go with?" he asked in faint +satire. + +"Heah in Niggertown?" + +Peter nodded. The movement increased his headache. + +"None a-tall. No Niggertown wench a-tall. When you mus' ma'y, I's +'speckin' you to go off summuhs an' pick yo' gal, lak you went off to +pick yo' aidjucation." She swung out a thick arm, and looked at Peter +out of the corner of her eyes, her head tilted to one side, as negresses +do when they become dramatically serious. + +Peter left his mother to her stare and went to his own room. This +constant implication among Niggertown inhabitants that Niggertown and +all it held was worthless, mean, unhuman depressed Peter. The mulatto +knew the real trouble with Niggertown was it had adopted the white +village's estimate of it. The sentiment of the white village was +overpowering among the imitative negroes. The black folk looked into the +eyes of the whites and saw themselves reflected as chaff and skum and +slime, and no human being ever suggested that they were aught else. + +Peter's room was a rough shed papered with old newspapers. All sorts of +yellow scare-heads streaked his walls. Hanging up was a crayon +enlargement of his mother, her broad face as unwrinkled as an egg and +drawn almost white, for the picture agents have discovered the only way +to please their black patrons is to make their enlargements as nearly +white as possible. + +In one corner, on a home-made book-rack, stood Peter's library,--a Greek +book or two, an old calculus, a sociology, a psychology, a philosophy, +and a score of other volumes he had accumulated in his four college +years. As Peter, his head aching, looked at these, he realized how +immeasurably removed he was from the cool abstraction of the study. + +The brown man sat down in an ancient rocking-chair by the window, leaned +back, and closed his eyes. His blood still whispered in his ears from +his fight. Notwithstanding his justification, he gradually became filled +with self-loathing. To fight--to hammer and kick in Niggertown's dust-- +over a girl! It was an indignity. + + +Peter shifted his position in his chair, and his thoughts took another +trail. Tump's attack had been sudden and silent, much like a bulldog's. +The possibility of a simple friendship between a woman and a man never +entered Tump's head; it never entered any Niggertown head. Here all +attraction was reduced to the simplest terms of sex. Niggertown held no +delicate intimacies or reserves. Two youths could not go with the same +girl. Black women had no very great powers of choice over their suitors. +The strength of a man's arm isolated his sweetheart. That did not seem +right, resting the power of successful mating entirely upon brawn. + +As Peter sat thinking it over, it came to him that the progress of any +race depended, finally, upon the woman having complete power of choosing +her mate. It is woman alone who consistently places the love accent upon +other matters than mere flesh and muscle. Only woman has much sex +selectiveness, or is inclined to select individuals with qualities of +mind and spirit. + +For millions of years these instinctive spiritualizers of human breeding +stock have been hampered in their choice of mates by the unrestrained +right of the fighting male. Indeed, the great constructive work of +chivalry in the middle ages was to lay, unconsciously, the corner-stone +of modern civilization by resigning to the woman the power of choosing +from a group of males. + +Siner stirred in his chair, surprised at whither his reverie had lead +him. He wondered how he had stumbled upon these thoughts. Had he read +them in a book? In point of fact, a beating administered by Tump Pack +had brought the brown man the first original idea he had entertained in +his life. + +By this time, Peter's jaw had reached its maximum swelling and was eased +somewhat. He looked out of his little window, wondering whether Cissie +Dildine would choose him--or Tump Pack. + +Peter was surprised to find blue dusk peering through his panes. All the +scare-heads on his walls had lapsed into a common obscurity. As he rose +slowly, so as not to start his head hurting again, he heard three rapid +pistol shots in the cedar glade between Niggertown and the white +village. He knew this to be the time-honored signal of boot-leggers +announcing that illicit whisky was for sale in the blackness of the +glade. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + +Next day the Siner-Pack fight was the focus of news interest in Hooker's +Bend. White mistresses extracted the story from their black maids, and +were amused by it or deprecated Cissie Dildine's morals as the mood +moved them. + +Along Main Street in front of the village stores, the merchants and +hangers-on discussed the affair. It was diverting that a graduate of +Harvard should come back to Hooker's Bend and immediately drop into such +a fracas. Old Captain Renfrew, one-time attorney at law and +representative of his county in the state legislature, sat under the +mulberry in front of the livery-stable and plunged into a long +monologue, with old Mr. Tomwit as listener, on the uneducability of the +black race. + +"Take a horse, sir," expounded the captain; "a horse can be trained to +add and put its name together out of an alphabet, but no horse could +ever write a promissory note and figure the interest on it, sir. Take a +dog. I've known dogs, sir, that could bring your mail from the post- +office, but I never saw a dog stop on the way home, sir, to read a post- +card." + +Here the old ex-attorney spat and renewed the tobacco in a black brier, +then proceeded to draw the parrallel between dogs and horses and Peter +Siner newly returned from Harvard. + +"God'lmighty has set his limit on dogs, horses, and niggers, Mr. Tomwit. +Thus far and no farther. Take a nigger baby at birth; a nigger baby has +no fontanelles. It has no window toward heaven. Its skull is sealed up +in darkness. The nigger brain can never expand and absorb the universe, +sir. It can never rise on the wings of genius and weigh the stars, nor +compute the swing of the Pleiades. Thus far and no farther! It's +congenital. + +"Now, take this Peter Siner and his disgraceful fight over a nigger +wench. Would you expect an educated stud horse to pay no attention to a +mare, sir? You can educate a stud till--" + +"But hold on!" interrupted the old cavalryman. "I've known as +gentlemanly stallions as--as anybody!" + +The old attorney cleared his throat, momentarily taken aback at this +failure of his metaphor. However he rallied with legal suppleness: + +"You are talking about thoroughbreds, sir." + +"I am, sir." + +"Good God, Tomwit! you don't imagine I'm comparing a nigger to a +thoroughbred, sir!" + +On the street corners, or piled around on cotton-bales down on the wharf, +the negro men of the village discussed the fight. It was for the most +part a purely technical discussion of blows and counters and kicks, and +of the strange fact that a college education failed to enable Siner +utterly to annihilate his adversary. Jim Pink Staggs, a dapper gentleman +of ebony blackness, of pin-stripe flannels and blue serge coat-- +altogether a gentleman of many parts--sat on one of the bales and +indolently watched an old black crone fishing from a ledge of rocks just +a little way below the wharf-boat. Around Jim Pink lounged and sprawled +black men and youths, stretching on the cotton-bales like cats in the +sunshine. + +Jim Pink was discussing Peter's education. + +"I 'fo' Gawd kain't see no use goin' off lak dat an' den comin' back an' +lettin' a white man cheat you out'n yo' hide an' taller, an' lettin' a +black man beat you up tull you has to 'kick him in the spivit. Ef a +aidjucation does you any good a-tall, you'd be boun' to beat de white man +at one en' uv de line, or de black man at de udder. Ef Peter ain't to be +foun' at eider en', wha is he?" + +"Um-m-m!" "Eh-h-h!" "You sho spoke a moufful, Jim Pink!" came an +assenting chorus from the bales. + +Eventually such gossip died away and took another flurry when a report +went abroad that Tump Pack was carrying a pistol and meant to shoot +Peter on sight. Then this in turn ceased to be news and of human +interest. It clung to Peter's mind longer than to any other person's in +Hooker's Bend, and it presented to the brown man a certain problem in +casuistry. + +Should he accede to Tump Pack's possession of Cissie Dildine and give up +seeing the girl? Such a course cut across all his fine-spun theory about +women having free choice of their mates. However, the Harvard man could +not advocate a socialization of courtship when he himself would be the +first beneficiary. The prophet whose finger points selfward is damned. +Furthermore, all Niggertown would side with Tump Pack in such a +controversy. It was no uncommon thing for the very negro women to fight +over their beaux and husbands. As for any social theory changing this +régime, in the first place the negroes couldn't understand the theory; +in the second, it would have no effect if they could. Actions never grow +out of theories; theories grow out of actions. A theory is a looking- +glass that reflects the past and makes it look like the future, but the +glass really hides the future, and when humanity comes to a turn in its +course, there is always a smash-up, and a blind groping for the lost +path. + +Now, in regard to Cissie Dildine, Peter was not precisely afraid of Tump +Pack, but he could not clear his mind of the fact that Tump had been +presented with a medal by the Congress of the United States for killing +four men. Good sense and a care for his reputation and his skin told +Peter to abandon his theory of free courtship for the time being. This +meant a renunciation of Cissie Dildine; but he told himself he renounced +very little. He had no reason to think that Cissie cared a picayune +about him. + +Peter's work kept him indoors for a number of days following the +encounter. He was reviewing some primary school work in order to pass a +teacher's examination that would be held in Jonesboro, the county seat, +in about three weeks. + +To the uninitiated it may seem strange to behold a Harvard graduate +stuck down day after day poring over a pile of dog-eared school-books-- +third arithmetics, primary grammars, beginners' histories of Tennessee, +of the United States, of England; physiology, hygiene. It may seem +queer. But when it comes to standing a Wayne County teacher's +examination, the specific answers to the specific questions on a dozen +old examination slips are worth all the degrees Harvard ever did confer. + +So, in his newspapered study, Peter Siner looked up long lists of +questions, and attempted to memorize the answers. But the series of +missteps he had made since returning to Hooker's Bend besieged his brain +and drew his thoughts from his catechism. It seemed strange that in so +short a time he should have wandered so far from the course he had set +for himself. His career in Niggertown formed a record of slight +mistakes, but they were not to be undone, and their combined force had +swung him a long way from the course he had plotted for himself. There +was no way to explain. Hooker's Bend would judge him by the sheer +surface of his works. What he had meant to do, his dreams and altruisms, +they would never surmise. That was the irony of the thing. + +Then he thought of Cissie Dildine who did understand him. This thought +might have been Cissie's cue to enter the stage of Peter's mind. Her +oval, creamy face floated between Peter's eyes and the dog-eared primer. +He thought of Cissie wistfully, and of her lonely fight for good +English, good manners, and good taste. There was a pathos about Cissie. + +Peter got up from his chair and looked out at his high window into the +early afternoon. He had been poring over primers for three days, +stuffing the most heterogeneous facts. His head felt thick and slightly +feverish. Through his window he saw the side of another negro cabin, but +by looking at an angle eastward he could see a field yellow with corn, a +valley, and, beyond, a hill wooded and glowing with the pageantry of +autumn. He thought of Cissie Dildine again, of walking with her among +the burning maples and the golden elms. He thought of the restfulness +such a walk with Cissie would bring. + +As he mused, Peter's soul made one of those sharp liberating movements +that occasionally visit a human being. The danger of Tump Pack's +jealousy, the loss of his prestige, the necessity of learning the +specific answers to the examination questions, all dropped away from him +as trivial and inconsequent. He turned from the window, put away his +books and question-slips, picked up his hat, and moved out briskly +through his mother's room toward the door. + +The old woman in the kitchen must have heard him, for she called to him +through the partition, and a moment later her bulky form filled the +kitchen entrance. She wiped her hands on her apron and looked at him +accusingly. + +"Wha you gwine, son?" + +"For a walk." + +The old negress tilted her head aslant and looked fixedly at him. + +"You's gwine to dat Cissie Dildine's, Peter." + +Peter looked at his mother, surprised and rather disconcerted that she +had guessed his intentions from his mere footsteps. The young man +changed his plans for his walk, and began a diplomatic denial: + +"No, I'm going to walk by myself. I'm tired; I'm played out." + +"Tired?" repeated his mother, doubtfully. "You ain't done nothin' but +set an' turn th'ugh books an' write on a lil piece o' paper." + +Peter was vaguely amused in his weariness, but thought that he concealed +his mirth from his mother. + +"That gets tiresome after a while." + +She grunted her skepticism. As Peter moved for the door she warned him: + +"Peter, you knows ef Tump Pack sees you, he's gwine to shoot you sho!" + +"Oh, no he won't; that's Tump's talk." + +"Talk! talk! Whut's matter wid you, Peter? Dat nigger done git crowned +fuh killin' fo' men!" She stood staring at him with white eyes. Then she +urged, "Now, look heah, Peter, come along an' eat yo' supper." + +"No, I really need a walk. I won't walk through Niggertown. I'll walk +out in the woods." + +"I jes made some salmon coquettes fuh you whut'll spile ef you don' eat +'em now." + +"I didn't know you were making croquettes," said Peter, with polite +interest. + +"Well, I is. I gotta can o' salmon fum Miss Mollie Brownell she'd opened +an' couldn't quite use. I doctered 'em up wid a lil vinegar an' sody, +an' dey is 'bout as pink as dey ever wuz." + +A certain uneasiness and annoyance came over Peter at this persistent +use of unwholesome foods. + +"Look here, Mother, you're not using old canned goods that have been +left over?" + +The old negress stood looking at him in silence, but lost her coaxing +expression. + +"I've told and told you about using any tainted or impure foods that the +white people can't eat." + +"Well, whut ef you is?" + +"If it's too bad for them, it's too bad for you!" + +Caroline made a careless gesture. + +"Good Lawd, boy! I don' 'speck to eat whut's good fuh me! All I says is, +'Grub, keep me alive. Ef you do dat, you done a good day's wuck.'" + +Peter was disgusted and shocked at his mother's flippancy. Modern +colleges are atheistic, but they do exalt three gods,--food, +cleanliness, and exercise. Now here was Peter's mother blaspheming one +of his trinity. + +"I wish you 'd let me know when you want anything Mother. I'll get it +fresh for you." His words were filial enough, but his tone carried his +irritation. + +The old negress turned back to the kitchen. + +"Huh, boy! you been fotch up on lef'-overs," she said, and disappeared +through the door. + +Peter walked to the gate, let himself out, and started off on his +constitutional. His tiff with his mother renewed all his nervousness and +sense of failure. His litany of mistakes renewed their dolor in his +mind. + +An autumn wind was blowing, and long plumes of dust whisked up out of +the curving street and swept over the ill-kept yards, past the cabins, +and toward the sere fields and chromatic woods. The wind beat at the +brown man; the dust whispered against his clothes, made him squint his +eyes to a crack and tickled his nostrils at each breath. + +When Peter had gone two or three hundred yards, he became aware that +somebody was walking immediately behind him. Tump Pack popped into his +mind. He looked over his shoulder and then turned. Through the veils of +flying dust he made out some one, and a moment later identified not Tump +Pack, but the gangling form of Jim Pink Staggs, clad in a dark-blue +sack-coat and white flannel trousers with pin stripes. It was the sort +of costume affected by interlocutors of minstrel shows; it had a +minstrel trigness about it. + +As a matter of fact, Jim Pink was a sort of semi-professional minstrel. +Ordinarily, he ran a pressing-shop in the Niggertown crescent, but +occasionally he impressed all the dramatic talent of Niggertown and +really did take the road with a minstrel company. These barn-storming +expeditions reached down into Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. +Sometimes they proved a great success, and the darkies rode back several +hundred dollars ahead. Sometimes they tramped back. + +Jim Pink hailed Peter with a wave of his hand and a grotesque +displacement of his mouth to one side of his face, which he had found +effective in his minstrel buffoonery. + +"Whut you raisin' so much dus' about?" he called out of the corner of +his mouth, while looking at Peter out of one half-closed eye. + +Peter shook his head and smiled. + +"Thought it mout be Mister Hooker deliverin' dat lan' you bought." Jim +Pink flung his long, flexible face into an imitation of convulsed +laughter, then next moment dropped it into an intense gravity and +declared, "'Dus' thou art, to dus' returnest.'" The quotation seemed +fruitless and silly enough, but Jim Pink tucked his head to one side as +if listening intently to himself, then repeated sepulchrally, "'Dus' +thou art, to dus' returnest.' By the way, Peter," he broke off cheerily, +"you ain't happen to see Tump Pack, is you?" + +"No," said Peter, unamused. + +"Is he borrowed a gun fum you?" inquired the minstrel, solemnly. + +"No-o." Peter looked questioningly at the clown through half-closed +eyes. + +"Huh, now dat's funny." Jim Pink frowned, and pulled down his loose +mouth and seemed to study. He drew out a pearl-handled knife, closed his +hand over it, blew on his fist, then opened the other hand, and +exhibited the knife lying in its palm, with the blade open. He seemed +surprised at the change and began cleaning his finger-nails. Jim Pink +was the magician at his shows. + +Peter waited patiently for Jim Pink to impart his information, "Well, +what's the idea?" he asked at last. + +"Don' know. 'Pears lak dat knife won't stay in any one han'." He looked +at it, curiously. + +"I mean about Tump," said Peter, impatiently. + +"O-o-oh, yeah; you mean 'bout Tump. Well, I thought Tump mus' uv +borrowed a gun fum you. He lef' Hobbett's corner wid a great big forty- +fo', inquirin' wha you is." Just then he glanced up, looked +penetratingly through the dust-cloud, and added, "Why, I b'lieve da' 's +Tump now." + +With a certain tightening of the nerves, Peter followed his glance, but +made out nothing through the fogging dust. When he looked around at Jim +Pink again, the buffoon's face was a caricature of immense mirth. He +shook it sober, abruptly, minstrel fashion. + +"Maybe I's mistooken," he said solemnly. "Tump did start over heah wid a +gun, but Mister Dawson Bobbs done tuk him up fuh ca'yin' concealed +squidjulums; so Tump's done los' dat freedom uv motion in de pu'suit uv +happiness gua'anteed us niggers an' white folks by the Constitution uv +de Newnighted States uv America." Here Jim Pink broke into genuine +laughter, which was quite a different thing from his stage grimaces. +Peter stared at the fool astonished. + +"Has he gone to jail?" + +"Not prezactly." + +"Well--confound it!--exactly what did happen, Jim Pink?" + +"He gone to Mr. Cicero Throgmartins'." + +"What did he go there for?" + +"Couldn't he'p hisse'f." + +"Look here, you tell me what's happened." + +"Mr. Bobbs ca'ied Tump thaiuh. Y' see, Mr. Throgmartin tried to hire +Tump to pick cotton. Tump didn't haf to, because he'd jes shot fo' +natchels in a crap game. So to-day, when Tump starts over heah wid his +gun, Mr. Bobbs 'resses Tump. Mr. Throgmartin bails him out, so now +Tump's gone to pick cotton fuh Mr. Throgmartin to pay off'n his fine." +Here Jim Pink yelped into honest laughter at Tump's undoing so that dust +got into his nose and mouth and set him sneezing and coughing. + +"How long's he up for?" asked Peter, astonished and immensely relieved +at this outcome of Tump's expedition against himself. + +Jim Pink controlled his coughing long enough to gasp: + +"Th-thutty days, ef he don' run off," and fell to laughing again. + +Peter Siner, long before, had adopted the literate man's notion of what +is humorous, and Tump's mishap was slap-stick to him. Nevertheless, he +did smile. The incident filled him with extraordinary relief and +buoyancy. At the next corner he made some excuse to Jim Pink, and turned +off up an alley. + + * * * * * + +Peter walked along with his shoulders squared and the dust peppering his +back. Not till Tump was lifted from his mind did he realize what an +incubus the soldier had been. Peter had been forced into a position +where, if he had killed Tump, he would have been ruined; if he had not, +he would probably have murdered. Now he was free--for thirty days. + +He swung along briskly in the warm sunshine toward the multicolored +forest. The day had suddenly become glorious. Presently he found himself +in the back alleys near Cissie's house. He was passing chicken-houses +and stables. Hogs in open pens grunted expectantly at his footsteps. + +Peter had not meant to go to Cissie's at all, but now, when he saw he +was right behind her dwelling, she seemed radiantly accessible to him. +Still, it struck him that it would not be precisely the thing to call on +Cissie immediately after Tump's arrest. It might look as if--Then the +thought came that, as a neighbor, he should stop and tell Cissie of +Tump's misfortune. He really ought to offer his services to Cissie, if +he could do anything. At Cissie's request he might even aid Tump Pack +himself. Peter got himself into a generous glow as he charged up a side +alley, around to a rickety front gate. Let Niggertown criticize as it +would, he was braced by a high altruism. + +Peter did not shout from the gate, as is the fashion of the crescent, +but walked up a little graveled path lined with dusty box-shrubs and +tapped at the unpainted door. + +Doors in Niggertown never open straight away to visitors. A covert +inspection first takes place from the edges of the window-blinds. + +Peter stood in the whipping dust, and the caution of the inmates spurred +his impatience to see Cissie. At last the door opened, and Cissie +herself was in the entrance. She stood quite still a moment, looking at +Peter with eyes that appeared frightened. + +"I--I wasn't expecting to see you," she stammered. + +"No? I came by with news, Cissie." + +"News?" She seemed more frightened than ever. "Peter, you--you haven't-- +" She paused, regarding him with big eyes. + +"Tump Pack's been arrested," explained Peter, quickly, sensing the +tragedy in her thoughts. "I came by to tell you. If there's anything I +can do for you--or him, I'll do it." + +His altruistic offer sounded rather foolish in the actual saying. + +He could not tell from her face whether she was glad or sorry. + +"What did they arrest him for?" + +"Carrying a pistol." + +She paused a moment. + +"Will he--get out soon?" + +"He's sentenced for thirty days." + +Cissie dropped her hands with a hopeless gesture. + +"Oh, isn't this all sickening!--sickening!" she exclaimed. She looked +tired. Ghosts of sleepless nights circled her eyes. Suddenly she said, +"Come in. Oh, do come in, Peter." She reached out and almost pulled him +in. She was so urgent that Peter might have fancied Tump Pack at the +gate with his automatic. He did glance around, but saw nobody passing +except the Arkwright boy. The hobbledehoy walked down the other side of +the street, hands thrust in pockets, with the usual discontented +expression on his face. + +Cissie slammed the door shut, and the two stood rather at a loss in the +sudden gloom of the hall. Cissie broke into a brief, mirthless laugh. + +"Peter, it's hard to be nice in Niggertown. I--I just happened to think +how folks would gossip--you coming here as soon as Tump was arrested." + +"Perhaps I'd better go," suggested Peter, uncomfortably. + +Cissie reached up and caught his lapel. + +"Oh, no, don't feel that way! I'm glad you came, really. Here, let's go +through this way to the arbor. It isn't a bad place to sit." + +She led the way silently through two dark rooms. Before she opened the +back door, Peter could hear Cissie's mother and a younger sister moving +around the outside of the house to give up the arbor to Cissie and her +company. + +The arbor proved a trellis of honeysuckle over the back door, with a +bench under it. A film of dust lay over the dense foliage, and a few +withered blooms pricked its grayish green. The earthen floor of the +arbor was beaten hard and bare by the naked feet of children. + +Cissie sat down on the bench and indicated a place beside her. + +"I've been so uneasy about you! I've been wondering what on earth you +could do about it." + +"It's a snarl, all right," he said, and almost immediately began +discussing the peculiar _impasse_ in which his difficulty with Tump +had landed him. Cissie sat listening with a serious, almost tragic face, +giving a little nod now and then. Once she remarked in her precise way: + +"The trouble with a gentleman fighting a rowdy, the gentleman has all to +lose and nothing to gain. If you don't live among your own class, Peter, +your life will simmer down to an endless diplomacy." + +"You mean deceit, I suppose." + +"No, I mean diplomacy. But that isn't a very healthy frame of mind,-- +always to be suppressing and guarding yourself." + +Peter didn't know about that. He was inclined to argue the matter, but +Cissie wouldn't argue. She seemed to assume that all of her statements +were axioms, truths reduced to the simplest possible mental terms, and +that proof was unnecessary, if not impossible. So the topic went into +the discard. + +"Been baking my brains over a lot of silly little exam questions," +complained Peter. "Can you trace the circulation of the blood? I think +it leaves the grand central station through the right aorta, and then, +after a schedule run of nine minutes, you can hear it coming up the +track through the left ventricle, with all the passengers eager to get +off and take some refreshment at the lungs. I have the general idea, but +the exact routing gets me." + +Cissie laughed accommodatingly. + +"I wonder why it's necessary for everybody to know that once. I did. I +could follow the circulation the right way or backward." + +"Must have been harder backward, going against the current." + +Cissie laughed again. A girl's part in a witty conversation might seem +easy at first sight. She has only to laugh at the proper intervals. +However, these intervals are not always distinctly marked. Some girls +take no chances and laugh all the time. + +Cissie's appreciation was the sedative Peter needed. The relief of her +laughter and her presence ran along his nerves and unkinked them, like a +draft of Kentucky Special after a debauch. The curves of her cheek, the +tilt of her head, and the lift of her dull-blue blouse at the bosom wove +a great restfulness about Peter. The brooch of old gold glinted at her +throat. The heavy screen of the arbor gave them a sweet sense of +privacy. The conversation meandered this way and that, and became quite +secondary to the feeling of the girl's nearness and sympathy. Their talk +drifted back to Peter's mission here in Hooker's Bend, and Cissie was +saying: + +"The trouble is, Peter, we are out of our _milieu_." Some portion +of Peter's brain that was not basking in the warmth and invitation of +the girl answered quite logically: + +"Yes, but if I could help these people, Cissie, reconstruct our life +here culturally--" + +Cissie shook her head. "Not culturally." + +This opposition shunted more of Peter's thought to the topic in hand. He +paused interrogatively. + +"Racially," said Cissie. + +"Racially?" repeated the man, quite lost. + +Cissie nodded, looking straight into his eyes. "You know very well, +Peter, that you and I are not--are not anything near full bloods. You +know that racially we don't belong in--Niggertown." + +Peter never knew exactly how this extraordinary sentence had come about, +but in a kind of breath he realized that he and this almost white girl +were not of Niggertown. No doubt she had been arguing that he, Peter, +who was one sort of man, was trying to lead quite another sort of men +moved by different racial impulses, and such leading could only come to +confusion. He saw the implications at once. + +It was an extraordinary idea, an explosive idea, such as Cissie seemed +to have the faculty of touching off. He sat staring at her. + +It was the white blood in his own veins that had sent him struggling up +North, that had brought him back with this flame in his heart for his +own people. It was the white blood in Cissie that kept her struggling to +stand up, to speak an unbroken tongue, to gather around her the delicate +atmosphere and charm of a gentlewoman. It was the Caucasian in them +buried here in Niggertown. It was their part of the tragedy of millions +of mixed blood in the South. Their common problem, a feeling of their +joint isolation, brought Peter to a sense of keen and tingling nearness +to the girl. + +She was talking again, very earnestly, almost tremulously: + +"Why don't you go North, Peter? I think and think about you staying +here. You simply can't grow up and develop here. And now, especially, +when everybody doubts you. If you'd go North--" + +"What about you, Cissie? You say we're together--" + +"Oh, I'm a woman. We haven't the chance to do as we will." + +A kind of titillation went over Peter's scalp and body. + +"Then you are going to stay here and marry--Tump?" He uttered the name +in a queer voice. + +Tears started in Cissie's eyes; her bosom lifted to her quick breathing. + + +"I--I don't know what I'm going to do," she stammered miserably. + +Peter leaned over her with a drumming heart; he heard her catch her +breath. + +"You don't care for Tump?" he asked with a dry mouth. + +She gasped out something, and the next moment Peter felt her body sink +limply in his groping arms. They clung together closely, quiveringly. +Three nights of vigil, each thinking miserably and wistfully of the +other, had worn the nerves of both man and girl until they were ready to +melt together at a touch. Her soft body clinging to his own, the little +nervous pressures of her arms, her eased breathing at his neck, wiped +away Siner's long sense of strain. Strength and peace seemed to pour +from her being into his by a sort of spiritual osmosis. She resigned her +head to his palm in order that he might lift her lips to his when he +pleased. After all, there is no way for a man to rest without a woman. +All he can do is to stop work. + +For a long time they sat transported amid the dusty honeysuckles and +withered blooms, but after a while they began talking a little at a time +of the future, their future. They felt so indissolubly joined that they +could not imagine the future finding them apart. There was no need for +any more trouble with Tump Pack. They would marry quietly, and go away +North to live. Peter thought of his friend Farquhar. He wondered if +Farquhar's attitude would be just the same toward Cissie as it was +toward him. + +"North," was the burden of the octoroon's dreams. They would go North to +Chicago. There were two hundred and fifty thousand negroes in Chicago, a +city within itself three times the size of Nashville. Up North she and +Peter could go to theaters, art galleries, could enter any church, could +ride in street-cars, railroad-trains, could sleep and eat at any hotel, +live authentic lives. + +It was Cissie planning her emancipation, planning to escape her lifelong +disabilities. + +"Oh, I'll be so glad! so glad! so glad!" she sobbed, and drew Peter's +head passionately down to her deep bosom. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + +Peter Siner walked home from the Dildine cabin that night rather +dreading to meet his mother, for it was late. Cissie had served +sandwiches and coffee on a little table in the arbor, and then had kept +Peter hours afterward. Around him still hung the glamour of Cissie's +little supper. He could still see her rounded elbows that bent softly +backward when she extended an arm, and the glimpses of her bosom when +she leaned to hand him cream or sugar. She had accomplished the whole +supper in the white manner, with all poise and daintiness. In fact, no +one is more exquisitely polite than an octoroon woman when she desires +to be polite, when she elevates the subserviency of her race into +graciousness. + +However, the pleasure and charm of Cissie were fading under the +approaching abuse that Caroline was sure to pour upon the girl. Peter +dreaded it. He walked slowly down the dark semicircle, planning how he +could best break to his mother the news of his engagement. Peter knew +she would begin a long bill of complaints,--how badly she was treated, +how she had sacrificed herself, her comfort, how she had washed and +scrubbed. She would surely charge Cissie with being a thief and a drab, +and all the announcements of engagements that Peter could make would +never induce the old woman to soften her abuse. Indeed, they would make +her worse. + +So Peter walked on slowly, smelling the haze of dust that hung in the +blackness. Out on the Big Hill, in the glade, Peter caught an occasional +glimmer of light where crap-shooters and boot-leggers were beginning +their nightly carousal. + +These evidences of illicit trades brought Peter a thrill of disgust. In +a sort of clear moment he saw that he could not keep Cissie in such a +sty as this. He could not rear in such a place as this any children that +might come to him and Cissie. His thoughts drifted back to his mother, +and his dread of her tongue. + +The Siner cabin was dark and tightly shut when Peter let himself in at +the gate and walked to the door. He stood a moment listening, and then +gently pressed open the shutter. A faint light burned on the inside, a +night-lamp with an old-fashioned brass bowl. It sat on the floor, turned +low, at the foot of his mother's bed. The mean room was mainly in +shadow. The old-style four-poster in which Caroline slept was an +indistinct mound. The air was close and foul with the bad ventilation of +all negro sleeping-rooms. The brass lamp, turned low, added smoke and +gas to the tight quarters. + +The odor caught Peter in the nose and throat, and once more stirred up +his impatience with his mother's disregard of hygiene. He tiptoed into +the room and decided to remove the lamp and open the high, small window +to admit a little air. He moved noiselessly and had stooped for the lamp +when there came a creaking and a heavy sigh from the bed, and the old +negress asked: + +"Is dat you, son?" + +Peter was tempted to stand perfectly still and wait till his mother +dozed again, thus putting off her inevitable tirade against Cissie; but +he answered in a low tone that it was he. + +"Whut you gwine do wid dat lamp, son?" + +"Go to bed by it, Mother." + +"Well, bring hit back." She breathed heavily, and moved restlessly in +the old four-poster. As Peter stood up he saw that the patched quilts +were all askew over her shapeless bulk. Evidently, she had not been +resting well. + +Peter's conscience smote him again for worrying his mother with his +courtship of Cissie, yet what could he do? If he had wooed any other +girl in the world, she would have been equally jealous and grieved. It +was inevitable that she should be disappointed and bitter; it was bound +up in the very part and parcel of her sacrifice. A great sadness came +over Peter. He almost wished his mother would berate him, but she +continued to lie there, breathing heavily under her disarranged covers. +As Peter passed into his room, the old negress called after him to +remind him to bring the light back when he was through with it. + +This time something in her tone alarmed Peter. He paused in the +doorway. + +"Are you sick, Mother?" he asked. + +The old woman gave a yawn that changed to a groan. + +"I--I ain't feelin' so good." + +"What's the matter, Mother?" + +"My stomach, my--" But at that moment her sentence changed to an +inarticulate sound, and she doubled up in bed as if caught in a spasm of +acute agony. + +Peter hurried to her, thoroughly frightened, and saw sweat streaming +down her face. He stared down at her. + +"Mother, you are sick! What can I do?" he cried, with a man's +helplessness. + +She opened her eyes with an effort, panting now as the edge of the agony +passed. There was a movement under the quilts, and she thrust out a +rubber hot-water bottle. + +"Fill it--fum de kittle," she wheezed out, then relaxed into groans, and +wiped clumsily at the sweat on her shining black face. + +Peter seized the bottle and ran into the kitchen. There he found a brisk +fire popping in the stove and a kettle of water boiling. It showed him, +to his further alarm, that his mother had been trying to minister to +herself until forced to bed. + +The man scalded a finger and thumb pouring water into the flared mouth, +but after a moment twisted on the top and hurried into the sick-room. + +He reached the old negress just as another knife of pain set her +writhing and sweating. She seized the hot-water bottle, pushed it under +the quilts, and pressed it to her stomach, then lay with eyes and teeth +clenched tight, and her thick lips curled in a grin of agony. + +Peter set the lamp on the table, said he was going for the doctor, and +started. + +The old woman hunched up in bed. With the penuriousness of her station +and sacrifices, she begged Peter not to go; then groaned out, "Go tell +Mars' Renfrew," but the next moment did not want Peter to leave her. + +Peter said he would get Nan Berry to stay while he was gone. The Berry +cabin lay diagonally across the street. Peter ran over, thumped on the +door, and shouted his mother's needs. As soon as he received an answer, +he started on over the Big Hill toward the white town. + +Peter was seriously frightened. His run to Dr. Jallup's, across the Big +Hill, was a series of renewed strivings for speed. Every segment of his +journey seemed to seize him and pin him down in the midst of the night +like a bug caught in a black jelly. He seemed to progress not at all. + +Now he was in the cedar glade. His muffled flight drove in the sentries +of the crap-shooters, and gamesters blinked out their lights and +listened to his feet stumbling on through the darkness. + +After an endless run in the glade, Peter found himself on top of the +hill, amid boulders and outcrops limestone and cedar-shrubs. His flash- +light picked out these objects, limned them sharply against the +blackness, then dropped them into obscurity again. + +He tried to run faster. His impatience subdivided the distance into +yards and feet. Now he was approaching that boulder, now he was passing +it; now he was ten feet beyond, twenty, thirty. Perhaps his mother was +dying, alone save for stupid Nan Berry. + +Now he was going down the hill past the white church. All that was +visible was its black spire set against a web of stars. He was making no +speed at all. He panted on. His heart hammered. His legs drummed with +Lilliputian paces. Now he was among the village stores, all utterly +black. At one point the echo of his feet chattered back at him, as if +some other futile runner strained amid vast spaces of blackness. + +After a long time he found himself running up a residential street, and +presently, far ahead, he saw the glow of Dr. Jallup's porch light. Its +beam had the appearance of coming from a vast distance. When he reached +the place, he flung his breast against the top panel of the doctor's +fence and held on, exhausted. He drew in his breath, and began shouting, +"Hello, Doctor!" + +Peter called persistently, and as he commanded more breath, he called +louder and louder, "Hello, Doctor! Hello, Doctor! Hello, Doctor!" in +tones edging on panic. + +The doctor's house might have been dead. Somewhere a dog began barking. +High in the Southern sky a star looked down remotely on Peter's frantic +haste. The black man stood in the black night with cries: "Hello, +Doctor! Hello, Doctor! Hello, Doctor!" + +At last, in despair, he tried to think of other doctors. He thought of +telephoning to Jonesboro. Just as he decided he must turn away there +came a stirring in the dead house, a flicker of light appeared on the +inside now here, now there; it steadied into a tiny beam and approached +the door. The door opened, and Dr. Jallup's head and breast appeared, +illuminated against the black interior. + +"My mother's sick, Doctor," began Peter, in immense relief. + +"Who is it?" inquired the half-clad man, impassively. + +"Caroline Siner; she's been taken with a--" + +The physician lifted his light a trifle in an effort to see Peter. + +"Lemme see: she's that fat nigger woman that lives in a three-roomed +house--" + +"I'll show you the way," said Peter. "She's very ill." + +The half-dressed man shook his head. + +"No, Ca'line Siner owes me a five-dollar doctor's bill already. Our +county medical association made a rule that no niggers should--" + +With a drying mouth, Peter Siner stared at the man of medicine. + +"But, my God, Doctor," gasped the son, "I'll pay you--" + +"Have you got the money there in your pocket?" asked Jallup, +impassively. + +A sort of chill traveled deliberately over Peter's body and shook his +voice. + +"N-no, but I can get it--" + +"Yes, you can all get it," stated the physician in dull irritation. "I'm +tired of you niggers running up doctors' bills nobody can collect. You +never have more than the law allows; your wages never get big enough to +garnishee." His voice grew querulous as he related his wrongs. "No, I'm +not going to see Ca'line Siner. If she wants me to visit her, let her +send ten dollars to cover that and back debts, and I'll--" The end of +his sentence was lost in the closing of his door. The light he carried +declined from a beam to a twinkling here and there, and then vanished in +blackness. Dr. Jallup's house became dead again. The little porch light +in its glass box might have been a candle burning before a tomb. + +Peter Siner stood at the fence, licking his dry lips, with nerves +vibrating like a struck bell. He pushed himself slowly away from the top +plank and found his legs so weak that he could hardly walk. He moved +slowly, back down the unseen street. The dog he had disturbed gave a few +last growls and settled into silence. + +Peter moved along, wetting his dry lips, and stirring feebly among his +dazed thoughts, hunting some other plan of action. There was a tiny +burning spot on the left side of his occiput. It felt like a heated +cambric needle which had been slipped into his scalp. Then he realized +that he must go home, get ten dollars, and bring them back to Dr. +Jallup. He started to run, but almost toppled over on his leaden legs. + +He plodded through the darkness, retracing the endless trail to +Niggertown. As he passed a dark mass of shrubbery and trees, he recalled +his mother's advice to ask aid of Captain Renfrew. It was the old +Renfrew place that Peter was passing. + +The negro hesitated, then turned in at the gate in the bare hope of +obtaining the ten dollars at once. Inside the gate Peter's feet +encountered the scattered bricks of an old walk. The negro stood and +called Captain Renfrew's name in a guarded voice. He was not at all sure +of his action. + +Peter had called twice and was just about to go when a lamp appeared +around the side of the house on a long portico that extended clear +around the building. Bathed in the light of the lamp which he held over +his head, there appeared an old man wearing a worn dressing gown. + +"Who is it?" he asked in a wavery voice. + +Peter told his name and mission. + +The old Captain continued holding up his light. + +"Oh, Peter Siner; Caroline Siner's sick? All right I'll have Jallup run +over; I'll phone him." + +Peter was beginning his thanks preparatory to going, when the old man +interrupted. + +"No, just stay here until Jallup comes by in his or He'll pick us both +up. It'll save time. Come on inside. What's the matter with old +Caroline?" + +The old dressing-gown led the way around the continuous piazza, to a +room that stood open and brightly lighted on the north face of the old +house. + +A great relief came to Peter at this unexpected succor. He followed +around the piazza, trying to describe Caroline's symptoms. The room +Peter entered was a library, a rather stately old room, lined with books +all around the walls to about as high as a man could reach. Spaces for +doors and windows were let in among the book-cases. The volumes +themselves seemed composed mainly of histories and old-fashioned +scientific books, if Peter could judge from a certain severity of their +bindings. On a big library table burned a gasolene-lamp, which threw a +brilliant whiteness all over the room. The table was piled with books +and periodicals. Books and papers were heaped on every chair in the +study except a deep Morris chair in which the old Captain had been +sitting. A big meridional globe, about two and a half feet in diameter, +gleamed through a film of dust in the embrasure of a window. The whole +room had the womanless look of a bachelor's quarters, and was flavored +with tobacco and just a hint of whisky. + +Old Captain Renfrew evidently had been reading when Peter called from +the gate. Now the old man went to a telephone and rang long and briskly +to awaken the boy who slept in the central office. Peter fidgeted as the +old Captain stood with receiver to ear. + +"Hard to wake." The old gentleman spoke into the transmitter, but was +talking to Peter. "Don't be so uneasy, Peter. Human beings are harder to +kill than you think." + +There was a kindliness, even a fellowship, in Captain Renfrew's tones +that spread like oil over Peter's raw nerves. It occurred to the negro +that this was the first time he had been addressed as an authentic human +being since his conversation with the two Northern men on the Pullman, +up in Illinois. It surprised him. It was sufficient to take his mind +momentarily from his mother. He looked a little closely at the old man +at the telephone. The Captain wore few indices of kindness. Lines of +settled sarcasm netted his eyes and drooped away from his old mouth. The +very swell of his full temples and their crinkly veins marked a sardonic +old man. + +At last he roused central over the wire, and impressed upon him the +necessity of creating a stridor in Dr. Jallup's dead house, and a moment +later a continued buzzing in the receiver betokened the operator's +efforts to do so. + +The old gentleman turned around at last, holding the receiver a little +distance from his ear. + +"I understand you went to Harvard, Peter." + +"Yes, sir." Peter took his eyes momentarily from the telephone. The old +Southerner in the dressing-gown scrutinized the brown man. He cleared +his throat. + +"You know, Peter, it gives me a--a certain satisfaction to see a Harvard +man in Hooker's Bend. I'm a Harvard man myself." + +Peter stood in the brilliant light, astonished, not at Captain Renfrew's +being a Harvard man,--he had known that,--but that this old gentleman +was telling the fact to him, Peter Siner, a negro graduate of Harvard. + +It was extraordinary; it was tantamount to an offer of friendship, not +patronage. Such an offer in the South disturbed Peter's poise; it +touched him queerly. And it seemed to explain why Captain Renfrew had +received Peter so graciously and was now arranging for Dr. Jallup to +visit Caroline. + +Peter was moved to the conventional query, asking in what class the +Captain had been graduated. But while his very voice was asking it, +Peter thought what a strange thing it was that he, Peter Siner, a negro, +and this lonely old gentleman, his benefactor, were spiritual brothers, +both sprung from the loins of Harvard, that ancient mother of souls. + +[Illustration: The old gentleman turned around at last] + +From the darkness outside, Dr. Jallup's horn summmoned the two men. +Captain Renfrew got out of his gown and into his coat and turned off his +gasolene light. They walked around the piazza to the front of the house. +In the street the head-lights of the roadster shot divergent rays +through the darkness. They went out. The old Captain took a seat in the +car beside the physician, while Peter stood on the running-board. A +moment later, the clutch snarled, and the machine puttered down the +street. Peter clung to the standards of the auto top, peering ahead. + +The men remained almost silent. Once Dr. Jallup, watching the dust that +lay modeled in sharp lights and shadows under the head-lights, mentioned +lack of rain. Their route did not lead over the Big Hill. They turned +north at Hobbett's corner, drove around by River Street, and presently +entered the northern end of the semicircle. + +The speed of the car was reduced to a crawl in the bottomless dust of +the crescent. The head-lights swept slowly around the cabins on the +concave side of the street, bringing them one by one into stark +brilliance and dropping them into obscurity. The smell of refuse, of +uncleaned stables and sties and outhouses hung in the darkness. Peter +bent down under the top of the motor and pointed out his place. A minute +later the machine came to a noisy halt and was choked into silence. At +that moment, in the sweep of the head-light, Peter saw Viny Berry, one +of Nan's younger sisters, coming up from Niggertown's public well, +carrying two buckets of water. + +Viny was hurrying, plashing the water over the sides of her buckets. The +importance of her mission was written in her black face. + +"She's awful thirsty," she called to Peter in guarded tones. "Nan called +me to fetch some fraish water fum de well." + +Peter took the water that had been brought from the semi-cesspool at the +end of the street. Viny hurried across the street to home and to bed. +With the habitual twinge of his sanitary conscience, Peter considered +the water in the buckets. + +"We'll have to boil this," he said to the doctor. + +"Boil it?" repeated Jallup, blankly. Then, he added: "Oh, yes--boil. +Certainly." + + * * * * * + +A repellent odor of burned paper, breathed air, and smoky lights filled +the close room. Nan had lighted another lamp and now the place was +discernible in a dull yellow glow. In the corner lay a half-burned wisp +of paper. Nan herself stood by the mound on the bed, putting straight +the quilts that her patient had twisted awry. + +"She sho am bad, Doctor," said the colored woman, with big eyes. + +Seen in the light, Dr. Jallup was a little sandy-bearded man with a +round, simple face, oddly overlaid with that inscrutability carefully +cultivated by country doctors. With professional cheeriness, he +approached the mound of bedclothes. + +"A little under the weather, Aunt Ca'line?" He slipped his fingers +alongside her throat to test her temperature, at the same time drawing a +thermometer from his waistcoat pocket. + +The old negress stirred, and looked up out of sick eyes. + +"Doctor," she gasped, "I sho got a misery heah." She indicated her +stomach. + +"How do you feel?" he asked hopefully. + +The woman panted, then whispered: + +"Lak a knife was a-cuttin' an' a-tearin' out my innards." She rested, +then added, "Not so bad now; feels mo' lak somp'n's tearin' in de nex' +room." + +"Like something tearing in the next room?" repeated Jallup, emptily. + +"Yes, suh," she whispered. "I jes can feel hit--away off, lak." + +The doctor attempted to take her temperature, but the thermometer in her +mouth immediately nauseated her, so he slipped the instrument under her +arm. + +Old Caroline groaned at the slightest exertion, then, as she tossed her +black head, she caught a glimpse of old Captain Renfrew. + +She halted abruptly in her restlessness, stared at the old gentleman, +wet her dry lips with a queer brown-furred tongue. + +"Is dat you, Mars' Milt?" she gasped in feeble astonishment. A moment +later she guessed the truth. "I s'pose you had to bring de doctor. 'Fo' +Gawd, Mars' Milt--" She lay staring, with the covers rising and falling +as she gasped for breath. Her feverish eyes shifted back and forth +between the grim old gentleman and the tall, broad-shouldered brown man +at the foot of her bed. She drew a baggy black arm from under the cover. + +"Da' 's Peter, Mars' Milt," she pointed. "Da' 's Peter, my son. He--he +use' to be my son 'fo' he went off to school; but sence he come home, he +been a-laughin' at me." Tears came to her eyes; she panted for a moment, +then added: "Yeah, he done marked his mammy down fuh a nigger, Mars' +Milt. Whut I thought wuz gwine be sweet lays bitter in my mouf." She +worked her thick lips as if the rank taste of her sickness were the very +flavor of her son's ingratitude. + +A sudden gasp and twist of her body told Nan that the old woman was +again seized with a spasm. The neighbor woman took swift control, and +waved out Peter and old Mr. Renfrew, while she and the doctor aided the +huge negress. + +The two evicted men went into Peter's room and shut the door. Peter, +unnerved, groped, and presently found and lighted a lamp. He put it down +on his little table among his primary papers and examination papers. He +indicated to Captain Renfrew the single chair in the room. + +But the old gentleman stood motionless in the mean room, with its head- +line streaked walls. Sounds of the heavy lifting of Peter's mother came +through the thin door and partition with painful clearness. Peter opened +his own small window, for the air in his room was foul. + +Captain Renfrew stood in silence, with a remote sarcasm in his wrinkled +eyes. What was in his heart, why he had subjected himself to the +noisomeness of failing flesh, Peter had not the faintest idea. Once, out +of studently habit, he glanced at Peter's philosophic books, but +apparently he read the titles without really observing them. Once he +looked at Peter. + +"Peter," he said colorlessly, "I hope you'll be careful of Caroline's +feelings if she ever gets up again. She has been very faithful to you, +Peter." + +Peter's eyes dampened. A great desire mounted in him to explain himself +to this strange old gentleman, to show him how inevitable had been the +breach. For some reason a veritable passion to reveal his heart to this +his sole benefactor surged through the youth. + +"Mr. Renfrew," he stammered, "Mr. Renfrew--I--I--" His throat abruptly +ached and choked. He felt his face distort in a spasm of uncontrollable +grief. He turned quickly from this strange old man with a remote sarcasm +in his eyes and a remote affection in his tones. Peter clenched his +jaws, his nostrils spread in his effort stoically to bottle up his grief +and remorse, like a white man; in an effort to keep from howling his +agony aloud, like a negro. He stood with aching throat and blurred eyes, +trembling, swallowing, and silent. + +Presently Nan Berry opened the door. She held a half-burned paper in her +hand; Dr. Jallup stood near the bed, portioning out some calomel and +quinine. The prevalent disease in Hooker's Bend is malaria; Dr. Jallup +always physicked for malaria. On this occasion he diagnosed it must be a +very severe attack of malaria indeed, so he measured out enormous doses. + +He took a glass of the water that Viny had brought, held up old +Caroline's head, and washed down two big capsules into the already +poisoned stomach of the old negress. His simple face was quite +inscrutable as he did this. He left other capsules for Nan to administer +at regular intervals. Then he and Captain Renfrew motored out of +Niggertown, out of its dust and filth and stench. + +At four o'clock in the morning Caroline Siner died. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + +When Nan Berry saw that Caroline was dead, the black woman dropped a +glass of water and a capsule of calomel and stared. A queer terror +seized her. She began such a wailing that it aroused others in +Niggertown. At the sound they got out of their beds and came to the +Siner cabin, their eyes big with mystery and fear. At the sight of old +Caroline's motionless body they lifted their voices through the night. + +The lamentation carried far beyond the confines of Niggertown. The last +gamblers in the cedar glade heard it, and it broke up their gaming and +drinking. White persons living near the black crescent were waked out of +their sleep and listened to the eerie sound. It rose and fell in the +darkness like a melancholy organ chord. The wailing of the women +quivered against the heavy grief of the men. The half-asleep listeners +were moved by its weirdness to vague and sinister fancies. The dolor +veered away from what the Anglo-Saxon knows as grief and was shot +through with the uncanny and the terrible. White children crawled out of +their small beds and groped their way to their parents. The women +shivered and asked of the darkness, "_What_ makes the negroes howl +so?" + +Nobody knew,--least of all, the negroes. Nobody suspected that the +bedlam harked back to the jungle, to black folk in African kraals +beating tom-toms and howling, not in grief, but in an ecstasy of terror +lest the souls of their dead might come back in the form of tigers or +pythons or devils and work woe to the tribe. Through the night the +negroes wailed on, performing through custom an ancient rite of which +they knew nothing. They supposed themselves heartbroken over the death +of Caroline Siner. + +Amid this din Peter Siner sat in his room, stunned by the sudden taking +off of his mother. The reproaches that she had expressed to old Captain +Renfrew clung in Peter's brain. The brown man had never before realized +the faint amusement and condescension that had flavored all his +relations with his mother since his return home. But he knew now that +she had felt his disapproval of her lifelong habits; that she saw he +never explained or attempted to explain his thoughts to her, assuming +her to be too ignorant; as she put it, "a fool." + +The pathos of his mother's last days, what she had expected, what she +had received, came to Peter with the bitterness of what is finished and +irrevocable. She had been dead only a few minutes, yet she could never +know his grief and remorse; she could never forgive him. She was utterly +removed in a few minutes, in a moment in the failing of a breath. The +finality of death overpowered him. + +Into his room, through the thin wall, came the catch of numberless sobs, +the long-drawn open wails, and the spasms of sobbing. Blurred voices +called, "O Gawd! Gawd hab mercy! Hab mercy!" Now words were lost in the +midst of confusion. The clamor boomed through the thin partition as if +it would shake down his newspapered walls. With wet cheeks and an aching +throat, Peter sat by his table, staring at his book-case in silence, +like a white man. + +The dim light of his lamp fell over his psychologies and philosophies. +These were the books that had given him precedence over the old +washwoman who kept him in college. It was reading these books that had +made him so wise that the old negress could not even follow his +thoughts. Now in the hour of his mother's death the backs of his +metaphysics blinked at him emptily. What signified their endless pages +about dualism and monism, about phenomenon and noumenon? His mother was +dead. And she had died embittered against him because he had read and +had been bewildered by these empty, wordy volumes. + +A sense of profound defeat, of being ultimately fooled and cozened by +the subtleties of white men, filled Peter Siner. He had eaten at their +table, but their meat was not his meat. The uproar continued. Standing +out of the din arose the burden of negro voices "Hab mercy! Gawd hab +mercy!" + +In the morning the Ladies of Tabor came and washed and dressed Caroline +Siner's body and made it ready for burial. For twenty years the old +negress had paid ten cents a month to her society to insure her burial, +and now the lodge made ready to fulfil its pledge. After many comings +and goings, the black women called Peter to see their work, as if for +his approval. + +The huge dead woman lay on the four-poster with a sheet spread over the +lower part of her body. The ministrants had clothed it in the old black- +silk dress, with its spreading seams and panels of different materials. +It reminded Peter of the new dress he had meant to get his mother, and +of the modish suit which at that moment molded his own shoulders and +waist. The pitifulness of her sacrifices trembled in Peter's throat. He +pressed his lips together, and nodded silently to the black Ladies of +Tabor. + +Presently the white undertaker, a silent little man with a brisk yet +sympathetic air, came and made some measurements. He talked to Peter in +undertones about the finishing of the casket, how much the Knights of +Tabor would pay, what Peter wanted. Then he spoke of the hour of burial, +and mentioned a somewhat early hour because some of the negroes wanted +to ship as roustabouts on the up-river packet, which was due at any +moment. + +These decisions, asked of Peter, kept pricking him and breaking through +the stupefaction of this sudden tragedy. He kept nodding a mechanical +agreement until the undertaker had arranged all the details. Then the +little man moved softly out of the cabin and went stepping away through +the dust of Niggertown with professional briskness. A little later two +black grave-diggers set out with picks and shovels for the negro +graveyard. + +Numberless preparations for the funeral were going on all over +Niggertown. The Knights of Tabor were putting on their regalia. Negro +women were sending out hurry notices to white mistresses that they would +be unable to cook the noonday meal. Dozens of negro girls flocked to the +hair-dressing establishment of Miss Mallylou Speers. All were bent on +having their wool straightened for the obsequies, and as only a few of +them could be accommodated, the little room was packed. A smell of +burning hair pervaded it. The girls sat around waiting their turn. Most +of them already had their hair down,--or, rather loose, for it stood out +in thick mats. The hair-dresser had a small oil stove on which lay +heating half a dozen iron combs. With a hot comb she teased each strand +of wool into perfect straightness and then plastered it down with a +greasy pomade. The result was a stiff effect, something like the hair of +the Japanese. It required about three hours to straighten the hair of +one negress. The price was a dollar and a half. + +By half-past nine o'clock a crowd of negro men, in lodge aprons and with +spears, and negro women, with sashes of ribbon over their shoulders and +across the breasts, assembled about the Siner cabin. In the dusty +curving street were ranged half a dozen battered vehicles,--a hearse, a +delivery wagon, some rickety buggies, and a hack. Presently the +undertaker arrived with a dilapidated black hearse which he used +especially for negroes. He jumped down, got out his straps and coffin +stands, directed some negro men to bring in the coffin, then hurried +into the cabin with his air of brisk precision. + +He placed the coffin on the stands near the bed; then a number of men +slipped the huge black body into it. The undertaker settled old +Caroline's head against the cotton pillows, running his hand down beside +her cheek and tipping her face just so. Then he put on the cover, which +left a little oval opening just above her dead face. The sight of old +Caroline's face seen through the little oval pane moved some of the +women to renewed sobs. Eight black men took up the coffin and carried it +out with the slow, wide-legged steps of roustabouts. Parson Ranson, in a +rusty Prince Albert coat, took Peter's arm and led him to the first +vehicle after the hearse. It was a delivery wagon, but it was the best +vehicle in the procession. + +As Peter followed the coffin out, he saw the Knights and Ladies of Tabor +lined up in marching order behind the van. The men held their spears and +swords at attention; the women carried flowers. Behind the marchers came +other old vehicles, a sorry procession. + +At fifteen minutes to ten the bell in the steeple of the colored church +tolled a single stroke. The sound quivered through the sunshine over +Niggertown. At its signal the poor procession moved away through the +dust. At intervals the bell tolled after the vanishing train. + +As the negroes passed through the white town the merchants, lolling in +their doors, asked passers-by what negro had died. The idlers under the +mulberry in front of the livery-stable nodded at the old negro preacher +in his long greenish-black coat, and Dawson Bobbs remarked: + +"Well, old Parson Ranson's going to tell 'em about it to-day," and he +shifted his toothpick with a certain effect of humor. + +Old Mr. Tomwit asked if his companions had ever heard how Newt Bodler, a +wit famous in Wayne County, once broke up a negro funeral with a +hornets' nest. The idlers nodded a smiling affirmative as they watched +the cortège go past. They had all heard it. But Mr. Tomwit would not be +denied. He sallied forth into humorous reminiscence. Another loafer +contributed an anecdote of how he had tied ropes to a dead negro so as +to make the corpse sit up in bed and frighten the mourners. + +All their tales were of the vintage of the years immediately succeeding +the Civil War,--pioneer humor, such as convulsed the readers of Peck's +Bad Boy, Mr. Bowser, Sut Lovingood. The favorite dramatic properties of +such writers were the hornets' nest, the falling ladder, the banana +peel. They cultivated the humor of contusions, the wit of impact. This +style still holds the stage of Hooker's Bend. + +In telling these tales the white villagers meant no special disrespect +to the negro funeral. It simply reminded them of humorous things; so +they told their jokes, like the naïve children of the soil that they +were. + +At last the poor procession passed beyond the white church, around a +bend in the road, and so vanished. Presently the bell in Niggertown +ceased tolling. + + * * * * * + +Peter always remembered his mother's funeral in fragments of intolerable +pathos,--the lifting of old Parson Ranson's hands toward heaven, the +songs of the black folk, the murmur of the first shovelful of dirt as it +was lowered to the coffin, and the final raw mound of earth littered +with a few dying flowers. With that his mother--who had been so near to, +and so disappointed in, her son--was blotted from his life. The other +events of the funeral flowed by in a sort of dream: he moved about; the +negroes were speaking to him in the queer overtones one uses to the +bereaved; he was being driven back to Niggertown; he reentered the Siner +cabin. One or two of his friends stayed in the room with him for a while +and said vague things, but there was nothing to say. + +Later in the afternoon Cissie Dildine and her mother brought his dinner +to him. Vannie Dildine, a thin yellow woman, uttered a few disjointed +words about Sister Ca'line being a good woman, and stopped amid +sentence. There was nothing to say. Death had cut a wound across Peter +Siner's life. Not for days, nor weeks, nor months, would his existence +knit solidly back together. The poison of his ingratitude to his +faithful old black mother would for a long, long day prevent the +healing. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + +During a period following his mother's death Peter Siner's life drifted +emptily and without purpose. He had the feeling of one convalescing in a +hospital. His days passed unconnected by any thread of purpose; they +were like cards scattered on a table, meaning nothing. + +At times he struggled against his lethargy. When he awoke in the morning +and found the sun shining on his dusty primers and examination papers, +he would think that he ought to go back to his old task; but he never +did. In his heart grew a conviction that he would never teach school at +Hooker's Bend. + +He would rise and dress slowly in the still cabin, thinking he must soon +make new plans and take up some work. He never decided precisely what +work; his thoughts trailed on in vague, idle designs. + +In fact, during Peter's reaction to his shock there began to assert +itself in him that capacity for profound indolence inherent in his negro +blood. To a white man time is a cumulative excitant. Continuous and +absolute idleness is impossible; he must work, hunt, fish, play, gamble, +or dissipate,--do something to burn up the accumulating sugar in his +muscles. But to a negro idleness is an increasing balm; it is a +stretching of his legs in the sunshine, a cat-like purring of his +nerves; while his thoughts spread here and there in inconsequences, like +water without a channel, making little humorous eddies, winding this way +and that into oddities and fantasies without ever feeling that +constraint of sequence which continually operates in a white brain. And +it is this quality that makes negroes the entertainers of children +_par excellence_. + +Peter Siner's mental slackening made him understandable, and gave him a +certain popularity in Nigger-town. Black men fell into the habit of +dropping in at the Siner cabin, where they would sit outdoors, with +chairs propped against the wall, and philosophize on the desultory life +of the crescent. Sometimes they would relate their adventures on the +river packets and around the docks at Paducah, Cairo, St. Joe, and St. +Louis; usually a recountal of drunkenness, gaming, fighting, venery, +arrests, jail sentences, petty peculations, and escapes. Through these +Iliads of vagabondage ran an irresponsible gaiety, a non-morality, and a +kind of unbrave zest for adventure. They told of their defeats and +flights with as much relish and humor as of their charges and victories. +And while the spirit was thoroughly pagan, these accounts were full of +the clichés of religion. A roustabout whom every one called the +Persimmon confided to Peter that he meant to cut loose some logs in a +raft up the river, float them down a little way, tie them up again, and +claim the prize-money for salvaging them, God willing. + +The Persimmon was so called from a scar on his long slanting head. A +steamboat mate had once found him asleep in the passageway of a lumber +pile which the boat was lading, and he waked the negro by hitting him in +the head with a persimmon bolt. In this there was nothing unusual or +worthy of a nickname. The point was, the mate had been mistaken: the +Persimmon was not working on his boat at all. In time this became one of +the stock anecdotes which pilots and captains told to passengers +traveling up and down the river. + +The Persimmon was a queer-looking negro; his head was a long diagonal +from its peak down to his pendent lower lip, for he had no chin. The +salient points on this black slope were the Persimmon's sad, protruding +yellow eyeballs, over which the lids always drooped about half closed. +An habitual tipping of this melancholy head to one side gave the +Persimmon the look of one pondering and deploring the amount of sin +there was in the world. This saintly impression the Persimmon's conduct +and language never bore out. + +At the time of the Persimmon's remarks about the raft two of Peter's +callers, Jim Pink Staggs and Parson Ranson, took the roustabout to task. +Jim Pink based his objection on the grounds of glutting the labor +market. + +"Ef us niggers keeps turnin' too many raf's loose fuh de prize-money," +he warned, "somebody's goin' to git 'spicious, an' you'll ruin a good +thing." + +The Persimmon absorbed this with a far-away look in his half-closed +eyes. + +"It's a ticklish job," argued Parson Ranson, "an' I wouldn't want to +wuck at de debbil's task aroun' de ribber, ca'se you mout fall in, +Persimmon, an' git drownded." + +"I wouldn't do sich a thing a-tall," admitted the Persimmon, "but I jes' +natchelly got to git ten dollars to he'p pay on my divo'ce." + +"I kain't see whut you want wid a divo'ce," said Jim Pink, yawning, +"when you been ma'ied three times widout any." + +"It's fuh a Christmas present," explained the Persimmon, carelessly, +"fuh th' woman I'm libin' wid now. Mahaly's a great woman fuh style. I'm +goin' to divo'ce my other wives, one at a time lak my lawyer say." + +"On what grounds?" asked Peter, curiously. + +"Desuhtion." + +"Desertion?" + +"Uh huh; I desuhted 'em." + +Jim Pink shook his head, picked up a pebble, and began idly juggling it, +making it appear double, single, treble, then single again. + +"Too many divo'ces in dis country now, Persimmon," he moralized. + +"Well, whut's de cause uv 'em?" asked the Persimmon, suddenly bringing +his protruding yellow eyes around on the sleight-of-hand performer. + +Jim Pink was slightly taken aback; then he said: + +"'Spicion; nothin' but 'spicion." + +"Yeah, 'spicion," growled the Persimmon; "'spicion an' de husban' +leadin' a irreg'lar life." + +Jim Pink looked at his companion, curiously. + +"The husban'--leadin' a irreg'lar life?" + +"Yeah,"--the Persimmon nodded grimly,--"the husban' comin' home at +onexpected hours. You know whut I means, Jim Pink." + +Jim Pink let his pebble fall and lowered the fore legs of his chair +softly to the ground. + +"Now, look heah, Persimmon, you don' want to be draggin' no foreign +disco'se into yo' talk heah befo' Mr. Siner an' Parson Ranson." + +The Persimmon rose deliberately. + +"All I want to say is, I drapped off'n de matrimonial tree three times +a'ready, Jim Pink, an' I think I feels somebody shakin' de limb ag'in." + +The old negro preacher rose, too, a little behind Jim Pink. + +"Now, boys! boys!" he placated. "You jes think dat, Persimmon." + +"Yeah," admitted Persimmon, "I jes think it; but ef I b'lieve ever'thing +is so whut I think is so, I'd part Jim Pink's wool wid a brickbat." + +Parson Ranson tried to make peace, but the Persimmon spread his hands in +a gesture that included the three men. "Now, I ain't sayin' nothin'," he +stated solemnly, "an' I ain't makin' no threats; but ef anything +happens, you-all kain't say that nobody didn' tell nobody about +nothin'." + +With this the Persimmon walked to the gate, let himself out, still +looking back at Jim Pink, and then started down the dusty street. + +Mr. Staggs seemed uncomfortable under the Persimmon's protruding yellow +stare, but finally, when the roustabout was gone, he shrugged, regained +his aplomb, and remarked that some niggers spent their time in studyin' +'bout things they hadn't no info'mation on whatever. Then he strolled +off up the crescent in the other direction. + +All this would have made fair minstrel patter if Peter Siner had shared +the white conviction that every emotion expressed in a negro's patois is +humorous. Unfortunately, Peter was too close to the negroes to hold such +a tenet. He knew this quarrel was none the less rancorous for having +been couched in the queer circumlocution of black folk. And behind it +all shone the background of racial promiscuity out of which it sprang. +It was like looking at an open sore that touched all of Niggertown, men +and boys, young girls and women. It caused tragedies, murders, fights, +and desertions in the black village as regularly as the rotation of the +calendar; yet there was no public sentiment against it. Peter wondered +how this attitude of his whole people could possibly be. + +With the query the memory of Ida May came back to him, with its sense of +dim pathos. It seemed to Peter now as if their young and uninstructed +hands had destroyed a safety-vault to filch a penny. + +The reflex of a thought of Ida May always brought Peter to Cissie; it +always stirred up in him a desire to make this young girl's path gentle +and smooth. There was a fineness, a delicacy about Cissie, that, it +seemed to Peter, Ida May had never possessed. Then, too, Cissie was +moved by a passion for self-betterment. She deserved a cleaner field +than the Niggertown of Hooker's Bend. + +Peter took Parson Ranson's arm, and the two moved to the gate by common +consent. It was no longer pleasant to sit here. The quarrel they had +heard somehow had flavored their surroundings. + +Peter turned his steps mechanically northward up the crescent toward the +Dildine cabin. Nothing now restrained him from calling on Cissie; he +would keep no dinner waiting; he would not be warned and berated on his +return home. The nagging, jealous love of his mother had ended. + +As the two men walked along, it was borne in upon Peter that his +mother's death definitely ended one period of his life. There was no +reason why he should continue his present unsettled existence. It seemed +best to marry Cissie at once and go North. Further time in this place +would not be good for the girl. Even if he could not lift all +Niggertown, he could at least help Cissie. He had had no idea, when he +first planned his work, what a tremendous task he was essaying. The +white village had looked upon the negroes so long as non-moral and non- +human that the negroes, with the flexibility of their race, had +assimilated that point of view. The whites tried to regulate the negroes +by endless laws. The negroes had come to accept this, and it seemed that +they verily believed that anything not discovered by the constable was +permissible. Mr. Dawson Bobbs was Niggertown's conscience. It was best +for Peter to take from this atmosphere what was dearest to him, and go +at once. + +The brown man's thoughts came trailing back to the old negro parson +hobbling at his side. He looked at the old man, hesitated a moment, then +told him what was in his mind. + +Parson Ranson's face wrinkled into a grin. + +"You's gwine to git ma'ied?" + +"And I thought I'd have you perform the ceremony." + +This suggestion threw the old negro into excitement. + +"Me, Mr. Peter?" + +"Yes. Why not?" + +"Why, Mr. Peter, I kain't jine you an' Miss Cissie Dildine." + +Peter looked at him, astonished. + +"Why can't you?" + +"Whyn't you git a white preacher?" + +"Well," deliberated Peter, gravely, "it's a matter of principle with me, +Parson Ranson. I think we colored people ought to be more self-reliant, +more self-serving. We ought to lead our own lives instead of being mere +echoes of white thought." He made a swift gesture, moved by this passion +of his life. "I don't mean racial equality. To my mind racial equality +is an empty term. One might as well ask whether pink and violet are +equal. But what I do insist on is autonomous development." + +The old preacher nodded, staring into the dust. "Sho! 'tonomous +'velopment." + +Peter saw that his language, if not his thought, was far beyond his old +companion's grasp, and he lacked the patience to simplify himself. + +"Why don't you want to marry us, Parson?" + +Parson Ranson lifted his brows and filled his forehead with wrinkles. + +"Well, I dunno. You an' Miss Cissie acts too much lak white folks fuh a +nigger lak me to jine you, Mr. Peter." + +Peter made a sincere effort to be irritated, but he was not. + +"That's no way to feel. It's exactly what I was talking about,--racial +self-reliance. You've married hundreds of colored couples." + +"Ya-as, suh,"--the old fellow scratched his black jaw.--"I kin yoke up a +pair uv ordina'y niggers all right. Sometimes dey sticks, sometimes dey +don't." The old man shook his white, kinky head. "I'll bust in an' try +to hitch up you-all. I--I dunno whedder de cer'mony will hol' away up +North or not." + +"It'll be all right anywhere, Parson," said Peter, seriously. "Your name +on the marriage-certificate will--can you write?" + +"N-no, suh." + +After a brief hesitation Peter repeated determinedly: + +"It'll be all right. And, by the way, of course, this will be a very +quiet wedding." + +"Yas-suh." The old man bobbed importantly. + +"I wouldn't mention it to any one." + +"No, suh; no, suh. I don' blame you a-tall, Mr. Peter, wid dat Tump Pack +gallivantin' roun' wid a forty-fo'. Hit would keep 'mos' anybody's +weddin' ve'y quiet onless he wuz lookin' fuh a short cut to heab'n." + +As the two negroes passed the Berry cabin, Nan Berry thrust out her +spiked head and called to Peter Captain Renfrew wanted to see him. + +Peter paused, with quickened interest in this strange old man who had +come to his mother's death-bed with a doctor. Peter asked Nan what the +Captain wanted. + +Nan did not know. Wince Washington had told Nan that the Captain wanted +to see Peter. Bluegum Frakes had told Wince; Jerry Dillihay had told +Bluegum; but any further meanderings of the message, when it started, or +what its details might be, Nan could not state. + +It was a typical message from a resident of the white town to a denizen +of Niggertown. Such messages are delivered to any black man for any +other black man, not only in the village, but anywhere in the outlying +country. It may be passed on by a dozen or a score of mouths before it +reaches its objective. It may be a day or a week in transit, but +eventually it will be delivered verbatim. This queer system of +communication is a relic of slavery, when the master would send out word +for some special negro out of two or three hundred slaves to report at +the big house. + +However, as Peter approached the Dildine cabin, thoughts of his +approaching marriage drove from his mind even old Captain Renfrew's +message. His heart beat fast from having made his first formal step +toward wedlock. The thought of having Cissie all to himself, swept his +nerves in a gust. + +He opened the gate, and ran up between the dusty lines of dwarf box, +eager to tell her what he had done. He thumped on the cracked, unpainted +door, and impatiently waited the skirmish of observation along the edge +of the window-blinds. This was unduly drawn out. Presently he heard +women's voices whispering to each other inside. They seemed urgent, +almost angry voices. Now and then he caught a sentence: + +"What difference will it make?" "I couldn't." "Why couldn't you?" +"Because--" "That's because you've been to Nashville." "Oh, well--" A +chair was moved over a bare floor. A little later footsteps came to the +entrance, the door opened, and Cissie's withered yellow mother stood +before him. + +Vannie offered her hand and inquired after Peter's health with a stopped +voice that instantly recalled his mother's death. After the necessary +moment of talk, the mulatto inquired for Cissie. + +The yellow woman seemed slightly ill at ease. + +"Cissie ain't so well, Peter." + +"She's not ill?" + +"N-no; but the excitement an' ever'thing--" answered Vannie, vaguely. + +In the flush of his plans, Peter was keenly disappointed. + +"It's very important, Mrs. Dildine." + +Vannie's dried yellow face framed the ghost of a smile. + +"Ever'thing a young man's got to say to a gal is ve'y important, Peter." + +It seemed to Peter a poor time for a jest; his face warmed faintly. + +"It--it's about some of the details of our--our wedding." + +"If you'll excuse her to-day, Peter, an' come after supper--" + +Peter hesitated, and was about to go away when Cissie's voice came from +an inner room, telling her mother to admit him. + +The yellow woman glanced at the door on the left side of the hall, +crossed over and opened it, stood to one side while Peter entered, and +closed it after him, leaving the two alone. + +The room into which Peter stepped was dark, after the fashion of negro +houses. Only after a moment's survey did he see Cissie sitting near a +big fireplace made of rough stone. The girl started to rise as Peter +advanced toward her, but he solicitously forbade it and hurried over to +her. When he leaned over her and put his arms about her, his ardor was +slightly dampened when she gave him her cheek instead of her lips to +kiss. + +"Surely, you're not too ill to be kissed?" he rallied faintly. + +"You kissed me. I thought we had agreed, Peter, you were not to come in +the daytime any more." + +"Oh, is that it?" Peter patted her shoulder, cheerfully. "Don't worry; I +have just removed any reason why I shouldn't come any time I want to." + +Cissie looked at him, her dark eyes large in the gloom. + +"What have you done?" + +"Got a preacher to marry us; on my way now for a license. Dropped in to +ask if you 'll be ready by tomorrow or next day." + +The girl gasped. + +"But, Peter--" + +Peter drew a chair beside her in a serious argumentative mood. + +"Yes I think we ought to get married at once. No reason why we shouldn't +get it over with--Why, what's the matter?" + +"So soon after your mother's death, Peter?" + +"It's to get away from Hooker's Bend, Cissie--to get you away. I don't +like for you to stay here. It's all so--" he broke off, not caring to +open the disagreeable subject. + +The girl sat staring down at some fagots smoldering on the hearth. At +that moment they broke into flame and illuminated her sad face. + +"You'll go, won't you?" asked Peter at last, with a faint uncertainty. + +The girl looked up. + +"Oh--I--I'd be glad to, Peter,"--she gave a little shiver. "Ugh! this +Niggertown is a--a terrible place!" + +Peter leaned over, took one of her hands, and patted it. + +"Then we'll go," he said soothingly. "It's decided--tomorrow. And we'll +have a perfectly lovely wedding trip," he planned cheerfully, to draw +her mind from her mood. "On the car going North I'll get a whole +drawing-room. I've always wanted a drawing-room, and you'll be my +excuse. We'll sit and watch the fields and woods and cities slip past +us, and know, when we get off, we can walk on the streets as freely as +anybody. We'll be a genuine man and wife." + +His recital somehow stirred him. He took her in his arms, pressed her +cheek to his, and after a moment kissed her lips with the trembling +ardor of a bridegroom. + +Cissie remained passive a moment, then put up he hands, turned his face +away, and slowly released herself. + +Peter was taken aback. + +"What _is_ the matter, Cissie?" + +"I can't go, Peter." + +Peter looked at her with a feeling of strangeness. + +"Can't go?" + +The girl shook her head. + +"You mean--you want us to live here?" + +Cissie sat exceedingly still and barely shook her head. + +The mulatto had a sensation as if the portals which disclosed a new and +delicious life were slowly closing against him. He stared into her oval +face. + +"You don't mean, Cissie--you don't mean you don't want to marry me?" + +The fagots on the hearth burned now with a cheerful flame. Cissie stared +at it, breathing rapidly from the top of her lungs. She seemed about to +faint. As Peter watched her the jealousy of the male crept over him. + +"Look here, Cissie," he said in a queer voice, "you--you don't mean, +after all, that Tump Pack is--" + +"Oh no! No!" Her face showed her repulsion. Then she drew a long breath +and apparently made up her mind to some sort of ordeal. + +"Peter," she asked in a low tone, "did you ever think what we colored +people are trying to reach?" She stared into his uncomprehending eyes. +"I mean what is our aim, our goal, whom are we trying to be like?" + +"We aren't trying to be like any one." Peter was entirely at a loss. + +"Oh, yes, we are," Cissie hurried on. "Why do colored girls straighten +their hair, bleach their skins, pinch their feet? Aren't they trying to +look like white girls?" + +Peter agreed, wondering at her excitement. + +"And you went North to college, Peter, so you could think and act like a +white man--" + +Peter resisted this at once; he was copying nobody. The whole object of +college was to develop one's personality, to bring out-- + +The girl stopped his objections almost piteously. + +"Oh, don't argue! You know arguing throws me off. I--now I've forgotten +how I meant to say it!" Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. + +Her mood was alarming, almost hysterical. Peter began comforting her. + +"There, there, dear, dear Cissie, what is the matter? Don't say it at +all." Then, inconsistently, he added: "You said I copied white men. +Well, what of it?" + +Cissie breathed her relief at having been given the thread of her +discourse. She sat silent for a moment with the air of one screwing up +her courage. + +"It's this," she said in an uncertain voice: "sometimes we--we--girls-- +here in Niggertown copy the wrong thing first." + +Peter looked blankly at her. + +"The wrong thing first, Cissie?" + +"Oh, yes; we--we begin on clothes and--and hair and--and that isn't the +real matter." + +"Why, no-o-o, that isn't the real matter," said Peter puzzled. + +Cissie looked at his face and became hopeless. + +"Oh, _don't_ you understand! Lots of us--lots of us make that +mistake! I--I did; so--so, Peter, I can't go with you!" She flung out +the last phrase, and suddenly collapsed on the arm of her chair, +sobbing. + +Peter was amazed. He got up, sat on the arm of his own chair next to +hers and put his arms about her, bending over her, mothering her. Her +distress was so great that he said as earnestly as his ignorance +permitted: + +"Yes, Cissie, I understand now." But his tone belied his words, and the +girl shook her head. "Yes, I do, Cissie," he repeated emptily. But she +only shook her head as she leaned over him, and her tears slowly formed +and trickled down on his hand. Then all at once old Caroline's +accusation against Cissie flashed on Peter's mind. She had stolen that +dinner in the turkey roaster, after all. It so startled him that he sat +up straight. Cissie also sat up. She stopped crying, and sat looking +into the fire. + +"You mean--morals?" said Peter in a low tone. + +Cissie barely nodded, her wet eyes fixed on the fire. + +"I see. I was stupid." + +The girl sat a moment, drawing deep breaths. At last she rose slowly. + +"Well--I'm glad it's over. I'm glad you know." She stood looking at him +almost composedly except for her breathing and her tear-stained face. +"You see, Peter, if you had been like Tump Pack or Wince or any of the +boys around here, it--it wouldn't have made much difference; but--but +you went off and--and learned to think and feel like a white man. You-- +you changed your code, Peter." She gave a little shaken sound, something +between a sob and a laugh. "I--I don't think th-that's very fair, Peter, +to--to go away an'--an' change an' come back an' judge us with yo' n-new +code." Cissie's precise English broke down. + +Just then Peter's logic caught at a point. + +"If you didn't know anything about my code, how do you know what I feel +now?" he asked. + +She looked at him with a queer expression. + +"I found out when you kissed me under the arbor. It was too late then." + +She stood erect, with dismissal very clearly written in her attitude. +Peter walked out of the room. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + +With a certain feeling of clumsiness Peter groped in the dark hall for +his hat, then, as quietly as he could, let himself out at the door. +Outside he was surprised to find that daylight still lingered in the +sky. He thought night had fallen. The sun lay behind the Big Hill, but +its red rays pouring down through the boles of the cedars tinted long +delicate avenues in the dusty atmosphere above his head. A sharp chill +in the air presaged frost for the night. Somewhere in the crescent a boy +yodeled for his dog at about half-minute intervals, with the persistence +of children. + +Peter walked a little distance, but finally came to a stand in the dust, +looking at the negro cabins, not knowing where to go or what to do. +Cissie's confession had destroyed all his plans. It had left him as +adynamic as had his mother's death. It seemed to Peter that there was a +certain similarity between the two events; both were sudden and +desolating. And just as his mother had vanished utterly from his reach, +so now it seemed Cissie was no more. Cissie the clear-eyed, Cissie the +ambitious, Cissie the refined, had vanished away, and in her place stood +a thief. + +The thing was grotesque. Peter began a sudden shuddering in the cold. +Then he began moving toward the empty cabin where he slept and kept his +things. He moved along, talking to himself in the dusty emptiness of the +crescent. He decided that he would go home, pack his clothes, and +vanish. A St. Louis boat would be down that night, and he would just +have time to pack his clothes and catch it. He would not take his books, +his philosophies. He would let them remain, in the newspapered room, +until all crumbled into uniform philosophic dust, and the teachings of +Aristotle blew about Niggertown. + +Then, as he thought of traveling North, the vision of the honeymoon he +had just planned revived his numb brain into a dismal aching. He looked +back through the dusk at the Dildine roof. It stood black against an +opalescent sky. Out of the foreground, bending over it, arose a clump of +tall sunflowers, in whose silhouette hung a suggestion of yellow and +green. The whole scene quivered slightly at every throb of his heart. He +thought what a fool he was to allow a picaresque past to keep him away +from such a woman, how easy it would be to go back to the soft luxury of +Cissie, to tell her it made no difference; and somehow, just at that +moment it seemed not to. + +Then the point of view which Peter had been four years acquiring swept +away the impulse, and it left him moving toward his cabin again, empty, +cold, and planless. + +He was drawn out of his reverie by the soft voice of a little negro boy +asking him apprehensively whom he was talking to. + +Peter stopped, drew forth a handkerchief and dabbed the moisture from +his cold face in the meticulous fashion of college men. + +With the boy came a dog which was cautiously smelling Peter's shoes and +trousers. Both boy and dog were investigating the phenomenon of Peter. +Peter, in turn, looked down at them with a feeling that they had +materialized out of nothing. + +"What did you say?" he asked vaguely. + +The boy was suddenly overcome with the excessive shyness of negro +children, and barely managed to whisper: + +"I--I ast wh-who you wuz a-talkin' to." + +"Was I talking?" + +The little negro nodded, undecided whether to stand his ground or flee. +Peter touched the child's crisp hair. + +"I was talking to myself," he said, and moved forward again. + +The child instantly gained confidence at the slight caress, took a fold +of Peter's trousers in his hand for friendliness, and the two trudged on +together. + +"Wh-whut you talkin' to yo' se'f for?" + +Peter glanced down at the little black head that promised to think up a +thousand questions. + +"I was wondering where to go." + +"Lawsy! is you los' yo' way?" + +He stroked the little head with a rush of self-pity. + +"Yes, I have, son; I've completely lost my way." + +The child twisted his head around and peered up alongside Peter's arm. +Presently he asked: + +"Ain't you Mr. Peter Siner?" + +"Yes." + +"Ain't you de man whut's gwine to ma'y Miss Cissie Dildine?" + +Peter looked down at his small companion with a certain concern that his +marriage was already gossip known to babes. + +"I'm Peter Siner," he repeated. + +"Den I knows which way you wants to go," piped the youngster in sudden +helpfulness. "You wants to go over to Cap'n Renfrew's place acrost de +Big Hill. He done sont fuh you. Mr. Wince Washington tol' me, ef I seed +you, to tell you dat Cap'n Renfrew wants to see you. I dunno whut hit's +about. I ast Wince, an' he didn' know." + +Peter recalled the message Nan Berry had given him some hours before. +Now the same summons had seeped around to him from another direction. + +"I--I'll show you de way to Cap'n Renfrew's ef--ef you'll come back wid +me th'ugh de cedar glade," proposed the child. "I--I ain't skeered in de +cedar glade, b-b-but hit's so dark I kain't see my way back home. +I--I--" + +Peter thanked him and declined his services. After all, he might as well +go to see Captain Renfrew. He owed the old gentleman some thanks--and +ten dollars. + +The only thing of which Peter Siner was aware during his walk over the +Big Hill and through the village was his last scene with Cissie. He went +over it again and again, repeating their conversation, inventing new +replies, framing new action, questioning more fully into the octoroon's +vague confession and his benumbed acceptance of it. The moment his mind +completed the little drama it started again from the very beginning. + +At Captain Renfrew's gate this mental mummery paused long enough for him +to vacillate between walking in or going around and shouting from the +back gate. It is a point of etiquette in Hooker's Bend that negroes +shall enter a white house from the back stoop. Peter had no desire to +transgress this custom. On the other hand, if Captain Renfrew was +receiving him as a fellow of Harvard, the back door, in its way, would +prove equally embarrassing. + +After a certain indecision he compromised by entering the front gate and +calling the Captain's name from among the scattered bricks of the old +walk. + +The house lay silent, half smothered in a dark tangle of shrubbery. +Peter called twice before he heard the shuffle of house slippers, and +then saw the Captain's dressing-gown at the piazza steps. + +"Is that you, Peter?" came a querulous voice. + +"Yes, Captain. I was told you wanted to see me." + +"You've been deliberate in coming," criticized the old gentleman, +testily. "I sent you word by some black rascal three days ago." + +"I just received the message to-day." Peter remained discreetly at the +gate. + +"Yes; well, come in, come in. See if you can do anything with this +damnable lamp." + +The old man turned with a dignified drawing-together of his dressing- +gown and moved back. Apparently, the renovation of a cranky lamp was the +whole content of the Captain's summons to Peter. + +There was something so characteristic in this incident that Peter was +moved to a vague sense of mirth. It was just like the old régime to call +in a negro, a special negro, from ten miles away to move a jar of ferns +across the lawn or trim a box hedge or fix a lamp. + +Peter followed the old gentleman around to the back piazza facing his +study. There, laid out on the floor, were all the parts of a gasolene +lamp, together with a pipe-wrench, a hammer, a little old-fashioned +vise, a bar of iron, and an envelop containing the mantels and the more +delicate parts of the lamp. + +"It's extraordinary to me," criticized the Captain, "why they can't make +a gasolene lamp that will go, and remain in a going condition." + +"Has it been out of fix for three days?" asked Peter, sorry that the old +gentleman should have lacked a light for so long. + +"No," growled the Captain; "it started gasping at four o'clock last +night; so I put it out and went to bed. I've been working at it this +evening. There's a little hole in the tip,--if I could see it,--a hair- +sized hole, painfully small. Why any man wants to make gasolene lamps +with microscopic holes that ordinary intelligence must inform him will +become clogged I cannot conceive." + +Peter ventured no opinion on this trait of lampmakers, but said that if +the Captain knew where he could get an oil hand-lamp for a little more +light, he thought he could unstop the hole. + +The Captain looked at his helper and shook his head. + +"I am surprised at you, Peter. When I was your age, I could see an +aperture like that hole under the last quarter of the moon. In this +strong light I could have--er--lunged the cleaner through it, sir. You +must have strained your eyes in college." He paused, then added: "You'll +find hand-lamps in any of the rooms fronting this porch. I don't know +whether they have oil in them or not--the shiftless niggers that come +around to take care of this building--no dependence to be put in them. +When I try it myself, I do even worse." + +The old gentleman's tone showed that he was thawing out of his irritable +mood, and Peter sensed that he meant to be amusing in an austere, +unsmiling fashion. The Captain rubbed his delicate wrinkled hands +together in a pleased fashion and sat down in a big porch chair to await +Peter's assembling of the lamp. The brown man started down the long +piazza, in search of a hand-light. + +He found a lamp in the first room he entered, returned to the piazza, +sat down on the edge of it, and began his tinkering. The old Captain +apparently watched him with profound satisfaction. Presently, after the +fashion of the senile, he began endless and minute instructions as to +how the lamp should be cleaned. + +"Take the wire in your left hand, Peter,--that's right,--now hold the +tip a little closer to the light--no, place the mantels on the right +side--that's the way I do it. System...." the old man's monologue ran on +and on, and became a murmur in Peter's ears. It was rather soothing than +otherwise. Now and then it held tremulous vibrations that might have +been from age or that might have been from some deep satisfaction +mounting even to joy. But to Peter that seemed hardly probable. No doubt +it was senility. The Captain was a tottery old man, past the age for any +fundamental joy. + +Night had fallen now, and a darkness, musky with autumn weeds, hemmed in +the sphere of yellow light on the old piazza. A black-and-white cat +materialized out of the gloom, purring, and arching against a pillar. +The whole place was filled with a sense of endless leisure. The old man, +the cat, the perfume of the weeds, soothed in Peter even the rawness of +his hurt at Cissie. + +Indeed, in a way, the old manor became a sort of apology for the +octoroon girl. The height and the reach of the piazza, exaggerated by +the darkness, suggested a time when retinues of negroes passed through +its dignified colonnades. Those black folk were a part of the place. +They came and went, picked up and used what they could, and that was all +life held for them. They were without wage, without rights, even to the +possession of their own bodies; so by necessity they took what they +could. That was only fifty-odd years ago. Thus, in a way, Peter's +surroundings began a subtle explanation of and apology for Cissie, the +whole racial training of black folk in petty thievery. And that this +should have touched Cissie--the meanness, the pathos of her fate moved +Peter. + +The negro was aroused from his reverie by the old Captain's getting out +of his chair and saying, "Very good," and then Peter saw that he had +finished the lamp. The two men rose and carried it into the study, where +Peter pumped and lighted it; a bit later its brilliant white light +flooded the room. + +"Quite good." The old Captain stood rubbing his hands with his odd air +of continued delight. "How do you like this place, anyway, Peter?" He +wrapped his gown around him, sat down in the old Morris chair beside the +book-piled table, and indicated another seat for Peter. + +The mulatto took it, aware of a certain flexing of Hooker's Bend custom, +where negroes, unless old or infirm, are not supposed to sit in the +presence of whites. + +"Do you mean the study, Captain?" + +"Yes, the study, the whole place." + +"It's very pleasant," replied Peter; "it has the atmosphere of age." + +Captain Renfrew nodded. + +"These old places," pursued Peter, "always give me an impression of +statesmanship, somehow. I always think of grave old gentlemen busy with +the cares of public policy." + +The old man seemed gratified. + +"You are sensitive to atmosphere. If I may say it, every Southron of the +old régime was a statesman by nature and training. The complete care of +two or three hundred negroes, a regard for their bodily, moral, and +spiritual welfare, inevitably led the master into the impersonal +attitude of statecraft. It was a training, sir, in leadership, in social +thinking, in, if you please, altruism." The old gentleman thumped the +arm of his chair with a translucent palm. "Yes, sir, negro slavery was +God's great lesson to the South in altruism and loving-kindness, sir! My +boy, I do believe with all my heart that the institution of slavery was +placed here in God's country to rear up giants of political leadership, +that our nation might weather the revolutions of the world. Oh, the +Yankees are necessary! I know that!" The old Captain held up a palm at +Peter as if repressing an imminent retort. "I know the Yankees are the +Marthas of the nation. They furnish food and fuel to the ship of state, +but, my boy, the reservoir of our country's spiritual and mental +strength, the Mary of our nation, must always be the South. Virginia is +the mother of Presidents!" + +The Captain's oration left him rather breathless. He paused a moment, +then asked: + +"Peter, have you ever thought that we men of the leisure class owe a +debt to the world?" + +Peter smiled. + +"I know the theory of the leisure class, but I've had very little +practical experience with leisure." + +"Well, that's a subject close to my heart. As a scholar and a thinker, I +feel that I should give the fruits of my leisure to the world. Er--in +fact, Peter, that is why I sent for you to come and see me." + +"Why you sent for me?" Peter was surprised at this turn. + +"Precisely. You." + +Here the old gentleman got himself out of his chair, walked across to +one of a series of drawers in his bookcases, opened it, and took out a +sheaf of papers and a quart bottle. He brought the papers and the bottle +back to the table, made room for them, put the papers in a neat pile, +and set the bottle at a certain distance from the heap. + +"Now, Peter, please hand me one of those wineglasses in the religious +section of my library--I always keep two or three glasses among my +religious works, in memory of the fact that our Lord and Master wrought +a miracle at the feast of Cana, especially to bless the cup. Indeed, +Peter, thinking of that miracle at the wedding-feast, I wonder, sir, how +the prohibitionists can defend their conduct even to their own +consciences, because logically, sir, logically, the miracle of our +gracious Lord completely cuts away the ground from beneath their feet! + +"No wonder, when the Mikado sent a Japanese envoy to America to make a +tentative examination of Christianity as a proper creed for the state +religion of Japan--no wonder, with this miracle flouted by the +prohibitionists, the embassy carried back the report that Americans +really have no faith in the religion they profess. Shameful! Shameful! +Place the glass there on the left of the bottle. A little farther away +from the bottle, please, just a trifle more. Thank you." + +The Captain poured himself a tiny glassful, and its bouquet immediately +filled the room. There was no guessing how old that whisky was. + +"I will not break the laws of my country, Peter, no matter how godless +and sacrilegious those laws may be; therefore I cannot offer you a +drink, but you will observe a second glass among the religious works, +and the bottle sits in plain view on the table--er--em." He watched +Peter avail himself of his opportunity, and then added, "Now, you may +just drink to me, standing, as you are, like that." + +They drank, Peter standing, the old gentleman seated. + +"It is just as necessary," pursued the old connoisseur, when Peter was +reseated, "it is just as necessary for a gentleman to have a delicate +palate for the tints of the vine as it is for him to have a delicate eye +for the tints of the palette. Nature bestowed a taste both in art and +wine on man, which he should strive to improve at every opportunity. It +is a gift from God. Perhaps you would like another glass. No? Then +accommodate me." + +He drained this one, with Peter standing, worked his withered lips back +and forth to experience its full taste, then swallowed, and smacked. + +"Now, Peter," he said, "the reason I asked you to come to see me is that +I need a man about this house. That will be one phase of your work. The +more important part is that you shall serve as a sort of secretary. I +have here a manuscript." He patted the pile of papers. "My handwriting +is rather difficult. I want you to copy this matter out and get it ready +for the printer." + +Peter became more and more astonished. + +"Are you offering me a permanent place, Captain Renfrew?" he asked. + +The old man nodded. + +"I need a man with a certain liberality of culture. I will no doubt have +you run through books and periodicals and make note of any points +germane to my thesis." + +Peter looked at the pile of script on the table. + +"That is very flattering, Captain; but the fact is, I came by your place +at this hour because I am just in the act of leaving here on the +steamboat to-night." + +The Captain looked at Peter with concern on his face. "Leaving Hooker's +Bend?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Why?" + +Peter hesitated. + +"Well, my mother is dead--" + +"Yes, but your--your--your work is still here, Peter." The Captain fell +into a certain confusion. "A man's work, Peter; a man's work." + +"Do you mean my school-teaching?" + +Then came a pause. The conversation somehow had managed to leave them +both somewhat at sea. The Captain began again, in a different tone: + +"Peter, I wish you to remain here with me for another reason. I am an +old man, Peter. Anything could happen to me here in this big house, and +nobody would know it. I don't like to think of it." The old man's tone +quite painted his fears. "I am not afraid of death, Peter. I have walked +before God all my life save in one or two points, which, I believe, in +His mercy, He has forgiven me; but I cannot endure the idea of being +found here some day in some unconsidered posture, fallen out of a chair, +or a-sprawl on the floor. I wish to die with dignity, Peter, as I have +lived." + +"Then you mean that you want me to stay here with you until--until the +end, Captain?" + +The old man nodded. + +"That is my desire, Peter, for an honorarium which you yourself shall +designate. At my death, you will receive some proper portion of my +estate; in fact, the bulk of my estate, because I leave no other heirs. +I am the last Renfrew of my race, Peter." + +Peter grew more and more amazed as the old gentleman unfolded this +strange proposal. What queerer, pleasanter berth could he find than that +offered him here in the quietude of the old manor, among books, tending +the feeble flame of this old aristocrat's life? An air of scholasticism +hung about the library. In some corner of this dark oaken library his +philosophies would rest comfortably. + +Then it occurred to Peter that he would have to continue his sleeping +and eating in Niggertown, and since his mother had died and his rupture +with Cissie, the squalor and smells of the crescent had become +impossible. He told the old Captain his objections as diplomatically as +possible. The old man made short work of them. He wanted Peter to sleep +in the manor within calling distance, and he might begin this very night +and stay on for a week or so as a sort of test whether he liked the +position or not. The Captain waited with some concern until Peter agreed +to a trial. + +After that the old gentleman talked on interminably of the South, of the +suffrage movement, the destructive influence it would have on the home, +the Irish question, the Indian question, whether the mound-builders did +not spring from the two lost tribes of Israel--an endless outpouring of +curious facts, quaint reasoning, and extraordinary conclusions, all +delivered with the great dignity and in the flowing periods of an +orator. + +It was fully two o'clock in the morning when it occurred to the Captain +that his new secretary might like to go to bed. The old man took the +hand-lamp which was still burning and led the way out to the back piazza +past a number of doors to a corner bedroom. He shuffled along in his +carpet slippers, followed by the black-and-white cat, which ran along, +making futile efforts to rub itself against his lean shanks. Peter +followed in a sort of stupor from the flood of words, ideas, and strange +fancies that had been poured into his ears. + +The Captain turned off the piazza into one of those old-fashioned +Southern rooms with full-length windows, which were really glazed doors, +a ceiling so high that Peter could make out only vague concentric rings +of stucco-work among the shadows overhead, and a floor space of ball- +room proportions. In one corner was a huge canopy bed, across from it a +clothes-press of dark wood, and in another corner a large screen hiding +the bathing arrangements. + +Peter's bedroom was a sleeping apartment, in the old sense of the word +before the term "apartment" had lost its dignity. + +The Captain placed the lamp on the great table and indicated Peter's +possession with a wave of the hand. + +"If you stay here, Peter, I will put in a call-bell, so I can awaken you +if I need you during the night. Now I wish you healthful slumbers and +pleasant dreams." With that the old gentleman withdrew ceremoniously. + +When the Captain was gone, the mulatto remained standing in the vast +expanse, marveling over this queer turn of fortune. Why Captain Renfrew +had selected him as a secretary and companion Peter could not fancy. + +The magnificence of his surroundings revived his late dream of a +honeymoon with Cissie. Certainly, in his fancy, he had visioned a +honeymoon in Pullman parlor cars and suburban bungalows. He had been +mistaken. This great chamber rose about him like a corrected proof of +his desire. + +Into just such a room he would like to lead Cissie; into this great room +that breathed pride and dignity. What a glowing heart the girl would +have made for its somber magnificence! + +He walked over to the full-length windows and opened them; then he +unbolted the jalousies outside and swung them back. The musk of autumn +weeds breathed in out of the darkness. Peter drew a long breath, with a +sort of wistful melting in his chest. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + +A turmoil aroused Peter Siner the next morning, and when he discovered +where he was, in the big canopy bed in the great room, he listened +curiously and heard a continuous chattering and quarreling. After a +minute or two he recognized the voice of old Rose Hobbett. Rose was +cooking the Captain's breakfast, and she performed this function in a +kind of solitary rage. She banged the vessels, slammed the stove-eyes on +and off, flung the stove-wood about, and kept up a snarling +animadversion upon every topic that drifted through her kinky head. She +called the kitchen a rat-hole, stated the Captain must be as mean as the +devil to live as long as he did, complained that no one ever paid any +attention to her, that she might as well be a stray cat, and so on. + +As Peter grew wider awake, the monotony of the old negress's rancor +faded into an unobserved noise. He sat up on the edge of his bed between +the parted curtains and divined there was a bath behind the screen in +the corner of his room. Sure enough, he found two frayed but clean +towels, a pan, a pitcher, and a small tub all made of tin. Peter +assembled his find and began splashing his heavily molded chest with a +feeling of well-being. As he splashed on the water, he amused himself by +listening again to old Rose. She was now complaining that some white +young'uns had called her "raving Rose." She hoped "God'lmighty would +send down two she bears and eat 'em up." Peter was amazed by the old +crone's ability to maintain an unending flow of concentrated and aimless +virulence. + +The kitchen of the Renfrew manor was a separate building, and presently +Peter saw old Rose carrying great platters across the weed-grown +compound into the dining-room. She bore plate after plate piled high +with cookery,--enough for a company of men. A little later came a +clangor on a rusty triangle, as if she were summoning a house party. Old +Rose did things in a wholesale spirit. + +Peter started for his door, but when he had opened the shutter, he stood +hesitating. Breakfast introduced another delicate problem. He decided +not to go to the dining-room at once, but to wait and allow Captain +Renfrew to indicate whether he, Peter, should break his fast with the +master in the dining-room or with old Rose in the kitchen. + +A moment later he saw the Captain coming down the long back piazza. +Peter almost addressed his host, but the old Southerner proceeded into +the dining-room apparently without seeing Peter at all. + +The guest was gathering his breath to call good morning, but took the +cue with a negro's sensitiveness, and let his eyes run along the weeds +in the compound. The drying stalks were woven with endless spider-webs, +all white with frost. Peter stood regarding their delicate geometries a +moment longer and then reentered his room, not knowing precisely what to +do. He could hear Rose walking across the piazza to and from the dining- +room, and the clink of tableware. A few minutes later a knock came at +his door, and the old woman entered with a huge salver covered with +steaming dishes. + +The negress came into the room scowling, and seemed doubtful for a +moment just how to shut the door and still hold the tray with both +hands. She solved the problem by backing against the door tremendously. +Then she saw Peter. She straightened and stared at him with outraged +dignity. + +"Well, 'fo' Gawd! Is I bringin' dish-here breakfus' to a nigger?" + +"I suppose it's mine," agreed Peter, amused. + +"But whuffo, whuffo, nigger, is it dat you ain't come to de kitchen an' +eat off'n de shelf? Is you sick?" + +Peter admitted fair bodily vigor. + +"Den whut de debbil is I got into!" cried Rose, angrily. "I ain't gwine +wuck at no sich place, ca'yin' breakfus' to a big beef uv a nigger, +stout as a mule. Say, nigger, wha-chu doin' in heah, anyway? Hoccum +dis?" + +Peter tried to explain that he was there to do a little writing for the +Captain. + +"Well, 'fo' Gawd, when niggers gits to writin' fuh white folks, ants'll +be jumpin' fuh bullfrogs--an havin' other niggers bring dey breakfusses. +You jes as much a nigger as I is, Peter Siner, de brightes' day you ever +seen!" + +Peter began a conciliatory phrase. + +Old Rose banged the platter on the table and then threatened: + +"Dis is de las' time I fetches a moufful to you, Peter Siner, or any +other nigger. You ain't no black Jesus, even ef you is a woods calf." + +Peter paused in drawing a chair to the table. + +"What did you say, Rose?" he asked sharply. + +"You heared whut I say." + +A wave of anger went over Peter. + +"Yes, I did. You ought to be ashamed to speak ill of the dead." + +The crone tossed her malicious head, a little abashed, perhaps, yet very +glad she had succeeded in hurting Peter. She turned and went out the +door, mumbling something which might have been apology or renewed +invectives. + +Peter watched the old virago close the door and then sat down to his +breakfast. His anger presently died away, and he sat wondering what +could have happened to Rose Hobbett that had corroded her whole +existence. Did she enjoy her vituperation, her continual malice? He +tried to imagine how she felt. + +The breakfast Rose had brought him was delicious: hot biscuits of +feathery lightness, three wide slices of ham, a bowl of scrambled eggs, +a pot of coffee, some preserved raspberries, and a tiny glass of whisky. + +The plate which Captain Renfrew had set before his guest was a delicate +dawn pink ringed with a wreath of holly. It was old Worcester porcelain +of about the decade of 1760. The coffee-pot was really an old Whieldon +teapot in broad cauliflower design. Age and careless heating had given +the surface a fine reticulation. His cup and saucer, on the contrary, +were thick pieces of ware such as the cabin-boys toss about on +steamboats. The whole ceramic mélange told of the fortuities of English +colonial and early American life, of the migration of families westward. +No doubt, once upon a time, that dawn-pink Worcester had married into a +Whieldon cauliflower family. A queer sort of genealogy might be traced +among Southern families through their mixtures of tableware. + +As Peter mused over these implications of long ancestral lines, it +reminded him that he had none. Over his own past, over the lineage of +nearly every negro in the South, hung a curtain. Even the names of the +colored folk meant nothing, and gave no hint of their kin and clan. At +the end of the war between the States, Peter's people had selected names +for themselves, casually, as children pick up a pretty stone. They meant +nothing. It occurred to Peter for the first time, as he sat looking at +the chinaware, that he knew nothing about himself; whether his kinsmen +were valiant or recreant he did not know. Even his own father he knew +little about except that his mother had said his name was Peter, like +his own, and that he had gone down the river on a tie boat and was +drowned. + +A faint sound attracted Peter's attention. He looked out at his open +window and saw old Rose making off the back way with something concealed +under her petticoat. Peter knew it was the unused ham and biscuits that +she had cooked. For once the old negress hurried along without railing +at the world. She moved with a silent, but, in a way, self-respecting, +flight. Peter could see by the tilt of her head and the set of her +shoulders that not only did her spoil gratify her enmity to mankind in +general and the Captain in particular, but she was well within her +rights in her acquisition. She disappeared around a syringa bush, and +was heard no more until she reappeared to cook the noon meal, as +vitriolic as ever. + + * * * * * + +When Peter entered the library, old Captain Renfrew greeted him with +morning wishes, thus sustaining the fiction that they had not seen each +other before, that morning. + +The old gentleman seemed pleased but somewhat excited over his new +secretary. He moved some of his books aimlessly from one table to +another, placed them in exact piles as if he were just about to plunge +into heroic labor, and could not give time to such details once he had +begun. + +As he arranged his books just so, he cleared his throat. + +"Now, Peter, we want to get down to this," he announced dynamically; "do +this thing, shove this work out!" He started with tottery briskness +around to his manuscript drawer, but veered off to the left to aline +some magazines. "System, Peter, system. Without system one may well be +hopeless of performing any great literary labor; but with system, the +constant piling up of brick on brick, stone on stone--it's the way Rome +was built, my boy." + +Peter made a murmur supposed to acknowledge the correctness of this +view. + +Eventually the old Captain drew out his drawer of manuscript, stood +fumbling with it uncertainly. Now and then he glanced at Peter, a +genuine secretary who stood ready to help him in his undertaking. The +old gentleman picked up some sheets of his manuscript, seemed about to +read them aloud, but after a moment shook his head, and said, "No, we'll +do that to-night," and restored them to their places. Finally he turned +to his helper. + +"Now, Peter," he explained, "in doing this work, I always write at +night. It's quieter then,--less distraction. My mornings I spend +downtown in conversation with my friends. If you should need me, Peter, +you can walk down and find me in front of the livery-stable. I sit there +for a while each morning." + +The gravity with which he gave this schedule of his personal habits +amused Peter, who bowed with a serious, "Very well, Captain." + +"And in the meantime," pursued the old man, looking vaguely about the +room, "you will do well to familiarize yourself with my library in order +that you may be properly qualified for your secretarial labors." + +Peter agreed again. + +"And now if you will get my hat and coat, I will be off and let you go +to work," concluded the Captain, with an air of continued urgency. + +Peter became thoroughly amused at such an outcome of the old gentleman's +headlong attack on his work,--a stroll down to the village to hold +conversation with friends. The mulatto walked unsmilingly to a little +closet where the Captain hung his things. He took down the old +gentleman's tall hat, a gray greatcoat worn shiny about the shoulders +and tail, and a finely carved walnut cane. Some reminiscence of the +manners of butlers which Peter had seen in theaters caused him to swing +the overcoat across his left arm and polish the thin nap of the old hat +with his right sleeve. He presented it to his employer with a certain +duplication of a butler's obsequiousness. He offered the overcoat to the +old gentleman's arms with the same air. Then he held up the collar of +the greatcoat with one hand and with the other reached under its skirts, +and drew down the Captain's long day coat with little jerks, as if he +were going through a ritual. + +Peter grew more and more hilarious over his barber's manners. It was his +contribution to the old gentleman's literary labors, and he was doing it +beautifully, so he thought. He was just making some minute adjustments +of the collar when, to his amazement, Captain Renfrew turned on him. + +"Damn it, sir!" he flared out. "What do you think you are? I didn't +engage you for a kowtowing valet in waiting, sir! I asked you, sir, to +come under my roof as an intellectual co-worker, as one gentleman asks +another, and here you are making these niggery motions! They are +disgusting! They are defiling! They are beneath the dignity of one +gentleman to another, sir! What makes it more degrading, I perceive by +your mannerism that you assume a specious servility, sir, as if you +would flatter me by it!" + +The old lawyer's face was white. His angry old eyes jerked Peter out of +his slight mummery. The negro felt oddly like a grammar-school boy +caught making faces behind his master's back. It shocked him into +sincerer manners. + +"Captain," he said with a certain stiffness, "I apologize for my +mistake; but may I ask how you desire me to act?" + +"Simply, naturally, sir," thundered the Captain, "as one alumnus of +Harvard to another! It is quite proper for a young man, sir, to assist +an old gentleman with his hat and coat, but without fripperies and +genuflections and absurdities!" + +The old man's hauteur touched some spring of resentment in Peter. He +shook his head. + +"No, Captain; our lack of sympathy goes deeper than manners. My position +here is anomalous. For instance, I can talk to you sitting, I can drink +with you standing, but I can't breakfast with you at all. I do that +_in camera_, like a disgraceful divorce proceeding. It's precisely +as I was treated coming down here South again; it's as I've been treated +ever since I've been back; it's--" He paused abruptly and swallowed down +the rancor that filled him. "No," he repeated in a different tone, +"there is no earthly excuse for me to remain here, Captain, or to let +you go on measuring out your indulgences to me. There is no way for us +to get together or to work together--not this far South. Let me thank +you for a night's entertainment and go." + +Peter turned about, meaning to make an end of this queer adventure. + +The old Captain watched him, and his pallor increased. He lifted an +unsteady hand. + +"No, no, Peter," he objected, "not so soon. This has been no trial, no +fair trial. The little--little--er--details of our domestic life here, +they will--er--arrange themselves, Peter. Gossip--talk, you know, we +must avoid that." The old lawyer stood staring with strange eyes at his +protégé. "I--I'm interested in you, Peter. My actions may seem--odd, +but--er--a negro boy going off and doing what you have done-- +extraordinary. I--I have spoken to your mother, Caroline, about you +often. In fact, Peter, I--I made some little advances in order that you +might complete your studies. Now, now, don't thank me! It was purely +impersonal. You seemed bright. I have often thought we gentle people of +the South ought to do more to encourage our black folk--not--not as +social equals--" Here the old gentleman made a wry mouth as if he had +tasted salt. + +"Stay here and look over the library," he broke off abruptly. "We can +arrange some ground of--of common action, some--" + +He settled the lapels of his great-coat with precision, addressed his +palm to the knob of his stick, and marched stiffly out of the library, +around the piazza, and along the dismantled walk to the front gate. + +Peter stood utterly astonished at this strange information. Suddenly he +ran after the old lawyer, and rounded the turn of the piazza in time to +see him walk stiffly down the shaded street with tremulous dignity. The +old gentleman was much the same as usual, a little shakier, perhaps, his +tall hat a little more polished, his shiny gray overcoat set a little +more snugly at the collar. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + +The village of Hooker's Bend amuses itself mainly with questionable +jests that range all the way from the slightly brackish to the +hopelessly obscene. Now, in using this type of anecdote, the Hooker's- +Benders must not be thought to design an attack upon the decencies of +life; on the contrary, they are relying on the fact that their hearers +have, in the depths of their beings, a profound reverence for the object +of their sallies. And so, by taking advantage of the moral shock they +produce and linking it to the idea of an absurdity, they convert the +whole psychical reaction into an explosion of humor. Thus the ring of +raconteurs telling blackguardly stories around the stoves in Hooker's +Bend stores, are, in reality, exercising one another in the more +delicate sentiments of life, and may very well be classed as a round +table of Sir Galahads, _sans peur et sans reproche_. + +However, the best men weary in well doing, and for the last few days +Hooker's Bend had switched from its intellectual staple of conversation +to consider the comedy of Tump Pack's undoing. The incident held +undeniably comic elements. For Tump to start out carrying a forty-four, +meaning to blow a rival out of his path, and to wind up hard at work, +picking cotton at nothing a day for a man whose offer of three dollars a +day he had just refused, certainly held the makings of a farce. + +On the heels of this came the news that Peter Siner meant to take +advantage of Tump's arrest and marry Cissie Dildine. Old Parson Ranson +was responsible for the spread of this last rumor. He had fumbled badly +in his effort to hold Peter's secret. Not once, but many times, always +guarded by a pledge of secrecy, had he revealed the approaching wedding. +When pressed for a date, the old negro said he was "not at lib'ty to +tell." + +Up to this point white criticism viewed the stage-setting of the black +comedy with the impersonal interest of a box party. Some of the round +table said they believed there would be a dead coon or so before the +scrape was over. + +Dawson Bobbs, the ponderous constable, went to the trouble to telephone +Mr. Cicero Throgmartin, for whom Tump was working, cautioning +Throgmartin to make sure that Tump Pack was in the sleeping-shack every +night, as he might get wind of the wedding and take a notion to bolt and +stop it. "You know, you can't tell what a fool nigger'll do," finished +Bobbs. + +Throgmartin was mildly amused, promised the necessary precautions, and +said: + +"It looks like Peter has put one over on Tump, and maybe a college +education does help a nigger some, after all." + +The constable thought it was just luck. + +"Well, I dunno," said Throgmartin, who was a philosopher, and inclined +to view every matter from various angles. "Peter may of worked this out +somehow." + +"Have you heard what Henry Hooker done to Siner in the land deal?" + +Throgmartin said he had. + +"No, I don't mean _that_. I mean Henry's last wrinkle in +garnisheeing old Ca'line's estate in his bank for the rest of the +purchase money on the Dilihay place." + +There was a pause. + +"You don't mean it!" + +"Damn 'f I don't." + +The constable's sentence shook with suppressed mirth, and the next +moment roars of laughter came over the telephone wire. + +"Say, ain't he the bird!" + +"He's the original early bird. I'd like to get a snap-shot of the worm +that gets away from him." + +Both men laughed heartily again. + +"But, say," objected Throgmartin, who was something of a lawyer +himself,--as, indeed, all Southern men are,--"I thought the Sons and +Daughters of Benevolence owed Hooker, not Peter Siner, nor Ca'line's +estate." + +"Well, it _is_ the Sons and Daughters, but Ca'line was one of 'em, +and they ain't no limited li'bility 'sociation. Henry can jump on +anything any of 'em's got. Henry got the Persimmon to bring him a copy +of their by-laws." + +"Well, I swear! Say, if Henry wasn't kind of held back by his religion, +he'd use a gun, wouldn't he?" + +"I dunno. I can say this for Henry's religion: 'It's jest like Henry's +wife,--it's the dearest thing to his heart; he'd give his life for it, +but it don't do nobody a damn bit of good except jest Henry.'" + +The constable's little eyes twinkled as he heard Throgmartin roaring +with laughter and sputtering appreciative oaths. + +At that moment a ringing of the bell jarred the ears of both +telephonists. A voice asked for Dr. Jallup. It was an ill time to +interrupt two gentlemen. The flair of a jest is lost in a pause. The +officer stated sharply that he was the constable of Wayne County and was +talking business about the county's prisoners. His tone was so charged +with consequence that the voice that wanted a doctor apologized hastily +and ceased. + +Came a pause in which neither man found anything to say. Laughter is +like that,--a gay bubble that a touch will destroy. Presently Bobbs +continued, gravely enough: + +"Talking about Siner, he's stayin' up at old man Renfrew's now." + +"'At so?" + +"Old Rose Hobbett swears he's doin' some sort of writin' up there and +livin' in one of the old man's best rooms." + +"Hell he is!" + +"Yeah?" the constable's voice questioned Throgmartin's opinion about +such heresy and expressed his own. + +"D' recken it's so? Old Rose is such a thief and a liar." + +"Nope," declared the constable, "the old nigger never would of made up a +lie like that,--never would of thought of it. Old Cap'n Renfrew's +gettin' childish; this nigger's takin' advantage of it. Down at the +liver'-stable the boys were talkin' about Siner goin' to git married, +an' dern if old man Renfrew didn't git cut up about it!" + +"Well," opined Throgmartin, charitably, "the old man livin' there all by +himself--I reckon even a nigger is some comp'ny. They're funny damn +things, niggers is; never know a care nor trouble. Lord! I wish I was as +care-free as they are!" + +"Don't you, though!" agreed the constable, with the weight of the white +man's burden on his shoulders. For this is a part of the Southern +credo,--that all negroes are gay, care-free, and happy, and that if one +could only be like the negroes, gay, care-free, and happy--Ah, if one +could only be like the negroes! + +None of this gossip reached Peter directly, but a sort of back-wash did +catch him keenly through young Sam Arkwright and serve as a conundrum +for several days. + +One morning Peter was bringing an armful of groceries up the street to +the old manor, and he met the boy coming in the opposite direction. The +negro's mind was centered on a peculiar problem he had found in the +Renfrew library, so, according to a habit he had acquired in Boston, he +took the right-hand side of the pavement, which chanced to be the inner +side. This violated a Hooker's-Bend convention, which decrees that when +a white and a black meet on the sidewalk, the black man invariably shall +take the outer side. + +For this _faux pas_ the gangling youth stopped Peter, fell to +abusing and cursing him for his impudence, his egotism, his attempt at +social equality,--all of which charges, no doubt, were echoes from the +round table. Such wrath over such an offense was unusual. Ordinarily, a +white villager would have thought several uncomplimentary things about +Peter, but would have said nothing. + +Peter stopped with a shock of surprise, then listened to the whole +diatribe with a rising sense of irritation and irony. Finally, without a +word, he corrected his mistake by retracing his steps and passing Sam +again, this time on the outside. + +Peter walked on up the street, outwardly calm, but his ears burned, and +the queer indignity stuck in his mind. As he went along he invented all +sorts of ironical remarks he might have made to Arkwright, which would +have been unwise; then he thought of sober reasoning he could have used, +which would perhaps have been just as ill-advised. Still later he +wondered why Arkwright had fallen into such a rage over such a trifle. +Peter felt sure there was some contributing rancor in the youth's mind. +Perhaps he had received a scolding at home or a whipping at school, or +perhaps he was in the midst of one of those queer attacks of megalomania +from which adolescents are chronic sufferers. Peter fancied this and +that, but he never came within hail of the actual reason. + +When the brown man reached the old manor, the quietude of the library, +with its blackened mahogany table, its faded green Axminster, the +meridional globe with its dusty twinkle, banished the incident from his +mind. He returned to his work of card-indexing the Captain's books. He +took half a dozen at a time from the shelves, dusted them on the piazza, +then carried them to the embrasure of the window, which offered a +pleasant light for reading and for writing the cards. + +He went through volume after volume,--speeches by Clay, Calhoun, Yancy, +Prentiss, Breckenridge; an old life of General Taylor, Foxe's "Book of +Martyrs"; a collection of the old middle-English dramatists, such as +Lillo, Garrick, Arthur Murphy, Charles Macklin, George Colman, Charles +Coffey, men whose plays have long since declined from the boards and +disappeared from the reading-table. + +The Captain's collection of books was strongly colored by a religious +cast,--John Wesley's sermons, Charles Wesley's hymns; a treatise +presenting a biblical proof that negroes have no souls; a little book +called "Flowers Gathered," which purported to be a compilation of the +sayings of ultra-pious children, all of whom died young; an old book +called "Elements of Criticism," by Henry Home of Kames; another tome +entitled "Studies of Nature," by St. Pierre. This last was a long +argument for the miraculous creation of the world as set forth in +Genesis. The proof offered was a résumé of the vegetable, animal, and +mineral kingdoms, showing their perfect fitness for man's use, and the +immediate induction was that they were designed for man's use. Still +another work calculated the exact age of the earth by the naïve method +of counting the generations from Adam to Christ, to the total adding +eighteen hundred and eighty-five years (for the book was written in +1885), and the original six days it required the Lord to build the +earth. By referring to Genesis and finding out precisely what the +Creator did on the morning of the first day, the writer contrived to +bring his calculation of the age of the earth and everything in the +world to a precision of six hours, give or take,--a somewhat closer +schedule than that made by the Tennessee river boats coming up from St. +Louis. + +These and similar volumes formed the scientific section of Captain +Renfrew's library, and it was this paucity of the natural sciences that +formed the problem which Peter tried to solve. All scientific additions +came to an abrupt stop about the decade of 1880-90. That was the date +when Charles Darwin's great fructifying theory, enunciated in 1859, +began to seep into the South. + +In the Captain's library the only notice of evolution was a book called +"Darwinism Dethroned." As for the elaborations of the Darwinian +hypothesis by Spencer, Fiske, DeVries, Weismann, Haeckel, Kidd, Bergson, +and every subsequent philosophic or biologic writer, all these men might +never have written a line so far as Captain Renfrew's library was +informed. + +Now, why such extraordinary occlusions? Why should Captain Renfrew deny +himself the very commonplaces of thought, theories familiarly held by +the rest of America, and, indeed, by all the rest of the civilized +world? + +Musing by the window, Peter succeeded in stating his problem more +broadly: Why was Captain Renfrew an intellectual reactionist? The old +gentleman was the reverse of stupid. Why should he confine his selection +of books to a few old oddities that had lost their battle against a +theory which had captured the intellectual world fifty years before? + +Nor was it Captain Renfrew alone. Now and then Peter saw editorials +appearing in leading Southern journals, seriously attacking the +evolutionary hypothesis. Ministers in respectable churches still +fulminated against it. Peter knew that the whole South still clings, in +a way, to the miraculous and special creation of the earth as described +in Genesis. It clings with an intransigentism and bitterness far +exceeding other part of America. Why? To Peter the problem appeared +insoluble. + +He sat by the window lost in his reverie. Just outside the ledge half a +dozen English sparrows abused one another with chirps that came faintly +through the small diamond panes. Their quick movements held Peter's +eyes, and their endless quarreling presently recalled his episode with +young Arkwright. It occurred to him, casually, that when Arkwright grew +up he would subscribe to every reactionary doctrine set forth in the +library Peter was indexing. + +With that thought came a sort of mental flare, as if he were about to +find the answer to the whole question through the concrete attack made +on him by Sam. + +It is an extraordinary feeling,--the sudden, joyful dawn of a new idea. +Peter sat up sharply and leaned forward with a sense of being right on +the fringe of a new and a great perception. Young Arkwright, the old +Captain, the whole South, were unfolding themselves in a vast answer, +when a movement outside the window caught the negro's introspective +eyes. + +A girl was passing; a girl in a yellow dress was passing the Renfrew +gate. Even then Peter would not have wavered in his synthesis had not +the girl paused slightly and given a swift side glance at the old manor. +Then the man in the window recognized Cissie Dildine. + +A slight shock traveled through Siner's body at the sight of Cissie's +colorless face and darkened eyes. He stood up abruptly, with a feeling +that he had some urgent thing to say to the young woman. His sharp +movement toppled over the big globe. + +The crash caused the girl to stop and look. For a moment they stood +thus, the girl in the chill street, the man in the pleasant window, +looking at each other. Next moment Cissie hurried on up the village +street toward the Arkwright house. No doubt she was on her way to cook +the noon meal. + +Peter remained standing at the window, with a heavily beating heart. He +watched her until she vanished behind a wing of the shrubbery in the +Renfrew yard. + +When she had gone, he looked at his books and cards, sat down, and tried +to resume his indexing. But his mind played away from it like a restive +horse. It had been two weeks since he last saw Cissie. Two weeks.... His +nerves vibrated like the strings of a pianoforte. He had scarcely +thought of her during the fortnight; but now, having seen her, he found +himself powerless to go on with his work. He pottered a while longer +among the books and cards, but they were meaningless. They appeared an +utter futility. Why index a lot of nonsense? Somehow this recalled his +flare, his adumbration of some great idea connected with young Arkwright +and the old Captain, and the South. + +He put his trembling nerves to work, trying to recapture his line of +thought. He sat for ten minutes, following this mental train, then that, +losing one, groping for another. His thoughts were jumpy. They played +about Arkwright, the Captain, Cissie, his mother's death, Tump Pack in +prison, the quarrel between the Persimmon and Jim Pink Staggs. The whole +of Niggertown came rushing down upon him, seizing him in its passion and +dustiness and greasiness, putting to flight all his cultivated white-man +ideas. + +After half an hour's searching he gave it up. Before he left the room he +stooped, and tried to set up again the globe that the passing of the +girl had caused him to throw down; but its pivot was out of plumb, and +he had to lean it against the window-seat. + +The sight of Captain Renfrew coming in at the gate sent Peter to his +room. The hour was near twelve, and it had become a little point of +household etiquette for the mulatto and the white man not to be together +when old Rose jangled the triangle. By this means they forestalled the +mute discourtesy of the old Captain's walking away from his secretary to +eat. The subject of their separate meals had never been mentioned since +their first acrimonious morning. The matter had dropped into the +abeyance of custom, just as the old gentleman had predicted. + +Peter had left open his jalousies, but his windows were closed, and now +as he entered he found his apartment flooded with sunshine and filled +with that equable warmth that comes of straining sunbeams through glass. + + +He prepared for dinner with his mind still hovering about Cissie. He +removed a book and a lamp from the lion-footed table, and drew up an old +chair with which the Captain had furnished his room. It was a delicate +old Heppelwhite of rosewood. It had lost a finial from one of its back +standards, and a round was gone from the left side. Peter never moved +the chair that vague plans sometime to repair it did not occur to him. + +When he had cleared his table and placed his chair beside it, he +wandered over to his tall west window and stood looking up the street +through the brilliant sunshine, toward the Arkwright home. No one was in +sight. In Hooker's Bend every one dines precisely at twelve, and at that +hour the streets are empty. It would be some time before Cissie came +back down the street on her way to Niggertown. She first would have to +wash and put away the Arkwright dishes. It would be somewhere about one +o'clock. Nevertheless, he kept staring out through the radiance of the +autumn sunlight with an irrational feeling that she might appear at any +moment. He was afraid she would slip past and he not see her at all. The +thought disturbed him somewhat. It kept him sufficiently on the alert to +stand tapping the balls of his fingers against the glass and looking +steadily toward the Arkwright house. + +Presently the watcher perceived that a myriad spider-webs filled the +sunshine with a delicate dancing glister. It was the month of voyaging +spiders. Invisible to Peter, the tiny spinners climbed to the tip-most +twigs of the dead weeds, listed their abdomens, and lassoed the wind +with gossamer lariats; then they let go and sailed away to a hazard of +new fortunes. The air was full of the tiny adventurers. As he stared up +the street, Peter caught the glint of these invisible airships whisking +away to whatever chance might hold for them. There was something epic in +it. It recalled to the mulatto's mind some of Fabre's lovely +descriptions. It reminded him of two or three books on entomology which +he had left in his mother's cabin. He felt he ought to go after them +while the spiders were migrating. He suddenly made up his mind he would +go at once, as soon as he had had dinner; somewhere about one o'clock. + +He looked again at the Arkwright house. The thought of walking down the +street with Cissie, to get his books, quickened his heart. + +He was still at the window when his door opened and old Rose entered +with his dinner. She growled under her breath all the way from the door +to the table on which she placed the tray. Only a single phrase detached +itself and stood out clearly amid her mutterings, "Hope it chokes you." + +Peter arranged his chair and table with reference to the window, so he +could look up the street while he was eating his dinner. + +The ill-wishing Rose had again furnished a gourmet's meal, but Peter's +preoccupation prevented its careful and appreciative gustation. An +irrational feeling of the octoroon's imminence spurred him to fast +eating. He had hardly begun his soup before he found himself drinking +swiftly, looking up the street over his spoon, as if he meant to rush +out and swing aboard a passing train. + +Siner checked his precipitation, annoyed at himself. He began again, +deliberately, with an attempt to keep his mind on the savor of his food. +He even thought of abandoning his little design of going for the books; +or he would go at a different hour, or to-morrow, or not at all. He told +himself he would far better allow Cissie Dildine to pass and repass +unspoken to, instead of trying to arrange an accidental meeting. But the +brown man's nerves wouldn't hear to it. That automatic portion of his +brain and spinal column which, physiologists assert, performs three +fourths of a man's actions and conditions nine tenths of his volitions-- +that part of Peter wouldn't consider it. It began to get jumpy and +scatter havoc in Peter's thoughts at the mere suggestion of not seeing +Cissie. Imperceptibly this radical left wing of his emotions speeded up +his meal, again. He caught himself, stopped his knife and fork in the +act of rending apart a broiled chicken. + +"Confound it! I'll start when she comes in sight, no matter whether I've +finished this meal or not," he promised himself. + +And suddenly he felt unhurried, in the midst of a large leisure, with a +savory broiled chicken dinner before him,--not exactly before him, +either; most of it had been stuffed away. Only the fag-end remained on +his plate. A perfectly good meal had been ruined by an ill-timed +resistance to temptation. + +The glint of a yellow dress far up the street had just prompted him to +swift action when the door opened and old Rose put her head in to say +that Captain Renfrew wanted to see Peter in the library. + +The brown man came to a shocked standstill. + +"What! Right now?" he asked. + +"Yeah, right now," carped Rose. "Ever'thing he wants, he wants right +now. He's been res'less as a cat in a bulldog's den ever sence he come +home fuh dinner. Dunno whut's come into he ole bones, runnin' th'ugh his +dinner lak a razo'-back." She withdrew in a continued mumble of censure. + +Peter cast a glance up the street, timed Cissie's arrival at the front +gate, picked up his hat, and walked briskly to the library in the hope +of finishing any business the Captain might have, in time to encounter +the octoroon. He even began making some little conversational plans with +which he could meet Cissie in a simple, unstudied manner. He recalled +with a certain satisfaction that he had not said a word of condemnation +the night of Cissie's confession. He would make a point of that, and was +prepared to argue that, since he had said nothing, he meant nothing. In +fact he was prepared to throw away the truth completely and enter the +conversation as an out-and-out opportunist, alleging whatever appeared +to fit the occasion, as all men talk to all women. + +The old Captain was just getting into his chair as Peter entered. He +paused in the midst of lowering himself by the chair-arms and got erect +again. He began speaking a little uncertainly: + +"Ah--by the way, Peter--I sent for you--" + +"Yes, sir." Peter looked out at the window. + +The old gentleman scrutinized Peter a moment; then his faded eyes +wandered about the library. + +"Still working at the books, cross-indexing them--" + +"Yes, sir." Peter could divine by the crinkle of his nerves the very +loci of the girl as she passed down the thoroughfare. + +"Very good," said the old lawyer, absently. He was obviously preoccupied +with some other topic. "Very good," he repeated with racking +deliberation; "quite good. How did that globe get bent?" + +Peter, looking at it, did not remember either knocking it over or +setting it up. + +"I don't know," he said rapidly. "I hadn't noticed it." + +"Old Rose did it," meditated the Captain aloud, "but it's no use to +accuse her of it; she'd deny it. And yet, on the other hand, Peter, +she'll be nervous until I do accuse her of it. She'll be dropping +things, breaking up my china. I dare say I'd best accuse her at once, +storm at her some to quiet her nerves, and get it over." + +This monologue spurred Peter's impatience into an agony. + +"I believe you were wanting me, Captain?" he suggested, with a certain +urge for action. + +The Captain's little pleasantry faded. He looked at Peter and became +uncomfortable again. + +"Well, yes, Peter. Downtown I heard--well, a rumor connected with you--" + +Such an extraordinary turn caught the attention of even the fidgety +Peter. He looked at his employer and wondered blankly what he had heard. + +"I don't want to intrude on your private affairs, Peter, not at all-- +not--not in the least--" + +"No-o-o," agreed Peter, completely at a loss. + +The old gentleman rubbed his thin hands together, lifted his eyebrows up +and down nervously. "Are--are you about to--to leave me, Peter?" + +Peter was greatly surprised at the slightness and simplicity of this +question and at the evidence of emotion it carried. + +"Why, no," he cried; "not at all! Who told you I was? It is a deep +gratification to me--" + +"To be exact," proceeded the old man, with a vague fear still in his +eyes, "I heard you were going to marry." + +"Marry!" This flaw took Peter's sails even more unexpectedly than the +other. "Captain, who in the world--who could have told--" + +"Are you?" + +"No." + +"You aren't?" + +"Indeed, no!" + +"I heard you were going to marry a negress here in town called Cissie +Dildine." A question was audible in the silence that followed this +statement. The obscure emotion that charged all the old man's queries +affected Peter. + +"I am not, Captain," he declared earnestly; "that's settled." + +"Oh--you say it's settled," picked up the old lawyer, delicately. + +"Yes." + +"Then you had thought of it?" Immediately, however, he corrected this +breach of courtesy into which his old legal habit of cross-questioning +had led him. "Well, at any rate," he said in quite another voice, "that +eases my mind, Peter. It eases my mind. It was not only, Peter, the +thought of losing you, but this girl you were thinking of marrying--let +me warn you, Peter--she's a negress." + +The mulatto stared at the strange objection. + +"A negress!" + +The old man paused and made that queer movement with his wrinkled lips +as if he tasted some salty flavor. + +"I--I don't mean exactly a--a negress," stammered the old gentleman; "I +mean she's not a--a good girl, Peter; she's a--a thief, in fact--she's a +thief--a thief, Peter. I couldn't endure for you to marry a thief, +Peter." + +It seemed to Peter Siner that some horrible compulsion kept the old +Captain repeating over and over the fact that Cissie Dildine was a +thief, a thief, a thief. The word cut the very viscera in the brown man. +At last, when it seemed the old gentleman would never cease, Peter +lifted a hand. + +"Yes, yes," he gasped, with a sickly face, "I--I've heard that before." + +He drew a shaken breath and moistened his lips. The two stood looking at +each other, each profoundly at a loss as to what the other meant. Old +Captain Renfrew collected himself first. + +"That is all, Peter." He tried to lighten his tones. "I think I'll get +to work. Let me see, where do I keep my manuscript?" + +Peter pointed mechanically at a drawer as he walked out at the library +door. Once outside, he ran to the front piazza, then to the front gate, +and with a racing heart stood looking up and down the sleepy +thoroughfare. The street was quite empty. + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + +Old Captain Renfrew was a trustful, credulous soul, as, indeed, most +gentleman who lead a bachelor's life are. Such men lack that moral +hardening and whetting which is obtained only amid the vicissitudes of a +home; they are not actively and continuously engaged in the employment +and detection of chicane; want of intimate association with a woman and +some children begets in them a soft and simple way of believing what is +said to them. And their faith, easily raised, is just as easily +shattered. Their judgment lacks training. + +Peter Siner's simple assertion to the old Captain that he was not going +to marry Cissie Dildine completely allayed the old gentleman's +uneasiness. Even the further information that Peter had had such a +marriage under advisement, but had rejected it, did not put him on his +guard. + +From long non-intimacy with any human creature, the old legislator had +forgotten that human life is one long succession of doing the things one +is not going to do; he had forgotten, if he ever knew, that the human +brain is primarily not a master, but a servant; its function is not to +direct, but to devise schemes and apologies to gratify impulses. It is +the ways and means committee to the great legislature of the body. + +For several days after his fear that Peter Siner would marry Cissie +Dildine old Captain Renfrew was as felicitous as a lover newly +reconciled to his mistress. He ambled between the manor and the livery- +stable with an abiding sense of well-being. When he approached his home +in the radiance of high noon and saw the roof of the old mansion lying a +bluish gray in the shadows of the trees, it filled his heart with joy to +feel that it was not an old and empty house that awaited his coming, but +that in it worked a busy youth who would be glad to see him enter the +gate. + +The fear of some unattended and undignified death which had beset the +old gentleman during the last eight or ten years of his life vanished +under Peter's presence. When he thought of it at all now, he always +previsioned himself being lifted in Peter's athletic arms and laid +properly on his big four-poster. + +At times, when Peter sat working over the books in the library, the +Captain felt a prodigious urge to lay a hand on the young man's broad +and capable shoulder. But he never did. Again, the old lawyer would sit +for minutes at a time watching his secretary's regular features as the +brown man pursued his work with a trained intentness. The old gentleman +derived a deep pleasure from such long scrutinies. It pleased him to +imagine that, when he was young, he had possessed the same vigor, the +same masculinity, the same capacity for persistent labor. Indeed, all +old gentlemen are prone to choose the most personable and virile young +man they can find for themselves to have been like. + +The two men had little to say to each other. Their thoughts beat to such +different tempos that any attempt at continued speech discovered unequal +measures. As a matter of fact, in all comfortable human conversation, +words are used as mere buoys dropped here and there to mark well-known +channels of thought and feeling. Similarity of mental topography is +necessary to mutual understanding. Between any two generations the +landscape is so changed as to be unrecognizable. Our fathers are +monarchists; our sons, bolsheviki. + +Old Rose Hobbett was more of an age with the Captain, and these two +talked very comfortably as the old virago came and went with food at +meal-time. For instance, the Captain always asked his servant if she had +fed his cat, and old Rose invariably would sulk and poke out her lips +and put off answering to the last possible moment of insolence, then +would grumble out that she was jes 'bout to feed the varmint, an' 't wuz +funny nobody couldn't give a hard-wuckin' colored woman breathin'-space +to turn roun' in. + +This reply was satisfactory to the Captain, because he knew what it +meant,--that Rose had half forgotten the cat, and had meant wholly to +forget it, but since she had been snapped up, so to speak, in the very +act of forgetting, she would dole it out a piece or two of the meat that +she had meant to abscond with as soon as the dishes were done. + +While Rose was fulminating, the old gentleman recalled his bent globe +and decided the moment had come for a lecture on that point. It always +vaguely embarrassed the Captain to correct Rose, and this increased his +dignity. Now he cleared his throat in a certain way that brought the old +negress to attention, so well they knew each other. + +"By the way, Rose, in the future I must request you to use extraordinary +precautions in cleansing and dusting articles of my household furniture, +or, in case of damage, I shall be forced to withhold an indemnification +out of your pay." + +Eight or ten years ago, when the Captain first repeated this formula to +his servant, the roll and swing of his rhetoric, and the last word, +"pay," had built up lively hopes in Rose that the old gentleman was +announcing an increase in her regular wage of a dollar a week. +Experience, however, had long since corrected this faulty +interpretation. + +She came to a stand in the doorway, with her kinky gray head swung +around, half puzzled, wholly rebellious. + +"Whut is I bruk now?" + +"My globe." + +The old woman turned about with more than usual innocence. + +"Why, I ain't tech yo' globe!" + +"I foresaw that," agreed the Captain, with patient irony, "but in the +future don't touch it more carefully. You bent its pivot the last time +you refrained from handling it." + +"But I tell you I ain't tech yo' globe!" cried the negress, with the +anger of an illiterate person who feels, but cannot understand, the +satire leveled at her. + +"I agree with you," said the Captain, glad the affair was over. + +This verbal ducking into the cellar out of the path of her storm stirred +up a tempest. + +"But I tell you I ain't bruk it!" + +"That's what I said." + +"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she flared; "you says I ain't, but when you says I +ain't, you means I is, an' when you says I is, you means I ain't. Dat's +de sort o' flapjack I's wuckin' fur!" + +The woman flirted out of the dining-room, and the old gentleman drew +another long breath, glad it was over. He really had little reason to +quarrel about the globe, bent or unbent; he never used it. It sat in his +study year in and year out, its dusty twinkle brightened at long +intervals by old Rose's spiteful rag. + +The Captain ate on placidly. There had been a time when he was dubious +about such scenes with Rose. Once he felt it beneath his dignity as a +Southern gentleman to allow any negro to speak to him disrespectfully. +He used to feel that he should discharge her instantly and during the +first years of their entente had done so a number of times. But he could +get no one else who suited him so well; her biscuits, her corn-light- +bread, her lye-hominy, which only the old darkies know how to make. And, +to tell the truth, he missed the old creature herself, her understanding +of him and his ideas, her contemporaneity; and no one else would work +for a dollar a week. + +Presently in the course of his eating the old gentleman required another +biscuit, and he wanted a hot one. Three mildly heated disks lay on a +plate before him, but they had been out of the oven for five minutes and +had been reduced to an unappetizing tepidity. + +A little hand-bell sat beside the Captain's plate whose special use was +to summon hot biscuits. Now, the old lawyer looked at its worn handle +speculatively. He was not at all sure Rose would answer the bell. She +would say she hadn't heard it. He felt faintly disgruntled at not +foreseeing this exigency and buttering two biscuits while they were hot, +or even three. + +He considered momentarily a project of going after a hot biscuit for +himself, but eventually put it by. South of the Mason-Dixon Line, self- +help is half-scandal. At last, quite dubiously, he did pick up the bell +and gave it a gentle ring, so if old Rose chose not to hear it, she +probably wouldn't: thus he could believe her and not lose his temper and +so widen an already uncomfortable breach. + +To the Captain's surprise, the old creature not only brought the +biscuits, but she did it promptly. No sooner had she served them, +however, than the Captain saw she really had returned with a new line of +defense. + +She mumbled it out as usual, so that her employer was forced to guess at +a number of words: "Dat nigger, Peter, mus' 'a' busted yo' gl--" + +"No, he didn't." + +"Mus' uv." + +"No, he didn't. I asked him, and he said he didn't." + +The old harridan stared, and her speech suddenly became clear-cut: + +"Well, 'fo' Gawd, I says I didn't, too!" + +At this point the Captain made an unintelligible sound and spread the +butter on his hot biscuit. + +"He's jes a nigger, lak I is," stated the cook, warmly. + +The Captain buttered a second hot biscuit. + +"We's jes two niggers." + +The Captain hoped she would presently sputter herself out. + +"Now look heah," cried the crone, growing angrier and angrier as the +reaches of the insult spread itself before her, "is you gwine to put one +o' us niggers befo' de udder? Ca'se ef you is, I mus' say, it's Kady- +lock-a-do' wid me." + +The Captain looked up satirically. + +"What do you mean by Katie-lock-the-door with you?" he asked, though he +had an uneasy feeling that he knew. + +"You know whut I means. I means I 's gwine to leab dis place." + +"Now look here, Rose," protested the lawyer, with dignity, "Peter Siner +occupies almost a fiduciary relation to me." + +The old negress stared with a slack jaw. "A relation o' yo's!" + +The lawyer hesitated some seconds, looking at the hag. His high-bred old +face was quite inscrutable, but presently he said in a serious voice: + +"Peter occupies a position of trust with me, Rose." + +"Yeah," mumbled Rose; "I see you trus' him." + +"One day he is going to do me a service, a very great service, Rose." + +The hag continued looking at him with a stubborn expression. + +"You know better than any one else, Rose, my dread of some--some +unmannerly death--" + +The old woman made a sound that might have meant anything. + +"And Peter has promised to stay with me until--until the end." + +The old negress considered this solemn speech, and then grunted out: + +"Which en'?" + +"Which end?" The Captain was irritated. + +"Yeah; yo' en' or Peter's en'?" + +"By every law of probability, Peter will outlive me." + +"Yeah, but Peter 'll come to a en' wid you when he ma'ies dat stuck-up +yellow fly-by-night, Cissie Dildine." + +"He's not going to marry her," said the Captain, comfortably. + +"Huh!" + +"Peter told me he didn't intend to marry Cissie Dildine." + +"Shu! Then whut fur dey go roun' peepin' at each other lak a couple o' +niggers roun' a haystack?" + +The old lawyer was annoyed. + +"Peeping where?" + +"Why, right in front o' dis house, dat's wha; ever' day when dat hussy +passes up to de Arkwrights', wha she wucks. She pokes along an' walls +her eyes roun' at dis house lak a calf wid de splivins." + +"That going on now?" + +"Ever' day." + +A deep uneasiness went through the old man. He moistened his lips. + +"But Peter said--" + +"Good Gawd! Mars' Renfrew, whut diff'ence do it make whut Peter say? +Ain't you foun' out yit when a he-nigger an' a she-nigger gits to +peepin' at each udder, whut dey says don't lib in de same neighbo'hood +wid whut dey does?" + +This was delivered with such energy that it completely undermined the +Captain's faith in Peter, and the fact angered the old gentleman. + +"That'll do, Rose; that'll do. That's all I need of you." + +The old crone puffed up again at this unexpected flare, and went out of +the room, plopping her feet on floor and mumbling. Among these +ungracious sounds the Captain caught, "Blin' ole fool!" But there was no +need becoming offended and demanding what she meant. Her explanation +would have been vague and unsatisfactory. + +The verjuice which old Rose had sprinkled over Peter and Cissie by +calling them "he-nigger" and "she-nigger" somehow minimized them, +animalized them in the old lawyer's imagination. Rose's speech was +charged with such contempt for her own color that it placed the mulatto +and the octoroon down with apes and rabbits. + +The lawyer fought against his feeling, for the sake of his secretary, +who had come to occupy so wide a sector of his comfort and affection. +Yet the old virago evidently spoke from a broad background of +experience. She was at least half convincing. While the Captain repelled +her charge against his quiet, hard-working brown helper, he admitted it +against Cissie Dildine, whom he did not know. She was an animal, a +female centaur, a wanton and a strumpet, as all negresses are wantons +and strumpets. All white men in the South firmly believe that. They +believe it with a peculiar detestation; and since they used these +persons very profitably for a hundred and fifty years as breeding +animals, one might say they believe it a trifle ungratefully. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + +The semi-daily passings of Cissie Dildine before the old Renfrew manor +on her way to and from the Arkwright home upset Peter Siner's working +schedule to an extraordinary degree. + +After watching for two or three days, Peter worked out a sort of time- +table for Cissie. She passed up early in the morning, at about five +forty-five. He could barely see her then, and somehow she looked very +pathetic hurrying along in the cold, dim light of dawn. After she had +cooked the Arkwright breakfast, swept the Arkwright floors, dusted the +Arkwright furniture, she passed back toward Niggertown, somewhere near +nine. About eleven o'clock she went up to cook dinner, and returned at +one or two in the afternoon. Occasionally, she made a third trip to get +supper. + +This was as exactly as Peter could predict the arrivals and departures +of Cissie, and the schedule involved a large margin of uncertainty. For +half an hour before Cissie passed she kept Peter watching the clock at +nervous intervals, wondering if, after all, she had gone by unobserved. +Invariably, he would move his work to a window where he had the whole +street under his observation. Then he would proceed with his indexing +with more and more difficulty. At first the paragraphs would lose +connection, and he would be forced to reread them. Then the sentences +would drop apart. Immediately before the girl arrived, the words +themselves grew anarchic. They stared him in the eye, each a complete +entity, self-sufficient, individual, bearing no relation to any other +words except that of mere proximity,--like a spelling lesson. Only by an +effort could Peter enforce a temporary cohesion among them, and they +dropped apart at the first slackening of the strain. + +Strange to say, when the octoroon actually was walking past, Peter did +not look at her steadily. On the contrary, he would think to himself: +"How little I care for such a woman! My ideal is thus and so--" He would +look at her until she glanced across the yard and saw him sitting in the +window; then immediately he bent over his books, as if his stray glance +had lighted on her purely by chance, as if she were nothing more to him +than a passing dray or a fluttering leaf. Indeed, he told himself during +these crises that he had no earthly interest in the girl, that she was +not the sort of woman he desired,--while his heart hammered, and the +lines of print under his eyes blurred into gray streaks across the page. + +One afternoon Peter saw Cissie pass his gate, hurrying, almost running, +apparently in flight from something. It sent a queer shock through him. +He stared after her, then up and down the street. He wondered why she +ran. Even when he went to bed that night the strangeness of Cissie's +flight kept him awake inventing explanations. + + * * * * * + +None of Peter's preoccupations was lost upon Captain Renfrew. None is so +suspicious as a credulous man aroused. After Rose had struck her blow at +the secretary, the old gentleman noted all of Peter's permutations and +misconstrued a dozen quite innocent actions on Peter's part into signs +of bad faith. + +By a little observation he identified Cissie Dildine and what he saw did +not reëstablish his peace of mind. On the contrary, it became more than +probable that the cream-colored negress would lure Peter away. This +possibility aroused in the old lawyer a grim, voiceless rancor against +Cissie. In his thoughts he linked the girl with every manner of evil +design against Peter. She was an adventuress, a Cyprian, a seductress +attempting to snare Peter in the brazen web of her comeliness. For to +the old gentleman's eyes there was an abiding impudicity about Cissie's +very charms. The passionate repose of her face was immodest; the +possession of a torso such as a sculptor might have carved was brazen. +The girl was shamefully well appointed. + +One morning as Captain Renfrew came home from town, he chanced to walk +just behind the octoroon, and quite unconsciously the girl delivered an +added fillip to the old gentleman's uneasiness. + +Just before Cissie passed in front of the Renfrew manor, womanlike, she +paused to make some slight improvements in her appearance before walking +under the eyes of her lover. She adjusted some strands of hair which had +blown loose in the autumn wind, looked at herself in a purse mirror, +retouched her nose with her greenish powder; then she picked a little +sprig of sumac leaves that burned in the corner of a lawn and pinned its +flame on the unashamed loveliness of her bosom. + +This negro instinct for brilliant color is the theme of many jests in +the South, but it is entirely justified esthetically, although the +constant sarcasm of the whites has checked its satisfaction, if it has +not corrupted the taste. + +The bit of sumac out of which the octoroon had improvised a nosegay +lighted up her skin and eyes, and created an ensemble as closely +resembling a Henri painting as anything the streets of Hooker's Bend +were destined to see. + +But old Captain Renfrew was far from appreciating any such bravura in +scarlet and gold. At first he put it down to mere niggerish taste, and +his dislike for the girl edged his stricture; then, on second thought, +the oddness of sumac for a nosegay caught his attention. Nobody used +sumac for a buttonhole. He had never heard of any woman, white or black, +using sumac for a bouquet. Why should this Cissie Dildine trig herself +out in sumac? + +The Captain's suspicions came to a point like a setter. He began +sniffing about for Cissie's motives in choosing so queer an ornament. He +wondered if it had anything to do with Peter Siner. + +All his life, Captain Renfrew's brain had been deliberate. He moved +mentally, as he did physically, with dignity. To tell the truth, the +Captain's thoughts had a way of absolutely stopping now and then, and +for a space he would view the world as a simple collection of colored +surfaces without depth or meaning. During these intervals, by a sort of +irony of the gods the old gentleman's face wore a look of philosophic +concentration, so that his mental hiatuses had given him a reputation +for profundity, which was county wide. It had been this, years before, +that had carried him by a powerful majority into the Tennessee +legislature. The voters agreed, almost to a man, that they preferred +depth to a shallow facility. The rival candidate had been shallow and +facile. The polls returned the Captain, and the young gentleman--for the +Captain was a young gentleman in those days--was launched on a typical +politician's career. But some Republican member from east Tennessee had +impugned the rising statesman's honor with some sort of improper +liaison. In those days there seemed to be proper and improper liaisons. +There had been a duel on the banks of the Cumberland River in which the +Captain succeeded in wounding his traducer in the arm, and was thus +vindicated by the gods. But the incident ended a career that might very +well have wound up in the governor's chair, or even in the United States +Senate, considering how very deliberate the Captain was mentally. + +To-day, as the Captain walked up the street following Cissie Dildine, +one of these vacant moods fell upon him and it was not until they had +reached his own gate that it suddenly occurred to the old gentleman just +what Cissie's sumac did mean. It was a signal to Peter. The simplicity +of the solution stirred the old man. Its meaning was equally easy to +fathom. When a woman signals any man it conveys consent. Denials receive +no signals; they are inferred. In this particular case Captain Renfrew +found every reason to believe that this flaring bit of sumac was the +prelude to an elopement. + +In the window of his library the Captain saw his secretary staring at +his cards and books with an intentness plainly assumed. Peter's fixed +stare had none of those small movements of the head that mark genuine +intellectual labor. So Peter was posing, pretending he did not see the +girl, to disarm his employer's suspicions,--pretending not to see a +girl rigged out like that! + +Such duplicity sent a queer spasm of anguish through the old lawyer. +Peter's action held half a dozen barbs for the Captain. A fellow-alumnus +of Harvard staying in his house merely for his wage and keep! Peter bore +not the slightest affection for him; the mulatto lacked even the +chivalry to notify the Captain of his intentions, because he knew the +Captain objected. And yet all these self-centered objections were +nothing to what old Captain Renfrew felt for Peter's own sake. For Peter +to marry a nigger and a strumpet, for him to elope with a wanton and a +thief! For such an upstanding lad, the very picture of his own virility +and mental alertness when he was of that age, for such a boy to fling +himself away, to drop out of existence--oh, it was loathly! + +The old man entered the library feeling sick. It was empty. Peter had +gone to his room, according to his custom. But in this particular +instance it seemed to Captain Renfrew his withdrawal was flavored with a +tang of guilt. If he were innocent, why should not such a big, strong +youth have stayed and helped an old gentleman off with his overcoat? + +The old Captain blew out a windy breath as he helped himself out of his +coat in the empty library. The bent globe still leaned against the +window-seat. The room had never looked so somber or so lonely. + +At dinner the old man ate so little that Rose Hobbett ceased her +monotonous grumbling to ask if he felt well. He said he had had a hard +day, a difficult day. He felt so weak and thin that he foretold the gray +days when he could no longer creep to the village and sit with his +cronies at the livery-stable, when he would be house-fast, through +endless days, creeping from room to room like a weak old rat in a huge +empty house, finally to die in some disgusting fashion. And Now Peter +was going to leave him, was going to throw himself away on a lascivious +wench. A faint moisture dampened the old man's withered eyes. He drank +an extra thimbleful of whisky to try to hearten himself. Its bouquet +filled the time-worn stateliness of the dining-room. + + * * * * * + +During the weeks of Peter's stay at the manor it had grown to be the +Captain's habit really to write for two or three hours in the afternoon, +and his pile of manuscript had thickened under his application. + +The old man was writing a book called "Reminiscences of Peace and War." +His book would form another unit of that extraordinary crop of personal +reminiscences of the old South which flooded the presses of America +during the decade of 1908-18. During just that decade it seemed as if the +aged men and women of the South suddenly realized that the generation who +had lived through the picturesqueness and stateliness of the old slave +régime was almost gone, and over their hearts swept a common impulse to +commemorate, in the sunset of their own lives, its fading splendor and +its vanished deeds. + +On this particular afternoon the Captain settled himself to work, but +his reminiscences did not get on. He pinched a bit of floss from the nib +of his pen and tried to swing into the period of which he was writing. +He read over a few pages of his copy as mental priming, but his thoughts +remained flat and dull. Indeed, his whole life, as he reviewed it in the +waning afternoon, appeared empty and futile. It seemed hardly worth +while to go on. + +The Captain had come to that point in his memoirs where the Republican +representative from Knox County had set going the petard which had +wrecked his political career. + +From the very beginnings of his labors the old lawyer had looked forward +to writing just this period of his life. He meant to clear up his name +once for all. He meant to use invective, argument, testimony and a +powerful emotional appeal, such as a country lawyer invariably attempts +with a jury. + +But now that he had arrived at the actual composition of his defense, he +sat biting his penholder, with all the arguments he meant to advance +slipped from his mind. He could not recall the points of the proof. He +could not recall them with Peter Siner moving restlessly about the room, +glancing through the window, unsettled, nervous, on the verge of eloping +with a negress. + +His secretary's tragedy smote the old man. The necessity of doing +something for Peter put his thoughts to rout. A wild idea occurred to +the Captain that if he should write the exact truth, perhaps his memoirs +might serve Peter as a signal against a futile, empty journey. + +But the thought no sooner appeared than it was rejected. In the Anglo- +Saxon, especially the Anglo-Saxon of the Southern United States, abides +no such Gallic frankness as moved a Jean-Jacques. Southern memoirs +always sound like the conversation between two maiden ladies,--nothing +intimate, simply a few general remarks designed to show from what nice +families they came. + +So the Captain wrote nothing. During all the afternoon he sat at his +desk with a leaden heart, watching Peter move about the room. The old +man maintained more or less the posture of writing, but his thoughts +were occupied in pitying himself and pitying Peter. Half a dozen times +he looked up, on the verge of making some plea, some remonstrance, +against the madness of this brown man. But the sight of Peter sitting in +the window-seat staring out into the street silenced him. He was a weak +old man, and Peter's nerves were strung with the desire of youth. + +At last the two men heard old Rose clashing in the kitchen. A few +minutes later the secretary excused himself from the library, to go to +his own room. As Peter was about to pass through the door, the Captain +was suddenly galvanized into action by the thought that this perhaps was +the last time he would ever see him. He got up from his chair and called +shakenly to Peter. The negro paused. The Captain moistened his lips and +controlled his voice. + +"I want to have a word with you, Peter, about a--a little matter. I-- +I've mentioned it before." + +"Yes, sir." The negro's tone and attitude reminded the Captain that the +supper gong would soon sound and they would best separate at once. + +"It--it's about Cissie Dildine," the old lawyer hurried on. + +Peter nodded slightly. + +"Yes, you mentioned that before." + +The old man lifted a thin hand as if to touch Peter's arm, but he did +not. A sort of desperation seized him. + +"But listen, Peter, you don't want to do--what's in your mind!" + +"What is in my mind, Captain?" + +"I mean marry a negress. You don't want to marry a negress!" + +The brown man stared, utterly blank. + +"Not marry a negress!" + +"No, Peter; no," quavered the old man. "For yourself it may make no +difference, but your children--think of your children, your son growing +up under a brown veil! You can't tear it off. God himself can't tear it +off! You can never reach him through it. Your children, your children's +children, a terrible procession that stretches out and out, marching +under a black shroud, unknowing, unknown! All you can see are their sad +forms beneath the shroud, marching away--marching away. God knows where! +And yet it's your own flesh and blood!" + +Suddenly the old lawyer's face broke into the hard, tearless contortions +of the aged. His terrible emotion communicated itself to the sensitive +brown man. + +"But, Captain, I myself am a negro. Whom should I marry?" + +"No one; no one! Let your seed wither in your loins! It's better to do +that; it's better--" At that moment the clashing of the supper gong fell +on the old man's naked nerves. He straightened up by some reflex +mechanism, turned away from what he thought was his last interview with +his secretary, and proceeded down the piazza into the great empty +dining-room. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + +With overwrought nerves Peter Siner entered his room. At five o'clock +that afternoon he had seen Cissie Dildine go up the street to the +Arkwright home to cook one of those occasional suppers. He had been +watching for her return, and in the midst of it the Captain's +extraordinary outburst had stirred him up. + +Once in his room, the negro placed the broken Hepplewhite in such a +position that he could rake the street with a glance. Then he tried to +compose himself and await the coming of his supper and the passage of +Cissie. There was something almost pathetic in Peter's endless watching, +all for a mere glimpse or two of the girl in yellow. He himself had no +idea how his nerves and thoughts had woven themselves around the young +woman. He had no idea what a passion this continual doling out of +glimpses had begotten. He did not dream how much he was, as folk naïvely +put it, in love with her. + +His love was strong enough to make him forget for a while the old +lawyer's outbreak. However, as the dusk thickened in the shrubbery and +under the trees, certain of the old gentleman's phrases revisited the +mulatto's mind: "A terrible procession ... marching under a black +shroud.... Your children, your children's children, a terrible +procession,... marching away, God knows where.... And yet--it's your own +flesh and blood!" They were terrific sentences, as if the old man had +been trying to tear from his vision some sport of nature, some +deformity. As the implications spread before Peter, he became more and +more astonished at its content. Even to Captain Renfrew black men were +dehumanized,--shrouded, untouchable creatures. + +It delivered to Peter a slow but a profound shock. He glanced about at +the faded magnificence of the room with a queer feeling that he had been +introduced into it under a sort of misrepresentation. He had taken up +his abode with the Captain, at least on the basis of belonging to the +human family, but this passionate outbreak, this puzzling explosion, cut +that ground from under his feet. + +The more Peter thought about it, the stranger grew his sensation. Not +even to be classed as a human being by this old gentleman who in a weak, +helpless fashion had crept somewhat into Peter's affections,--not to be +considered a man! The mulatto drew a long, troubled breath, and by the +mere mechanics of his desire kept staring through the gloom for Cissie. + +Peter Siner had known all along that the unread whites of Hooker's Bend +--and that included nearly every white person in the village--considered +black men as simple animals; but he had supposed that the more thoughtful +men, of whom Captain Renfrew was a type, at least admitted the Afro- +American to the common brotherhood of humanity. But they did not. + +As Peter sat staring into the darkness the whole effect of the +dehumanizing of the black folk of the South began to unfold itself +before his imagination. It explained to him the tragedies of his race, +their sufferings at the hand of mob violence; the casualness, even the +levity with which black men were murdered: the chronic dishonesty with +which negroes were treated: the constant enactment of adverse +legislation against them; the cynical use of negro women. They were all +vermin, animals; they were one with the sheep and the swine; a little +nearer the human in form, perhaps, and, oddly enough, one that could be +bred to a human being, as testified a multitude of brown and yellow and +cream-colored folk, but all marching away, as the Captain had so +passionately said, marching away, their forms hidden from human +intercourse under a shroud of black, an endless procession marching +away, God knew whither! And yet they were the South's own flesh and +blood. + +The horror of such a complex swelled in Peter's mind to monstrous +proportions. As night thickened at his window, the negro sat dazed and +wondering at the mightiness of his vision. His thoughts went groping, +trying to solve some obscure problem it posed. He thought of the +Arkwright boy; he thought of the white men smiling as his mother's +funeral went past the livery-stable; he thought of Captain Renfrew's +manuscript that he was transcribing. Through all the old man's memoirs +ran a certain lack of sincerity. Peter always felt amid his labors that +the old Captain was making an attorney's plea rather than a candid +exposition. At this point in his thoughts there gradually limned itself +in the brown man's mind the answer to that enigma which he almost had +unraveled on the day he first saw Cissie Dildine pass his window. With +it came the answer to the puzzle contained in the old Captain's library. +The library was not an ordinary compilation of the world's thought; it, +too, was an attorney's special pleading against the equality of man. Any +book or theory that upheld the equality of man was carefully excluded +from the shelves. Darwin's great hypothesis, and every development +springing from it, had been banned, because the moment that a theory was +propounded of the great biologic relationship of all flesh, from worms +to vertebrates, there instantly followed a corollary of the brotherhood +of man. + +What Christ did for theology, Darwin did for biology,--he democratized +it. The One descended to man's brotherhood from the Trinity; the other +climbed up to it from the worms. + +The old Captain's library lacked sincerity. Southern orthodoxy, which +persists in pouring its religious thought into the outworn molds of +special creation, lacks sincerity. Scarcely a department of Southern +life escapes this fundamental attitude of special pleader and +disingenuousness. It explains the Southern fondness for legal +subtleties. All attempts at Southern poetry, belles-lettres, painting, +novels, bear the stamp of the special plea, of authors whose exposition +is careful. + +Peter perceived what every one must perceive, that when letters turn +into a sort of glorified prospectus of a country, all value as +literature ceases. The very breath of art and interpretation is an eager +and sincere searching of the heart. This sincerity the South lacks. Her +single talent will always be forensic, because she is a lawyer with a +cause to defend. And such is the curse that arises from lynchings and +venery and extortions and dehumanizings,--sterility; a dumbness of soul. + +Peter Siner's thoughts lifted him with the tremendous buoyancy of +inspiration. He swung out of his chair and began tramping his dark room. +The skin of his scalp tickled as if a ghost had risen before him. The +nerves in his thighs and back vibrated. He felt light, and tingled with +energy. + +Unaware of what he was doing, he set about lighting the gasolene-lamp. +He worked with nervous quickness, as if he were in a great hurry. +Presently a brilliant light flooded the room. It turned the gray +illumination of the windows to blackness. + +Joy enveloped Peter. His own future developed under his eyes with the +same swift clairvoyance that marked his vision of the ills of his +country. He saw himself remedying those ills. He would go about showing +white men and black men the simple truth, the spiritual necessity for +justice and fairness. It was not a question of social equality; it was a +question of clearing a road for the development of Southern life. He +would show white men that to weaken, to debase, to dehumanize the negro, +inflicted a more terrible wound on the South than would any strength the +black man might develop. He would show black men that to hate the +whites, constantly to suspect, constantly to pilfer from them, only +riveted heavier shackles on their limbs. + +It was all so clear and so simple! The white South must humanize the +black not for the sake of the negro, but for the sake of itself. No one +could resist logic so fundamental. + +Peter's heart sang with the solemn joy of a man who had found his work. +All through his youth he had felt blind yearnings and gropings for he +knew not what. It had driven him with endless travail out of Niggertown, +through school and college, and back to Niggertown,--this untiring Hound +of Heaven. But at last he had reached his work. He, Peter Siner, a +mulatto, with the blood of both white and black in his veins, would come +as an evangel of liberty to both white and black. The brown man's eyes +grew moist from Joy. His body seemed possessed of tremendous energy. + +As he paced his room there came into the glory of Peter's thoughts the +memory of the Arkwright boy as he sat in the cedar glade brooding on the +fallen needles Peter recalled the hobbledehoy's disjointed words as he +wrestled with the moral and physical problems of adolescence. Peter +recalled his impulse to sit down by young Sam Arkwright, and, as best he +might, give him some clue to the critical and feverish period through +which he was passing. + +He had not done so, but Peter remembered the instance down to the very +desperation in the face of the brooding youngster. And it seemed to +Peter that this rejected impulse had been a sign that he was destined to +be an evangel to the whites as well as to the blacks. + +The joy of Peter's mission bore him aloft on vast wings. His room seemed +to fall away from him, and he was moving about his country, releasing +the two races from their bonds of suspicion and cruelty. + + * * * * * + +Slowly the old manor formed about Peter again, and he perceived that a +tapping on the door had summoned him back. He walked to the door with +his heart full of kindness for old Rose. She was bringing him his +supper. He felt as if he could take the old woman in his arms, and out +of the mere hugeness of his love sweeten her bitter life. The mulatto +opened the door as eagerly as if he were admitting some long-desired +friend; but when the shutter swung back, the old crone and her salver +were not there. All he could discern in the darkness were the white +pillars marking the night into panels. There was no light in the outer +kitchen. The whole manor was silent. + +As he stood listening, the knocking was repeated, this time more +faintly. He fixed the sound at the window. He closed the door, walked +across the brilliant room, and opened the shutters. + +For several moments he saw nothing more than the tall quadrangle of +blackness which the window framed; then a star or two pierced it; then +something moved. He saw a woman's figure standing close to the casement, +and out of the darkness Cissie Dildine's voice asked in its careful +English: + +"Peter, may I come in?" + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + +For a full thirty seconds Peter Siner stared at the girl at the window +before, even with her prompting, he thought of the amenity of asking her +to come inside. As a further delayed courtesy, he drew the Heppelwhite +chair toward her. + +Cissie's face looked bloodless in the blanched light of the gasolene- +lamp. She forced a faint, doubtful smile. + +"You don't seem very glad to see me, Peter." + +"I am," he assured her, mechanically, but he really felt nothing but +astonishment and dismay. They filled his voice. He was afraid some one +would see Cissie in his room. His thoughts went flitting about the +premises, calculating the positions of the various trees and shrubs in +relation to the windows, trying to determine whether, and just where, in +his brilliantly lighted chamber the girl could be seen from the street. + +The octoroon made no further comment on his confusion. Her eyes wandered +from him over the stately furniture and up to the stuccoed ceiling. + +"They told me you lived in a wonderful room," she remarked absently. + +"Yes, it's very nice," agreed Peter in the same tone, wondering what +might be the object of her hazardous visit. A flicker of suspicion +suggested that she was trying to compromise him out of revenge for his +renouncement of her, but the next instant he rejected this. + +The girl accepted the chair Peter offered and continued to look about. + +"I hope you don't mind my staring, Peter," she said. + +"I stared when I first came here to stay," assisted Peter, who was +getting a little more like himself, even if a little uneasier at the +consequences of this visit. + +"Is that a highboy?" She nodded nervously at the piece of furniture. +"I've seen pictures of them." + +"Uh huh. Revolutionary, I believe. The night wind is a little raw." He +moved across the room and closed the jalousies, and thus cut off the +night wind and also the west view from the street. He glanced at the +heavy curtains parted over his front windows, with a keen desire to +swing them together. Some fragment of his mind continued the surface +conversation with Cissie. + +"Is it post-Revolutionary or pre-Revolutionary?" she asked with a +preoccupied air. + +"Post, I believe. No, pre. I always meant to examine closely." + +"To have such things would almost teach one history," Cissie said. + +"Yeah; very nice." Peter had decided that the girl was in direct line +with the left front window and an opening between the trees to the +street. + +The girl's eyes followed his. + +"Are those curtains velour, Peter?" + +"I--I believe so," agreed the man, unhappily. + +"I--I wonder how they look spread." + +Peter seized on this flimsy excuse with a wave of relief and +thankfulness to Cissie. He had to restrain himself as he strode across +the room and swung together the two halves of the somber curtains in +order to preserve an appearance of an exhibit. His fingers were so +nervous that he bungled a moment at the heavy cords, but finally the two +draperies swung together, loosing a little cloud of dust. He drew +together a small aperture where the hangings stood apart, and then +turned away in sincere relief. + +Cissie's own interest in historic furniture and textiles came to an +abrupt conclusion. She gave a deep sigh and settled back into her chair. +She sat looking at Peter seriously, almost distressfully, as he came +toward her. + +With the closing of the curtains and the establishment of a real privacy +Peter became aware once again of the sweetness and charm Cissie always +held for him. He still wondered what had brought her, but he was no +longer uneasy. + +"Perhaps I'd better build a fire," he suggested, quite willing now to +make her visit seem not unusual. + +"Oh, no,"--she spoke with polite haste,--"I'm just going to stay a +minute. I don't know what you'll think of me." She looked intently at +him. + +"I think it lovely of you to come." He was disgusted with the triteness +of this remark, but he could think of nothing else. + +"I don't know," demurred the octoroon, with her faint doubtful smile. +"Persons don't welcome beggars very cordially." + +"If all beggars were so charming--" Apparently he couldn't escape +banalities. + +But Cissie interrupted whatever speech he meant to make, with a return +of her almost painful seriousness. + +"I really came to ask you to help me, Peter." + +"Then your need has brought me a pleasure, at least." Some impulse kept +the secretary making those foolish complimentary speeches which keep a +conversation empty and insincere. + +"Oh, Peter, I didn't come here for you to talk like that! Will you do +what I want?" + +"What do you want, Cissie?" he asked, sobered by her voice and manner. + +"I want you to help me, Peter." + +"All right, I will." He spaced his words with his speculations about the +nature of her request. "What do you want me to do?" + +"I want you to help me go away." + +Peter looked at her in surprise. He hardly knew what he had been +expecting, but it was not this. + +Some repressed emotion crept into the girl's voice. + +"Peter, I--I can't stay here in Hooker's Bend any longer. I want to go +away. I--I've got to go away." + +Peter stood regarding her curiously and at the same time +sympathetically. + +"Where do you want to go, Cissie?" + +The girl drew a long breath; her bosom lifted and dropped abruptly. + +"I don't know; that was one of the things I wanted to ask you about." + +"You don't know where you want to go?" He smiled faintly. "How do you +know you want to go at all?" + +"Oh, Peter, all I know is I must leave Hooker's Bend!" She gave a little +shiver. "I'm tired of it, sick of it--sick." She exhaled a breath, as if +she were indeed physically ill. Her face suggested it; her eyes were +shadowed. "Some Northern city, I suppose," she added. + +"And you want me to help you?" inquired Peter, puzzled. + +She nodded silently, with a woman's instinct to make a man guess the +favor she is seeking. + +Then it occurred to Peter just what sort of assistance the girl did +want. It gave him a faint shock that a girl could come to a man to beg +or to borrow money. It was a white man's shock, a notion he had picked +up in Boston, because it happens frequently among village negroes, and +among them it holds as little significance as children begging one +another for bites of apples. + +Peter thought over his bank balance, then started toward a chest of +drawers where he kept his checkbook. + +"Cissie, if I can he of any service to you in a substantial way, I'll be +more than glad to--" + +She put out a hand and stopped him; then talked on in justification of +her determination to go away. + +"I just can't endure it any longer, Peter." She shuddered again. "I +can't stand Niggertown, or this side of town--any of it. They--they have +no _feeling_ for a colored girl, Peter, not--not a speck!" She rave +a gasp, and after a moment plunged on into her wrongs: "When--when one +of us even walks past on the street, they--they whistle and say a-all +kinds of things out loud, j-just as if w-we weren't there at all. Th- +they don't c-care; we're just n-nigger w-women." Cissie suddenly began +sobbing with a faint catching noise, her full bosom shaken by the +spasms; her tears slowly welling over. She drew out a handkerchief with +a part of its lace edge gone, and wiped her eyes and cheeks, holding the +bit of cambric in a ball in her palm, like a negress, instead of in her +fingers, like a white woman, as she had been taught. Then she drew a +deep breath, swallowed, and became more composed. + +Peter stood looking in helpless anger at this representative of all +women of his race. + +"Cissie, that's street-corner scum--the dirty sewage--" + +"They make you feel naked," went on Cissie in the monotone that succeeds +a fit of weeping, "and ashamed--and afraid." She blinked her eyes to +press out the undue moisture, and looked at Peter as if asking what else +she could do about it than to go away from the village. + +"Will it be any better away from here?" suggested Peter, doubtfully. + +Cissie shook her head. + +"I--I suppose not, if--if I go alone." + +"I shouldn't think so," agreed Peter, somberly. He started to hearten +her by saying white women also underwent such trials, if that would be a +consolation; but he knew very well that a white woman's hardships were +as nothing compared to those of a colored woman who was endowed with any +grace whatever. + +"And besides, Cissie," went on Peter, who somehow found himself arguing +against the notion of her going, "I hardly see how a decent colored +woman gets around at all. Colored boarding-houses are wretched places. I +ate and slept in one or two, coming home. Rotten." The possibility of +Cissie finding herself in such a place moved Peter. + +The girl nodded submissively to his judgment, and said in a queer voice: +"That's why I--I didn't want to travel alone, Peter." + +"No, it's a bad idea--" and then Peter perceived that a queer quality +was creeping into the tête-à-tête. + +She returned his look unsteadily, but with a curious persistence. + +[Illustration: "You-you mean you want m-me--to go with you, Cissie?" he +stammered] + +"I--I d-don't want to travel a-alone, Peter," she gasped. + +Her look, her voice suddenly brought home to the an the amazing +connotation of her words. He stared at her, felt his face grow warm with +a sharp, peculiar embarrassment. He hardly knew what to say or do before +her intent and piteous eyes. + +"You--you mean you want m-me--to go with you, Cissie?" he stammered. + +The girl suddenly began trembling, now that her last reserve of +indirection had been torn away. + +"Listen, Peter," she began breathlessly. "I'm not the sort of woman you +think. If I hadn't accused myself, we'd be married now. I--I wanted you +more than anything in the world, Peter, but I did tell you. Surely, +surely, Peter, that shows I am a good woman--th-the real I. Dear, dear +Peter, there is a difference between a woman and her acts. Peter, you're +the first man in all my life, in a-all my life who ever came to me k- +kindly and gently; so I had to l-love you and t-tell you, Peter." + +The girl's wavering voice broke down completely; her face twisted with +grief. She groped for her chair, sat down, buried her face in her arms +on the table, and broke into a chattering outbreak of sobs that sounded +like some sort of laughter. + +Her shoulders shook; the light gleamed on her soft, black Caucasian +hair. There was a little rent in one of the seams in her cheap jacket, +at one of the curves where her side molded into her shoulder. The +customer made garment had found Cissie's body of richer mold than it had +been designed to shield. And yet in Peter's distress and tenderness and +embarrassment, this little rent held his attention and somehow misprized +the wearer. + +It seemed symbolic in the searching white light. He could see the very +break in the thread and the widened stitches at the ends of the rip. Her +coat had given way because she was modeled more nearly like the Venus de +Milo than the run of womankind. He felt the little irony of the thing, +and yet was quite unable to resist the comparison. + +And then, too, she had referred again to her sin of peculation. A woman +enjoys confessions from a man. A man's sins are mostly vague, indefinite +things to a woman, a shadowy background which brings out the man in a +beautiful attitude of repentance; but when a woman confesses, the man +sees all her past as a close-up with full lighting. He has an intimate +acquaintance with just what she's talking about, and the woman herself +grows shadowy and unreal. Men have too many blots not to demand +whiteness in women. By striking some such average, nature keeps the race +a going moral concern. + +So Peter, as he stood looking down on the woman who was asking him to +marry her, was filled with as unhappy and as impersonal a tenderness as +a born brother. He recalled the thoughts which had come to him when he +saw Cissie passing his window. She was not the sort of woman he wanted +to marry; she was not his ideal. He cast about in his head for some +gentle way of putting her off, so that he would not hurt her any +further, if such an easement were possible. + +As he stood thinking, he found not a pretext, but a reality. He stooped +over, and put a hand lightly on each of her arms. + +"Cissie," he said in a serious, even voice, "if I should ever marry any +one, it would be you." + +The girl paused in her sobbing at his even, passionless voice. + +"Then you--you won't?" she whispered in her arms. + +"I can't, Cissie." Now that he was saying it, he uttered the words very +evenly and smoothly. "I can't, dear Cissie, because a great work has +just come into my life." He paused, expecting her to ask some question, +but she lay silent, with her face in her arms, evidently listening. + +"Cissie, I think, in fact I know, I can demonstrate to all the South, +both white and black, the need of a better and more sincere +understanding between our two races." + +Peter did not feel the absurdity of such a speech in such a place. He +patted her arm, but there was something in the warmth of her flesh that +disturbed his austerity and caused him to lift his hand to the more +impersonal axis of her shoulder. He proceeded to develop his idea. + +"Cissie, just a moment ago you were complaining of the insults you meet +everywhere. I believe if I can spread my ideas, Cissie, that even a +pretty colored girl like you may walk the streets without being +subjected to obscenity on every corner." His tone unconsciously +patronized Cissie's prettiness with the patronage of the male for the +less significant thing, as though her ripeness for love and passion and +children were, after all, not comparable with what he, a male, could do +in the way of significantly molding life. + +Cissie lifted her head and dried her eyes. + +"So you aren't going to marry me, Peter?" Woman-like, now that she was +well into the subject, she was far less embarrassed than Peter. She had +had her cry. + +"Why--er--considering this work, Cissie--" + +"Aren't you going to marry anybody, Peter?" + +The artist in Peter, the thing the girl loved in him, caught again that +Messianic vision of himself. + +"Why, no, Cissie," he said, with a return of his inspiration of an hour +ago; "I'll be going here and there all over the South preaching this +gospel of kindliness and tolerance, of forgiveness of the faults of +others." Cissie looked at him with a queer expression. "I'll show the +white people that they should treat the negro with consideration not for +the sake of the negro, but for the sake of themselves. It's so simple, +Cissie, it's so logical and clear--" + +The girl shook her head sadly. + +"And you don't want me to go with you, Peter?" + +"Why, n-no, Cissie; a girl like you couldn't go. Perhaps I'll be +misunderstood in places, perhaps I may have to leave a town hurriedly, +or be swung over the walls, like Paul, in a basket." He attempted to +treat it lightly. + +But the girl looked at him with a horror dawning in her melancholy face. + +"Peter, do you really mean that?" she whispered. + +"Why, truly. You don't imagine--" + +The octoroon opened her dark eyes until she might have been some weird. + +"Oh, Peter, please, please put such a mad idea away from you! Peter, +you've been living here alone in this old house until you don't see +things clearly. Dear Peter, don't you _know?_ You can't go out and +talk like that to white folks and--and not have some terrible thing +happen to you! Oh, Peter, if you would only marry me, it would cure you +of such wildness!" Involuntarily she got up, holding out her arms to +him, offering herself to his needs, with her frightened eyes fixed on +his. + +It made him exquisitely uncomfortable again. He made a little sound +designed to comfort and reassure her. He would do very well. He was +something of a diplomat in his way. He had got along with the boys in +Harvard very well indeed. In fact, he was rather a man of the world. No +need to worry about him, though it was awfully sweet of her. + +Cissie picked up her handkerchief with its torn edge, which she had laid +on the table. Evidently she was about to go. + +"I surely don't know what will become of me," she said, looking at it. + +In a reversal of feeling Peter did not want her to go away quite then. +He cast about for some excuse to detain her a moment longer. + +"Now, Cissie," he began, "if you are really going to leave Hooker's +Bend--" + +"I'm not going," she said, with a long exhalation. "I--" she swallowed-- +"I just thought that up to--ask you to--to--You see," she explained, a +little breathless, "I thought you still loved me and had forgiven me by +the way you watched for me every day at the window." + +This speech touched Peter more keenly than any of the little drama the +girl had invented. It hit him so shrewdly he could think of nothing more +to say. + +Cissie moved toward the window and undid the latch. + +"Good night, Peter." She paused a moment, with her hand on the catch. +"Peter," she said, "I'd almost rather see you marry some other girl than +try so terrible a thing." + +The big, full-blooded athlete smiled faintly. + +"You seem perfectly sure marriage would cure me of my mission." + +Cissie's face reddened faintly. + +"I think so," she said briefly. "Good night," and she disappeared in the +dark space she had opened, and closed the jalousies softly after her. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + +Cissie Dildine's conviction that marriage would cure Peter of his +mission persisted in the mulatto's mind long after the glamour of the +girl had faded and his room had regained the bleak emptiness of a +bachelor's bedchamber. + +Cissie had been so brief and positive in her statement that Peter, who +had not thought on the point at all, grew more than half convinced she +was right. + +Now that he pondered over it, it seemed there was a difference between +the outlook of a bachelor and that of a married man. The former +considered humanity as a balloonist surveys a throng,--immediately and +without perspective,--but the latter always sees mankind through the +frame of his family. A single man tends naturally to philosophy and +reform; a married man to administration and statesmanship. There have +been no great unmarried statesmen; there have been no great married +philosophers or reformers. + +Now that Cissie had pointed out this universal rule, Peter saw it very +clearly. And Peter suspected that beneath this rough classification, and +conditioning it, lay a plexus of obscure mental and physical reactions +set up by the relations between husband and wife. It might very well be +there was a difference between the actual cerebral and nervous structure +of a married man and that of a single man. + +At any rate, after these reflections, Peter now felt sure that marriage +would cure him of his mission; but how had Cissie known it? How had she +struck out so involved a theory, one might say, in the toss of a head? +The more Peter thought it over the more extraordinary it became. It was +another one of those explosive ideas which Cissie, apparently, had the +faculty of creating out of a pure mental vacuum. + +All this philosophy aside, Cissie's appearance just in the nick of his +inspiration, her surprising proposal of marriage, and his refusal, had +accomplished one thing: it had committed Peter to the program he had +outlined to the girl. + +Indeed, there seemed something fatalistic in such a concatenation of +events. Siner wondered whether or not he would have obeyed his vision +without this added impulse from Cissie. He did not know; but now, since +it had all come about just as it had, he suspected he would have been +neglectful. He felt as if a dangerous but splendid channel had been +opened before his eyes, and almost at the same instant a hand had +reached down and directed his life into it. This fancy moved the +mulatto. As he got himself ready for bed, he kept thinking: + +"Well, my life is settled at last. There is nothing else for me to do. +Even if this should end terribly for me, as Cissie imagines, my life +won't be wasted." + +Next morning Peter Siner was awakened by old Rose Hobbett thrusting her +head in at his door, staring around, and finally, seeing Peter in bed, +grumbling: + +"Why is you still heah, black man?" + +The secretary opened his eyes in astonishment. + +"Why shouldn't I be here?" + +"Nobody wuz 'speckin' you to be heah." The crone withdrew her head and +vanished. + +Peter wondered at this unaccustomed interest of Rose, then hurried out +of bed, supposing himself late for breakfast. + +A dense fog had come up from the river, and the moisture floating into +his open windows had dampened his whole room. Peter stepped briskly to +the screen and began splashing himself. It was only in the midst of his +ablutions that he remembered his inspiration and resolve of the previous +evening. As he squeezed the water over his powerfully molded body, he +recalled it almost impersonally. It might have happened to some third +person. He did not even recall distinctly the threads of the logic which +had lifted him to such a Pisgah, and showed him the whole South as a new +and promised land. However, he knew that he could start his train of +thought again, and again ascend the mountain. + +Floating through the fog into his open window came the noises of the +village as it set about living another day, precisely as it had lived +innumerable days in the past. The blast of the six-o'clock whistle from +the planing-mill made the loose sashes of his windows rattle. Came a +lowing of cows and a clucking of hens, a woman's calling. The voices of +men in conversation came so distinctly through the pall that it seemed a +number of persons must be moving about their morning work, talking and +shouting, right in the Renfrew yard. + +But the thing that impressed Peter most was the solidity and stability +of this Southern village that he could hear moving around him, and its +certainty to go on in the future precisely as it had gone on in the +past. It was a tremendous force. The very old manor about him seemed +huge and intrenched in long traditions, while he, Peter Siner, was just +a brown man, naked behind a screen and rather cold from the fog and damp +of the morning. + +He listened to old Rose clashing the kitchen utensils. As he drew on his +damp underwear, he wondered what he could say to old Rose that would +persuade her into a little kindliness and tolerance for the white +people. As he listened he felt hopeless; he could never explain to the +old creature that her own happiness depended upon the charity she +extended to others. She could never understand it. She would live and +die precisely the same bitter old beldam that she was, and nothing could +ever assuage her. + +While Peter was thinking of the old creature, she came shuffling along +the back piazza with his breakfast. She let herself in by lifting one +knee to a horizontal, balancing the tray on it, then opening the door +with her freed hand. + +When the shutter swung open, it displayed the crone standing on one +foot, wearing a man's grimy sock, which had fallen down over a broken, +run-down shoe. + +In Peter's mood the thought of this wretched old woman putting on such +garments morning after morning was unspeakably pathetic. He thought of +his own mother, who had lived and died only a shade or two removed from +the old crone's condition. + +Rose put down her foot, and entered the room with her lips poked out, +ready to make instant attack if Peter mentioned his lack of supper the +night before. + +"Aunt Rose," asked the secretary, with his friendly intent in his tones, +"how came you to look in this morning and say you didn't expect to find +me in my room?" + +She gave an unintelligible grunt, pushed the lamp to one side, and eased +her tray to the table. + +Peter finished touching his tie before one of those old-fashioned +mirrors, not of cut-glass, yet perfectly true. He came from the mirror +and moved his chair, out of force of habit, so he could look up the +street toward the Arkwrights'. + +"Aunt Rose," said the young man, wistfully, "why are you always angry?" + +She bridled at this extraordinary inquiry. + +"Me?" + +"Yes, you." + +She hesitated a moment, thinking how she could make her reply a personal +assault on Peter. + +"'Cause you come heah, 'sputin' my rights, da' 's' why." + +"No," demurred Peter, "you were quarreling in the kitchen the first +morning I came here, and you didn't know I was on the place." + +"Well--I got my tribulations," she snapped, staring suspiciously at +these unusual questions. + +There was a pause; then Peter said placatingly: + +"I was just thinking, Aunt Rose, you might forget your tribulations if +you didn't ride them all the time." + +"Hoccum! What you mean, ridin' my tribulations?" + +"Thinking about them. The old Captain, for instance; you are no happier +always abusing the old Captain." + +The old virago gave a sniff, tossed her head, but kept her eyes rolled +suspiciously on Peter. + +"Very often the way we think and act makes us happy or unhappy," +moralized Peter, broadly. + +"Look heah, nigger, you ain't no preacher sont out by de Lawd to me!" + +"Anyway, I am sure you would feel more friendly toward the Captain if +you acted openly with him; for instance, if you didn't take off all his +cold victuals, and handkerchiefs and socks, soap, kitchenware--" + +The cook snorted. + +"I'd feel dat much mo' nekked an' hongry, dat's how I'd feel." + +"Perhaps, if you'd start over, he might give you a better wage." + +"Huh!" she snorted in an access of irony. "I see dat skinflint gib'n' me +a better wage. Puuh!" The suddenly she realized where the conversation +had wandered, and stared at the secretary with widening eyes "Good Lawd! +Did dat fool Cap'n set up a nigger in dis bedroom winder jes to ketch +ole Rose packin' off a few ole lef'-overs?" Peter began a hurried +denial, but she rushed on: "'Fo' Gawd, I hopes his viddles chokes him! I +hope his ole smoke-house falls down on his ole haid. I hope to Jesus--" + +Peter pleaded with her not to think the Captain was behind his +observations, but the hag rushed out of the bedroom, swinging her head +from side to side, uttering the most terrible maledictions. She would +show him! She wouldn't put another foot in his old kitchen. Wild horses +couldn't drag her into his smoke-house again. + +Peter ran to the door and called after her down the piazza, trying to +exonerate the Captain: but she either did not or would not hear, and +vanished into the kitchen, still furious. + +Old Rose made Peter so uneasy that he deserted his breakfast midway and +hurried to the library. In the solemn old room he found the Captain +alone and in rather a pleased mood. The old gentleman stood patting and +alining a pile of manuscript. As the mulatto entered he exclaimed: + +"Well, here's Peter again!" as if his secretary had been off on a long +journey. Immediately afterward he added, "Peter, guess what I did last +night." His voice was full of triumph. + +Peter was thinking about Aunt Rose, and stood looking at the Captain +without the slightest idea. + +"I wrote all of this,"--he indicated his manuscript,--"over a hundred +pages." + +Peter considered the work without much enthusiasm. + +"You must have worked all night." + +The old attorney rubbed his hands. + +"I think I may claim a touch of inspiration last night, Peter. +Reminiscences rippled from under my pen, propitious words, prosperous +sentences. Er--the fact is, Peter, you will see, when you begin copying, +I had come to a matter--a--a matter of some moment in my life. Every +life contains such moments, Peter. I had meant to write something in the +nature of a defen--an explanation, Peter. But after you left the library +last night it suddenly occurred to me just to give each fact as it took +place, quite frankly. So I did that--not--not what I meant to write, at +all--ah. As you copy it, you may find it not entirely without some +interest to yourself, Peter." + +"To me?" repeated Peter, after the fashion of the unattentative. + +"Yes, to yourself." The Captain was oddly moved. He took his hands off +the script, walked a little away from the table, came back to it. "It-- +ah--may explain a good many things that--er--may have puzzled you." He +cleared his throat and shifted his subject briskly. "We ought to be +thinking about a publisher. What publisher shall we have publish these +reminiscences? Make some stir in Tennessee's political circles, +Peter; tremendous sales; clear up questions everybody is interested in. +H-m--well, I'll walk down town and you"--he motioned to the script-- +"begin copying--" + +"By the way, Captain," said Peter as the old gentleman turned for the +door, "has Rose said anything to you yet?" + +The old man detached his mind from his script with an obvious effort. + +"What about?" + +"About leaving your service." + +"No-o, not especially; she's always leaving my service." + +"But in this case it was my fault; at least I brought it about. I +remonstrated with her about taking your left-over victuals and socks and +handkerchiefs and things. She was quite offended." + +"Yes, it always offends her," agreed the old man, impatiently. "I never +mention it myself unless I catch her red-handed; then I storm a little +to keep her in bounds." + +Naturally, Peter knew of this extraordinary system of service in the +South; nevertheless he was shocked at its implications. + +"Captain," suggested Peter, "wouldn't you find it to your own interest +to give old Rose a full cash payment for her services and allow her to +buy her own things?" + +The Captain dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. "She's a +nigger, Peter; you can't hire a nigger not to steal. Born in 'em. Then +I'm not sure but what it would be compounding a felony, hiring a person +not to steal; might be so construed. Well, now, there's the script. Read +it carefully, my boy, and remember that in order to gain a certain +_status quo_ certain antecedents are--are absolutely necessary, +Peter. Without them my--my life would have been quite empty, Peter. +It's--it's very strange--amazing. You will understand as you read. I'll +be back to dinner, so good-by." In the strangest agitation the old +Captain walked out of the library. The last glimpse Peter had of him was +his meager old figure silhouetted against the cold gray fog that filled +the compound. + +Neither the Captain's agitation nor his obvious desire that Peter should +at once read the new manuscript really got past the threshold of the +mulatto's consciousness. Peter's thoughts still hovered about old Rose, +and from that point spread to the whole system of colored service in the +South. For Rose's case was typical. The wage of cooks in small Southern +villages is a pittance--and what they can steal. The tragedy of the +mothers of a whole race working for their board and thievings came over +Peter with a rising grimness. And there was no public sentiment against +such practice. It was accepted everywhere as natural and inevitable. The +negresses were never prosecuted; no effort was made to regain the stolen +goods. The employers realized that what they paid would not keep soul +and body together; that it was steal or perish. + +It was a fantastic truth that for any colored girl to hire into domestic +service in Hooker's Bend was more or less entering an apprenticeship in +peculation. What she could steal was the major portion of her wage, if +two such anomalous terms may be used in conjunction. + +Yet, strange to say, the negro women of the village were quite honest in +other matters. They paid their small debts. They took their mistresses' +pocket-books to market and brought back the correct change. And if a +mistress grew too indignant about something they had stolen, they would +bring it back and say: "Here is a new one. I'd rather buy you a new one +than have you think I would take anything." + +The whole system was the lees of slavery, and was surely the most +demoralizing, the most grotesque method of hiring service in the whole +civilized world. It was so absurd that its mere relation lapses into +humor, that bane of black folk. + +Such painful thoughts filled the gloomy library and harassed Peter in +his copying. He took his work to the window and tried to concentrate +upon it, but his mind kept playing away. + +Indeed, it seemed to Peter that to sit in this old room and rewrite the +wordy meanderings of the old gentleman's book was the very height of +emptiness. How utterly futile, when all around him, on every hand, girls +like Cissie Dildine were being indentured to corruption! And, as far as +Peter knew, he was the only person in the South who saw it or felt it or +cared anything at all about it. + +When Cissie Dildine came to the surface of Peter's mind she remained +there, whirling around and around in his chaotic thoughts. He began +talking to her image, after a certain dramatic trick of his mind, and +she began offering her environment as an excuse for what had come +between them and estranged them. She stole, but she had been trained to +steal. She was a thief, the victim of an immense immorality. The charm +of Cissie, her queer, swift-working intuition, the candor of her +confession, her voluptuousness--all came rushing down on Peter, +harassing him with anger and love and desire. To copy any more script +became impossible. He lost his place; he hardly knew what he was +writing. + +He flung aside the whole work, got to his feet with the imperative need +of an athlete for the open. He started out of the room, but as an +afterthought scribbled a nervous line, telling the Captain he might not +be back for dinner. Then he found his hat and coat and walked briskly +around the piazza to the front gate. + +The trees and shrubs were dripping, but the fog had almost cleared away, +leaving only a haze in the air. A pale, level line of it cut across the +scarp of the Big Hill. The sun shone with a peculiar soft light through +the vapors. + +As Peter passed out at the gate, the fancy came to him that he might +very well be starting on his mission. It came with a sort of surprise. +He wondered how other men had set about reforms. With unpremeditation? +He wondered to whom Jesus of Nazareth preached his first sermon. The +thought of that young Galilean, sensitive, compassionate, inexperienced, +speaking to his first hearer, filled Peter with a strange trembling +tenderness. He looked about the familiar street of Hooker's Bend, the +old trees over the pavement, the shabby village houses, and it all held +a strangeness when thus juxtaposed to the thought of Nazareth nineteen +hundred years before. + +The mulatto started down the street with his footsteps quickened by a +sense of spiritual adventure. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + +On the corner, against the blank south wall of Hobbett's store, Peter +Siner saw the usual crowd of negroes warming themselves in the soft +sunshine. They were slapping one another, scuffling, making feints with +knives or stones, all to an accompaniment of bragging, profanity, and +loud laughter. Their behavior was precisely that of adolescent white +boys of fifteen or sixteen years of age. + +Jim Pink Staggs was furnishing much amusement with an impromptu sleight- +of-hand exhibition. The black audience clustered around Jim Pink in his +pinstripe trousers and blue-serge coat. They exhibited not the least +curiosity as to the mechanics of the tricks, but asked for more and +still more, with the naïve delight of children in the mysterious. + +Peter Siner walked down the street with his Messianic impulse strong +upon him. He was in that stage of feeling toward his people where a +man's emotions take the color of religion. Now, as he approached the +crowd of negroes, he wondered what he could say, how he could transfer +to them the ideas and the emotion that lifted up his own heart. + +As he drew nearer, his concern mounted to anxiety. Indeed, what could he +say? How could he present so grave a message? He was right among them +now. One of the negroes jostled him by striking around his body at +another negro. Peter stopped. His heart beat, and he had a queer +sensation of being operated by some power outside himself. Next moment +he heard himself saying in fairly normal tones: + +"Fellows, do you think we ought to be idling on the street corners like +this? We ought to be at work, don't you think?" + +The horse-play stopped at this amazing sentiment. + +"Whuffo, Peter?" asked a voice. + +"Because the whole object of our race nowadays is to gain the respect of +other races, and more particularly our own self-respect. We haven't it +now. The only way to get it is to work, work, work." + +"Ef you feel lak you'd ought to go to wuck," suggested one astonished +hearer, "you done got my p'mission, black boy, to hit yo' natchel gait +to de fust job in sight." + +Peter was hardly less surprised than his hearers at what he was saying. +He paid no attention to the interruption. + +"Fellows, it's the only way our colored people can get on and make the +most out of life. Persistent labor is the very breath of the soul, men; +it--it is." Here Peter caught an intimation of the whole flow of energy +through the universe, focusing in man and being transformed into mental +and moral values. And it suddenly occurred to him that the real worth of +any people was their efficiency in giving this flow of force moral and +spiritual forms. That is the end of man; that is what is prefigured when +a baby's hand reaches for the sun. But Peter considered his audience, +and his thought stammered on his tongue. The Persimmon, with his +protruding, half-asleep eyes, was saying: + +"I don' know, Peter, as I 's so partic'lar 'bout makin' de mos' out'n +dis worl'. You know de Bible say--hit say,"--here the Persimmon's voice +dropped a tone lower, in unconscious imitation of negro preachers,--"la- +ay not up yo' treasure on uth, wha moss do corrup', an' thieves break +th'ugh _an'_ steal." + +Came a general nodding and agreement of soft, blurry voices. + +"'At sho whut it say, black man!" + +"Sho do!" + +"Lawd God loves a nigger on a street corner same as He do a millionaire +in a six-cylinder, Peter." + +"Sho do, black man; but He's jes about de onlies' thing on uth 'at do." + +"Well, I don' know," came a troubled rejoinder. "Thaiuh 's de debbil, +ketchin' mo' niggers nowadays dan he do white men, I 'fo' Gawd +b'liebes." + +"Well, dat's because dey _is_ so many mo' niggers dan dey is white +folks," put in a philosopher. + +"Whut you say 'bout dat, Brudder Peter?" inquired the Persimmon, +seriously. None of this discussion was either derision or burlesque. +None of the crowd had the slightest feeling that these questions were +not just as practical and important as the suggestion that they all go +to work. + +When Peter realized how their ignorant and undisciplined thoughts flowed +off into absurdities, and that they were entirely unaware of it, it +brought a great depression to his heart. He held up a hand with an +earnestness that caught their vagrant attention. + +"Listen!" he pleaded. "Can't you see how much there is for us black +folks to do, and what little we have done?" + +"Sho is a lot to do; we admits dat," said Bluegum Frakes. "But whut's de +use doin' hit ef we kin manage to shy roun' some o' dat wuck an' keep on +libin' anyhow, specially wid wages so high?" + +The question stopped Peter. Neither his own thoughts, nor any book that +he had ever read nor any lecture that he had heard ever attempted to +explain the enormous creative urge which is felt by every noble mind, +and which, indeed, is shared to some extent by every human creature. Put +to it like that, Siner concocted a sort of allegory, telling of a negro +who was shiftless in the summer and suffered want in the winter, and +applied it to the present high wage and to the low wage that was coming; +but in his heart Peter knew such utilitarianism was not the true reason +at all. Men do not weave tapestries to warm themselves, or build temples +to keep the rain away. + +The brown man passed on around the corner, out of the faint warmth of +the sunshine and away from the empty and endless arguments which his +coming had provoked among the negroes. + +The futile ending of his first adventure surprised Peter. He walked +uncertainly up the business street of the village, hardly knowing where +to turn next. + +Cold weather had driven the merchants indoors, and the thoroughfare was +quite deserted except for a few hogs rooting among the refuse heaps +piled in front of the stores. It was not a pleasant sight, and it +repelled Peter all the more because he was accustomed to the antiseptic +look of a Northern city. He walked up to the third door from the corner, +when a buzz of voices brought him to a standstill and finally persuaded +him inside. + +At the back end of a badly lighted store a circle of white men and boys +had formed around an old-fashioned, egg-shaped stove. Near by, on some +meal-bags, sat two negroes, one of whom wore a broad grin, the other, a +funny, sheepish look. + +The white men were teasing the latter negro about having gone to jail +for selling a mortgaged cow. The men went about their fun-making +leisurely, knowing quite well the negro could not get angry or make any +retort or leave the store, all of these methods of self-defense being +ruled out by custom. + +"You must have forgot your cow was mortgaged, Bob." + +"No-o-o, suh; I--I--I didn't fuhgit," drawling his vowels to a +prodigious length. + +"Didn't you know you'd get into trouble?" + +"No-o-o, suh." + +"Know it now, don't you?" + +"Ya-a-s, suh." + +"Have a good time in jail, Bob?" + +"Ya-a-s, suh. Shot cra-a-aps nearly all de time tull de jailer broke hit +up." + +"Wouldn't he let you shoot any more?" + +"No-o-o, suh; not after he won all our money." Here Bob flung up his +head, poked out his lips like a bugle, and broke into a grotesque, "Hoo! +hoo! hoo!" It was such an absurd laugh, and Bob's tale had come to such +an absurd denouement, that the white men roared, and shuffled their feet +on the flared base of the stove. Some spat in or near a box filled with +sawdust, and betrayed other nervous signs of satisfaction. When a man so +spat, he stopped laughing abruptly, straightened his face, and stared +emptily at the rusty stove until further inquisition developed some +other preposterous escapade in Bob's jail career. + +The merchant, looking up at one of these intermissions, saw Peter +standing at his counter. He came out of the circle and asked Peter what +he wanted. The mulatto bought a package of soda and went out. + +The chill north wind smelled clean after the odors of the store. Peter +stood with his package of soda, breathing deeply, looking up and down +the street, wondering what to do next. Without much precision of +purpose, he walked diagonally across the street, northward toward a +large faded sign that read, "Killibrew's Grocery." A little later Peter +entered a big, rather clean store which smelled of spices, coffee, and a +faint dash of decayed potatoes. Mr. Killibrew himself, a big, rotund +man, with a round head of prematurely white hair, was visible in a +little glass office at the end of his store. Even through the glazed +partition Peter could see Mr. Killibrew smiling as he sat comfortably at +his desk. Indeed, the grocer's chief assets were a really expansive +friendliness and a pleasant, easily provoked laughter. + +He was fifty-two years old, and had been in the grocery business since +he was fifteen. He had never been to school at all, but had learned +bookkeeping, business mathematics, salesmanship, and the wisdom of the +market-place from his store, from other merchants, and from the drummers +who came every week with their samples and their worldly wisdom. These +drummers were, almost to a man, very sincere friends of Mr. Killibrew, +and not infrequently they would write the grocer from the city, or send +him telegrams, advising him to buy this or to unload that, according to +the exigencies of the market. As a result of this was very well off +indeed, and all because he was a friendly, agreeable sort of man. + +The grocer heard Peter enter and started to come out of his office, when +Peter stopped him and asked if he might speak with him alone. + +The white-haired man with the pink, good-natured face stood looking at +Peter with rather a questioning but pleasant expression. + +"Why, certainly, certainly." He turned back to the swivel-chair at his +desk, seated himself, and twisted about on Peter as he entered. Mr. +Killibrew did not offer Peter a seat,--that would have been an +infraction of Hooker's Bend custom,--but he sat leaning back, evidently +making up his mind to refuse Peter credit, which he fancied the mulatto +would ask for and yet do it pleasantly. + +"I was wondering, Mr. Killibrew," began Peter feeling his way along, "I +was wondering if you would mind talking over a little matter with me. +It's considered a delicate subject, I believe, but I thought a frank +talk would help." + +During the natural pauses of Peter's explanation Mr. Killibrew kept up a +genial series of nods and ejaculations. + +"Certainly, Peter. I don't see why, Peter. I'm sure it will help, +Peter." + +"I'd like to talk frankly about the relations of our two races in the +South, in Hooker's Bend." + +The grocer stopped his running accompaniment of affirmations and looked +steadfastly at Peter. Presently he seemed to solve some question and +broke into a pleasant laugh. + +"Now, Peter, if this is some political shenanigan, I must tell you I'm a +Democrat. Besides that, I don't care a straw about politics. I vote, and +that's all." + +Peter put down the suspicion that he was on a political errand. + +"Not that at all, Mr. Killibrew. It's a question of the white race and +the black race. The particular feature I am working on is the wages paid +to cooks." + +"I didn't know you were a cook," interjected the grocer in surprise. + +"I am not." + +Mr. Killibrew looked at Peter, thought intensely for a few moments, and +came to an unescapable conclusion. + +"You don't mean you've formed a cook's union here in Hooker's Bend, +Peter!" he cried, immensely amazed. + +"Not at all. It's this," clarified Peter. "It may seem trivial, but it +illustrates the principle I'm trying to get at. Doesn't your cook carry +away cold food?" + +It required perhaps four seconds for the merchant to stop his +speculations on what Peter had come for and adjust his mind to the +question. + +"Why, yes, I suppose so," he agreed, very much at sea. "I--I never +caught up with her." He laughed a pleasant, puzzled laugh. "Of course +she doesn't come around and show me what she's making off with. Why?" + +"Well, it's this. Wouldn't you prefer to give your cook a certain cash +payment instead of having her taking uncertain amounts of your +foodstuffs and wearing apparel?" + +The merchant leaned forward in his chair. + +"Did old Becky Davis send you to me with any such proposition as that, +Peter?" + +"No, not at all. But, Mr. Killibrew, wouldn't you like better and more +trustworthy servants as cooks, as farm-hands, chauffeurs, stable-boys? +You see, you and your children and your children's children are going to +have to depend on negro labor, as far as we can see, to the end of +time." + +"We-e-ell, yes," admitted Mr. Killibrew, who was not accustomed to +considering the end of time. + +"Wouldn't it be better to have honest, self-respecting help than +dishonest help?" + +"Certainly." + +"Then let's think about cooks. How can one hope to rear an honest, self- +respecting citizenry as long as the mothers of the race are compelled to +resort to thievery to patch out an insufficient wage?" + +"Why, I don't suppose niggers ever will be honest," admitted the grocer, +very frankly. "You naturally don't trust a nigger. If you credit one for +a dime, the next time he has any money he'll go trade somewhere else." +The grocer broke into his contagious laugh. "Do you know how I've built +up my business here, Peter? By never trusting a nigger." Mr. Killibrew +continued his pleased chuckle. "Yes, I get the whole cash trade of the +niggers in Hooker's Bend by never cheating one and never trusting one." + +The grocer leaned back in his squeaking chair and looked out through the +glass partition, over the brightly colored packages that lined his +shelves from floor to ceiling. All that prosperity had come about +through a policy of honesty and distrust. It was something to be proud +of. + +"Now, let me see," he proceeded, recurring pleasantly to what he +recalled of Peter's original proposition: "Aunt Becky sent you here to +tell me if I'd raise her pay, she'd stop stealin' and--and raise some +honest children." Mr. Killibrew threw back his head broke into loud, +jelly-like laughter. "Why, don't you know, Peter, she's an old liar. If +I gave her a hundred a week, she'd steal. And children! Why, the old +humbug! She's too old; she's had her crop. And, besides all that, I +don't mind what the old woman takes. It isn't much. She's a good old +darky, faithful as a dog." He arose from his swivel-chair briskly and +floated Peter out before him. "Tell her, if she wants a raise," he +concluded heartily, "and can't pinch enough out of my kitchen and the +two dollars I pay her--tell her to come to me, straight out, and I'll +give her more, and she can pinch more." + +Mr. Killibrew moved down the aisle of his store between fragrant barrels +and boxes, laughing mellowly at old Aunt Becky's ruse, as he saw it. As +he turned Peter out, he invited him to come again when he needed +anything in the grocery line. + +And he was so pleasant, hearty, and sincere in his friendliness toward +both Peter and old Aunt Becky that Peter, even amid the complete side- +tracking and derailing of his mission, decided that it ever he did have +occasion to purchase any groceries, he would do his trading at this +market ruled by an absolute honesty with, and a complete distrust in, +his race. + +At the conclusion of the Killibrew interview Peter instinctively felt +that he had just about touched the norm of Hooker's Bend. The village +might contain men who would dive a little deeper into the race question +with Peter; assuredly, there would be hundreds who would not dive so +deep. Mr. Killibrew's attitude on the race question turned on how to +hold the negro patronage of the village to his grocery. It was not an +abstract question at all, but a concrete fact, which he had worked out +to his own satisfaction. With Mr. Killibrew, with all Hooker's Bend, +there was no negro question. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + +When Peter Siner started on his indefinite errand among the village +stores he believed it would require much tact and diplomacy to discuss +the race question without offense. To his surprise, no precaution was +necessary. Everybody agreed at once that the South would be benefited by +a more trustworthy labor, that if the negroes were trustworthy they +could be paid more; but nobody agreed that if negroes were paid more +they would become more trustworthy. The prevailing dictum was, A +nigger's a nigger. + +As Peter came out into the shabby little street of Hooker's Bend +discouragement settled upon him. He felt as if he had come squarely +against some blank stone wall that no amount of talking could budge. The +black man would have to change his psychology or remain where he was, a +creature of poverty, hovels, and dirt; but amid such surroundings he +could not change his psychology. + +The point of these unhappy conclusions somehow turned against Cissie +Dildine. The mulatto became aware that his whole crusade had been +undertaken in behalf of the octoroon. Everything the merchants said +against negroes became accusations against Cissie in a sharp personal +way. "A nigger is a nigger"; "A thief is a thief"; "She wouldn't quit +stealing if I paid her a hundred a week." Every stroke had fallen +squarely on Cissie's shoulders. A nigger, a thief; and she would never +be otherwise. + +It was all so hopeless, so unchangeable, that Peter walked down the +bleak street unutterably depressed There was nothing he could do. The +situation was static. It seemed best that he should go away North and +save his own skin. It was impossible to take Cissie with him. Perhaps in +time he would come to forget her, and in so doing he would forget the +pauperism and pettinesses of all the black folk of the South. Because +through Cissie Peter saw the whole negro race. She was flexuous and +passionate, kindly and loving, childish and naïvely wise; on occasion +she could falsify and steal, and in the depth of her Peter sensed a +profound capacity for fury and violence. For all her precise English, +she was untamed, perhaps untamable. + +Cissie was a far cry from the sort of woman Peter imagined he wanted for +a mate; yet he knew that if he stayed on in Hooker's Bend, seeing her, +desiring her, with her luxury mocking the loneliness of the old Renfrew +manor, presently he would marry her. Already he had had his little +irrational moments when it seemed to him that Cissie herself was quite +fine and worthy and that her speculations were something foreign and did +not pertain to her at all. + +He would better go North. It would be safer up there. No doubt he could +find another colored girl in the North. The thought of fondling any +other woman filled Peter with a sudden, sharp repulsion. However, Peter +was wise. He knew he would get over that in time. + +With this plan in mind, Peter set out down the street, intending to +cross the Big Hill at the church, walk over to his mother's shack, and +pack his few belongings preparatory to going away. + +It was not a heroic retreat. The conversation which he had had with his +college friend Farquhar recurred to Peter. Farquhar had tried to +persuade Peter to remain North and take a position in a system of +garages out of Chicago. + +"You can do nothing in the South, Siner," assured Farquhar; "your +countrymen must stand on their own feet, just as you are doing." + +Peter had argued the vast majority of the negroes had no chance, but +Farquhar pressed the point that Peter himself disproved his own +statement. At the time Peter felt there was an clench in the +Illinoisan's logic, but he was not skilful enough to analyze it. Now the +mulatto began to see that Farquhar was right. The negro question was a +matter of individual initiative. Critics forgot that a race was composed +of individual men. + +Peter had an uneasy sense that this was exceedingly thin logic, a mere +smoke screen behind which he meant to retreat back up North. He walked +on down the poor village street, turning it over and over in his mind, +affirming it positively to himself, after the manner of uneasy +consciences. + +An unusual stir among the negroes on Hobbett's corner caught Peter's +attention and broke into his chain of thought. Half a dozen negroes +stood on the corner, staring down toward the white church. A black boy +suddenly started running across the street, and disappeared among the +stores on the other side. Peter caught glimpses of him among the +wretched alleyways and vacant lots that lie east of Main Street. The boy +was still running toward Niggertown. + +By this time Peter was just opposite the watchers on the corner. He +lifted his voice and asked them the matter, but at the moment they began +an excited talking, and no one heard him. + +Jim Pink Staggs jerked off his fur cap, made a gesture, contorted his +long, black face into a caricature of fright, and came loping across the +street, looking back over his shoulder, mimicking a run for life His +mummery set his audience howling. + +The buffoon would have collided with Peter, but the mulatto caught Jim +Pink by the arm and shoulder, brought him to a halt, and at the same +time helped him keep his feet. + +To Peter's inquiry what was the matter, the black fellow whirled and +blared out loudly, for the sake of his audience: + +"'Fo' Gawd, nigger, I sho thought Mr. Bobbs had me!" and he writhed his +face into an idiotic grimace. + +The audience reeled about in their mirth. Because with negroes, as with +white persons, two thirds of humor is in the reputation, and Jim Pink +was of prodigious repute. + +Peter walked along with him patiently, because he knew that until they +were out of ear-shot of the crowd there was no way of getting a sensible +answer out of Jim Pink. + +"Where are you going?" he asked presently. + +"Thought I'd step over to Niggertown." Jim Pink's humorous air was still +upon him. + +"What's doing over there? What were the boys raising such a hullabaloo +about?" + +"Such me." + +"Why did that boy go running across like that?" + +Jim Pink rolled his eyes on Peter with a peculiar look. + +"Reckon he mus' 'a' wanted to git on t'other side o' town." + +Peter flattered the Punchinello by smiling a little. + +"Come, Jim Pink, what do you know?" he asked. The magician poked out his +huge lips. + +"Mr. Bobbs turn acrost by de church, over de Big Hill. Da' 's always a +ba-ad sign." + +Peter's brief interest in the matter flickered out. Another arrest for +some niggerish peccadillo. The history of Niggertown was one long series +of petty offenses, petty raids, and petty punishments. Peter would be +glad to get well away from such a place. + +"Think I'll go North, Jim Pink," remarked Peter, chiefly to keep up a +friendly conversation with his companion. + +"Whut-chu goin' to do up thaiuh?" + +"Take a position in a system of garages." + +"A position is a job wid a white color on it," defined the minstrel. +"Whut you goin' to do wid Cissie?" + +Peter looked around at the foolish face. + +"With Cissie?--Cissie Dildine?" + +"Uh huh." + +"Why, what makes you think I'm going to do anything with Cissie?" + +"M-m, visitin' roun'." The fool flung his face into a grimace, and +dropped it as one might shake out a sack. + +Peter watched the contortion uneasily. + +"What do you mean--visiting around?" + + + "Diff'nt folks go visitin' roun'; + Some goes up an' some goes down." + + +Apparently Jim Pink had merely quoted a few words from a poem he knew. +He stared at the green-black depth of the glade, which set in about +half-way up the hill they were climbing. + +"Ef this weather don' ever break," he observed sagely, "we sho am in fuh +a dry spell." + +Peter did not pursue the topic of the weather. He climbed the hill in +silence, wondering just what the buffoon meant. He suspected he was +hinting at Cissie's visit to his room. However, he did not dare ask any +questions or press the point in any manner, lest he commit himself. + +The minstrel had succeeded in making Peter's walk very uncomfortable, as +somehow he always did. Peter went on thinking about the matter. If Jim +Pink knew of Cissie's visit, all Niggertown knew it. No woman's +reputation, nobody's shame or misery or even life, would stand between +Jim Pink and what he considered a joke. The buffoon was the crudest +thing in this world--a man who thought himself a wit. + +Peter could imagine all the endless tweaks to Cissie's pride Niggertown +would give the octoroon. She had asked Peter to marry her and had been +refused. She had humbled herself for naught. That was the very tar of +shame. Peter knew that in the moral categories of Niggertown Cissie +would suffer more from such a rebuff than if she had lied or committed +theft and adultery every day in the calendar. She had been refused +marriage. All the folk-ways of Niggertown were utterly topsyturvy. It +was a crazy-house filled with the most grotesque moral measures. + +It seemed to Peter as he entered the cedar-glade that he had lost all +sympathy with this people from which he had sprung. He looked upon them +as strange, incomprehensible beings, just as a man will forget his own +childhood and look upon children as strange, incomprehensible little +creatures. In the midst of his thoughts he heard himself saying to Jim +Pink: + +"I suppose it is as dusty as ever." + +"Dustier 'an ever," assured Jim Pink. + +Apparently their conversation had recurred to the weather, after all. + +A chill silence encompassed the glade. The path the negroes followed +wound this way and that among reddish boulders, between screens of +intergrown cedars, and over a bronze mat of needles. Their steps were +noiseless. The odor of the cedars and the temple-like stillness brought +to Peter's mind the night of his mother's death. It seemed to him a long +time since he had come running through the glade after a doctor, and +yet, by a queer distortion of his sense of time, his mother's death and +burial bulked in his past as if it had occurred yesterday. + +There was no sound in the glade to disturb Peter's thoughts except a +murmur of human voices from some of the innumerable privacies of the +place, and the occasional chirp of a waxwing busy over clusters of +cedar-balls. + +It had been five weeks and a day since Caroline died. Five weeks and a +day; his mother's death drifting away into the mystery and oblivion of +the past. Likewise, twenty-five years of his own life completed and +gone. + +A procession of sad, wistful thoughts trailed through Peter's brain: his +mother, and Ida May, and now Cissie. It seemed to Peter that all any +woman had ever brought him was wistfulness and sadness. His mother had +been jealous, and instead of the great happiness he had expected, his +home life with her had turned out a series of small perplexities and +pains. Before that was Ida May, and now here was her younger sister. +Peter wondered if any man ever reached the peace and happiness +foreshadowed in his dream of a woman. + + * * * * * + +A voice calling his name checked Peter's stride mechanically, and caused +him to look about with the slight bewilderment of a man aroused from a +reverie. + +At the first sound, however, Jim Pink became suddenly alert. He took +three strides ahead of Peter, and as he went he whispered over his +shoulder: + +"Beat it, nigger! beat it!" + +The mulatto recognized one of Jim Pink's endless stupid attempts at +comedy. It would be precisely Jim Pink's idea of a jest to give Peter a +little start. As the mulatto stood looking about among the cedars for +the person who had called his name, it amazed him that Jim Pink could be +so utterly insane; that he performed some buffoonery instantly, by +reflex action as it were, upon the slightest provocation. It was almost +a mania with Jim Pink; it verged on the pathological. + +The clown, however, was pressing his joke. He was pretending great fear, +and was shouting out in his loose minstrel voice: + +"Hey, don' shoot down dis way, black man, tull I makes my exit!" And a +voice, rich with contempt, called back: + +"You needn't be skeered, you fool rabbit of a nigger!" + +Peter turned with a qualm. Quite close to him, and in another direction +from which he had been looking, stood Tump Pack. The ex-soldier looked +the worse for wear after his jail sentence. His uniform was frayed, and +over his face lay a grayish cast that marks negroes in bad condition. At +his side, attached by a belt and an elaborate shoulder holster, hung a +big army revolver, while on the greasy lapel of his coat was pinned his +military medal for exceptional bravery on the field of battle. + +"Been lookin' fuh you fuh some time, Peter," he stated grimly. + +Peter considered the formidable figure with a queer sensation. He tried +to take Tump's appearance casually; he tried to maintain an air of +ordinariness. + +"Didn't know you were back." + +"Yeah, I's back." + +"Have you--been looking for me?" + +"Yeah." + +"Didn't you know where I was staying?" + +"Co'se I did; up 'mong de white folks. You know dey don' 'low no +shootin' an' killin' 'mong de white folks." He drew his pistol from the +holster with the address of an expert marksman. + +[Illustration: "Naw yuh don't," he warned sharply. "You turn roun' an' +march on to niggertown"] + +Peter stood, with a quickening pulse, studying his assailant. The glade, +the air, the sunshine, seemed suddenly drawn to a tension, likely to, +break into violent commotion. His abrupt danger brought Peter to a +feeling of lightness and power. A quiver went along his spine. His +nostrils widened unconsciously as he calculated a leap and a blow at +Tump's gun. + +The soldier took a step backward, at the same time bringing the barrel +to a ready. + +"Naw you don't," he warned sharply. "You turn roun' an' march on to +Niggertown." + +"What for?" Peter still tried to be casual, but his voice held new +overtones. + +"Because, nigger, I means to drap you right on de Main Street o' +Niggertown, 'fo' all dem niggers whut's been a-raggin' me 'bout you an' +Cissie. I's gwine show dem fool niggers I don' take no fumi-diddles +off'n nobody." + +"Tump," gasped Jim Pink, in a husky voice, "you oughtn't shoot Peter; he +mammy jes daid." + +"'En she won' worry none. Turn roun', Peter, an' when I says, 'March,' +you march." He leveled his pistol. "'Tention! Rat about face! March!" + +Peter turned and moved off down the noiseless path, walking with the +stiff gait of a man who expects a terrific blow from behind at any +instant. + +The mulatto walked twenty or more paces amid a confusion of self- +protective impulses. He thought of whirling on Tump even at this late +date. He thought of darting behind a cedar, but he knew the man behind +him was an expert shot, and something fundamental in the brown man +forbade his getting himself killed while running away. It was too +undignified a death. + +Presently he surprised himself by calling over his shoulder, as a sort +of complaint: + +"How came you with the pistol, Tump? Thought it was against the law to +carry one." + +"You kin ca'y 'em ef you don' keep 'em hid," explained the ex-soldier in +a wooden voice. "Mr. Bobbs tol' me dat when he guv my gun back." + +The irony of the thing caught Peter, for the authorities to arrest Tump +not because he was trying to kill Peter, but because he went about his +first attempt in an illegal manner. For the first time in his life the +mulatto felt that contempt for a white man's technicalities that flavors +every negro's thoughts. Here for thirty days his life had been saved by +a technical law of the white man; at the end of the thirty days, by +another technical law, Tump was set at liberty and allowed to carry a +weapon, in a certain way, to murder him. It was grotesque; it was +absurd. It filled Peter with a sudden violent questioning of the whole +white régime. His thoughts danced along in peculiar excitement. + +At the turn of the hill the trio came in sight of the squalid semicircle +of Niggertown. Here and there from a tumbledown chimney a feather of +pale wood smoke lifted into the chill sunshine. The sight of the houses +brought Peter a sharp realization that his life would end in the curving +street beneath him. A shock at the incomprehensible brevity of his life +rushed over him. Just to that street, just as far as the curve, and his +legs were swinging along, carrying him forward at an even gait. + +All at once he began talking, arguing. He tried to speak at an ordinary +tempo, but his words kept edging on faster and faster: + +"Tump, I'm not going to marry Cissie Dildine." + +"I knows you ain't, Peter." + +"I mean, if you let me alone, I didn't mean to." + +"I ain't goin' to let you alone." + +"Tump, we had already decided not to marry." + +After a short pause Tump said in a slightly different tone: + +"'Pears lak you don' haf to ma'y her--comin' to yo' room." + +A queer sinking came over the mulatto. "Listen, Tump, I--we--in my room +--we simply talked, that's all. She came to tell me she was goin away. +I--I didn't harm her, Tump." Peter swallowed. He despaired of being +believed. + +But his defense only infuriated the soldier. He suddenly broke into +violent profanity. + +"Hot damn you! shut yo black mouf! Whut I keer whut-chu done! You weaned +her away fum me. She won't speak to me! She won't look at me!" A sudden +insanity of rage seized Tump. He poured on his victim every oath and +obscenity he had raked out of the whole army. + +Strangely enough, the gunman's outbreak brought a kind of relief to +Peter Siner. It exonerated him. He was not suspected of wronging Cissie; +or, rather, whether he had or had not wronged her made no difference to +Tump. Peter's crime consisted in mere being, in existing where Cissie +could see him and desire him rather than Tump. Why it calmed Peter to +know that Tump held no dishonorable charge against him the mulatto +himself could not have told. Tump's violence showed Peter the certainty +of his own death, and somehow it washed away the hope and the thought of +escape. + +Half-way down the hill they entered the edge of Niggertown. The smell of +sties and stables came to them. Peter's thoughts moved here and there, +like the eyes of a little child glancing about as it is forced to leave +a pleasure-ground. + +Peter knew that Jim Pink, who now made a sorry figure in their rear, +would one day give a buffoon's mimicry of this his walk to death. He +thought of Tump, who would have to serve a year or two in the Nashville +Penitentiary, for the murder of negroes is seldom severely punished. He +thought of Cissie. He was being murdered because Cissie desired him. + +And then Peter remembered the single bit of wisdom that his whole life +had taught him. It was this: no people can become civilized until the +woman has the power of choice among the males that sue for her hand. The +history of the white race shows the gradual increase of the woman's +power of choice. Among the yellow races, where this power is curtailed, +civilization is curtailed. It was this principle that exalted chivalry. +Upon it the white man has reared all his social fabric. + +So deeply ingrained is it that almost every novel written by white men +revolves about some woman's choice of her mate being thwarted by power +or pride or wealth, but in every instance the rightness of the woman's +choice is finally justified. The burden of every song is love, true +love, enduring love, a woman's true and enduring love. + +And in his moment of clairvoyance Peter saw that these songs and stories +were profoundly true. Against a woman's selectiveness no other social +force may count. + +That was why his own race was weak and hopeless and helpless. The males +of his people were devoid of any such sentiment or self-repression. They +were men of the jungle, creatures of tusk and claw and loin. This very +act of violence against his person condemned his whole race. + +These thoughts brought the mulatto an unspeakable sadness, not only for +his own particular death, but that this idea, this great redeeming +truth, which burned so brightly in his brain, would in another moment +flicker out, unrevealed, and be no more. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + +The coughing and rattling of an old motor-car as it rounded the +Niggertown curve delayed Tump Pack's act of violence. Instinctively, the +three men waited for the machine to pass before Peter walked out into +the road. Next moment it appeared around the turn, moving slowly through +the dust and spreading a veritable fog behind it. + +All three negroes recognized the first glimpse of the hood and top, for +there are only three or four cars in Hooker's Bend, and these are as +well known as the faces of their owners. This particular motor belonged +to Constable Bobbs, and the next moment the trio saw the ponderous body +of the officer at the wheel, and by his side a woman. As the machine +clacked toward them Peter felt a certain surprise to see that it was +Cissie Dildine. + +The constable in the car scrutinized the black men, by the roadside in a +very peculiar way. As he came near, he leaned across Cissie and almost +eclipsed the girl. He eyed the trio with his perpetual menace of a grin +on his broad red face. His right hand, lying across Cissie's lap, held a +revolver. When closest he shouted above the clangor of his engine: + +"Now, none o' that, boys! None o' that! You'll prob'ly hit the gal if +you shoot, an' I'll pick you off lak three black skunks." + +He brandished his revolver at them, but the gesture was barely seen, and +instantly concealed by the cloud; of dust following the motor. Next +moment it enveloped the negroes and hid them even from one another. + +It was only after Peter was lost in the dust-cloud that the mulatto +really divined what was meant by Cissie's strange appearance with the +constable, her chalky face, her frightened brown eyes. The significance +of the scene grew in his mind. He stood with eyes screwed to slits +staring into the apricot-colored dust in the direction of the vanishing +noise. + +Presently Tump Pack's form outlined itself in the yellow obscurity, +groping toward Peter. He still held his pistol, but it swung at his +side. He called Peter's name in the strained voice of a man struggling +not to cough: + +"Peter--is Mr. Bobbs done--'rested Cissie?" + +Peter could hardly talk himself. + +"Don't know. Looks like it." + +The two negroes stared at each other through the dust. + +"Fuh Gawd's sake! Cissie 'rested!" Tump began to cough. Then he wheezed: + +"Mine an' yo' little deal's off, Peter. You gotta he'p git her out." +Here he fell into a violent fit of coughing, and started groping his way +to the edge of the dust-cloud. + +In the rush of the moment the swift change in Peter's situation appeared +only natural. He followed Tump, so distressed by the dust and disturbed +over Cissie that he hardly thought of his peculiar position. The dust +pinched the upper part of his throat, stung his nose. Tears trickled +from his eyes, and he pressed his finger against his upper lip, trying +not to sneeze. He was still struggling against the sneeze when Tump +recovered his speech. + +"Wh-whut you reckon she done, Peter? She don' shoot craps, nor boot- +laig, nor--" He fell to coughing. + +Peter got out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. + +"Let's go--to the Dildine house," he said. + +The two moved hurriedly through the thinning cloud, and presently came +to breathable air, where they could see the houses around them. + +"I know she done somp'n; I know she done somp'n," chanted Tump, with the +melancholy cadence of his race. He shook his dusty head. "You ain't +never been in jail, is you, black man?" + +Peter said he had not. + +"Lawd! it ain't no place fuh a woman," declared Tump. "You dunno nothin' +'bout it, black man. It sho ain't no place fuh a woman." + +A notion of an iron cage floated before Peter's mind. The two negroes +trudged on through the crescent side by side, their steps raising a +little trail of dust in the air behind them. Their faces and clothes +were of a uniform dust color. Streaks of mud marked the runnels of their +tears down their cheeks. + +The shrubbery and weeds that grew alongside the negro thoroughfare were +quite dead. Even the little avenue of dwarf box was withered that led +from the gate to the door of the Dildine home. The two colored men +walked up the little path to the door, knocked, and waited on the steps +for the little skirmish of observation from behind the blinds. None +came. The worst had befallen the house; there was nothing to guard. The +door opened as soon as an inmate could reach it, and Vannie Dildine +stood before them. + +The quadroon's eyes were red, and her face had the moist, slightly +swollen appearance that comes of protracted weeping. She looked so frail +and miserable that Peter instinctively stepped inside and took her arm +to assist her in the mere physical effort of standing. + +"What is the matter, Mrs. Dildine?" he asked in a shocked tone. "What's +happened to Cissie?" + +Vannie began weeping again with a faint gasping and a racking of her +flat chest. + +"It's--it's--O-o-oh, Peter!" She put an arm about him and began weeping +against him. He soothed her, patted her shoulder, at the same time +staring at the side of her head, wondering what could have dealt her +this blow. + +Presently she steadied herself and began explaining in feeble little +phrases, sandwiched between sobs and gasps: + +"She--tuk a brooch--Kep'--kep' layin' it roun' in--h-her way, th-that +young Sam Arkwright did,--a-an' finally she--she tuk hit. N-nen, when he +seen he h-had her, he said sh-sh-she 'd haf to d-do wh-whut he said, or +he'd sen' her to-to ja-a-il!" Vannie sobbed drearily for a few moments +on Peter's breast. "Sh-she did fuh a while: 'n 'en sh-she broke off wid +h-him, anyhow, an'--an' he swo' out a wa'nt an sont her to jail!" The +mother sobbed without comfort, and finally added: "Sh-she in a delicate +fix now, an' 'at jail goin' to be a gloomy place fuh Cissie." + +The three negroes stood motionless in the dusty hallway, motionless save +for the racking of Vannie's sobs. + +Tump Pack stirred himself. + +"Well, we gotta git her out." His words trailed off. He stood wrinkling +his half-inch of brow. "I wonder would dey exchange pris'ners; wonder ef +I could go up an' serve out Cissie's term." + +"Oh, Tump!" gasped the woman, "ef you only could!" + +"I'll step an' see, Miss Vannie. 'At sho ain't no place fuh a nice gal +lak Cissie." Tump turned on his mission, evidently intending to walk to +Jonesboro and offer himself in the place of the prisoner. + +Peter supported Vannie back into the poor living-room, and placed her in +the old rocking-chair before the empty hearth. There was where he had +sat the evening Cissie made her painful confession to him. Only now did +he realize the whole of what Cissie was trying to confess. + +Peter Siner overtook Tump Pack a little way down the crescent, opposite +the Berry cabin. The thoroughfare was deserted, because the weather was +cold and the scantily clad children were indoors. However, from every +cabin came sound of laughing and romping, and now and then a youngster +darted through the cold from one hut to another. + +It seemed to Peter Siner only a little while since he and Ida May were +skittering through wintry weather from one fire to another, with Cissie, +a wailing, wet-nosed little spoil-sport, trailing after them. And then, +with a wheeling of the years, they were scattered everywhere. + +As the negroes passed the Berry cabin, Nan Berry came out with an old +shawl around her bristling spikes. She stopped the two men and drew them +to her gate with a gesture. + +"Wha you gwine?" + +"Jonesbuh." + +"Whut you goin' do 'bout po-o-o' Cissie?" + +"Goin' to see ef the sheriff won' take me 'stid o' Cissie." + +"Tha's right," said Nan, nodding solemnly. "I hopes he will. You is mo' +used to it, Tump." + +"Yeah, an' 'at jail sho ain't no place fuh a nice gal lak Cissie." + +"Sho ain't," agreed Nan. + +Peter interrupted to say he was sure the sheriff would not exchange. + +The hopes of his listeners fell. + +"Weh-ul," dragged out Nan, with a long face, "of co'se now it's lak dis: +ef Cissie goin' to stay in dat ja-ul, she's goin' to need some mo' +clo'es 'cep'n whut she's got on,--specially lak she is." + +Tump stared down the swing of the crescent. + +"'Fo' Gawd, dis sho don' seem lak hit's right to me," he said. + +Nan let herself out at the rickety gate. "You niggers wait heah tull I +runs up to Miss Vannie's an' git some o' Cissie's clo'es fuh you to tote +her." + +Tump objected. + +"Jail ain't no place fuh clean clo'es. She jes better serve out her term +lak she is, an' wash up when she gits th'ugh." + +"You fool nigger!" snapped Nan. "She kain't serve out her term lak she +is!" + +"Da' 's so," said Tump. + +The three stood silent, Nan and Tump lost in blankness, trying to think +of something to do for Cissie. Finally Nan said: + +"I heah she done commit gran' larceny, an' they goin' sen' her to de +pen." + +"Whut is gran' larceny?" asked Tump. + +"It's takin' mo' at one time an' de white folks 'speck you to take," +defined the woman. "Well, I'll go git her clo'es." She hurried off up +the crescent. + +Peter and Tump waited in the Berry cabin for Nan's return. Outside, the +Berry cabin was the usual clapboard-roofed, weather-stained structure; +inside, it was dark, windowless, and strong with the odor of black folk. +Some children were playing around the hearth, roasting chestnuts. Their +elders sat in a circle of decrepit chairs. It was so dark that when +Peter first entered he could not make out the little group, but he soon +recognized their voices: Parson Ranson, Wince Washington, Jerry +Dillihay, and all of the Berry family. + +They were talking of Cissie, of course. They hoped Cissie wouldn't +really be sent to the penitentiary, that the white folks would let her +out in time for her to have her child at home. Parson Ranson thought it +would be bad luck for a child to be born in jail. + +Wince Washington, who had been in jail a number of times, suggested that +they bail Cissie out by signing their names to a paper. He had been set +free by this means once or twice. + +Sally, Nan's little sister, observed tartly that if Cissie hadn't acted +so, she wouldn't have been in jail. + +"Don' speak lak dat uv dem as is in trouble, Sally," reproved old Parson +Ranson, solemnly; "anybody can say 'Ef.'" + +"Sho am de troof," agreed Jerry Dillihay. + +"Sho am, black man." The conversation drifted into the endless +moralizing of their race, but it held no criticism or condemnation of +Cissie. From the tone of the negroes one would have thought some +impersonal disaster had overtaken her. Every one was planning how to +help Cissie, how to make her present state more endurable. They were the +black folk, the unfortunate of the earth, and the pride of righteousness +is only to the well placed and the untempted. + +Presently Nan came back with a bundle of Cissie's clothes. Tump took the +bundle of dainty lingerie, the intimate garments of the woman he loved, +and set forth on his quixotic errand. He tied it to his shoulder-holster +and set out. Peter went a little of the way with him. It was almost dusk +when they started. The chill of approaching night stung the men's faces. +As they walked past the footpath that led over the Big Hill, three +pistol-shots from the glade announced that the boot-leggers had opened +business for the night. + +Tump paused and shivered. He said it was a cold night. He thought he +would like to get a kick of "white mule" to put a little heart in him. +It was a long walk to Jonesboro. He hesitated a moment, then turned off +the road around the crescent for the path through the glade. + +A thought to dissuade Tump from drinking the fiery "singlings" of the +moonshiners crossed Peters mind, but he put it aside. Tump was a habitué +of the glade. All the physiological arguments upon which Peter could +base an argument were far beyond the ex-soldier's comprehension. So Tump +turned off through the dark trees. Peter watched him until all he could +see was the white blur of Cissie's underwear swinging against his +holster. + +After Tump's disappearance, Peter stood for several minutes thinking. +His brief crusade into Niggertown had ended in a situation far outside +of his volition. That morning he had started out with some vague idea of +taking Niggertown in his hands and molding it in accordance with his +white ideas; but Niggertown had taken Peter into its hands, had +threatened his life, had administered to him profound mental and moral +shocks, and now had dropped him, like some bit of waste, with his face +set over the Big Hill for white town. + +As Peter stood there it seemed to him there was something symbolic in +his attitude. He was no longer of the black world; he was of the white. +He did not understand his people; they eluded him. + +He belonged to the white world; not to the village across the hill, but +to the North. Nothing now prevented him from going North and taking the +position with Farquhar. Cissie Dildine was impossible for him now. +Niggertown was immovable, at least for him. He was no Washington to lead +his people to a loftier plane. In fact, Peter began to suspect that he +was no leader at all. He saw now that his initial success with the Sons +and Daughters of Benevolence had been effected merely by the aura of his +college training. After his first misstep he had never rehabilitated +himself. He perhaps had a dash of the artistic in him, and the power to +mold ideas often confuses itself subjectively with the power to mold +human beings. In reality he did not even understand the people he +assumed to mold. A suspicion came to him that under the given conditions +their ways were more rational than his own. + +As for Cissie Dildine, his duty by the girl, his queer protective +passion for her--all that was surely past now. After her lapse from all +decency there was no reason why he should spend another thought on her. +He would go North to Chicago. + +The last of the twilight was fading in swift, visible gradations of +light. The cedars, the cabins, and the hill faded in pulse-beats of +darkness. Above the Big Hill the last ember of day smoldered against a +green-blue infinity. Here and there a star pricked the dome with a +wintry brilliance. + +Then, somehow, the thought of Cissie looking out on that chilly sky +through iron bars tightened Peter's throat. He caught himself up sharply +for his emotion. He began a vague defense of the white man's laws on +grounds as cold and impersonal as the winter evening. Laws, customs, and +conventions were for the strengthening of men, to seed the select, to +winnow the weak. It was white logic, applied firmly, as by a white man. +But somehow the stars multiplied and kept Cissie's image before Peter--a +cold, frightened girl, harassed with coming motherhood, peering at those +chill, distant lights out of the blackness of a jail. + +The mulatto decided to spend the night in his mother's cabin. He would +do his packing, and be ready for the down-river boat in the morning. He +found his way to his own gate in the darkness. He lifted it around, +entered, and walked to his door. When he tried to open it, he found some +one had bored holes through the shutter and the jamb and had wired it +shut. + +Peter struck a match to see just what had been done. The flame displayed +a small sheet tacked on the door. He spent two matches investigating it. +It was a notice of levy, posted by the constable in an action of debt +brought against the estate of Caroline Siner by Henry Hooker. The owner +of the estate and the public in general were warned against removing +anything whatsoever from the premises under penalty exacted by the law +governing such offenses. Then Peter untwisted the wire and entered. + +Peter searched about and found the tiny brass night-lamp which his +mother always had used. The larger glass-bowled lamp was gone. The +interior of the cabin was clammy from cold and foul from long lack of +airing. In the corner his mother's old four-poster loomed in the +shadows, but he could see some of its covers had been taken. He passed +into the kitchen with a notion of building a fire and eating a bite, but +everything edible had been abstracted. Even one of the lids of the old +step-stove was gone. Most of the pans and kettles had disappeared, but +the pretty old Dutch sugar-bowl remained on a bare paper-covered shelf. +Negro-like, whatever person or persons who had ransacked Peter's home +considered the sugar-bowl too fine to take. Or they may have thought +that Peter would want this bowl for a keepsake, and with that queer +compassion that permeates a negro's worst moments they allowed it to +remain. And Peter knew if he raised an outcry about his losses, much of +the property would be surreptitiously restored, or perhaps his neighbors +would bring back his things and say they had found them. They would help +him as best they could, just as they of the crescent would help Cissie +as best they could, and would receive her back as one of them when she +and her baby were finally released from jail. + +They were a queer people. They were a people who would never get on well +and do well. They lacked the steel-like edge that the white man +achieves. By virtue of his hardness, a white man makes his very laws and +virtues instruments to crush and mulct his fellow-man; but negroes are +so softened by untoward streaks of sympathy that they lose the very uses +of their crimes. + +The depression of the whole day settled upon Peter with the deepening +night. He held his poor light above his head and picked his way to his +own room. After the magnificence of the Renfrew manor, it had contracted +to a grimy little box lined with yellowed papers. His books were still +intact, but Henry Hooker would get them as part payment on the Dillihay +place, which Henry owned. On his little table still lay the pile of old +examination papers, lists of incoherent questions which somebody +somewhere imagined formed a test of human ability to meet and answer the +mysterious searchings of life. + +Peter was familiar with the books; many of the questions he had learned +by rote, but the night and the crescent, and the thought of a pregnant +girl caged in the blackness of a jail filled his soul with a great +melancholy query to which he could find no answer. + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + + +Two voices talking, interrupting each other with ejaculations, after the +fashion of negroes under excitement, aroused Peter Siner from his sleep. +He caught the words: "He did! Tump did! The jailer did! 'Fo' God! black +man, whut's Cissie doin'?" + +Overtones of shock, even of horror, in the two voices brought Peter wide +awake the moment he opened his eyes. He sat up suddenly in his bed, +remained perfectly still, listening with his mouth open. The voices, +however, were passing. The words became indistinct, then relapsed into +that bubbling monotone of human voices at a distance, and presently +ceased. + +These fragmentary phrases, however, feathered with consternation, filled +Peter with vague premonitions. He whirled his legs out of bed and began +drawing on his clothes. When he was up and into the crescent, however, +nobody was in sight. He stood breathing the chill, damp air, blinking +his eyes. Lack of his cold bath made him feel chilly and lethargic. He +wriggled his shoulders and considered going back, after all, and having +his splash. Just then he saw the Persimmon coming around the crescent. +Peter called to the roustabout and asked about Tump Pack. + +The Persimmon looked at Peter with his half-asleep, protruding eyeballs. + +"Don' you know 'bout Tump Pack already, Mister Siner?" + +"No." Peter was astonished at the formality of the "Mr. Siner." + +"Then is you 'spectin' somp'n 'bout him?" + +"Why, no, but I was asleep in there a moment ago, and somebody came +along talking about Tump and Cissie. They--they aren't married, are +they?" + +"Oh, no-o, no-o-o, no-o-o-o-o." The Persimmon waggled his bullet head +slowly from side to side. "I heared Tump got into a lil trouble wid de +jailer las' night." + +"Serious?" + +"I dunno." The Persimmon closed one of his protruding yellow eyes. +"Owin' to whut you call se'ius; maybe whut I call se'ius wouldn't be +se'ius to you at all; 'n 'en maybe whut you call se'ius would be ve'y +insince'ius to Tump." The roustabout's philosophy, which consisted in a +monotonous recasting of a given proposition, trickled on and on in the +cold wind. After a while it fizzled out to nothing at all, and the +Persimmon asked in a queer manner: "Did you give Tump some women's +clo'es, Peter?" + +It was such an odd question that at first Peter was at loss; then he +recalled Nan Berry's despatching Cissie some underwear. He explained +this to the Persimmon, and tacked on a curious, "Why?" + +"Oh, nothin'; nothin' 'tall. Ever'body say you a mighty long-haided +nigger. Jim Pink he tell us 'bout Tump Pack marchin' you 'roun' wid a +gun. I sho don' want you ever git mad at me, Mister Siner. Man wid a gun +an' you turn yo' long haid on him an' blow him away wid a wad o' women's +clo'es. I sho don' want you ever cross yo' fingers at me, Mister Siner." + +Peter stared at the grotesque, bullet-headed roustabout. "Persimmon," he +said uneasily, "what in the world are you talking about?" + +The Persimmon smiled a sickly, white-toothed smile. "Jim Pink say yo' +aidjucation is a flivver. I say, 'Jim Pink, no nigger don' go off an' +study fo' yeahs in college whut 'n he comes back an' kin throw some kin' +uv a hoodoo over us fool niggers whut ain't got no brains. Now, Tump wid +a gun, an' you wid jes ordina'y women's clo'es! 'Fo' Gawd, aidjucation +is a great thing; sho is a great thing." The Persimmon gave Peter an +apprehensive wink and moved on. + +There was no use trying to extract information from the Persimmon unless +he was minded to give it. His talk would merely become vaguer and +vaguer. Peter watched him go, then turned and attempted to throw the +whole matter off his mind by assuming a certain brisk Northern mood. He +must pack, get ready for the down-river gasolene launch. The doings of +Tump Pack and Cissie Dildine were, after all, nothing to him. + +He started inside, when the levy notice on the door again met his eyes. +He paused, read it over once more, and decided that he must go over the +hill to the Planter's Bank and get Henry Hooker's permission to remove +certain small personal belongings that he wanted to take with him. + +The mere clear-cut decision to go invigorated Peter. + +Some of the energy that always filled him during his college days in +Boston seemed to come to him now from the mere thought of the North. +Soon he would be in the midst of it, moving briskly, talking to wide- +awake men to whom a slightly unusual English word would not form a +stumbling-block to conversation. He set out down the crescent and across +the Big Hill at a swinging stride. He was glad to get away. + +Beyond the white church on the other side of the hill he heard a motor +coming in on the Jonesboro road. Presently he saw a battered car moving +around the long swing of the pike, spewing a trail of dust down the +wind. Its clacking became prodigious. + +The mulatto was just entering that indefinite stretch of thoroughfare +where a country road becomes a village street when there came a wail of +brakes behind him and he looked around. + +It was Dawson Bobbs's car. The fat man now slowed up not far from the +mulatto and called to him. + +"Yes, sir," said Peter. + +Dawson bobbed his fat head backward and upward in a signal for Peter to +approach. It held the casualness of one certain to be obeyed. + +Although Peter had done no crime, nor had even harbored a criminal +intention, a trickle of apprehension went through him at Bobbs's nod. He +recalled Jim Pink's saying that it was bad luck to see the constable. He +walked up to the shuddering motor and stood about three feet from the +running-board. + +The officer bit on a sliver of toothpick that he held in his thin lips. + +"Accident up Jonesboro las' night, Peter." + +"What was it, Mr. Bobbs?" + +"Tump Pack got killed." + +Peter continued looking fixedly at Mr. Bobbs's broad red face. The dusty +road beneath him seemed to give a little dip. He repeated the +information emptily, trying to orient himself to this sudden change in +his whole mental horizon. + +The officer was looking at Peter fixedly with his chill slits of eyes. + +"Yeah; trying to make a jail delivery." + +The two men continued looking at each other, one from the road, the +other from the motor. The flow of Peter's thoughts seemed to divide. The +greater part was occupied with Tump Pack. Peter could vision the +formidable ex-soldier lying dead in Jonesboro jail, with his little +congressional medal on his breast. Some lighter portion of his mind +nickered about here and there on trivial things. He observed a little +hole rusted in the running-board of the motor. He noticed that the +officer's eyes were just the same chill, washed blue as the winter sky +above his head. He remembered a tale that, before electrocution became a +law in Tennessee the county sheriff's nerve had failed him at a hanging, +and the constable Dawson Bobbs had sprung the drop. There was something +terrible about the fat man. He would do anything, absolutely anything, +that came to his hands in the way of legal sewage. + +In the midst of these thoughts Peter heard himself saying. + +"He--was trying to get Cissie out?" + +"Yep." + +"He--must have been drunk." + +"Oh, yeah." + +Mr. Bobbs sat studying the mulatto. As he studied him he said slowly: + +"Some of 'em say he was disguised as a woman. Others say he had some +women's clothes along, ready to put on. Now, me and the sheriff knowed +Tump Pack purty well, Peter, and we knowed that nigger never in the +worl' would 'a' thought up sich a plan by hisself." + +He sat looking at Peter so interrogatively that the mulatto began, in a +strained, earnest voice, telling the constable precisely what had +happened in regard to the clothes. + +Mr. Bobbs sat listening impassively, moving his toothpick up and down +from one side to the other of his small, thin-lipped mouth. At last he +nodded. + +"Well, I guess that's about the way of it. I didn't exactly understand +the women's clothes business,--damn' fool disguise,--but we figgered it +might pop into the head of a' edjucated nigger." He sucked his teeth, +reflectively. "Peter," he said at last, "seems to me, if I was you, I'd +drift on away from this town. The niggers around here ain't strong for +you now; some say you're a hoodoo; some say this an' some that. The +white folks don't exactly like you trying to get up a cook's union. It's +your right to do that if you want to, of course, but this is a mighty +small city to have unions and things. The fact is, it ain't a big enough +place for a nigger of yore ability, Peter. I b'lieve, if I was you, I'd +jes drift on some'eres else." + +The officer tipped up his toothpick so that it lifted his upper lip in a +little v-shaped opening and exposed a strong, yellowish tooth. At the +moment his machine started slowly forward. It gave him the appearance of +accidentally rolling off while immersed in deep thought. + + * * * * * + +The death of Tump Pack moved Peter with a sense of strange pathos. He +always remembered Tump tramping away through the night to carry Cissie +some underclothes and, if possible, to take her place in jail. At the +foundation of Tump's being lay a faithfulness and devotion to Cissie +that reached the heights of a dog's. And yet, he might have deserted +her, he would probably have beaten her, and he most certainly would have +betrayed her many, many times. It was inexplicable. + + +Now that Tump was dead, the mantle of his fidelity somehow seemed to +fall on Peter. For some reason Peter felt that he should assume Tump's +place as Cissie Dildine's husband and protector. Had Tump lived, Peter +might have gone North in peace, if not in happiness. Now such a journey, +without Cissie, had become impossible. He had a feeling that it would +not be right. + +As for the disgrace of marrying such a woman as Cissie Dildine, Peter +slowly gave that idea up. The "worthinesses" and "disgraces" implicit in +Harvard atmosphere, which Peter had spent four years of his life +imbibing, slowly melted away in the air of Niggertown. What was +honorable there, what was disgraceful there, somehow changed its color +here. + +By virtue of this change Peter felt intuitively that Cissie Dildine was +neither disgraced by her arrest nor soiled by her physical condition. +Somehow she seemed just as "nice" a girl, just as "good" a girl, as ever +she was before. Moreover, every other darky in Niggertown held these +same instinctive beliefs. Had it not been for that, Peter would have +thought it was his passion pleading for the girl, justifying itself by a +grotesque morality, as passions often do. But this was not the correct +solution. The sentiment was enigmatic. Peter puzzled over it time and +time again as he waited in Hooker's Bend for the outcome of Cissie's +trial. + +The octoroon's imprisonment came to an end on the third day after Tump's +death. Sam Arkwright's parents had not known of their son's legal +proceedings, and Mr. Arkwright immediately quashed the warrant, and +hushed up the unfortunate matter as best he could. Young Sam was +suddenly sent away from home to college, as the best step in the +circumstances. And so the wishes of the adolescent in the cedar-glade +came queerly to pass, even if Peter did withhold any grave, mature +advice on the subject which he may have possessed. + +Naturally, there was much mirth among the men of Hooker's Bend and much +virulence among the women over the peculiar conditions under which young +Sam made his pilgrimage in pursuit of wisdom and morals and the right +conduct of life. And life being problematic and uncertain as it is, and +prone to wind about in the strangest way, no one may say with certitude +that young Sam did not make a promising start. + +Certainly, over the affair the Knights of the Round Table launched many +a quip and jest, but that simply proved the fineness of their sentiments +toward a certain delicate human relation which forms mankind's single +awful approach to the creative and the holy. + +Tump Pack became almost a mythical figure in Niggertown. Jim Pink Staggs +composed a saga relating the soldier's exploits in France, his assault +on the jail to liberate Cissie, and his death. + +In his songs--and Jim Pink had composed a good many--the minstrel +instinctively avoided humor. He always improvised them to the sobbing of +a guitar, and they were as invariably sad as the poetry of adolescents. +It was called "Tump Pack's Lament." The negroes of Hooker's Bend learned +it from Jim Pink, and with them it drifted up and down the three great +American rivers, and now it is sung by the roustabouts, stevedores, and +underlings of our strange black American world. + +This song commemorating Tump Pack's bravery and faithfulness to his love +may very well take the place of the Congressional medal which, +unfortunately, was lost on the night the soldier was killed. Between the +two, there is little doubt that the accolade of fame bestowed in the +buffoon's simple melody is more vital and enduring than that accorded by +special act of the Congress of the United States of America. + +When Cissie Dildine returned from jail, she and her mother arranged the +Dildine-Siner wedding as nearly according to white standards in similar +circumstances as they could conceive. They agreed that it should be a +simple, quiet home wedding. However, as every soul in Niggertown, a +number of colored friends in Jonesboro, and a contingent from up-river +villages meant to attend, it became necessary to hold the service in the +church. + +The officiating minister was not Parson Ranson after all, but a Reverend +Cleotus Haidus, the presiding elder of that circuit of the Afro-American +Methodist Church, whose duties happened to call him to Hooker's Bend +that day. So, notwithstanding Cissie's efforts at simplicity, the +wedding, after all, was resolved into an affair. + +Once, in one of her moments of clairvoyance, Cissie said to Peter: + +"Our trouble is, Peter, we are trying to mix what I have learned in +Nashville and what you have learned in Boston with what we both feel in +Hooker's Bend. I--I'm almost ashamed to say it, but I don't really feel +sad and plaintive at all, Peter. I feel glad, gloriously glad. Oh, my +dear, dear Peter!" and she flung her arms around Peter's neck and held +him with all her might against her ripening bosom. + +To Cissie her theft, her jail sentence, her pregnancy, were nothing more +than if she had taken a sip of water. However, with the imitativeness of +her race and the histrionic ability of her sex, she appeared pensive and +subdued during the elaborate double-ring ceremony performed by the +Reverend Cleotus Haidus. Nobody in the packed church knew how +tremendously Cissie's heart was beating except Peter, who held her hand. + +The ethical engine that Peter had patiently builded in Harvard almost +ceased to function in this weird morality of Niggertown. Whether he were +doing right or doing wrong, Peter could not determine. He lost all his +moorings. At times he felt himself walking according to the ethnological +law, which is the Harvard way of saying walking according to the will of +God; but at other times he felt party to some unpardonable obscenity. So +deeply was he disturbed that out of the dregs of his mind floated up old +bits of the Scriptures that he was unaware of possessing: "There is a +way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of +death." And Peter wondered if he were not in that way. + +[Illustration: The bridal couple embarked for Cairo] + +The bridal couple embarked for Cairo on the _Red Cloud_, a packet +in the Dubuque, Ohio, and Tennessee River trade. Peter and Cissie were +not allowed to walk up the main stairway into the passengers' cabin, but +were required to pick their way along the boiler-deck, through the +stench of freight, lumber, live stock and sleeping roustabouts. Then +they went through the heat and steam of the engine-room up a small +companionway that led through the toilet, on to the rear guard of the +main deck, and thence back to a little cuddy behind the main saloon +called the chambermaid's cabin. + +The chambermaid's cabin was filled with the perpetual odor of hot soap- +suds, soiled laundry, and the broader smell of steam and the boat's +machinery. The little place trembled night and day, for the steamer's +engines were just beneath them, and immediately behind them thundered +the great stern-wheel of the packet. A single square window in the end +of the chambermaid's cabin looked out on the wheel, but at all times, +except when the wind was blowing from just the right quarter, this +window was deluged with a veritable Niagara of water. The continual +shake of the cabin, the creak of the rudder-beam working to and fro, the +watery thunder of the wheel, and the solemn rumble of the engines made +conversation impossible until the travelers grew accustomed to the +noises. Still, Cissie found it pleasant. She liked to sit and look out +into the main saloon, with its interminable gilded scrolls extending +away up the long cabin, a suave perspective. She liked to watch the +white passengers dine--the white napery, the bouquets, the endless +tables all filled with diners; some swathed in napkins from chin to +waistband, others less completely protected. It gave Cissie a certain +tang of triumph to smile at the swathed ones and to think that she knew +better than that. + +At night a negro string-band played for the white excursionists to +dance, and Cissie would sit, with glowing eyes, clenching Peter's hand, +every fiber of her asway to the music, and it seemed as if her heart +would go mad. All these inhibitions, all this spreading before her of +forbidden joys, did not daunt her delight. She reveled in them by +propinquity. + +The chambermaid was a Mrs. Antolia Higgman, a strong, full-bodied +_café-au-lait_ negress. She was a very sensible woman, and during +her work on the boat she had picked up a Northern accent and a number of +little mannerisms from the Chicago and St. Louis excursionists, who made +ten-day round trips from Dubuque to Florence, Alabama, and return. When +Mrs. Higgman was not running errands for the women passengers, she was +working at her perpetual laundering. + +At first Peter was a little uneasy as to how Mrs. Higgman would treat +Cissie, but she turned out a good-hearted woman, and did everything she +could to make the young wife comfortable. It soon became clear that Mrs. +Higgman knew the whole situation, for one day she said to Cissie in her +odd dialect, burred with Yankeeish "r's" and "ing's." + +"These river-r towns, Mrs. Siner-r, are jest like one big village, with +the river-r for its Main Street. I know ever-r'thang that goes on, +through the cabin-boys an' cooks, an'--an'--you cerrtainly ar-re a dear- +r, Mrs. Siner-r," and thereupon, quite unexpectedly, she kissed Cissie. + +So on about the second day down the river Cissie dropped her saddened +manner and became frankly, freely, and riotously happy. After the +fashion of village negresses, she insisted on helping Mrs. Higgman with +her work, and, incidentally, she cultivated Mrs. Higgman's Northern +accent. When the chambermaid was out on her errands and Cissie found a +moment alone with Peter, she would tweak his ear or pull his cheek and +provoke him to kiss her. Indeed, it was all the hot, shuddering little +laundry-room could do to contain the gay and bubbling Cissie. + +Peter thought and thought, resignedly now, but persistently, how this +strange happiness that belonged to them both could be. He was content, +yet he felt he ought not to be content. He thought there must be +something base in himself, yet he felt that there was not. He drank the +wine of his honeymoon marveling. + +On the morning before the _Red Cloud_ entered the port of Cairo +Mrs. Higgman was out of the cabin, and Peter stood at the little square +window, with his arm about Cissie's waist, looking out to the rear of +the steamer. A strong east wind blew the spray away from the glass, and +Peter could see the huge wheel covered with a waterfall thundering +beneath him. Back of the wheel stretched a long row of even waves and +troughs. Every seventh or eighth wave tumbled over on itself in a swash +of foam. These flashing stern waves strung far up the river. On each +side of the great waterway stretched the flat shores of Kentucky and +Ohio. Here and there over the broad clay-colored water moved other +boats--tow-boats, a string of government auto-barges, a snag-boat, +another packet. + +Peter gave up his question. The curves of Cissie's form in his arm held +a sweetness and a restfulness that her maidenhood had never promised. He +felt so deeply sure of his happiness that it seemed strange to him that +he could not aline his emotions and his mind. + +As Peter stood staring up the Ohio River, it occurred to him that +perhaps, in some queer way, the morals of black folk were not the morals +of white folk; perhaps the laws that bound one race were not the laws +that bound the other. It might be that white anathemas were black +blessings. Peter thought along this line peacefully for several minutes. + +And finally he concluded that, after all, morals and conventions, right +and wrong, are merely those precepts that a race have practised and +found good in its evolution. Morals are the training rules that keep a +people fit. It might very well be that one moral régime is applicable to +one race, and quite another to another. + +The single object of all morals is racial welfare, the racial integrity, +the breeding of strong children to perpetuate the species. If the black +race possess a more exuberant vitality than some other race, then the +black would not be forced to practise so severe a vital economy as some +less virile folk. Racial morals are simply a question of having and +spending within safety limits. + +Peter knew that for years white men had held a prejudice against +marrying widows. This is utterly without grounds except for one reason: +the first born of a woman is the lustiest. Among the still weaker Aryans +of India the widows burn themselves. Among certain South Sea Islanders +only the first-born may live and mate; all other children are slain. +Among nearly every white race marriage lines are strictly drawn, and the +tendency is to have few children to a family, to conserve the precious +vital impulse. So strong is this feeling of birth control that to-day +nearly all American white women are ashamed of large families. This +shame is the beginning of a convention; the convention may harden into a +cult, a law, or a religion. + +And here is the amazing part of morals. Morals are always directed +toward one particular race, but the individual members of that race +always feel that their brand of morals does and should apply to all the +peoples of the earth; so one has the spectacle of nations sending out +missionaries and battle-ships to teach and enforce their particular +folk-ways. Another queer thing is that whereas the end of morals is +designed solely for the betterment of the race, and is entirely +regardless of the person, to the conscience of the person morals are +always translated as something that binds him personally, that will +shame him or honor him personally not only for the brief span of this +worldly life, but through an eternity to come. To him, his particular +code, surrounded by all the sanctions of custom, law, and religion, +appears earth-embracing, hell-deep, and heaven-piercing, and any human +creature who follows any other code appears fatally wicked, utterly +shameless, and ineluctably lost. + +And yet there is no such thing as absolute morals. Morals are as +transitory as the sheen on a blackbird's wing; they change perpetually +with the necessities of the race. Any people with an abounding vitality +will naturally practise customs which a less vital people must shun. + +Morals are nothing more than the engines controlling the stream of +energy that propel a race on its course. All engines are not alike, nor +are all races bound for the same port. + +Here Peter Siner made the amazing discovery that although he had spent +four years in Harvard, he had come out, just as he went in, a negro. + +A great joy came over him. He took Cissie whole-heartedly in his arms +and kissed again and again the deep crimson of her lips. His brain and +his heart were together at last. As he stood looking out at the window, +pressing Cissie to him, he wondered, when he reached Chicago, if he +could ever make Farquhar understand. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Birthright, by T.S. Stribling + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10621 *** |