He held up a hand with an
earnestness that caught their vagrant attention.
"Listen!" he pleaded. "Can't you see how much there is for us black
folks to do, and what little we have done?"
"Sho is a lot to do; we admits dat," said Bluegum Frakes. "But whut's de
use doin' hit ef we kin manage to shy roun' some o' dat wuck an' keep on
libin' anyhow, specially wid wages so high?"
The question stopped Peter. Neither his own thoughts, nor any book that
he had ever read nor any lecture that he had heard ever attempted to
explain the enormous creative urge which is felt by every noble mind,
and which, indeed, is shared to some extent by every human creature. Put
to it like that, Siner concocted a sort of allegory, telling of a negro
who was shiftless in the summer and suffered want in the winter, and
applied it to the present high wage and to the low wage that was coming;
but in his heart Peter knew such utilitarianism was not the true reason
at all. Men do not weave tapestries to warm themselves, or build temples
to keep the rain away.
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