Tears trickled
from his eyes, and he pressed his finger against his upper lip, trying
not to sneeze. He was still struggling against the sneeze when Tump
recovered his speech.
"Wh-whut you reckon she done, Peter? She don' shoot craps, nor boot-
laig, nor--" He fell to coughing.
Peter got out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes.
"Let's go--to the Dildine house," he said.
The two moved hurriedly through the thinning cloud, and presently came
to breathable air, where they could see the houses around them.
"I know she done somp'n; I know she done somp'n," chanted Tump, with the
melancholy cadence of his race. He shook his dusty head. "You ain't
never been in jail, is you, black man?"
Peter said he had not.
"Lawd! it ain't no place fuh a woman," declared Tump. "You dunno nothin'
'bout it, black man. It sho ain't no place fuh a woman."
A notion of an iron cage floated before Peter's mind. The two negroes
trudged on through the crescent side by side, their steps raising a
little trail of dust in the air behind them. Their faces and clothes
were of a uniform dust color.
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