in the kitchen with them. He stepped around the house, tiptoed up to
the porch, and lo! the boy lay asleep upon the bed just inside of the
open door.
“Dat gits me straight in dis bizzness,” Skeeter grinned, as he slipped
into the room and lifted the sleeping child. “I’m shorely got de Lawd
wid me dis time. Nobody cain’t git dis pickaninny away from me widout
plenty compelment!”
He deposited Shinny in the machine, spun down the street to the Bone
eating-house, and once more stopped his car a block away.
“Shin’s got killin’ on de brain,” he muttered. “I’s gwine spy aroun’ a
little befo’ I crowds him too close.”
Shin Bone was seated alone in the middle of his restaurant which was
lighted up like a circus. He was lining out a church hymn, singing it
at the top of his voice, and beating the time with a large tin coffee
pot. He had pounded the table with his tin pot until it was a certainty
that it would never serve its original purpose again.
“I guess little Ready is sleepin’ in de back room,” Skeeter remarked,
as he slipped around to the rear.
He entered the open door and found the child lying upon the bed which
was usually occupied by Shin Bone’s real son. Carefully lifting the
little fellow, Skeeter walked quickly down the street, grinning
exultantly as he listened to Shin Bone’s raucous voice singing:
“O heaben’s mighty nigh,
Mighty nigh, mighty nigh,
Ef you got a eye fer visions
In de sky, in de sky!”
When young Ready lay beside Shin Bone’s boy in the automobile, Skeeter
felt almost happy.
“It ’pears to me like I got dis job by de tail wid a downhill pull!” he
exulted, as he started his machine and drove away from Dirty-Six with a
lighter heart.
“I’se gwine take dese babies to my cabin,” he decided. “Dem squallin’
womans kin wait fer deir brats--dey don’t ’preciate whut I done fer ’em
nohow. But Marse John might git peeved up ef he missed dis automobile
an’ I cain’t affode to git in no lawsuit wid de cotehouse.”
Entering Sheriff John Flournoy’s yard, Skeeter Butts drove his little
rattling runabout up the asphalt runway toward the garage in as nearly
perfect silence as he could command.
Quickly he dismounted and pushed the little machine back where it
belonged. Then he lifted the sleeping children out of the machine and
started toward his own cabin.
Instantly a long shaft of white light shot across his path and he
scampered out of the way, hiding behind some shrubbery which grew close
to the house. He looked down the runway and his hair stood on end.
Flournoy’s big automobile was coming up the drive, its powerful light
turning from side to side, illuminating every inch of the way. Skeeter
did not know what moment a turn of the wheel would cause the light to
flash across his body, so he slipped along the side of the house out to
the front.
Alas! Standing at the front gate where she had just left the car was
Mrs. Flournoy, and the electric light upon the corner made the front
lawn as bright as day.
Skeeter noted that Mrs. Flournoy’s back was turned to him, so he
scampered up the front steps and entered the front door just as Mrs.
Flournoy turned to come up the walk.
Flournoy never thought of locking his house for the reason that half a
dozen bloodhounds were running at large on his lawn all the time. For a
moment, because of this fact, Skeeter had escaped observation. What to
do next was his problem.
The house was perfectly familiar to Skeeter. He could have gone all
over it with his eyes shut. And he was perfectly welcome there night
and day, for he had been coming and going in that house for twenty-five
years with no one to question his actions. But he had no desire to be
caught in that house with two strange babies in his arms!
The front door opened and Mrs. Flournoy entered, snapping on the
electric light in the reception-room. Skeeter retreated to the
dining-rooms still hugging the two children in his wearying arms.
“Huh,” he muttered to himself. “Dese folks always gits somepin to eat
befo’ dey goes to bed. I better git outen dis dinin’-room!”
He was just in time, too, for the doors to the dining-room slid open
just as Skeeter stepped into a little back hall, which contained a
narrow staircase leading to the second story. Skeeter tiptoed up
the steps. His idea was to wait until the folks had entered the
dining-room, then go down the front stairs, out of the front door and
around to his cabin.
But luck was against him!
At the top of the steps he paused to rest his arms and get another grip
upon the children he was carrying. He laid the boys side by side, took
one under each arm like a bundle, and started on. Then it happened. He
attempted to enter a narrow door and a little woolly nigger head hit
the sharp edge of the door jamb on each side with a thump!
The two pickaninnies let out a howl which turned Skeeter’s blood to ice
water.
Any effort toward concealment was useless now, and Skeeter was consumed
with desire to get out of that house. He galloped down the front steps,
turned into the rear hall, and stepped out upon a side porch.
Sheriff John Flournoy met him at the steps!
Flournoy turned the electric flashlight he had been using at the garage
into Skeeter’s face, and the blinded, terrified darky reeled backward
and dropped the two howling nigger babies upon the porch floor.
“Turn on the light, Skeeter!” Flournoy commanded.
Skeeter reached up above his head and switched on an electric light
suspended from a cord.
Flournoy looked down at the howling nigger babies and grinned. He saw
nothing unusual in the fact that Skeeter was coming out of his home at
eleven o’clock at night, for Mrs. Flournoy had left Skeeter in charge
of the house a thousand times in their absence. Nor did the two black
babies excite anything more than amusement, for several negro families
lived on his place and their cabins were full of children.
“Did you steal those nigger babies, Skeeter?” Flournoy drawled in his
easy, smiling way. The remark was merely to make talk.
“Naw, suh,” Skeeter stammered. “Naw, suh!”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Flournoy chuckled. “Since the Lamana
kidnaping case, the Legislature has passed a law making the penalty for
stealing children very severe in Louisiana.”
Skeeter attempted to moisten his parched lips with a dry tongue. Then
he asked through jaws which felt like they were locked:
“Whut--whut--whut am de penalty, Marse John?”
“_Death!_” the sheriff answered.
Then an oath of surprise popped from his throat. Skeeter had crumpled
like a broken weed and had fallen face downward between the two
squalling black babies.
Flournoy leaped forward and turned the prostrate man over on his back.
The negro had fainted.
* * * * *
Mrs. Flournoy appeared upon the side porch and quieted the babies by
the simple process of giving each of them a piece of fried chicken.
Sheriff Flournoy as quickly restored Skeeter to consciousness by
pouring cold water on his head and hot liquor down his throat.
Then leaving the babies to play under the electric light upon the
porch, they conducted Skeeter to the kitchen and demanded explanations.
Nobody can beat a negro making explanations.
Skeeter’s statement was utterly untrue, but when we remember that the
frightened darky considered that he had been guilty of the crime of
kidnaping and was hopefully attempting to save himself from the penalty
of death, all kind-hearted persons will forgive him. Most of us would
stretch the blanket just a little if by doing so we could save our
lives.
“It happened dis way, Marse John,” Skeeter said in a trembling voice.
“I wus givin’ dem two little black babies a little outin’, an’ I
decided I would fotch ’em up here an’ let ’em see whar I lived at. I’s
proud of dat little cabin whut you-all gib me, even ef I do say it
myse’f. I ain’t been feelin’ so powerful well sence ’bout supper-time
to-night--it muss had been somepin I et--an’ passin’ de house I got to
feelin’ powerful bad, an’ I decided I would git me some medicine. I
knowed you-all warn’t at home, but de med’cine chist is right up-stairs
whar it’s been fer twenty year, so I wint up dar to git me some
linimint to rub on my misery. When I heerd the auto come in, I comed
down to ax Ole Miss whut to take, an’ when I wus talkin’ to you on de
po’ch somepin jes’ nachelly happened!”
This sounded perfectly plausible to Skeeter’s two white friends who
did not have the least hint of the mess he had mixed down in the negro
settlement.
“You’d better go to bed, Skeeter,” Flournoy said kindly. “I’ve seen
niggers pull many different stunts in my life, but you are the only
darky I ever saw all in a dead faint.”
“I been feelin’ kinder faint an’ feeble fer a good while,” Skeeter
moaned.
“I’ll give you some pills to take, Skeeter,” Mrs. Flournoy said. “Go
to your cabin, and if you are not better in the morning we’ll have the
doctor.”
Skeeter turned to her pleadingly.
“Whut is I gwine do wid dem two nigger babies?” he asked. “I bet deir
maws is bellerin’ fer ’em right now like cows callin’ fer deir calves.”
“Do you feel strong enough to drive my little runabout, Skeeter?”
Flournoy asked. “You can take the babies home in that.”
“Yes, suh,” Skeeter exclaimed eagerly. “I’s strong enough to run it an’
de fresh air will do me good.”
Flournoy pushed out the little machine, helped Skeeter arrange the
children so they would not tumble out, cranked the car for the “sick”
negro, and for the second time that night the sheriff’s little runabout
started for Dirty-Six.
In the meantime things had been happening in that negro settlement.
The grapevine telephone carried the news that Shin Bone had stolen
Happy Rocket’s baby. A little later the message ran along the same
mysterious channel that Happy Rocket had stolen Shin Bone’s baby. Then
the startling information came that some party or parties unknown had
stolen Shin Bone’s baby out of Happy Rocket’s cabin.
This was enough to bring the entire population of Dirty-Six out of
their cabins into the street. They streamed up and down the narrow
lanes, jabbering, gesticulating, telling again and again of the fight
between Whiffle Bone and Happy Rocket, of the divorce of Shin and
Whiffle, of the drunken spree of Shin Bone.
The general idea prevailed that Shin Bone had possession of both
babies, but no one cared to go and inquire while Shin was crazy drunk,
singing “heavy religion” songs, and pounding the table with a tin
coffee pot.
Then Whiffle Bone caused a sensation by leaving her uncle Pap Curtain’s
cabin and running down the street toward the Bone eating-house
squalling like a catamount. Dozens of negroes fell into her wake and
followed at a safe distance.
As they approached the restaurant they all recognized with pleasure
that Shin Bone was sobering up. The best indication of this improvement
was the character of songs he was singing. He had abandoned the heavy
religion tunes, his voice had lost some of its volume, and the music
was gay and lightsome:
“De boss he squall to de nigger boys:
‘Don’t bother dat jug in de spring!’
De jug he gurgle out: ‘Good, good, good!’
But me, I holler an’ sing:
’O gimme dat gal,
De big, greasy gal--
Don’t nobody bother dat sway-backed Sal,
Who wrops up her hair wid a string!’”
Whiffle Bone threw open the door of the eating-house, ran across the
sanded floor, threw herself into Shin Bone’s outstretched arms, and
broke into his song with a loud wail:
“O Shin, I loves you wid all my heart! Less don’t fuss no more--I’ll
’vide up de money even! An’ fer Gawd’s sake, come an’ he’p me find
little Shinny, our darlin’, angel chile!”
“Don’t pester yo’ mind ’bout our angel chile,” Shin Bone vociferated,
pounding the table with the battered coffee pot. “I fotch him home from
de Hen-Scratch--he layin’ in de back room in his own little bed!”
Placing his coffee pot under his arm, he led his sobbing, hysterical
wife into the back room and then stood gazing in pop-eyed, drunken
amazement at the empty bed.
“Whar is he at? Oh, whar is he _at_?” Whiffle screamed.
“I--I thought I toted him home, Whiffle!” Shin Bone said in a
hysterical tone. “I wonder did I drap him down a well--or somepin like
dat?”
This suggestion threw Whiffle into a maniacal frenzy and administered
such a shock to Shin Bone that it sobered him completely in a moment.
“Come on, squall-cat!” he bellowed. “Less go to de Hen-Scratch an’ ax
Skeeter Butts ’bout dis!”
When they arrived at the saloon they found a dense crowd of negroes
within the place listening to the whoops and howls of Happy Rocket and
Hopey Prophet, both of whom had also come to the saloon to interrogate
Skeeter Butts.
When Shin and his wife entered they occupied the opposite end of the
barroom, and then began an antiphonal chorus between the two bereaved
parties which was better as a show to the bystanders than a zoo full of
ring-tailed monkeys.
Finally all their wails became focalized into one hysterical appeal:
“Where, oh, where is Skeeter Butts gone at?”
When Skeeter spun around the corner and looked up the street at the
crowd assembled around his place of business, he availed himself of
benefits of that intolerable nuisance called the muffler cut-out, and
drew up to his saloon and stopped his car, popping like a battle of
rapid-fire guns.
A man-sized voice at the door bawled the information to the people in
the saloon:
“Here comes Skeeter Butts in Sheriff John Flournoy’s
ought-to-be-a-mule!” A moment later he bawled another announcement:
“Skeeter’s got the two lost babies wid him!”
In a moment more Skeeter was pushing and shoving at the door, while his
voice cackled like a hen:
“Git out de way an’ lemme pass! Lemme git in wid dese here stole
babies!”
They made a ring around him in the middle of the room as he placed the
two grinning, bright-eyed children on the floor at his feet. Each baby
was happily chewing a chicken bone. The two mothers rushed forward to
embrace their children, but Skeeter’s commanding voice cracked like a
bull-whip:
“Stan’ back, nigger womans! Don’t tech dem brats till I gib de word!”
There was a moment of intense silence while Skeeter gathered his wits
to speak. No one in that crowd will ever know how frightened the little
barkeeper was, nor how desperate. He had determined to risk his life
and liberty upon the magic name of John Flournoy, Sheriff of Tickfall
parish.
If this name failed to save him, he saw nothing before him but the
prison and the hangman’s noose.
“I been talkin’ to Sheriff John Flournoy,” he began. “Me an’ Marse John
is kinnery--I’m his folks.”
He paused and took out his handkerchief, mopping his face. He felt like
every pore of his skin was a spouting fountain of perspiration and he
was sweating ice water.
“I went up to Marse John’s house an’ tole him dat Shin Bone stole
little Ready Rocket outen my saloon, an’ Marse John mighty nigh bust
out cryin’! I tole him dat Happy Rocket stole little Shinny Bone right
outen his mammy’s arms, an’ Marse John jes’ blubbered right out like a
little baby!”
“I don’t see nothin’ so powerful bad!” Shin Bone interrupted.
“My Gawd, Shin!” Skeeter exclaimed with all the dramatic force of his
nature. “Marse John says he ain’t had to hang no nigger sence he’s been
a sheriff, but de law specifies dat _de penalty fer stealin’ a baby is
death_!”
If Skeeter hoped to make a sensation, he did!
Whiffle Bone threw her arms around her husband’s neck and sobbed as if
he were already dead.
Happy Rocket dropped upon her knees upon the barroom floor, raised her
quivering hands in an attitude of prayer and sobbed:
“O mussiful Gawd! I’s a mean, wuthless nigger an’ I ain’t prepared to
die!”
“Looky here, Skeeter!” Shin Bone howled in a desperate, frightened
voice. “Didn’t you steal dem babies yo’ own se’f? How come you is got
’em wid you ef you didn’t steal ’em?”
“Naw, suh!” Skeeter Butts squealed. “I attached dem chillun in de name
of de law an’ de sheriff an’ de Nunited States of Loozanny!”
Then Shin Bone broke down and howled:
“Gimme my baby! Me an’ Whiffle is gwine leave dis town till atter de
gram-jury meets!”
“Take him!” Skeeter exclaimed. “I don’t want him--I’d druther hab a
yeller-jacket under my shirt. Jes’ take yo’ brat an’ go!”
“Gimme my baby!” Happy screamed. “I’se gwine back home to-night on de
fust train!”
“Honey, don’t let nothin’ detain you!” Skeeter admonished her. “I don’t
want yo’ baby--I’d druther hab a cockle-bur in my sock. Jes’ take yo’
brat an’ go!”
In a few minutes the barroom was empty, the crowd splitting into two
parts, following either Happy Rocket or Shin Bone home, according to
their sympathies.
In the middle of the floor Skeeter found a tin coffee pot. It was
battered, broken, and useless, and one side was caved in until it
resembled a big, toothless mouth grinning at him in sardonic glee. He
bent over it, examined it from all sides, but did not touch it. The
mishaps of the night had made him cowardly.
“Nigger luck is always bad luck,” he whispered. “Dis here tin pot might
be a bomb an’ bust right in my face. I’ll let Little Bit pick it up
when be cleans up in de mawnin’. All dis night bad luck has kotch me
befo an’ behime--mostly behime.”
Skeeter sat down to rest his mind and collect his impressions. He was
not the jaunty, confident, debonair young man he had been a few hours
before. He felt like something had gone out of him, fading like breath
upon a razor, leaving him but a shell of his former self, never to
recover what he had lost and be the same again.
Tears of weakness and nervous collapse came into his eyes and rolled
down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth. He wiped them away with
the palm of his yellow hand and spoke again:
“One time when I wus little I axed Marse John Flournoy whar I come
from. He tole me dat a buzzard laid me an’ de debbil hatched me in de
hot ashes. I don’t misdoubt dem words, because I been ketchin’ hell
ever since!”
Idle Dreams
“I ain’t no scholard an’ I don’t need no book,” Skeeter Butts
proclaimed as he sat under the shade of a chinaberry tree in the rear
of the Hen-Scratch saloon.
“Mebbe so,” the glib-talking man beside him said; “but dis here ain’t
no highbrow book. It tells all ’bout whut dreams means. Don’t you never
dream nothin’?”
“Shore!” Skeeter exclaimed, clawing at a high, white collar which
threatened to saw his head off. “Las’ night I dreamt dat I done died
an’ went to de bad place.”
“Dar now!” his friend exclaimed, turning the pages of the book until
he found the word “Hell.” “You listen to dis.” Then, with the utmost
difficulty the darky read: “‘To dream of seein’ hell denotes dat
de dreamer’s life is a bad one, an’ is an in-ti-ma-tion to him of
re-for-ma-tion.’”
“My gosh!” Skeeter Butts exclaimed, his eyes nearly popping out of his
head. “Dat shore hit me right in de center of myse’f. How do dat book
know?”
“I dunno,” the negro answered. “I s’pose it’s inspired. Anyways, it
don’t never miss nothin’. Is you had any mo’ dreams recent?”
“Suttinly,” Skeeter said, with a frightened expression on his
saddle-colored face. “Night befo’ las’ I dreamed dat I wus up in a
balloom.”
“Us’ll see whut dat means,” his friend exclaimed, fumbling with the
book. “Here it am: ‘Balloom--To dream of it shows dat you will engage
in many chi-mer-i-cal plans.’”
“Engage in--_which_?” Skeeter demanded in a startled tone.
“Chi-mer-i-cal,” the negro repeated with difficulty. “Dat’s de kind it
specify--Gawd knows whut dat means.”
“How many of dem dreams comes true?” Skeeter asked uneasily, gazing at
the gaudy red cover of the book.
“All of ’em,” his companion answered promptly. “A garntee goes wid de
book. Try it on wid anodder dream.”
Skeeter hesitated a moment, thinking heavily. Then he said:
“’Bout a week ago I dreamed ’bout rats.”
“Huh!” the other darky grunted as he found the place in the book. “Here
am de word: ‘Rats--Se-cret en-e-mies.’”
“Looky here, nigger!” Skeeter Butts exclaimed in a frightened voice as
he sprang to his feet, “dat shore is a dangersome book. Put all dem
dreams togedder an’ look whut sort of a prize-package I done drawed!”
“Dat package shore is got some lemons in it fer you, Skeeter,” his
friend assured him. “De fust dream says dat yo’ life am bad an’ you
oughter git reformed; de second dream specify dat you is gwine engage
in--in--whut-you-call-it plans; de las’ dream orate dat you got plenty
enemies!”
“Dat’s de way it goes,” Skeeter mourned.
“Does you want a garntee dat all ’em dreams will come true?”
“Naw!” Skeeter howled. “I wants a garntee dat none of ’em gits to come
to pass.”
He snatched a package of cigarettes out of his pocket, lighted one
with trembling fingers, burned it to his lips with furious puffs, and
spat the stub out upon the ground. Then he exhaled an immense volume
of smoke around his head, as if invoking protective incense from the
depths of his lungs.
“How much do dat book cost?” Skeeter finally asked.
“One dollar,” was the answer.
“Make it fo’ bits an’ I’ll buy de book,” Skeeter told him.
“I cain’t do it, Skeeter,” the other darky responded. “I needs a
dollar. Excusin’ dat, a nigger whut ain’t willin’ to pay one roun’
dollar to learn how much bad luck is gwine git him deserves to hab a
few mo’ bad dreams.”
“Dat’s a fack,” Skeeter sighed as he laid a silver dollar on his
companion’s knee and reached out his hand for the volume.
“I hates to part wid dis book, Skeeter,” his friend said, as he
reluctantly handed it over. “It shore is a wonder book. I been readin’
atter it fer mighty nigh a year. One dream I had specify dat somebody
wus gwine inherit me money!”
“I might could stan’ dat kind of a dream,” Skeeter said in a solemn
tone of voice. “But I’s gwine roost powerful low fer a little while
till I kin change dem bad dreams I’m had to good ones.”
“Dat’s de rule,” the other darky chuckled, as he pocketed the dollar
and rose to leave. “Ef dat book says, ‘Lay low,’ you done got yo’
ordahs. Ef it tells a rabbit to climb a tree, Br’e’r Rabbit had better
hunt a easy one to git up on an’ straddle a limb.”
“Don’t tell nobody dat I done bought dis book, pardner,” Skeeter
begged. “I wants to gib it a good try-on fust.”
“I ain’t say nothin’,” the darky grinned as he started away. “Dis
dollar will gib me a trip to N’ Awleens on de steamboat, an’ I’s gwine
to de landin’ right now.”
* * * * *
When the man had gone Skeeter laid the book aside, and busied himself
in cleaning the saloon, wiping off the bar and the tables and
sweeping the room. He tried to take his mind off of the book, but the
interpretations of his dreams constantly recurred to his mind, and he
felt a growing uneasiness.
“I wonder who dem secret enemies is,” he sighed. “Dat book oughter had
tole me mo’ ’bout dat.”
He counted off upon his fingers all the negroes whom he did not like;
then he counted those whom he knew did not like him; then he exclaimed:
“Dat don’t he’p me none. Ef I knows deir names, of co’se dey ain’t
really secret enemies!”
He sat down at a table, lighted another cigarette, let the hot ash fall
from the end and set his trousers afire. Then he dropped his smoke,
put out the fire, and viewed the damage with popping eyeballs.
“Dat’s a _bad_ sign,” he exclaimed. “A nigger ain’t in luck whut sets
his pants on fire!”
He got up and walked toward the rear exit of the saloon, traveling with
jerky, nervous steps, and looking behind him twice with a frightened
glance. He seated himself again in the shade of the chinaberry tree,
and the book lay upon the chair which his friend had vacated.
Skeeter eyed the volume a long time with increasing uneasiness. The
gaudy red-cover design represented a red woman, propped up on some red
pillows, asleep, and holding a red fan in her hand. In the background
was another red woman waving a wand, and a winged white boy, holding a
black hat in one hand and a bag of money in the other. Scattered about
on the red woman’s red couch were playing cards, envelopes, and one
square piece of paper which contained the numbers, “4-11-44.”
“I onderstan’s dem numbers,” Skeeter mumbled to himself. “Whar is 7-11?”
Skeeter lighted another cigarette and puffed it furiously. Twice he
reached out his hand to take the book, then drew back without touching
it. He looked away several times, but the gaudy cover design attracted
him each time with a sort of hypnotic fascination.
“I hadn’t oughter bought dis book,” he sighed. “A nigger ain’t in luck
ef he knows too much about his innards.”