He was the most innocent-looking chap you ever saw. He had the face of a
cherub, eyes which inhabit the faces of angels, and a smile which every
woman envied.
During her lifetime his mother had called him an angel. His sister
composed a title for him from the initials of his name, and for short
called him Org. The neighbors called him—if everything the neighbors
called him should be recorded, this story would have to be fumigated at
the very start.
He had just come to Tickfall from California. His mother and father did
not miss him when he left, for they were dead. The neighbors missed him,
but they did not mourn his loss. When Orren Randolph Gaitskill had gone,
some predicted that he would be the loudest tick in Tickfall. They did
not mean to flatter the youth or pay him a compliment. Everybody
breathed easier, the cats came down out of the trees, the little girls
walked the streets without the fear that their pig-tails of hair would
be used for leading ropes, and the old inhabitants thankfully prophesied
that there would be no more earthquakes in California.
As for Miss Virginia Harwick Gaitskill, his sister—bless her! the earth
never shook when she was around, but the hearts of men were strangely
agitated.
Everybody called Miss Virginia an angel except her angelic brother. He
called her “Gince.”
Just now that young lady stood upon the portico of Colonel Tom
Gaitskill’s home, calling in a clear, deep-toned voice:
“Org! Oh, Org! Come here!”
That youth, who had been playing “Indian” upon the Gaitskill lawn,
promptly dropped upon his stomach at the sound of her voice, kept
himself concealed behind some thick shrubbery, and began, as he
expressed it, to “do a sneak.” His intended destination was the
capacious stable in the rear of the premises. But he did not get far.
“Hurry up, Org! Come on here! I see you!” his sister called.
Her last remark was an absolute falsehood. She did not see him. But
angels have a language of their own. It is not possible to command their
attendance by ordinary earthly methods, and Virginia’s way succeeded.
“Aw, what you want, Gince? A feller can’t have no time to himself when
you are around.”
“I want stamps, Org,” the girl said sweetly. “Take this fifty-cent piece
and bring me back twenty-five twos.”
“What’s the name of that there woman in that post-office?”
“Miss Paunee,” she told him.
“It sounds like a mustang name to me,” Org remarked, pocketing the money
ungraciously, and starting away with his hat pulled down over his eyes.
A moment later he assumed his former character, that of a prowling
Indian, and his progress toward the street was from bush to bush and
from tree to tree. He crept noiselessly down the street, looking from
side to side with alert watchfulness, giving each bit of shrubbery and
clump of weeds a careful inspection in anticipation of lurking enemies.
When he came to the brow of the hill he ran downward at full speed. It
was easier to run than to walk; slower speed would require the effort of
holding back, and a genuine Indian hates work. At the foot of the hill
he stopped like a clock with a broken spring.
There stood before him a little negro boy, almost exactly his size, and
apparently his own age. Org’s first impression was that the stranger was
certainly dark-complected, there being no variation in the color scheme
except the whites of his eyes. Org’s next thought was that the darky was
queerly dressed.
He was wearing a woman’s silk shirt-waist; his coat had originally
belonged to some woman’s coat-suit, adjusted to the present wearer by
bobbing its tail. His trousers had once belonged to some man who was
much larger in the waist and much longer in the leg; but the present
owner of the nether garments had made certain clumsy adjustments and the
trousers made a sort of fit. The stranger’s legs were covered with a
woman’s purple-silk stockings, and on his flat feet were a pair of
high-heeled pumps.
“Hello!” Org said, his eyes glued to the ladylike clothes.
“Mawnin’, Marse, howdy?” the little negro responded timidly.
“My name ain’t Marse, it’s Org,” the white boy replied. “What’s your
name? Who are you?”
“Dey calls me Little Bit. I’s Cap’n Kerley’s white nigger, an’ I sorter
janitors aroun’ de Hen-Scratch.”
“White nigger?” Org remarked wonderingly, after a comprehensive survey
of the negro boy. “The white of your eyes is white. That’s all the white
I can see. Where you going?”
“Out to de Cooley bayou on de Nigger-Heel plantation.”
“Me, too,” Org remarked as he fell in step beside the negro boy.
Which is the reason why Miss Gaitskill waited impatiently the rest of
the day for her stamps.
Without knowing it, Orren Randolph Gaitskill had found the greatest
playmate in the world. Let every man born south of the Ohio River say
“Amen!”
Little Bit was an angel, too. His mother called him “her angel chile.”
His mother had fifteen other angelic children in her cabin, Little Bit
being the youngest and the last. So his mother named him Peter, after
his father, and Postscript to indicate his location in the annals of the
family; thus Peter Postscript Chew took his place in the world.
But white folks never pay any attention to a negro’s name. They called
him Little Bit.
In front of the Hen-Scratch saloon in the negro settlement known as
Dirty-Six, Little Bit climbed into an empty farm-wagon to which two
mules were harnessed.
“Dis here is Mustard Prophet’s team. He’s de overseer on Marse Tom’s
Nigger-Heel plantation. I prefers to set down an’ travel. It ails my
foots to walk. Mustard’ll let us ride.”
“I rode in a automobile in California,” Org remarked as he climbed into
the wagon beside Little Bit.
“You’s fixin’ to ride in a aughter-be-a-mule now,” Little Bit snickered.
Mustard came out of the saloon and viewed the two boys with a great
pretense of surprise.
“You two young gen’lemans gwine out wid me, too?” he asked.
“Yes, suh,” Little Bit told him.
“Gosh! I’ll shore hab a busy day wid de babies,” Mustard growled in a
good-natured tone. “Dat ole Popsy Spout is in de secont imbecility of
his secont childhood, an’ dis here white chile an’ dis cullud
chile—lawdy!”
He climbed upon the wagon seat and clucked to his mules, driving slowly
down the crooked, sandy road toward the Shin Bone eating-house.
“You boys watch dis team till I gits back,” he ordered. “Popsy’s gwine
out wid us.”