Birthright: A Novel

On the eastern edge of Hooker's Bend, drawn in a rough semicircle around the Big Hill, lies Niggertown. In all the half-moon there are perhaps not two upright buildings. The gri...

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 surp...

Next day the Siner-Pack fight was the focus of news interest in Hooker's Bend. White mistresses extracted the story from their black maids, and were amused by it or deprecated C...

The village of Hooker's Bend amuses itself mainly with questionable jests that range all the way from the slightly brackish to the hopelessly obscene. Now, in using this type of...

Two voices talking, interrupting each other with ejaculations, after the fashion of negroes under excitement, aroused Peter Siner from his sleep. He caught the words: "He did! T...

Peter Siner walked home from the Dildine cabin that night rather dreading to meet his mother, for it was late. Cissie had served sandwiches and coffee on a little table in the a...

With a certain feeling of clumsiness Peter groped in the dark hall for his hat, then, as quietly as he could, let himself out at the door. Outside he was surprised to find that...

He would rise and dress slowly in the still cabin, thinking he must soon make new plans and take up some work. He never decided precisely what work; his thoughts trailed on in v...

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...

The coughing and rattling of an old motor-car as it rounded the Niggertown curve delayed Tump Pack's act of violence. Instinctively, the three men waited for the machine to pass...

The white population of Hooker's Bend was much amused and gratified at the outcome of the Hooker-Siner land deal. Every one agreed that the cashier's chicanery was a droll and h...

For a full thirty seconds Peter Siner stared at the girl at the window before, even with her prompting, he thought of the amenity of asking her to come inside. As a further dela...

Cissie Dildine's conviction that marriage would cure Peter of his mission persisted in the mulatto's mind long after the glamour of the girl had faded and his room had regained...

On the corner, against the blank south wall of Hobbett's store, Peter Siner saw the usual crowd of negroes warming themselves in the soft sunshine. They were slapping one anothe...

After watching for two or three days, Peter worked out a sort of time- table for Cissie. She passed up early in the morning, at about five forty-five. He could barely see her th...

A turmoil aroused Peter Siner the next morning, and when he discovered where he was, in the big canopy bed in the great room, he listened curiously and heard a continuous chatte...

Old Captain Renfrew was a trustful, credulous soul, as, indeed, most gentleman who lead a bachelor's life are. Such men lack that moral hardening and whetting which is obtained...

When Nan Berry saw that Caroline was dead, the black woman dropped a glass of water and a capsule of calomel and stared. A queer terror seized her. She began such a wailing that...

With overwrought nerves Peter Siner entered his room. At five o'clock that afternoon he had seen Cissie Dildine go up the street to the Arkwright home to cook one of those occas...

During a period following his mother's death Peter Siner's life drifted emptily and without purpose. He had the feeling of one convalescing in a hospital. His days passed unconn...