The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birthright, by T.S. Stribling
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Title: Birthright
A Novel
Author: T.S. Stribling
Release Date: January 7, 2004 [EBook #10621]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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[Illustration: "Yes, Cissie, I understand now"]
BIRTHRIGHT
A NOVEL
BY T.S. STRIBLING
Illustrated by
F. Luis Mora
1922
TO MY MOTHER
AMELIA WAITS STRIBLING
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"Yes, Cissie, I understand now"
Peter recognized the white aprons and the swords and spears of the
Knights and Ladies of Tabor
Up and down its street flows the slow negro life of the village
In the Siner cabin old Caroline Siner berated her boy
The old gentleman turned around at last
"You-you mean you want m-me--to go with you, Cissie?" he stammered
"Naw yuh don't," he warned sharply. "You turn roun' an' march on to
Niggertown"
The bridal couple embarked for Cairo
BIRTHRIGHT
CHAPTER I
At Cairo, Illinois, the Pullman-car conductor asked Peter Siner to take
his suitcase and traveling-bag and pass forward into the Jim Crow car.
The request came as a sort of surprise to the negro. During Peter
Siner's four years in Harvard the segregation of black folk on Southern
railroads had become blurred and reminiscent in his mind; now it was
fetched back into the sharp distinction of the present instant. With a
certain sense of strangeness, Siner picked up his bags, and saw his own
form, in the car mirrors, walking down the length of the sleeper. He
moved on through the dining-car, where a few hours before he had had
dinner and talked with two white men, one an Oregon apple-grower, the
other a Wisconsin paper-manufacturer. The Wisconsin man had furnished
cigars, a
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