They were talking of Cissie, of course. They hoped Cissie wouldn't
really be sent to the penitentiary, that the white folks would let her
out in time for her to have her child at home. Parson Ranson thought it
would be bad luck for a child to be born in jail.
Wince Washington, who had been in jail a number of times, suggested that
they bail Cissie out by signing their names to a paper. He had been set
free by this means once or twice.
Sally, Nan's little sister, observed tartly that if Cissie hadn't acted
so, she wouldn't have been in jail.
"Don' speak lak dat uv dem as is in trouble, Sally," reproved old Parson
Ranson, solemnly; "anybody can say 'Ef.'"
"Sho am de troof," agreed Jerry Dillihay.
"Sho am, black man." The conversation drifted into the endless
moralizing of their race, but it held no criticism or condemnation of
Cissie. From the tone of the negroes one would have thought some
impersonal disaster had overtaken her. Every one was planning how to
help Cissie, how to make her present state more endurable. They were the
black folk, the unfortunate of the earth, and the pride of righteousness
is only to the well placed and the untempted.
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