The taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
Half a dozen times a day Org and Little Bit slipped into this storeroom,
turned on the spigot of the sirup barrel, caught the tiny stream of
sweetness in the palms of their hands, and lapped it out with their
tongues.
They were at that enjoyable diversion now.
Suddenly there was a loud whoop of fright from the direction of the
orchard where Mustard Prophet had gone to gather some figs for lunch.
The boys ran to the door and looked out. They saw Mustard climb down
from a rickety step-ladder, fold that ladder together and hurl it in the
direction of some object. Then he came out of that orchard, stepping
high like a turkey wading through mud, looking constantly behind him,
and making as many different noises with his mouth as a whole brass
band.
Hopey, thinking he had been bitten by a snake, met him half-way to the
house.
“Whut ails you, Mustard?” she asked.
“My Gawd, Hopey!” he panted. “Dar’s a alligator out in dat orchard fawty
feet long! I seen it!”
The noise Mustard made had brought all the members of the family out to
see what the trouble was. When he told them of seeing the alligator, Org
said nothing, and the others of the household were skeptical and laughed
at him.
“How do you know you saw an alligator?” Colonel Gaitskill asked.
“I throwed a step-ladder at it, Marse Tom,” Mustard wailed. “It wus
longer dan de ladder.”
“Come back to the orchard and show me,” Gaitskill ordered.
“Naw, suh!” Mustard whooped. “Go look fer yo’se’f, boss. Dis nigger is
done seen aplenty!”
“Whut wus he doin’ in dat orchard?” Hopey howled.
“He wus aimin’ to climb dat step-ladder an’ bite my leg off when I seen
him,” Mustard shuddered. “I gib him de ladder an’ tole him he could take
my place!”
“Don’t make so much noise, Mustard,” Gaitskill commanded, as he turned
away and entered the house. Nobody credited Mustard’s story, except Org
and Little Bit, and they slipped away as soon as they could to see if
their alligator was still in captivity.
They found that he had escaped, and a broad trail led across the dust of
the pig-lot toward the orchard. The alligator had crawled through a
hole. The boys promptly decided not to enter the orchard for any purpose
whatsoever. Thinking further, they decided they had better absent
themselves from home for the day, for that alligator might do all sorts
of sensational stunts, and they had seen enough of his performances the
day before.
Besides, Colonel Gaitskill might want to know how the creature got on
the premises, and Org had found that the best way to avoid answering
questions was to be where questions could not be addressed to him.
At that moment there came to the ears of the two boys a dull explosion.
They turned their faces in the direction of the sound and left home.
It is a pity that they did not first return to the storehouse and turn
off the spigot of the molasses barrel. But they did not. That sirup ran
two days and one night!
One of the annoyances of agriculture in Louisiana is stumps. Whenever a
farmer undertakes to blast the stumps out of the ground with dynamite or
powder, he is sure to have a crowd of small boys to watch him. Org had
been on the trail of the dynamiters for a number of days. Whenever they
heard an explosion, they knew that some farmer was having a celebration
of fireworks and profanity, and they hurried to the spot, guided by the
explosive noises.
By being around, they had surreptitiously acquired a number of dynamite
caps, also several yards of fuse in various lengths. The sound they had
heard a few minutes before was over in the direction of the Cooley
bayou, and they went.
What they saw when they got there, put the fear of dynamite in their
souls forever.
There was a man who lived on the Cooley bayou who walked on a wooden
peg. He had attempted to dynamite a fish-hole. He lighted the fuse of
the dynamite stick and walked toward the pool to toss the stick into the
water. His wooden peg found a soft place in the earth, and he sank into
the mire up to his knees. He pitched forward on his face, the stick of
dynamite fell from his hand and rolled just a few feet out of reach. The
peg leg was twisted under the sod and marsh-grass in such a way that the
unfortunate man could not tear himself loose and escape from the stick
of dynamite.
The explosion tore a hole in the ground in which a large automobile
might have been easily concealed, and friends of the cripple found
scraps of him hanging in the trees a hundred yards away.
Org and Little Bit arrived just in time to view the effects of the
tragedy, and came away with a deep impression of the explosive power of
dynamite.
“Dat stuff ain’t nothin’ fer us to fool wid, Marse Org,” Little Bit said
earnestly. “Jes’ look whut dat little stick of dynamite done to dat big
growed-up man. Ef a wad of dynamite wus to bust close to us, de white
folks would hab to put on deir readin’ specks to find de pieces, an’
dey’d tote us bofe back to Tickfall on a shingle.”
“I know where plenty of blasting powder is,” Org remarked. “Uncle Tom
has a whole keg of powder in his barn.”
“Dat’s de stuff fer us to monkey wid,” Little Bit agreed. “Us don’t hab
to play wid so much at one time dat we git blowed plum’ away.”
They found the keg of powder and carried it down to the little branch
which ran around the edge of the town. They were very careful as they
went around the stable, not to step on the alligator. As they carried
their powder away, they looked back frequently to assure themselves that
the alligator was not in pursuit. When at last they had reached the
woods, they decided that it would be a good idea to make several loud
explosions to scare the alligator and keep him from coming in that
direction.
They spent several hours experimenting with the powder, enjoying
themselves in a variety of dangerous ways without coming to any harm.
Then Little Bit thought of a hollow log under the wooden bridge that
crossed this little branch on the road to the Nigger-Heel plantation.
The log was about four feet long, the hollow through the center being
about four inches in diameter, and extending nearly the entire length.
To the imagination of boys, this thing would be suggestive of a cannon.
When Little Bit showed the log to Orren Gaitskill, that was the first
thought in his mind.
“Let’s put some gunpowder in this log and shoot her off,” he proposed.
“It’s just like a cannon.”
“Us ain’t got no fuse-hole,” Little Bit remarked.
“We can go up to Uncle Tom’s and borrow a auger and bore a fuse-hole,”
Org replied. “I know where an auger is.”
They concealed their keg of powder under some brush and spent an hour
going after the tool, playing along the road both coming and going. Then
they took turns in working, as they bored the hole.
“Less load her up now and shoot off, and that’ll make an end of a
perfect day,” Org remarked, quoting a part of a song he had heard his
sister sing to Captain Kerlerac.
“Dis ole cannon is gwine use up all our powder,” Little Bit declared, as
he peeped up the hollow to where the light of the fuse-hole showed.
“We don’t care,” Org laughed. “This powder don’t cost us nothing.”
They placed their fuse properly, then emptied the contents of the keg
into the muzzle of the log cannon. They rammed the charge home with a
number of old sacks which they had been thoughtful enough to pick up in
the barn and bring with them when they went after the augur. Then they
added several hat-loads of leaves and grass which they mixed with mud
from the branch. After that they charged the “cannon” to the very end
with great quantities of sod torn up from the edge of the branch and
rammed hard into the muzzle with the blunt end of a big stick.
“Now she’s ready to shoot. Who’s going to light the fuse?” Org asked.
“Not me,” Little Bit said positively. “I’m jes’ a little fool nigger,
an’ ain’t to be trusted wid no important jobs.”
“I’ll light the fuse,” Org announced. “Go up on the road and see if
anybody is coming.”
Little Bit ran up on the little frail wooden bridge which was about
twelve feet long, made a survey, and announced that all was clear. Then
he ran far over in the woods.
Org lighted the fuse and followed his black companion at his best speed.
When they reached what they thought was a safe distance, they paused and
waited.
The idea of the boys was that the powder would simply shoot the mud out
of the log, just as a bullet is propelled from the muzzle of a gun. But
blasting powder is not a propulsive force; it is something that rends
and tears, exerting as much pressure in one direction as in another.
Therefore the boys were very much surprised, when they heard the
explosion, to see the frail wooden bridge which spanned the narrow
branch rise in the air, break into a number of pieces, and scatter all
over the place!
The log cannon went to pieces also.
The boys went somewhere else. They did not run. They could easily have
overtaken and passed anybody that was merely running. They just went
away from there.
When completely overcome by exhaustion, they dropped down under a tree
far away from the scene of their exploit. When, after a long time, they
had somewhat recovered their composure and their breath, they began to
plan for the future, when, as they thought, they would have to give an
account of themselves.
“What does the law do to a feller that busts up a bridge, Little Bit?”
Org asked.
“Ef he’s a nigger, like me, dey hangs him,” Little Bit shuddered.
“But if he’s white?” Org inquired.
“Dey shoots him,” Little Bit said.
“Then we won’t confess,” Org announced decisively.
They meditated awhile, and again Org asked a question.
“Did anybody see us with that kag of powder?”
“Nope. Us wus all alone.”
“Then we needn’t say anything about that kag,” Org declared. “Uncle Tom
won’t miss it for some time.”
“Don’t we say nothin’ about nothin’ bustin’?” Little Bit asked.
“No.”
“Look at all de scratches dat de briars cut on my face when I wus
runnin’ away,” Little Bit pointed. “How’s I gwine esplain dese here
scratches? I got to say dat somepin’ busted on me, ain’t I?”
“No, you fool!” Org exclaimed. “Don’t you ever confess that anything
busted on you or that you were ever round any busting thing. Tell ’em
that you cut your face—er——”
“You had better think up a powerful good lie,” Little Bit quavered. “My
mammy, she kin ketch on powerful easy to tales.”
“Tell her that you cut your face—er—shaving!” Org replied, uttering the
last word with triumphant emphasis.
“Dat shows you don’t know nothin’ about niggers,” Little Bit scoffed.
“Most niggers ain’t got no hair on deir face an’ don’t never hab to
shave. A nigger whut kin grow a moustacher an’ whiskers—he’s proud of
hisse’f!”
“Aw, shucks,” Org said in disgust. “That ruins our perfectly good
excuse.”
“My face don’t look like it’s been cut with a razor,” Little Bit said
obstinately. “It looks like it’s been sawed acrost wid a lot of
blackberry briars, dat’s whut.”
“I know it does, but you’ve got to tell some kind of tale to keep us
from being found out,” Org said impatiently.
“We don’t hab to tell nothin’,” Little Bit sighed. “Dat bridge will say
a plum’ plenty. It’ll preach a whole sermont.”
“Don’t you say nothing about that bridge,” Org howled. “Keep your mouth
shut.”
“’Spose de white folks axes me?”
“Tell ’em you don’t know anything.”
“I’ll tell ’em dat,” Little Bit said doubtfully. “But ain’t gwine bear
down on dat very hard. Ef a nigger tells too many lies, Gawd’ll kill
him!”
“If you don’t tell a few about that bridge the white folks will kill you
before God can get around to you,” Org declared.
Then there popped into Orren’s head, the final recourse of all the
guilty, the establishment of a false alibi.
“Come on,” he howled, springing to his feet. “We’ll go back to town and
prove to everybody that we have not been in the woods at all to-day.
We’ll let ’em see us.”