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 friendliness toward both Peter and old Aunt Becky that Peter, even amid the complete side-tracking and derailing of his mission, decided that it ever he did have occasion to purchase any groceries, he would do his trading at this market ruled by an absolute honesty with, and a complete distrust in, his race.

At the conclusion of the Killibrew interview Peter instinctively felt that he had just about touched the norm of Hooker's Bend. The village might contain men who would dive a little deeper into the race question with Peter; assuredly, there would be hundreds who would not dive so deep. Mr. Killibrew's attitude on the race question turned on how to hold the negro patronage of the village to his grocery. It was not an abstract question at all, but a concrete fact, which he had worked out to his own satisfaction. With Mr. Killibrew, with all Hooker's Bend, there was no negro question.