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 an