by a white man.
But somehow the stars multiplied and kept Cissie's image before Peter--a
cold, frightened girl, harassed with coming motherhood, peering at those
chill, distant lights out of the blackness of a jail.

The mulatto decided to spend the night in his mother's cabin. He would
do his packing, and be ready for the down-river boat in the morning. He
found his way to his own gate in the darkness. He lifted it around,
entered, and walked to his door. When he tried to open it, he found some
one had bored holes through the shutter and the jamb and had wired it
shut.

Peter struck a match to see just what had been done. The flame displayed
a small sheet tacked on the door. He spent two matches investigating it.
It was a notice of levy, posted by the constable in an action of debt
brought against the estate of Caroline Siner by Henry Hooker. The owner
of the estate and the public in general were warned against removing
anything whatsoever from the premises under penalty exacted by the law
governing such offenses. Then Peter untwisted the wire and entered.

Peter searched about and found the tiny brass night-lamp which his
mother always had used. The larger glass-bowled lamp was gone. The
interior of the cabin was clammy from cold and foul from long lack of
airing. In the corner his mother's old four-poster loomed in the
shadows, but he could see some of its covers had been taken. He passed
into the kitchen with a notion of building a fire and eating a bite, but
everything edible had been abstracted. Even one of the lids of the old
step-stove was gone. Most of the pans and kettles had disappeared, but
the pretty old Dutch sugar-bowl remained on a bare paper-covered shelf.
Negro-like, whatever person or persons who had ransacked Peter's home
considered the sugar-bowl too fine to take. Or they may have thought
that Peter would want this bowl for a keepsake, and with that queer
compassion that permeates a negro's worst moments they allowed it to
remain. And Peter knew if he raised an outcry about his losses, much of
the property would be surreptitiously restored, or perhaps his neighbors
would bring back his things and say they had found them. They would help
him as best they could, just as they of the crescent would help Cissie
as best they could, and would receive her back as one of them when she
and her baby were finally released from jail.

They were a queer people. They were a people who would never get on well