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Updated: June 7, 2025
"You see, Peter, if you had been like Tump Pack or Wince or any of the boys around here, it it wouldn't have made much difference; but but you went off and and learned to think and feel like a white man. You you changed your code, Peter." She gave a little shaken sound, something between a sob and a laugh.
There was something grim in the ex-soldier's face and in the set of his gross lips as the two came up, but the aura of the girl prevented Peter from paying much attention to it. As the two reached Tump, Peter had just lifted his hand to his hat when Tump made a quick step out at the gate, in front of them, and swung a furious blow at Peter's head. Cissie screamed.
"Because, nigger, I means to drap you right on de Main Street o' Niggertown, 'fo' all dem niggers whut's been a-raggin' me 'bout you an' Cissie. I's gwine show dem fool niggers I don' take no fumi-diddles off'n nobody." "Tump," gasped Jim Pink, in a husky voice, "you oughtn't shoot Peter; he mammy jes daid." "'En she won' worry none. Turn roun', Peter, an' when I says, 'March, you march."
They played about Arkwright, the Captain, Cissie, his mother's death, Tump Pack in prison, the quarrel between the Persimmon and Jim Pink Staggs. The whole of Niggertown came rushing down upon him, seizing him in its passion and dustiness and greasiness, putting to flight all his cultivated white-man ideas. After half an hour's searching he gave it up.
He suddenly broke into violent profanity. "Hot damn you! shut yo black mouf! Whut I keer whut-chu done! You weaned her away fum me. She won't speak to me! She won't look at me!" A sudden insanity of rage seized Tump. He poured on his victim every oath and obscenity he had raked out of the whole army. Strangely enough, the gunman's outbreak brought a kind of relief to Peter Siner.
"Sho do, black man." Pack became soberer. "Dat's one o' de great benefits o' bein' dec'rated. Dey ain't a son uv a gun on de river whut kin win lil Joe; dey all tried it." A moment's reflection told Peter how simple and natural it was for Pack to prize his military medal as a good-luck piece to be used as a last resort in crap games. He watched Tump stroke the face of his medal with his fingers.
Then the commandant with the sword began his address, but it was not directed to Peter. "Brudder Tump Pack, we, de Hooker's Ben' lodge uv de Knights an' Ladies uv Tabor, welcome you back to yo' native town. We is proud uv you, a colored man, who brings back de highes' crown uv bravery dis Newnighted States has in its power to bestow.
Cissie 'rested!" Tump began to cough. Then he wheezed: "Mine an' yo' little deal's off, Peter. You gotta he'p git her out." Here he fell into a violent fit of coughing, and started groping his way to the edge of the dust-cloud. In the rush of the moment the swift change in Peter's situation appeared only natural.
The officer was looking at Peter fixedly with his chill slits of eyes. "Yeah; trying to make a jail delivery." The two men continued looking at each other, one from the road, the other from the motor. The flow of Peter's thoughts seemed to divide. The greater part was occupied with Tump Pack.
"What's the matter, Tump?" he asked playfully. "Ain't nothin' matter wid me, nigger." Peter made a guess at Tump's surliness. "Look here, are you puffed up because Cissie Dildine struck you for a ten?" Tump's expression changed. "Is she struck me fuh a ten?" "Yes; on that school subscription." "Is dat whut you two niggers wuz a-talkin' 'bout over thaiuh in yo' house?" "Exactly."
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