As they approach the front of the house, the butler meets them at the door, telling Snopes to wipe his feet before entering, to which Abner responds with a command to the butler, "Get out of my way, nigger." When Mrs. de Spain orders Snopes out of the house after he deliberately tracks dung on her rug, he pivots intentionally so that his boot makes a "final long and fading smear." Leaving, he wipes the rest of the manure from his boot on the front steps before looking back at the mansion and commenting: "Pretty and white, ain't it? ... That's sweat. Nigger sweat. Maybe it ain't white enough yet to suit him. Maybe he wants to mix some white sweat with it."
This encounter, featuring Snopes and his defilement of the de Spain mansion, is the central motivation for the story. To Sarty, the mansion represents everything associated with truth, justice, and culture. That his father could so deliberately soil the aristocratic house with horse manure is inconceivable to him. It is, however, significant that the smearing is done with Snopes' wounded foot, which suggests his evil character. We know that he was wounded in the Civil War, and because he had no allegiance to either side, he is resentful of his current place in life — a resentment that causes him to strike out blindly at any and all forces that oppose him, or that he perceives as a threat.
Snopes feels superior only when he encounters someone who is black — in this case, the butler. Except in the South, nowhere in the United States could such a white-trash character like Abner Snopes enter the front door of a mansion if the butler forbade entry. However, in the South at the time the story takes place, a black person could not deny admittance to a Southern white person. More accurately, black men could not, under any circumstances, ever touch a white man, even if that white man was not part of the Southern aristocracy. Consequently, Snopes can feel superior to the black butler only because his own skin is white.
