Peter Siner turned away toward his home filled with sick thought. He had
never realized so clearly the open sore of Niggertown life and its great
need of healing, yet this very episode would further bar him, Peter,
from any constructive work. He foresaw, too plainly, how the white town
and Niggertown would react to this fight. There would be no
discrimination in the scandal. He, Peter Siner, would be grouped with
the boot-leggers and crap-shooters and women-chasers who filled
Niggertown with their brawls. As a matter of simple fact, he had been
fighting with another negro over a woman. That he was subjected to an
attack without warning or cause would never become a factor in the
analysis. He knew that very well.
Two of Peter's teeth were loose; his left jaw was swelling; his head
throbbed. With that queer perversity of human nerves, he kept biting his
sore teeth together as he walked along.
When he reached home, his mother met him at the door. Thanks to the
swiftness with which gossip spreads among black folk, she had already
heard of the fight, and incidentally had formed her judgment of the
matter.
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