Village books

In the Siner cabin old Caroline Siner berated her boy for his stupidity
in ever trading with that low-down, twisting snake in the grass, Henry
Hooker. She alternated this with floods of tears. Caroline had no
sympathy for her offspring. She said she had thrown away years of self-
sacrifice, years of washing, a thousand little comforts her money would
have bought, all for nothing, for less than nothing, to ship a fool
nigger up North and to ship him back.
Of all Niggertown, Caroline was the most unforgiving because Peter had
wounded her in her pride. Every other negro in the village felt that
genial satisfaction in a great man's downfall that is balm to small
souls. But the old mother knew not this consolation. Peter was her
proxy. It was she who had fallen.
The only person in Niggertown who continued amiable to Peter Siner was
Cissie Dildine. The octoroon, perhaps, had other criteria by which to
judge a man than his success or mishaps dealing with a pettifogger.
Two or three days after the catastrophe, Cissie made an excursion to the
Siner cabin with a plate of cookies.


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