Village books

At this meeting the subscription had gone through promptly.
The land the negroes purposed to purchase for an industrial school was a
timbered tract tying southeast of Hooker's Bend on the head-waters of
Ross Creek. A purchase price of eight hundred dollars had been agreed
upon. The timber on the tract, sold on the stump, would bring almost
that amount. It was Siner's plan to commandeer free labor in Niggertown,
work off the timber, and have enough money to build the first unit of
his school. A number of negro men already had subscribed a certain
number of days' work in the timber. It was a modest and entirely
practical program, and Peter felt set up over it.
The brown man turned briskly out into the hot afternoon sunshine, down
the mean semicircular street, where piccaninnies were kicking up clouds
of dust. He hurried through the dusty area, and presently turned off a
by-path that led over the hill, through a glade of cedars, to the white
village.
The glade was gloomy, but warm, for the shade of cedars somehow seems to
hold heat.


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