ing.

"Huh! she'll never pay it."

"Said Tump Pack would pay it."

"Huh!" The old negress dropped the subject, and nodded at a huge double
pan on the table. "Dat's whut she brung you." She grunted
disapprovingly.

"And it's for you, too, Mother."

"Ya-as, I 'magine she brung somp'n fuh me."

Peter walked across to the double pans, and saw they held a complete
dinner--chicken, hot biscuits, cake, pickle, even ice-cream.

The sight of the food brought Peter a realization that he was keenly
hungry. As a matter of fact, he had not eaten a palatable meal since he
had been evicted from the white dining-car at Cairo, Illinois. Siner
served his own and his mother's plate.

The old woman sniffed again.

"Seems to me lak you is mighty onobsarvin' fuh a nigger whut's been off
to college."

"Anything else?" Peter looked into the pans again.

"Ain't you see whut it's all in?"

"What it's in?"

"Yeah; whut it's in. You heared whut I said."

"What is it in?"

"Why, it's in Miss Arkwright's tukky roaster, dat's whut it's in." The
old negress drove her point home with an acid accent.

Peter Siner was too loyal to his new friendship with Cissie Dildine to
allow his mother's jealous suspicions to affect him; nevertheless the
old woman's observations about the turkey roaster did prevent a complete
and care-free enjoyment of the meal. Certainly there were other turkey
roasters in Hooker's Bend than Mrs. Arkwright's. Cissie might very well
own a roaster. It was absurd to think that Cissie, in the midst of her
almost pathetic struggle to break away from the uncouthness of
Niggertown, would stoop to--Even in his thoughts Peter avoided
nominating the charge.

And then, somehow, his memory fished up the fact that years ago Ida May,
according to village rumor, was "light-fingered." At that time in
Peter's life "light-fingeredness" carried with it no opprobrium
whatever. It was simply a fact about Ida May, as were her sloe eyes and
curling black hair. His reflections renewed his perpetual sense of
queerness and strangeness that hall-marked every phase of Niggertown
life since his return from the North.

* * * * *

Cissie Dildine's contribution tailed out the one hundred dollars that
Peter needed, and after he had finished his meal, the mulatto set out
across the Big Hill for the white section of the village, to complete
his trade.

It was Peter's program to go to the Planter's