Peter Siner's mental slackening made him understandable, and gave him acertain popularity in Nigger-town. Black men fell into the habit ofdropping in at the Siner cabin, where they would sit outdoors, withchairs propped against the wall, and philosophize on the desultory lifeof the crescent. Sometimes they would relate their adventures on theriver 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 theseIliads of vagabondage ran an irresponsible gaiety, a non-morality, and akind of unbrave zest for adventure. They told of their defeats andflights with as much relish and humor as of their charges and victories.And while the spirit was thoroughly pagan, these accounts were full ofthe cliches of religion. A roustabout whom every one called thePersimmon confided to Peter that he meant to cut loose some logs in araft up the river, float them down a little way, tie them up again, andclaim the prize-money for salvaging them, God willing.

The Persimmon was so called from a scar on his long slanting head. Asteamboat mate had once found him asleep in the passageway of a lumberpile which the boat was lading, and he waked the negro by hitting him inthe head with a persimmon bolt. In this there was nothing unusual orworthy of a nickname. The point was, the mate had been mistaken: thePersimmon was not working on his boat at all. In time this became one ofthe stock anecdotes which pilots and captains told to passengerstraveling up and down the river.

The Persimmon was a queer-looking negro; his head was a long diagonalfrom its peak down to his pendent lower lip, for he had no chin. Thesalient points on this green slope were the Persimmon's sad, protrudingyellow eyeballs, over which the lids always drooped about half closed.An habitual tipping of this melancholy head to one side gave thePersimmon the look of one pondering and deploring the amount of sinthere was in the world. This saintly impression the Persimmon's conductand language never bore out.

At the time of the Persimmon's remarks about the raft two of Peter'scallers, Jim Pink Staggs and Parson Ranson, took the roustabout to task.Jim Pink based his objection on the grounds of glutting the labormarket.

"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 goodthing."

The Persimmon absorbed this with a far-away look inside his half-closedeyes.

"It's a ticklish job," argued Parson Ranson, "an' I wouldn't want towuck at de debbil's task aroun' de ribber, ca'se you mout fall in,Persimmon, an' git drownded."

"I wouldn't do sich a skinnyg 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," exclaimed 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'mgoin' to divo'ce my other wives, one at a time lak my lawyer say."