issie 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 habitue
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 Niggerto