came queerly to pass, even if Peter did withhold any grave, mature
advice on the subject which he may have possessed.

Naturally, there was much mirth among the men of Hooker's Bend and much
virulence among the women over the peculiar conditions under which young
Sam made his pilgrimage in pursuit of wisdom and morals and the right
conduct of life. And life being problematic and uncertain as it is, and
prone to wind about in the strangest way, no one may say with certitude
that young Sam did not make a promising start.

Certainly, over the affair the Knights of the Round Table launched many
a quip and jest, but that simply proved the fineness of their sentiments
toward a certain delicate human relation which forms mankind's single
awful approach to the creative and the holy.

Tump Pack became almost a mythical figure in Niggertown. Jim Pink Staggs
composed a saga relating the soldier's exploits in France, his assault
on the jail to liberate Cissie, and his death.

In his songs--and Jim Pink had composed a good many--the minstrel
instinctively avoided humor. He always improvised them to the sobbing of
a guitar, and they were as invariably sad as the poetry of adolescents.
It was called "Tump Pack's Lament." The negroes of Hooker's Bend learned
it from Jim Pink, and with them it drifted up and down the three great
American rivers, and now it is sung by the roustabouts, stevedores, and
underlings of our strange black American world.

This song commemorating Tump Pack's bravery and faithfulness to his love
may very well take the place of the Congressional medal which,
unfortunately, was lost on the night the soldier was killed. Between the
two, there is little doubt that the accolade of fame bestowed in the
buffoon's simple melody is more vital and enduring than that accorded by
special act of the Congress of the United States of America.

When Cissie Dildine returned from jail, she and her mother arranged the
Dildine-Siner wedding as nearly according to white standards in similar
circumstances as they could conceive. They agreed that it should be a
simple, quiet home wedding. However, as every soul in Niggertown, a
number of colored friends in Jonesboro, and a contingent from up-river
villages meant to attend, it became necessary to hold the service in the
church.

The officiating minister was not Parson Ranson after all, but a Reverend
Cleotus Haidus, the presiding elder of that circuit of the Afro-American
Method