On the corner, against the blank south wall of Hobbett's store, Peter
Siner saw the usual crowd of negroes warming themselves in the soft
sunshine. They were slapping one another, scuffling, making feints with
knives or stones, all to an accompaniment of bragging, profanity, and
loud laughter. Their behavior was precisely that of adolescent white
boys of fifteen or sixteen years of age.
Jim Pink Staggs was furnishing much amusement with an impromptu sleight-
of-hand exhibition. The black audience clustered around Jim Pink in his
pinstripe trousers and blue-serge coat. They exhibited not the least
curiosity as to the mechanics of the tricks, but asked for more and
still more, with the naïve delight of children in the mysterious.
Peter Siner walked down the street with his Messianic impulse strong
upon him. He was in that stage of feeling toward his people where a
man's emotions take the color of religion. Now, as he approached the
crowd of negroes, he wondered what he could say, how he could transfer
to them the ideas and the emotion that lifted up his own heart.
As he drew nearer, his concern mounted to anxiety. Indeed, what could he
say? How could he present so grave a message? He was right among them
now. One of the negroes jostled him by striking around his body at
another negro. Peter stopped. His heart beat, and he had a queer
sensation of being operated by some power outside himself. Next moment
he heard himself saying in fairly normal tones:
"Fellows, do you think we ought to be idling on the street corners like
this? We ought to be at work, don't you think?"
The horse-play stopped at this amazing sentiment.
"Whuffo, Peter?" asked a voice.
"Because the whole object of our race nowadays is to gain the respect of
other races, and more particularly our own self-respect. We haven't it
now. The only way to get it is to work, work, work."
"Ef you feel lak you'd ought to go to wuck," suggested one astonished
hearer, "you done got my p'mission, black boy, to hit yo' natchel gait
to de fust job in sight."
Peter was hardly less surprised than his hearers at what he was saying.
He paid no attention to the interruption.
"Fellows, it's the only way our colored people can get on and make the
most out of life. Persistent labor is the very breath of the soul, men;
it--it is." Here Peter caught an intimation of the whole flow of energy
through the universe, focusing in man and being transformed into mental
and moral values. And it suddenly occurred to him that the real worth of
any people was their efficiency in giving this flow of force moral and
spiritual forms. That is the end of man; that is what is prefigured when
a baby's hand reaches for the sun. But Peter considered his audience,
and his thought stammered on his tongue. The Persimmon, with his
protruding, half-asleep eyes, was saying:
"I don' know, Peter, as I 's so partic'lar 'bout makin' de mos' out'n
dis worl'. You know de Bible say--hit say,"--here the Persimmon's voice
dropped a tone lower, in unconscious imitation of negro preachers,--"la-
ay not up yo' treasure on uth, wha moss do corrup', an' thieves break
th'ugh _an'_ steal."
Came a general nodding and agreement of soft, blurry voices.
"'At sho whut it say, black man!"
"Sho do!"
"Lawd God loves a nigger on a street corner same as He do a millionaire
in a six-cylinder, Peter."
"Sho do, black man; but He's jes about de onlies' thing on uth 'at do."
"Well, I don' know," came a troubled rejoinder. "Thaiuh 's de debbil,
ketchin' mo' niggers nowadays dan he do white men, I 'fo' Gawd
b'liebes."
"Well, dat's because dey _is_ so many mo' niggers dan dey is white
folks," put in a philosopher.
"Whut you say 'bout dat, Brudder Peter?" inquired the Persimmon,
seriously. None of this discussion was either derision or burlesque.
None of the crowd had the slightest feeling that these questions were
not just as practical and important as the suggestion that they all go
to work.
When Peter realized how their ignorant and undisciplined thoughts flowed
off into absurdities, and that they were entirely unaware of it, it
brought a great depression to his heart. He held up a hand with an
earnestness that caught their vagrant attention.
"Listen!" he pleaded. "Can't you see how much there is for us black
folks to do, and what little we have done?"
"Sho is a lot to do; we admits dat," said Bluegum Frakes. "But whut's de
use doin' hit ef we kin manage to shy roun' some o' dat wuck an' keep on
libin' anyhow, specially wid wages so high?"
The question stopped Peter. Neither his own thoughts, nor any book that
he had ever read nor any lecture that he had heard ever attempted to
explain the enormous creative urge which is felt by every noble mind,
and which, indeed, is shared to some extent by every human creature. Put
to it like that, Siner concocted a sort of allegory, telling of a negro
who was shiftless in the summer and suffered want in the winter, and
applied it to the present high wage and to the low wage that was coming;
but in his heart Peter knew such utilitarianism was not the true reason
at all. Men do not weave tapestries to warm themselves, or build temples
to keep the rain away.
The brown man passed on around the corner, out of the faint warmth of
the sunshine and away from the empty and endless arguments which his
coming had provoked among the negroes.
The futile ending of his first adventure surprised Peter. He walked
uncertainly up the business street of the village, hardly knowing where
to turn next.
Cold weather had driven the merchants indoors, and the thoroughfare was
quite deserted except for a few hogs rooting among the refuse heaps
piled in front of the stores. It was not a pleasant sight, and it
repelled Peter all the more because he was accustomed to the antiseptic
look of a Northern city. He walked up to the third door from the corner,
when a buzz of voices brought him to a standstill and finally persuaded
him inside.
At the back end of a badly lighted store a circle of white men and boys
had formed around an old-fashioned, egg-shaped stove. Near by, on some
meal-bags, sat two negroes, one of whom wore a broad grin, the other, a
funny, sheepish look.
The white men were teasing the latter negro about having gone to jail
for selling a mortgaged cow. The men went about their fun-making
leisurely, knowing quite well the negro could not get angry or make any
retort or leave the store, all of these methods of self-defense being
ruled out by custom.
"You must have forgot your cow was mortgaged, Bob."
"No-o-o, suh; I--I--I didn't fuhgit," drawling his vowels to a
prodigious length.
"Didn't you know you'd get into trouble?"
"No-o-o, suh."
"Know it now, don't you?"
"Ya-a-s, suh."
"Have a good time in jail, Bob?"
"Ya-a-s, suh. Shot cra-a-aps nearly all de time tull de jailer broke hit
up."
"Wouldn't he let you shoot any more?"
"No-o-o, suh; not after he won all our money." Here Bob flung up his
head, poked out his lips like a bugle, and broke into a grotesque, "Hoo!
hoo! hoo!" It was such an absurd laugh, and Bob's tale had come to such
an absurd denouement, that the white men roared, and shuffled their feet
on the flared base of the stove. Some spat in or near a box filled with
sawdust, and betrayed other nervous signs of satisfaction. When a man so
spat, he stopped laughing abruptly, straightened his face, and stared
emptily at the rusty stove until further inquisition developed some
other preposterous escapade in Bob's jail career.
The merchant, looking up at one of these intermissions, saw Peter
standing at his counter. He came out of the circle and asked Peter what
he wanted. The mulatto bought a package of soda and went out.
The chill north wind smelled clean after the odors of the store. Peter
stood with his package of soda, breathing deeply, looking up and down
the street, wondering what to do next. Without much precision of
purpose, he walked diagonally across the street, northward toward a
large faded sign that read, "Killibrew's Grocery." A little later Peter
entered a big, rather clean store which smelled of spices, coffee, and a
faint dash of decayed potatoes. Mr. Killibrew himself, a big, rotund
man, with a round head of prematurely white hair, was visible in a
little glass office at the end of his store. Even through the glazed
partition Peter could see Mr. Killibrew smiling as he sat comfortably at
his desk. Indeed, the grocer's chief assets were a really expansive
friendliness and a pleasant, easily provoked laughter.
He was fifty-two years old, and had been in the grocery business since
he was fifteen. He had never been to school at all, but had learned
bookkeeping, business mathematics, salesmanship, and the wisdom of the
market-place from his store, from other merchants, and from the drummers
who came every week with their samples and their worldly wisdom. These
drummers were, almost to a man, very sincere friends of Mr. Killibrew,
and not infrequently they would write the grocer from the city, or send
him telegrams, advising him to buy this or to unload that, according to
the exigencies of the market. As a result of this was very well off
indeed, and all because he was a friendly, agreeable sort of man.
The grocer heard Peter enter and started to come out of his office, when
Peter stopped him and asked if he might speak with him alone.
The white-haired man with the pink, good-natured face stood looking at
Peter with rather a questioning but pleasant expression.
"Why, certainly, certainly." He turned back to the swivel-chair at his
desk, seated himself, and twisted about on Peter as he entered. Mr.
Killibrew did not offer Peter a seat,--that would have been an
infraction of Hooker's Bend custom,--but he sat leaning back, evidently
making up his mind to refuse Peter credit, which he fancied the mulatto
would ask for and yet do it pleasantly.
"I was wondering, Mr. Killibrew," began Peter feeling his way along, "I
was wondering if you would mind talking over a little matter with me.
It's considered a delicate subject, I believe, but I thought a frank
talk would help."
During the natural pauses of Peter's explanation Mr. Killibrew kept up a
genial series of nods and ejaculations.
"Certainly, Peter. I don't see why, Peter. I'm sure it will help,
Peter."
"I'd like to talk frankly about the relations of our two races in the
South, in Hooker's Bend."
The grocer stopped his running accompaniment of affirmations and looked
steadfastly at Peter. Presently he seemed to solve some question and
broke into a pleasant laugh.
"Now, Peter, if this is some political shenanigan, I must tell you I'm a
Democrat. Besides that, I don't care a straw about politics. I vote, and
that's all."
Peter put down the suspicion that he was on a political errand.
"Not that at all, Mr. Killibrew. It's a question of the white race and
the black race. The particular feature I am working on is the wages paid
to cooks."
"I didn't know you were a cook," interjected the grocer in surprise.
"I am not."
Mr. Killibrew looked at Peter, thought intensely for a few moments, and
came to an unescapable conclusion.
"You don't mean you've formed a cook's union here in Hooker's Bend,
Peter!" he cried, immensely amazed.
"Not at all. It's this," clarified Peter. "It may seem trivial, but it
illustrates the principle I'm trying to get at. Doesn't your cook carry
away cold food?"
It required perhaps four seconds for the merchant to stop his
speculations on what Peter had come for and adjust his mind to the
question.
"Why, yes, I suppose so," he agreed, very much at sea. "I--I never
caught up with her." He laughed a pleasant, puzzled laugh. "Of course
she doesn't come around and show me what she's making off with. Why?"
"Well, it's this. Wouldn't you prefer to give your cook a certain cash
payment instead of having her taking uncertain amounts of your
foodstuffs and wearing apparel?"
The merchant leaned forward in his chair.
"Did old Becky Davis send you to me with any such proposition as that,
Peter?"
"No, not at all. But, Mr. Killibrew, wouldn't you like better and more
trustworthy servants as cooks, as farm-hands, chauffeurs, stable-boys?
You see, you and your children and your children's children are going to
have to depend on negro labor, as far as we can see, to the end of
time."
"We-e-ell, yes," admitted Mr. Killibrew, who was not accustomed to
considering the end of time.
"Wouldn't it be better to have honest, self-respecting help than
dishonest help?"
"Certainly."
"Then let's think about cooks. How can one hope to rear an honest, self-
respecting citizenry as long as the mothers of the race are compelled to
resort to thievery to patch out an insufficient wage?"
"Why, I don't suppose niggers ever will be honest," admitted the grocer,
very frankly. "You naturally don't trust a nigger. If you credit one for
a dime, the next time he has any money he'll go trade somewhere else."
The grocer broke into his contagious laugh. "Do you know how I've built
up my business here, Peter? By never trusting a nigger." Mr. Killibrew
continued his pleased chuckle. "Yes, I get the whole cash trade of the
niggers in Hooker's Bend by never cheating one and never trusting one."
The grocer leaned back in his squeaking chair and looked out through the
glass partition, over the brightly colored packages that lined his
shelves from floor to ceiling. All that prosperity had come about
through a policy of honesty and distrust. It was something to be proud
of.
"Now, let me see," he proceeded, recurring pleasantly to what he
recalled of Peter's original proposition: "Aunt Becky sent you here to
tell me if I'd raise her pay, she'd stop stealin' and--and raise some
honest children." Mr. Killibrew threw back his head broke into loud,
jelly-like laughter. "Why, don't you know, Peter, she's an old liar. If
I gave her a hundred a week, she'd steal. And children! Why, the old
humbug! She's too old; she's had her crop. And, besides all that, I
don't mind what the old woman takes. It isn't much. She's a good old
darky, faithful as a dog." He arose from his swivel-chair briskly and
floated Peter out before him. "Tell her, if she wants a raise," he
concluded heartily, "and can't pinch enough out of my kitchen and the
two dollars I pay her--tell her to come to me, straight out, and I'll
give her more, and she can pinch more."
Mr. Killibrew moved down the aisle of his store between fragrant barrels
and boxes, laughing mellowly at old Aunt Becky's ruse, as he saw it. As
he turned Peter out, he invited him to come again when he needed
anything in the grocery line.
And he was so pleasant, hearty, and sincere in his friendliness toward
both Peter and old Aunt Becky that Peter, even amid the complete side-
tracking and derailing of his mission, decided that it ever he did have
occasion to purchase any groceries, he would do his trading at this
market ruled by an absolute honesty with, and a complete distrust in,
his race.
At the conclusion of the Killibrew interview Peter instinctively felt
that he had just about touched the norm of Hooker's Bend. The village
might contain men who would dive a little deeper into the race question
with Peter; assuredly, there would be hundreds who would not dive so
deep. Mr. Killibrew's attitude on the race question turned on how to
hold the negro patronage of the village to his grocery. It was not an
abstract question at all, but a concrete fact, which he had worked out
to his own satisfaction. With Mr. Killibrew, with all Hooker's Bend,
there was no negro question.