“Oh, I think it’s a lovely word!” Biddy said with enthusiasm.

Uncle Robert Kingsblood, Neil’s older brother, dropped in then for a free drink, and Biddy yelled at him, “It’s Uncle Nigger!”

“What’s the big idea!” protested Uncle Robert, while Vestal insisted, “Biddy! You stop it now!” But, thoroughly excited by this attention, and slightly hysterical, as all good and energetic children are bound to be at the wrong time, Biddy flashed off to the kitchen, and in horror they heard her address Belfreda, “Hello, Miss Nigger!”

To make disaster utterly distraught, they heard Belfreda cackling with laughter.

They had to explain everything to Brother Robert, who was as curious as a cat, and about as literate.

He commented on the crisis from his experience as Vice-President in Charge of Sales of the Osterud Baking Corporation, Makers of Vitavim Bread, Crisp Crunchy Crusts Jammed with Health and Yumyum:

“You kids want to know how to handle the niggers and not have any trouble? I’ll tell you how to handle the niggers and not have any trouble. At My Firm, we never have any trouble with the niggers, and we never have to fire them, because we never hire any of ‘em in the first place! That’s the way to handle ‘em and not have any trouble. See how I mean? Same time, I don’t know as I blame Belfreda much, getting sore when you called her a nigger right to her face.”

“But Bob, we didn’t call her that. It was the dog that we called ‘Nigger,’” Vestal clarified it.

“Well, same principle, ain’t it? The girl got sore, didn’t she? She wouldn’t of been here to get sore if you hadn’t never of hired her in the first place, would she? That shows the difference in what we call the inherent mental capacities of the two races. I wouldn’t never get sore if somebody called me a nigger. See how I mean? That’s the trouble with you two, going to college instead of getting right into a business career, like I done. Never hire ‘em in the first place. So now do I get a drink?”

That was Brother and Uncle Robert Kingsblood, v.p. in c. of s.

At dinner, the Belfreda who had laughed at Biddy’s “Miss Nigger” looked evangelical and unforgiving again, but toward the end of the meal they heard boisterousness from the kitchen: the giggles of Belfreda and a masculine barking.

“My, my, what’s all this! I’m going out and get a glass of water,” alleged Vestal, who had a full glass of water in front of her. She scouted into the kitchen. There, by the gay metal table, standing upright yet seeming to lounge, was a Negro of perhaps thirty-five. His color was dark, his hair frizzly, his lips not thin, yet his nose was a thin blade. He did not suggest cotton-fields but the musical comedy, the race-track, the sweet shooting of craps; and he wore bright-blue trousers, a sports-jacket in wide checks, and a shrimp-colored bow tie. He had fine hands and the poised shoulders of a middleweight prizefighter; there was in him an animal beauty made devilish by his stare at Vestal, a bold and amused stare, as though he had known every woman from Sappho to Queen Marie and had understood them all perfectly. His eyes did not merely undress Vestal; they hinted that, in a flustered and hateful way, she was enjoying it.