The next day Skeeter faced bankruptcy.
Conko possessed the gift of expression and liked to talk. He exhibited
the ten dollars he had secured from Skeeter, boasted of the forcible
methods he used to extract it from the barkeeper’s roll, and started
eight others to planning how they also could get their money back.
The Rev. Vinegar Atts called early, and brought Conko Mukes with him.
“I wants my money back, Skeeter!” he howled. “Conko an’ me been talkin’
it over. He specifies dat I kin come an’ shoot off my mouth, an’ he’ll
be handy to shoot off his gun; but I hopes dat ain’t needful to pussuade
you to do yo’ Christyum duty an’ hand my dollars back. Ef you don’t see
it dat way, I kin do de tongue-lashin’ an’ Conko kin do de
razor-slashin’. How soon is you gwine hand over my ten?”
“I ain’t got no tenner, Vinegar,” Skeeter said nervously. “Conko will
tell you dat he got my las’ dollar.”
“Git some mo’ dollars!” Vinegar shouted. “Dat hoss white man muss hab
’vided up dat money wid you. I wants mine back!”
“You got to gimme time,” Skeeter said desperately. “I’s tellin’ you de
noble truth when I says I ain’t got it.”
Vinegar turned around and looked at Conko significantly. The brave
fighter stepped into the ring and shook a pugilistic fist under
Skeeter’s twitching nose.
“Lawdymussy, niggers!” Skeeter wailed. “Gimme a little time to hunt dat
hoss. You oughter trust me till I kin find him.”
“Us done spent a day huntin’ fer dat hoss,” Conko said inexorably. “It
didn’t git us nothin’. Now you pay Vinegar’s money back an’ take yo’
time huntin’ dat hoss, an’ when you finds him you will own my tenth an’
Vinegar’s tenth an’ yo’ tenth of dat hoss. Three limpy legs will b’long
to you.”
Skeeter made a few more feeble protests; but when he saw that Conko was
preparing to flash the old familiar weapon, he surrendered finally.
Going to his little safe, to his cash-drawer, and raking his pockets of
every coin, he managed to scrape together the sum required, in pitiful
little pindling amounts—ten cents here and two bits there.
“Dar it am,” Skeeter lamented. “I done squoze out my last nickel. I
hopes you-alls will take pity on me, an’ not tell nobody dat I paid you
back. De nex’ feller dat claims his money will have to take my pants!”
“He’ll either take yo’ pants or git his money outen yo’ hide,” Conko
laughed unfeelingly, as the two men walked out of the saloon.
One hour later Figger Bush and Shin Bone entered the place and drew
Skeeter off to a corner of the room.
“Us wants our money back, Skeeter!” was the familiar greeting.
“I ain’t got no money,” was Skeeter’s old lamentation.
Followed a long argument, ending with threats. Skeeter pleaded and
prayed until he saw that the two were clearing for action, and once more
he quit.
“I ain’t got no money, men,” he said desperately, throwing his arms wide
in a hopeless gesture. “Jes’ look aroun’ you an’ he’p yo’selves to de
Hen-Scratch.”
“I takes a fancy to dat grassyphome,” Figger replied promptly. “I always
did like free music, an’ dat machine will sound real good in my cabin,
wid me settin’ on one side smokin’ my pipe an’ Scootie settin’ on de
yuther side, dippin’ snuff.”
“Take it!” Skeeter wailed.
“Dis here slop-machine whar you draps in a penny an’ gits out a stick of
chaw-gum will go good in my resteraw,” Shin Bone remarked.
“Take it!” Skeeter lamented. “I’m a blowed-up sucker!”
After these men departed, Skeeter did not have long to wait before
another caller arrived. It was Pap Curtain. He bit off the end of a
cigar and gazed intently into the little barkeeper’s gloomy face.
“You owes me ten dollars, Skeeter,” he began.
“I knowed dat as soon as I seen you, Pap,” Skeeter sighed. “I admits dat
I owes you. I promises to pay you as soon as I kin; but I ain’t got de
money now. Ef you’ll jes’ only go away ’thout talkin’, you’ll make me
happy.”
Pap took off his hat and laid it upon the table, where they were
sitting. He took his cigar from his mouth and placed it on the table so
that the lighted end projected a little over the edge. Then he drew a
chair close to Skeeter and laid a horny finger upon Skeeter’s knee for
emphasis. Evidently Skeeter was not to be made happy.
Pap’s baboon face, with its snarling voice and lips, carried its
continual sneer. He possessed the conversational facilities of Bildad
the Shuhite.
First he coaxed, wheedled, begged, and implored. Then he argued and
expounded, reviewed and reiterated, discussed details and recapitulated,
presenting the whole matter from the broadest possible standpoint; but
he found it hard to persuade money out of Skeeter, for the reason that
Skeeter had none. The cupboard was bare.
Then he mentioned the possibility of a final and absolute refusal on
Skeeter’s part to restore the ten dollars wrongfully acquired, and
explained the inevitable consequences. At this point he put on what the
negroes call the “’rousements,” and yapped like a poodle. Reaching his
peroration, he found that decent language bent and broke beneath the
burden of his meaning, so he “cussed.”
“I got only two boxes of seegaws in my little show case, Pap,” Skeeter
said, when the vocal pyrotechnics subsided into a feeble splutter of hot
ashes. “Take ’em an’ git out! Dey is wuth mo’ dan ten dollars, but I gib
’em to you. Fer Gawd’s sake git out!”
Evidently Conko Mukes was waiting outside until Pap finished. The
swinging doors of the saloon had not ceased to vibrate after Pap before
Conko pushed them wide and entered the room with the clumsy gait of a
bear.
“I got four friends dat is app’inted me to colleck fawty dollars
Skeeter!” he bellowed. “Dey promises me ten pussent per each fer my
trouble in collectin’. Dat’ll be fo’ dollars fer me.”
“Jes’ take whutever you wants an’ call it even,” Skeeter said in a
lifeless voice. “I been agonizin’ all de mawnin’, an’ I craves to got de
agony over.”
“I don’t want no secont-hand bar-fixtures,” Conko laughed hoarsely.
“Barrooms is gone out of style. I wants de spot cash paid in my hand.
Gimme yo’ money or yo’ life!”
“You know I ain’t got no money,” Skeeter wailed. “Cain’t you take
somepin I got in dis saloom?”
“Naw!” Conko bawled. “I cain’t colleck no ten pussent of no brass
foot-rail or pool-table. I wants de cash!”
Up to this moment the day had been one of great humiliation. Now began a
period in which Skeeter showed a marvelous mental versatility.
There was no way for him to pay back that forty dollars except to borrow
it, and no one to borrow from but the white folks. He had to tell a
different story to each white man in order to start the fountain of his
generosity and secure the loan. And through the whole day of frenzied
effort to meet the demands upon him, there was the haunting fear that
the horse had wandered off and would never be seen again.
Early the next morning Skeeter started out to hunt his horse. Having
bought it and paid for it, he wanted it. His search was futile, and when
he returned to Shin Bone’s restaurant for his noonday meal he was loud
in his protestations of woe.
“De white man whut sold you dat hoss went to de pasture an’ stole him
out an’ tuck him away,” Shin Bone told him. “Instid of huntin’ dat hoss,
you oughter git de sheriff on de trail of dat white man.”
“But de fence wus broke down,” Skeeter protested stupidly. “Dat shows
dat de hoss got out by hisself.”
“Ef I wus gwine steal a hoss, I’d break down de fence so de folks would
think de hoss got out,” was the reply.
This was a new idea to Skeeter, who really had not given much thought to
his predicament. He carried this dark suspicion for the rest of the day,
still hunting his horse, but devoid of all hope of finding it.
“Dat white man rode dat hoss to town, sold him to me, an’ rode him out
of town,” he sighed pitiably. “Yet dat feller looked to me like a
tollable nice man. He stressified dat he warn’t honest, but he specified
dat he was a puffeck gentlemun. I ain’t never gwine he’p a white man
agin!”
He thought of the forty dollars he had borrowed from the white folks and
had to pay back. The profits from his little business were extremely
small and growing less. The repayment of the borrowed money meant close
economy for a long time.
“I feels powerful sorry fer myself,” he wailed.
Wronged, abused, depressed, and hopeless, he returned to the Hen-Scratch
saloon. When he entered he gasped for breath.
Dick Nuhat was sitting at one of the little tables, in an attitude of
deep and solemn meditation, as motionless as a stone dog.