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Updated: June 7, 2025
For a long time they sat transported amid the dusty honeysuckles and withered blooms, but after a while they began talking a little at a time of the future, their future. They felt so indissolubly joined that they could not imagine the future finding them apart. There was no need for any more trouble with Tump Pack. They would marry quietly, and go away North to live.
Presently Tump Pack's form outlined itself in the yellow obscurity, groping toward Peter. He still held his pistol, but it swung at his side. He called Peter's name in the strained voice of a man struggling not to cough: "Peter is Mr. Bobbs done 'rested Cissie?" Peter could hardly talk himself. "Don't know. Looks like it." The two negroes stared at each other through the dust. "Fuh Gawd's sake!
Ghosts of sleepless nights circled her eyes. Suddenly she said, "Come in. Oh, do come in, Peter." She reached out and almost pulled him in. She was so urgent that Peter might have fancied Tump Pack at the gate with his automatic. He did glance around, but saw nobody passing except the Arkwright boy.
"Maybe I's mistooken," he said solemnly. "Tump did start over heah wid a gun, but Mister Dawson Bobbs done tuk him up fuh ca'yin' concealed squidjulums; so Tump's done los' dat freedom uv motion in de pu'suit uv happiness gua'anteed us niggers an' white folks by the Constitution uv de Newnighted States uv America."
The three stood silent, Nan and Tump lost in blankness, trying to think of something to do for Cissie. Finally Nan said: "I heah she done commit gran' larceny, an' they goin' sen' her to de pen." "Whut is gran' larceny?" asked Tump. "It's takin' mo' at one time an' de white folks 'speck you to take," defined the woman. "Well, I'll go git her clo'es." She hurried off up the crescent.
He remembered his mother's writing him something about Tump Pack going to France and getting "crowned" before the army. He had puzzled a long time over what she meant by "crowned" before he guessed her meaning. Now the medal aided Peter in reconstructing out of this big umber-colored giant the rather spindling Tump Pack he had known in Hooker's Bend.
He caressed his mother and murmured incoherently, as had Tump Pack. Presently the master of the launch came by, and touched the old negress, not ungently, with the end of a spike-pole. "You'll have to move, Aunt Ca'line," he said. "We're goin' to get the freight off now." The black woman paused in her weeping.
They they aren't married, are they?" "Oh, no-o, no-o-o, no-o-o-o-o." The Persimmon waggled his bullet head slowly from side to side. "I heared Tump got into a lil trouble wid de jailer las' night." "Serious?" "I dunno." The Persimmon closed one of his protruding yellow eyes.
Ef Peter ain't to be foun' at eider en', wha is he?" "Um-m-m!" "Eh-h-h!" "You sho spoke a moufful, Jim Pink!" came an assenting chorus from the bales. Eventually such gossip died away and took another flurry when a report went abroad that Tump Pack was carrying a pistol and meant to shoot Peter on sight. Then this in turn ceased to be news and of human interest.
She don' shoot craps, nor boot- laig, nor " He fell to coughing. Peter got out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. "Let's go to the Dildine house," he said. The two moved hurriedly through the thinning cloud, and presently came to breathable air, where they could see the houses around them. "I know she done somp'n; I know she done somp'n," chanted Tump, with the melancholy cadence of his race.
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