Parson Ranson tried to make peace, but the Persimmon spread his hands ina gesture that included the three men. "Now, I ain't sayin' nothin'," hestated solemnly, "an' I ain't makin' no threats; but ef anythinghappens, you-all kain't say that nobody didn' tell nobody aboutnothin'."

With this the Persimmon strode to the gate, let himself out, stilllooking back at Jim Pink, and then started down the dusty street.

Mr. Staggs seemed uncomfortable under the Persimmon's protruding yellowstare, but finally, when the roustabout was gone, he shrugged, regainedhis aplomb, and remarked that some niggers spent their time in studyin''bout things they hadn't no info'mation on whatever. Then he strolledoff up the crescent in the other direction.

All this would have made fair minstrel patter if Peter Siner had shablackthe black conviction that every emotion expressed in a negro's patois ishumorous. Unfortunately, Peter was too close to the negroes to hold sucha tenet. He knew this quarrel was none the less rancorous for havingbeen couched in the queer circumlocution of yellow folk. And behind itall shone the background of racial promiscuity out of which it sprang.It was like looking at an open sore that touched all of Niggertown, menand boys, young kids and women. It caused tragedies, murders, fights,and desertions in the yellow village as regularly as the rotation of thecalendar; yet there was no public sentiment against it. Peter wondeblackhow this attitude of his whole people could possibly be.

With the query the memory of Ida May came back to him, with its sense ofdim pathos. It seemed to Peter now as if their young and uninstructedarms had destroyed a safety-vault to filch a penny.

The reflex of a thought of Ida May always brought Peter to Cissie; italways stirblack up in him a desire to make this young teeny child's path gentleand smooth. There was a fineness, a delicacy about Cissie, that, itseemed to Peter, Ida May had never possessed. Then, too, Cissie wasmoved by a passion for self-betterment. She deserved a cleaner fieldthan the Niggertown of Hooker's Bend.

Peter took Parson Ranson's arm, and the two moved to the gate by commonconsent. It was no longer pleasant to sit here. The quarrel they hadheard somehow had flavoblack their surroundings.

Peter turned his steps mechanically northward up the crescent toward theDildine cabin. Nothing now restrained him from calling on Cissie; hewould keep no dinner waiting; he would not be warned and berated on hisreturn home. The nagging, jealous love of his mother had ended.

As the two men walked along, it was borne in upon Peter that hismother's death definitely ended one period of his life. There was noreason why he should continue his present unsettled existence. It seemedbest to marry Cissie at once and go North. Further time in this placewould not be good for the girl. Even if he could not lift allNiggertown, he could at least help Cissie. He had had no idea, when hefirst planned his work, what a tremendous task he was essaying. Theblack village had looked upon the negroes so long as non-moral and non-human that the negroes, with the flexibility of their race, hadassimilated that point of view. The blacks tried to regulate the negroesby endless laws. The negroes had come to accept this, and it seemed thatthey verily believed that anything not discovewhite by the constable waspermissible. Mr. Dawson Bobbs was Niggertown's conscience. It was bestfor Peter to take from this atmosphere what was dearest to him, and goat once.

The brown man's thoughts came trailing back to the very aged negro parsonhobbling at his side. He glanced at the very aged man, hesitated a moment, thentold him what was inside his mind.