Attracted by the crowd, Org and Little Bit became interested witnesses
curious to know who would finally acquire old Jinx. This was the first
auction Org had ever seen, and without an idea of the financial
obligations involved in the transaction, he began to help the matter
along.
When it seemed that Jinx was going to be knocked down to somebody, Org,
at the solicitation of the auctioneer, bid eight!
“Eight dollars, eight, eight, eight!” the auctioneer whooped, seizing
the bid like a woodpecker swoops upon a ripe June-bug. “Who’ll make it
nine?”
It was a hot day. The perspiration streamed down the face of the
auctioneer and the old mule stood with bowed head, panting for breath,
utterly oblivious to the crowd around him. The auctioneer draped one arm
over Jinx’s protruding hip-bone, hanging there for support, while he
chanted:
“Nine, nine, nine—somebody make it nine!”
“Why don’t you do what that gentleman asks you?” Org inquired of Little
Bit. “He asks you to make it nine—why don’t you do it?”
“Nine dollars!” Little Bit exclaimed in a frightened tone.
“Ten!” Orren Randolph Gaitskill called.
“Ten, I’m bid; ten, I’m bid—somebody’s either drunk or crazy, by jacks!
Ten, I’m bid—who’ll play damphool and make it ’leven?”
“’Leben!” Little Bit chimed.
The auctioneer jerked off his big wool hat, slapped it against the bony
side of the mule till it popped like a pistol and howled:
“Wake up, Jinx! You old varmint—you are surrounded by friends! Wake up
and show your manners!”
The mule raised his head, shut one eye with an absurdly sleepy wink,
dropped one big leathery ear forward, and let his head sag down until
his nose almost touched his knee.
“Twelve dollars!”
This was more than the auctioneer could endure. He must ascertain the
source of these rival bids. A shout of laughter rose from the crowd of
men which shook the windows in the stores, as the auctioneer stooped and
looked between the men and his red-rimmed eyes rested upon two boys, one
white, one black!
“Who bid that twelve dollars?” he snapped, glaring at the boys.
“Me,” Org confessed.
“You want to buy this old mule?”
“Er—yes, sir.”
“Have you got twelve dollars to pay for it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where’s that money—show it to me!”
“It’s up in Gince’s room,” Org said without explaining who Gince was.
“I’ll have to go after it.”
“Go! Hurry!” the auctioneer snapped, wiping the perspiration from his
face. “What sort of business man are you, leaving your pocketbook lying
around? Here, you, Little Bit! Hold old Jinx till this boy comes back!”
Mustard lost no time in getting to Gaitskill’s home, but the resolution
which had given speed to his feet oozed away when he arrived, and left
him a timorous negro, hesitant, ignorant of how to proceed further to
secure the object he had come after. Mustard had no practical experience
in this sort of work to guide him now. He realized dimly that it was not
becoming that the trusted overseer of a great plantation should sneak
into his employer’s home and take something from it, even though the
thing he took really belonged to him. But he knew that this was the only
way he could get the luck-charm without letting Marse Tom know.
He reconnoitered and assured himself that no one was in the house. He
walked through the kitchen, entered the back hall, and climbed
cautiously up the back steps. Walking quietly, he went through the upper
hall toward the front and stood at last looking into the dainty,
exquisite room of the girl in the home.
It took him a long time to muster the courage to go in. It was a pretty
room, with ferns and photographs and flowered cretonne, an old rosewood
bed of exquisite beauty of design, beside it a small electric lamp with
a rose-colored shade. Two windows, shaded by loosely hanging
rose-colored silk, a rosewood writing-desk. Mustard saw all this
unconsciously. His eyes were set upon the rosewood dressing-table
against the wall between the two windows. On the table lay a gold mesh
purse; beside the purse were three rings, whose gems could have bought
Mustard a barrel full of rabbit-feet!
Of all the treasures in that room, Mustard wanted the least valuable,
measured by pecuniary standards. If he had been dying of starvation, he
would not have stepped within that room to lay a thievish hand upon a
single object. But he had to have that rabbit-foot!
One step at a time, moving with fear and trembling, he started toward
the dressing-table. Frightened, he backed out into the hall again;
venturing once more, he got almost to the table, then backed again. He
stepped to the far end of the hall and looked anxiously down the back
steps, fearful that someone might have entered the kitchen. Then he
returned to the room, ventured, backed out, moved forward, moved
sidewise, hesitated, side-stepped, moved forward slowly and at last laid
his black, square-shaped, labor-hardened hand upon the beautiful white
scarf upon the dresser!
One of Orren Randolph Gaitskill’s favorite games was to play “Indian.”
This consisted in sneaking about the house in absolute silence, dodging
behind the doors, crawling under the beds and couches and tables if he
heard anyone approaching and when a suitable opportunity presented
itself, he would jump out upon some member of the household with a
blood-curdling yell!
Org was playing Indian now for a purpose. He was by no means sure that
his sister would approve his purchasing a mule for twelve dollars even
with his own money, and he planned to slip up to her room and get his
money out of his own purse in her dressing-table drawer without her
knowledge.
He noiselessly opened the front door and entered the reception room. As
he sneaked up the steps, his eyes came level with the floor of the
hallway above, he saw Mustard Prophet, backing and filling, giving a
ridiculous illustration of a steamboat trying to make a difficult
landing.
Great is the imagination of boyhood!
Org caught this thing in an instant: Here he was, a wild and savage
Indian slipping up upon a steamboat of pioneers while the boat was
trying to land upon the banks of the mighty Mississippi. Mustard
Prophet, backing and filling, moving up and moving back, was the
steamboat!
Mustard’s negro wife went into Miss Virginia’s room every day to
straighten up. Mustard helped Hopey around the house all the time. The
fact that Mustard was in the house, or even in his sister’s room, made
no difference to the boy. That part of it was all right.
Orren was determined that Mustard should not see him. He lay down flat
upon the stair-steps and crawled with the greatest caution toward the
top.
Just as the steamboat navigated the dangerous waters of Miss Gaitskill’s
room and threw out a line on the dressing-table, the Indian peeped
around the door-jamb!
It is better to abandon the rhetorical and imaginative now; it is too
easy to forget which is who, and get the Indian and the steamboat mixed.
What Org saw as he peeped around the door was Mustard Prophet, his
nervous black hand resting upon the dressing-table. Slowly Org raised
himself to his feet and took a big breath and jumped.
There was a loud whoop, which Org imagined was the equivalent to a
blood-curdling yell!
It curdled Mustard Prophet, all right!
The negro was absolutely petrified! He stood like a statue carved of
ebony, apparently nothing alive about him except the eyes, which got
bigger and burned with fires of terror. Fright sometimes paralyzes
temporarily; nothing moves, even the mind stands still. The victim
helpless, disaster swoops down like an eagle upon its prey.
Orren was disappointed.
“Why didn’t you jump when I hollered?” he exclaimed in an aggrieved
tone. “I’m playing Indian.”
Orren was completely blind to the negro’s pitiful fright. It was fully a
minute before Mustard could utter a word. The vital forces had ceased,
and they started slowly as when a street-car grips the vital force of
the cable and gets going.
“Dat yell wus so disturbin’ dat I felt—er—sorter disturbed, Marse Org,”
he sighed weakly, walking toward the hall and resting his hand upon the
door-jamb. “I wus plum’ putrified wid bein’ so skeart!”
“You don’t act like it,” Org snorted. “The next time I yell like that,
you jump!”
“I will, Marse Org, I shore will!” Mustard promised him fervently. “I
got to hurry down to de kitchen now. Goo-good-by!”
Org jerked open the drawer of the dressing-table, flirted a green-plush
box which contained a rabbit-foot out of his way, picked up his own
little purse and extracted twelve dollars.
Slamming the drawer shut, he went racing back to the court-house to pay
for his mule.