led 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 st