sius said Emma was so contrary he specked
she must be 'flicted wid de moonness, which is one way of saying
that one is a bit weak in the head. But he liked her, and she washed
his shirts and sewed on a button or so for him occasionally, or
occasionally cracked him over the sconce with the hominy-spoon, just
to show that she considered her marital ties binding. Emma had been
married twice since Cassius left her, but both these ventures had
been, in her own words, "triflin' niggers any real lady 'd jes'
natchelly hab to throw out." When Cassius complained that his third
wife was "diggin' roots" against him, Emma immediately set him to
digging potatoes for herself, to offset the ill effects of possible
conjure. She was a strategical person, and Peter didn't fare very
badly, considering.

The boy fell heir to all those odd jobs that boys in his position
are expected to tackle. When a task was too tiresome, too
disagreeable, or too ill-paying for anybody else, Peter was sent for
and graciously allowed to do it. It enabled people to feel
charitable and at the same time get something done for about a
fourth of what a man would have charged. Half the time he made his
living out of the river, going partners with some negro boatman.
They are daring watermen, the coast negroes. They took Peter on
deep-sea fishing-trips, and at night he curled up on a furled sail
and went to sleep to the sound of Atlantic waves, and of negro men
singing as only negro men can sing. Sometimes they went seining at
night in the river, and Peter never forgot the flaring torches, the
lights dipping and glinting and sliding off brawny, half-naked
figures and black faces, while the marshes were a black, long line
against the sky, and the moon made a silver track upon the waters,
and the salty smell of the sea filled one's nostrils.

Now that he could no longer attend school, Peter snatched at any
book that came his way, getting all sorts and conditions of
reading-matter from all sorts and conditions of people. His was the
unappeasable hunger and thirst of those who long to know; and he
wished to express what he learned, by making pictures and thus
interpreting it for himself and others. It wasn't easy. Life turned
a rather harsh face to him. He wasn't clothed like the birds of the
air and the lilies of the field: he had to provide his own coverings
as best he might. He wouldn't accept charity. He would wear his own
old clothes but he wouldn't wear anybo