" He sucked his teeth,
reflectively. "Peter," he said at last, "seems to me, if I was you, I'd
drift on away from this town. The niggers around here ain't strong for
you now; some say you're a hoodoo; some say this an' some that. The
white folks don't exactly like you trying to get up a cook's union. It's
your right to do that if you want to, of course, but this is a mighty
small city to have unions and things. The fact is, it ain't a big enough
place for a nigger of yore ability, Peter. I b'lieve, if I was you, I'd
jes drift on some'eres else."
The officer tipped up his toothpick so that it lifted his upper lip in a
little v-shaped opening and exposed a strong, yellowish tooth. At the
moment his machine started slowly forward. It gave him the appearance of
accidentally rolling off while immersed in deep thought.
* * * * *
The death of Tump Pack moved Peter with a sense of strange pathos. He
always remembered Tump tramping away through the night to carry Cissie
some underclothes and, if possible, to take her place in jail.
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