Unnamed Negro Cook 3

The second of the Negroes whom Hightower hires to cook for him is a man. Although there are white households with only one servant in the fictions, where the servant is a male, this is the only instance in the fictions when a male servant is specifically identified as a domestic cook. It is the result of an exceptional circumstance. After Hightower's wife commits suicide, "masked men" scare off the light-skinned Negro woman who cooks for him (71). Hightower hires a male hoping to prevent the town from spreading false rumors, but this cook quits after "some men, not masked either," take him out and whip him (72). Apparently the men think there is a perverse sexual relationship between HIghtower and both cooks, though there is no evidence of that in either case.