e that, Cissie.
More of us go off to school every year. I do hope my school here in
Hooker's Bend will be of some real value. If I could just show our
people how badly we fare here, how ill housed, and unsanitary--"

The girl pressed Peter's fingers with a woman's optimism for a man.

"You'll succeed, Peter, I know you will. Some day the name Siner will
mean the same thing to coloured people as Tanner and Dunbar and
Braithwaite do. Anyway, I've put my name down for ten dollars to help
out." She returned the pencil. "I'll have Tump Pack come around and pay
you my subscription, Peter."

"I'll watch out for Tump," promised Peter in a lightening mood, "--and
make him pay."

"He'll do it."

"I don't doubt it. You ought to have him under perfect control. I meant
to tell you what a pretty frock you have on."

The girl dimpled, and dropped him a little curtsy, half ironical and
wholly graceful.

Peter was charmed.

"Now keep that way, Cissie, smiling and human, not so grammatical. I
wish I had a brooch."

"A brooch?"

"I'd give it to you. Your dress needs a brooch, an old gold brooch at
the bosom, just a glint there to balance your eyes."

Cissie flushed happily, and made the feminine movement of concealing the
V-shaped opening at her throat.

"It's a pleasure to doll up for a man like you, Peter. You see a girl's
good points--if she has any," she tacked on demurely.

"Oh, just any man--"

"Don't think it! Don't think it!" waved down Cissie, humorously.

"But, Cissie, how is it possible--"

"Just blind." Cissie rippled into a boarding-school laugh. "I could wear
the whole rue del Opera here in Niggertown, and nobody would ever see it
but you."

Cissie was moving toward the door. Peter tried to detain her. He enjoyed
the implication of Tump Pack's stupidity, in their badinage, but she
would not stay. He was finally reduced to thanking her for her present,
then stood guard as she tripped out into the grimy street. In the
sunshine her glossy black hair and canary dress looked as trim and
brilliant as the plumage of a chaffinch.

Peter Siner walked back into the kitchen with the fixed smile of a man
who is thinking of a pretty girl. The black dowager in the kitchen
received him in silence, with her thick lips pouted. When Peter observed
it, he felt slightly amused at his mother's resentment.

"Well, you sho had a lot o' chatter over signin' a lil ole paper."

"She signed for ten dollars," said Peter, smil