“The chair was equipped with drawers, in which books and other etcetera of the profession were stored. One morning before school the children noticed Nig very busy there, occasionally rushing back from their outdoor play. The teacher came: he called the children to order; he opened a drawer to take out a book that the occasion required; when a volume of smoke poured out. "Fire! Fire!" - he shouted at the top of his lungs. In the meantime he had become sufficiently familiar with the peculiar smell to know that he had been deceived. The scholars burst out laughing when they saw the terror of the deceived man, who, feeling embarrassed by the unnecessary fright, did not make a very rigorous investigation, and Nig once again escaped punishment. She had equipped herself with cigars, and puffing, puffing through the crack of the drawer, she had filled it with smoke, and then she had closed it hermetically to deceive the teacher and amuse the pupils. The term interval was filled with a series of new and peculiar tasks. At home, no matter how intense the heat when she was sent out to rake hay or tend the grazing herd, she was never allowed to protect her skin from the sun. She was not much darker than Mary now; what a calamity it would be to hear of this contrast. Mrs. Bellmont was determined that the sun had full power to darken the shade that nature had given her as best suited. First Impressions The first thing I noticed about his transition was the acceptance Nig seemed to find among his new classmates. When she first arrived at school she was not well liked and, because of Mary, she was soon ostracized. “The day the school opened arrived. Frado loitered far behind Mary, who was ashamed of being seen "walking with a nigger." Just... middle of paper... so how is it that Mary's skin color is actually darker than Nig's? No matter how much time Mary spends in the sun, if she is white her skin could never be as dark as that of Nig, who is known to have black skin. For something like this to happen, Mary would also have to be bi-racial and her skin would have to be black like Nig's. Because of these factors I can assume that Mary is actually bi-racial and the daughter of Mrs. Bellmont and a former black slave. In the glossary of the book it is shown that such things, as expected, were taboo and despised. Many mothers would never say who the father of their bi-racial child was. “Wilson highlights the color politics whereby slave and legitimate children of the same family resembled each other, while white women preferred not to mention family resemblance..”