Birthright Part 6

"You should have paid him an earnest, Siner, if you wanted to bind your trade. You colored folks are always stumbling over the law."

Peter stared through the grating, not knowing what to do.

"I'll go see Mr. Tomwit," he said, and started uncertainly for the door.

The cas.h.i.+er's falsetto stopped him:

"No use, Peter. Mr. Tomwit surprised me, too, but no use talking about it. I didn't like to see such an important thing as the education of our colored people held up, myself. I've been thinking about it."

"Especially when I had made a fair square trade," put in Peter, warmly.

"Exactly," squeaked the cas.h.i.+er. "And rather than let your project be delayed, I'm going to offer you the old Dillihay place at exactly the same price, Peter--eight hundred."

"The Dillihay place?"

"Yes; that's west of town; it's bigger by twenty acres than old man Tomwit's place."

Peter considered the proposition.

"I'll have to carry this before the Sons and Daughters of Benevolence, Mr. Hooker."

The cas.h.i.+er repeated the smile that bracketed his thin nose in wrinkles.

"That's with you, but you know what you say goes with the n.i.g.g.e.rs here in town, and, besides, I won't promise how long I'll hold the Dillihay place. Real estate is brisk around here now. I didn't want to delay a good work on account of not having a location." Mr. Hooker turned away to a big ledger on a breast-high desk, and apparently was about to settle himself to the endless routine of bank work.

Peter knew the Dillihay place well. It lacked the timber of the other tract; still, it was fairly desirable. He hesitated before the tarnished grill.

"What do you think about it, Tump?"

"You won't make a mistake in buying," answered the high voice of Mr.

Hooker at his ledger.

"I don' think you'll make no mistake in buyin', Peter," repeated Tump's ba.s.s.

Peter turned back a little uncertainly, and asked how long it would take to fix the new deed. He had a notion of making a flying canva.s.s of the officers of the Sons and Daughters in the interim. He was surprised to find that Mr. Hooker already had the deed and the notes ready to sign, in antic.i.p.ation of Peter's desires. Here the banker brought out the set of papers.

"I'll take it," decided Peter; "and if the lodge doesn't want it, I'll keep the place myself."

"I like to deal with a man of decision," piped the cas.h.i.+er, a wrinkled smile on his sharp face.

Peter pushed in his bag of collections, then Mr. Hooker signed the deed, and Peter signed the land notes. They exchanged the instruments. Peter received the crisp deed, bound in blue ma.n.u.script cover. It rattled unctuously. To Peter it was his first step toward a second Tuskegee.

The two negroes walked out of the Planter's Bank filled with a sense of well-doing. Tump Pack was openly proud of having been connected, even in a casual way, with the purchase. As he walked down the steps, he turned to Peter.

"Don' reckon n.o.body could git a deed off on you wid stoppers in it, does you?"

"We don't know any such word as 'stop,' Tump," declared Peter, gaily.

For Peter was gay. The whole incident at the bank was beginning to please him. The meeting of a sudden difficulty, his quick decision--it held the quality of leaders.h.i.+p. Napoleon had it.

The two colored men stepped briskly through the afternoon suns.h.i.+ne along the mean village street. Here and there in front of their doorways sat the merchants yawning and talking, or watching pigs root in the piles of waste.

In Peter's heart came a wonderful thought. He would make his industrial inst.i.tution such a model of neatness that the whole village of Hooker's Bend would catch the spirit. The white people should see that something clean and uplifting could come out of n.i.g.g.e.rtown. The two races ought to live for a mutual benefit. It was a fine, generous thought. For some reason, just then, there flickered through Peter's mind a picture of the Arkwright boy sitting hunched over in the cedar glade, staring at the needles.

All this musing was brushed away by the sight of old Mr. Tomwit crossing the street from the east side to the livery-stable on the west. That human desire of wanting the person who has wronged you to know that you know your injury moved Peter to hurry his steps and to speak to the old gentleman.

Mr. Tomwit had been a Confederate cavalryman in the Civil War, and there was still a faint breeze and horsiness about him. He was a hammered-down old gentleman, with hair thin but still jet-black, a seamed, sunburned face, and a flattened nose. His voice was always a friendly roar. Now, when he saw Peter turning across the street to meet him, he halted and called out at once:

"Now Peter, I know what's the matter with you. I didn't do you right."

Peter went closer, not caring to take the whole village into his confidence.

"How came you to turn down my proposition, Mr. Tomwit," he asked, "after we had agreed and drawn up the papers?"

"We-e-ell, I had to do it, Peter," explained the old man, loudly.

"Why, Mr. Tomwit?"

"A white neighbor wanted me to, Peter," boomed the cavalryman.

"Who, Mr. Tomwit?"

"Henry Hooker talked me into it, Peter. It was a mean trick, Peter. I done you wrong." He stood nodding his head and rubbing his flattened nose in an impersonal manner. "Yes, I done you wrong, Peter," he acknowledged loudly, and looked frankly into Peter's eyes.

The negro was immensely surprised that Henry Hooker had done such a thing. A thought came that perhaps some other Henry Hooker had moved into town in his absence.

"You don't mean the cas.h.i.+er of the bank?"

Old Mr. Tomwit drew out a plug of Black Mule tobacco, set some gapped, discolored teeth into corner, nodded at Peter silently, at the same time utilizing the nod to tear off a large quid. He rolled tin about with his tongue and after a few moments adjusted it so that he could speak.

"Yeah," he proceeded in a m.u.f.fled tone, "they ain't but one Henry Hooker; he is the one and only Henry. He said if I sold you my land, you'd put up a n.i.g.g.e.r school and bring in so many blackbirds you'd run me clean off my farm. He said it'd ruin the whole town, a n.i.g.g.e.r school would."

Peter was astonished.

"Why, he didn't talk that way to me!"

"Natch.e.l.ly, natch.e.l.ly," agreed the old cavalryman, dryly.--"Henry has a different way to talk to ever' man, Peter."

"In fact," proceeded Peter, "Mr. Hooker sold me the old Dillihay place in lieu of the deal I missed with you."

Old Mr. Tomwit moved his quid in surprise.

"The h.e.l.l he did!"

"That at least shows he doesn't think a negro school would ruin the value of his land. He owns farms all around the Dillihay place."

Old Mr. Tomwit turned his quid over twice and spat thoughtfully.

"That your deed in your pocket?" With the air of a man certain of being obeyed he held out his hand for the blue ma.n.u.script cover protruding from the mulatto's pocket. Peter handed it over. The old gentleman unfolded the deed, then moved it carefully to and from his eyes until the typewriting was adjusted to his focus. He read it slowly, with a movement of his lips and a drooling of tobacco-juice. Finally he finished, remarked, "I be d.a.m.ned!" in a deliberate voice, returned the deed, and proceeded across the street to the livery-stable, which was fronted by an old mulberry-tree, with several chairs under it. In one of these chairs he would sit for the remainder of the day, making an occasional loud remark about the weather or the crops, and watching the horses pa.s.s in and out of the stable.