"Couldn't he'p hisse'f."
"Look here, you tell me what's happened."
"Mr. Bobbs ca'ied Tump thaiuh. Y' see, Mr. Throgmartin tried to hire Tump to pick cotton. Tump didn't haf to, because he'd jes shot fo' natchels in a crap game. So to-day, when Tump starts over heah wid his gun, Mr. Bobbs 'resses Tump. Mr. Throgmartin bails him out, so now Tump's gone to pick cotton fuh Mr. Throgmartin to pay off'n his fine." Here Jim Pink yelped into honest laughter at Tump's undoing so that dust got into his nose and mouth and set him sneezing and coughing.
"How long's he up for?" asked Peter, astonished and immensely relieved at this outcome of Tump's expedition against himself.
Jim Pink controlled his coughing long enough to gasp:
"Th-thutty days, ef he don' run off," and fell to laughing again.
Peter Siner, long before, had adopted the literate man's notion of what is humorous, and Tump's mishap was slap-stick to him. Nevertheless, he did smile. The incident filled him with extraordinary relief and buoyancy. At the next corner he made some excuse to Jim Pink, and turned off up an alley.
Peter walked along with his shoulders squared and the dust peppering his back. Not till Tump was lifted from his mind did he realize what an incubus the soldier had been. Peter had been forced into a position where, if he had killed Tump, he would have been ruined; if he had not, he would probably have murdered. Now he was free—for thirty days.
He swung along briskly in the warm sunshine toward the multicolored forest. The day had suddenly become glorious. Presently he found himself in the back alleys near Cissie's house. He was passing chicken-houses and stables. Hogs in open pens grunted expectantly at his footsteps.