When Peter Siner started on his indefinite errand among the village stores he believed it would require much tact and diplomacy to discuss the race question without offense.  To his surprise, no precaution was necessary.  Everybody agreed at once that the South would be benefited by a more trustworthy labor, that if the negroes were trustworthy they could be paid more; but nobody agreed that if negroes were paid more they would become more trustworthy.  The prevailing dictum was, A nigger’s a nigger.

As Peter came out into the shabby little street of Hooker’s Bend discouragement settled upon him.  He felt as if he had come squarely against some blank stone wall that no amount of talking could budge.  The black man would have to change his psychology or remain where he was, a creature of poverty, hovels, and dirt; but amid such surroundings he could not change his psychology.

The point of these unhappy conclusions somehow turned against Cissie Dildine.  The mulatto became aware that his whole crusade had been undertaken in behalf of the octoroon.  Everything the merchants said against negroes became accusations against Cissie in a sharp personal way.  “A nigger is a nigger”; “A thief is a thief”; “She wouldn’t quit stealing if I paid her a hundred a week.”  Every stroke had fallen squarely on Cissie’s shoulders.  A nigger, a thief; and she would never be otherwise.

It was all so hopeless, so unchangeable, that Peter walked down the bleak street unutterably depressed There was nothing he could do.  The situation was static.  It seemed best that he should go away North and save his own skin.  It was impossible to take Cissie with him.  Perhaps in time he would come to forget her, and in so doing he would forget the pauperism and pettinesses of all the black folk of the South.  Because through Cissie Peter saw the whole negro race.  She was flexuous and passionate, kindly and loving, childish and naively wise; on occasion she could falsify and steal, and in the depth of her Peter sensed a profound capacity for fury and violence.  For all her precise English, she was untamed, perhaps untamable.

Cissie was a far cry from the sort of woman Peter imagined he wanted for a mate; yet he knew that if he stayed on in Hooker’s Bend, seeing her, desiring her, with her luxury mocking the loneliness of the old Renfrew manor, presently he would marry her.  Already he had had his little irrational moments when it seemed to him that Cissie herself was quite fine and worthy and that her speculations were something foreign and did not pertain to her at all.

He would better go North.  It would be safer up there.  No doubt he could find another colored girl in the North.  The thought of fondling any other woman filled Peter with a sudden, sharp repulsion.  However, Peter was wise.  He knew he would get over that in time.

With this plan in mind, Peter set out down the street, intending to cross the Big Hill at the church, walk over to his mother’s shack, and pack his few belongings preparatory to going away.