Birthright Part 7

Siner had vaguely enjoyed old Mr. Tomwit's discomfiture over the deed, if it was discomfiture that had moved the old gentleman to his sententious profanity. But the negro did not understand Henry Hooker's action at all. The banker had abused his position of trust as holder of a deed in escrow snapping up the sale himself; then he had sold Peter the Dillihay place. It was a queer s.h.i.+ft.

Tump Pack caught his princ.i.p.al's mood with that chameleon-like mental quality all negroes possess.

"Dat Henry Hooker," criticized Tump, "allus was a lil ole dried-up snake in de gra.s.s."

"He abused his position of trust," said Peter, gloomily; "I must say, his motives seem very obscure to me."

"Dat sho am a fine way to put hit," said Tump, admiringly.

"Why do you suppose he bought in the Tomwit tract and sold me the Dillihay place?"

Asked for an opinion, Tump began twiddling military medal and corrugated the skin on his inch-high brow.

"Now you puts it to me lak dat, Peter," he answered with importance, "I wonders ef dat gimlet-haided white man ain't put some stoppers in dat deed he guv you. He mout of."

Such remarks as that from Tump always annoyed Peter. Tump's intellectual method was to talk sense just long enough to gain his companion's ear, and then produce something absurd and quash the tentative interest.

Siner turned away from him and said, "Piffle."

Tump was defensive at once.

"'T ain't piffle, either! I's talkin' sense, n.i.g.g.e.r."

Peter shrugged, and walked a little way in silence, but the soldier's nonsense stuck in his brain and worried him. Finally he turned, rather irritably.

"Stoppers--what do you mean by stoppers?"

Tump opened his jet eyes and their yellowish whites. "I means n.i.g.g.e.r- stoppers," he reiterated, amazed in his turn.

"Negro-stoppers--" Peter began to laugh sardonically, and abruptly quit the conversation.

Such rank superiority irritated the soldier to the nth power.

"Look heah, black man, I knows I _is_ right. Heah, lonme look at dat-aiuh, deed. Maybe I can find 'em. I knows I suttinly is right."

Peter walked on, paying no attention to the request Until Tump caught his arm and drew him up short.

"Look heah, n.i.g.g.e.r," said Tump, in a different tone, "I faded dad deed fuh ten iron men, an' I reckon I got a once-over comin' fuh my money."

The soldier was plainly mobilized and ready to attack. To fight Tump, to fight any negro at all, would be Peter's undoing; it would forfeit the moral leaders.h.i.+p he hoped to gain. Moreover, he had no valid grounds for a disagreement with Tump. He pa.s.sed over the deed, and the two negroes moved on their way to n.i.g.g.e.rtown.

Tump trudged forward with eyes glued to paper, his face puckered in the unaccustomed labor of reading.

His thick lips moved at the individual letters, and constructed them bunglingly into syllables and words. He was trying to uncover the verbal camouflage by which the astute white brushed away all rights of all black men whatsoever.

To Peter there grew up something sadly comical in Tump's efforts. The big negro might well typify all the colored folk of the South, struggling in a web of law and custom they did not understand, misplacing their suspicions, befogged and fearful. A certain penitence for having been irritated at Tump softened Peter.

"That's all right, Tump; there's nothing to find."

At that moment the soldier began to bob his head.

"Eh! eh! eh! W-wait a minute!" he stammered. "Whut dis? B'lieve I done foun' it! I sho is! Heah she am! Heah's dis n.i.g.g.e.r-stopper, jes lak I tol' you!" Tump marked a sentence in the guaranty of the deed with a rusty forefinger and looked up at Peter in mixed triumph and accusation.

Peter leaned over the deed, amused.

"Let's see your mare's nest."

"Well, she 'fo' G.o.d is thaiuh, an' you sho let loose a hundud dollars uv our 'ciety's money, an' got nothin' fuh hit but a piece o' paper wid a n.i.g.g.e.r-stopper on hit!"

Tump's voice was so charged with contempt that Peter looked with a certain uneasiness at his find. He read this sentence switched into the guaranty of the indenture:

"Be it further understood and agreed that no negro, black man, Afro- American, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, or any person whatsoever of colored blood or lineage, shall enter upon, seize, hold, occupy, reside upon, till, cultivate, own or possess any part or parcel of said property, or garner, cut, or harvest therefrom, any of the usufruct, timber, or emblements thereof, but shall by these presents be estopped from so doing forever."

Tump Pack drew a shaken, unhappy breath.

"Now, I reckon you see whut a n.i.g.g.e.r-stopper is."

Peter stood in the suns.h.i.+ne, looking at the estoppel clause, his lips agape. Twice he read it over. It held something of the quality of those comprehensive curses that occur in the Old Testament. He moistened his lips and looked at Tump.

"Why that can't be legal." His voice sounded empty and shallow.

"Legal! 'Fo' Gawd, n.i.g.g.e.r, whauh you been to school all dese yeahs, never to heah uv a n.i.g.g.e.r-stopper befo'!"

"But--but how can a stroke of the pen, a mere gesture, estop a whole cla.s.s of American citizens forever?" cried Peter, with a rising voice.

"Turn it around. Suppose they had put in a line that no white man should own that land. It--it's empty! I tell you, it's mere words!"

Tump cut into his diatribe: "No use talkin' lak dat. Our 'ciety thought you wuz a aidjucated n.i.g.g.e.r. We didn't think no white man could put nothin' over on you."

"Education!" snapped Siner. "Education isn't supposed to keep you away from shysters!"

"Keep you away fum 'em!" cried Tump, in a scandalized voice. "'Fo' Gawd, n.i.g.g.e.r, you don' know nothin'! O' co'se a aidjucation ain't to keep you away fum shysters; hit's to mek you one 'uv 'em!"

Peter stood breathing irregularly, looking at his deed. A determination not to be cheated grew up and hardened in his nerves. With unsteady hands he refolded his deed and put it into his pocket, then he turned about and started back up the village street toward the bank.

Tump stared after him a moment and presently called out:

"Heah, n.i.g.g.e.r, whut you gwine do?" A moment later he repeated to his friend's back: "Look heah, n.i.g.g.e.r, I 'vise you ag'inst anything you's gwine do, less'n you's ready to pa.s.s in you' checks!" As Peter strode on he lifted his voice still higher: "Peter! Hey, Peter, I sho' 'vise you 'g'inst anything you's 'gwine do!"

A pulse throbbed in Siner's temples. The wrath of the cozened heated his body. His clothes felt hot. As he strode up the trash-piled street, the white merchants lolling in their doors began smiling. Presently a laugh broke out at one end of the street and was caught up here and there. It was the undying minstrel jest, the comedy of a black face. Dawson Bobbs leaned against the wide brick entrance of the livery-stable, his red face balled into s.h.i.+ning convexities by a quizzical smile.

"Hey, Peter," he drawled, winking at old Mr. Tomwit, "been investin' in real estate?" and broke into Homeric laughter.

As Peter pa.s.sed on, the constable dropped casually in behind the brown man and followed him up to the bank.

To Peter Siner the walk up to the bank was an emotional confusion. He has a dim consciousness that voices said things to him along the way and that there was laughter. All this was drowned by desperate thoughts and futile plans to regain his lost money, flas.h.i.+ng through his head. The cas.h.i.+er would exchange the money for the deed; he would enter suit and carry it to the Supreme Court; he would show the money had not been his, he had had no right to buy; he would beg the cas.h.i.+er. His head seemed to spin around and around.