"Oh, nothin'; nothin' 'tall. Ever'body say you a mighty long-haided nigger. Jim Pink he tell us 'bout Tump Pack marchin' you 'roun' wid a gun. I sho don' want you ever git mad at me, Mister Siner. Man wid a gun an' you turn yo' long haid on him an' blow him away wid a wad o' women's clo'es. I sho don' want you ever cross yo' fingers at me, Mister Siner." Peter stared at the grotesque, bullet-headed roustabout. "Persimmon," he said uneasily, "what in the world are you talking about?" The Persimmon smiled a sickly, white-toothed smile. "Jim Pink say yo' aidjucation is a flivver. I say, 'Jim Pink, no nigger don' go off an' study fo' yeahs in college whut 'n he comes back an' kin throw some kin' uv a hoodoo over us fool niggers whut ain't got no brains. Now, Tump wid a gun, an' you wid jes ordina'y women's clo'es! 'Fo' Gawd, aidjucation is a great thing; sho is a great thing." The Persimmon gave Peter an apprehensive wink and moved on. There was no use trying to extract information from the Persimmon unless he was minded to give it. His talk would merely become vaguer and vaguer. Peter watched him go, then turned and attempted to throw the whole matter off his mind by assuming a certain brisk Northern mood. He must pack, get ready for the down-river gasolene launch. The doings of Tump Pack and Cissie Dildine were, after all, nothing to him. He started inside, when the levy notice on the door again met his eyes. He paused, read it over once more, and decided that he must go over the hill to the Planter's Bank and get Henry Hooker's permission to remove certain small personal belongings that he wanted to take with him. The mere clear-cut decision to go invigorated Peter. Some of the energy that always filled him during his college days in Boston seemed to come to him now from the mere thought of the North. Soon he would be in the midst of it, moving briskly, talking to wide- awake men to whom a slightly unusual English word would not form a stumbling-block to conversation. He set out down the crescent and across the Big Hill at a swinging stride. He was glad to get away. Beyond the white church on the other side of the hill he heard a motor coming in on the Jonesboro road. Presently he saw a battered car moving around the long swing of the pike, spewing a trail of dust down the wind. Its clacking became prodigious. The mulatto was just entering that indefinite stretch of thoroughfare where a country road becomes a village street when there came a wail of brakes behind him and he looked around. It was Dawson Bobbs's car. The fat man now slowed up not far from the mulatto and called to him. "Yes, sir," said Peter. Dawson bobbed his fat head backward and upward in a signal for Peter to approach. It held the casualness of one certain to be obeyed.