eps, he turned
to Peter.

"Don' reckon nobody could git a deed off on you wid stoppers in it, does
you?"

"We don't know any such word as 'stop,' Tump," declared Peter, gaily.

For Peter was gay. The whole incident at the bank was beginning to
please him. The meeting of a sudden difficulty, his quick decision--it
held the quality of leadership. Napoleon had it.

The two colored men stepped briskly through the afternoon sunshine along
the mean village street. Here and there in front of their doorways sat
the merchants yawning and talking, or watching pigs root in the piles of
waste.

In Peter's heart came a wonderful thought. He would make his industrial
institution such a model of neatness that the whole village of Hooker's
Bend would catch the spirit. The white people should see that something
clean and uplifting could come out of Niggertown. The two races ought to
live for a mutual benefit. It was a fine, generous thought. For some
reason, just then, there flickered through Peter's mind a picture of the
Arkwright boy sitting hunched over in the cedar glade, staring at the
needles.

All this musing was brushed away by the sight of old Mr. Tomwit crossing
the street from the east side to the livery-stable on the west. That
human desire of wanting the person who has wronged you to know that you
know your injury moved Peter to hurry his steps and to speak to the old
gentleman.

Mr. Tomwit had been a Confederate cavalryman in the Civil War, and there
was still a faint breeze and horsiness about him. He was a hammered-down
old gentleman, with hair thin but still jet-black, a seamed, sunburned
face, and a flattened nose. His voice was always a friendly roar. Now,
when he saw Peter turning across the street to meet him, he halted and
called out at once:

"Now Peter, I know what's the matter with you. I didn't do you right."

Peter went closer, not caring to take the whole village into his
confidence.

"How came you to turn down my proposition, Mr. Tomwit," he asked, "after
we had agreed and drawn up the papers?"

"We-e-ell, I had to do it, Peter," explained the old man, loudly.

"Why, Mr. Tomwit?"

"A white neighbor wanted me to, Peter," boomed the cavalryman.

"Who, Mr. Tomwit?"

"Henry Hooker talked me into it, Peter. It was a mean trick, Peter. I
done you wrong." He stood nodding his head and rubbing his flattened
nose in an impersonal manner. "Yes, I done you wrong, Peter," he
acknowledged loudly, and