Part 12

“Come in, Skeeter,” Flournoy said. “I won’t lend any money, won’t hear any nigger love scrapes, won’t give any advice, won’t listen to any of your troubles. Excusing all those things, what else do you want?”

Skeeter grinned. As he would have expressed it, Marse John was his “kinnery.” He had grown up in a cabin in the sheriff’s yard, and this big-bodied, kind-hearted sheriff held few terrors for Skeeter.

“Dar, now, Marse John, you’ll shore hab room fer a good appetite atter you is got all dem words offen yo’ stomick. I come to git a view from you about how to colleck a twenty-five dollars reward-bill.”

“That’s interesting,” Flournoy grinned. “Let’s have the details.”

“Well, suh, a nigger is habin’ a show in dis town an’ he calls hisse’f a Handcuff King. He specify dat he’s a Monarch of de Manacle. He argufy dat dar ain’t no kind of handcuff made dat he can’t git hisse’f loose from in less’n five minutes. Does you reckin dat is so, Marse John?”

“Certainly,” the sheriff answered promptly.

“How come?” Skeeter asked.

This was one theme upon which the sheriff was competent to speak. He leaned back in his chair, lighted a cigar, and began:

“There are one hundred and forty-two varieties of handcuffs and leg-irons manufactured in the civilized world, Skeeter, but there are only thirty-two separate brands which are registered for use by officers of the law in the United States. Four master keys will unlock all thirty-two of these leg-irons and handcuffs.”

“Listen to dat!” Skeeter exclaimed.

“I venture to say that that negro showman has all the regulation handcuffs in use in this country, as well as some of European manufacture. Of course, he also has the keys to unlock them.”

“Whar do he tote de keys?” Skeeter asked eagerly.

“Oh--everywhere!” Flournoy smiled. “In the lining of his clothes, in his shoes and socks, in his sleeves and cuffs, down his collar, even in his mouth--everywhere!”

“Huh!” Skeeter grunted. “Dat’s too bad.”

There was a long silence while Flournoy smilingly watched Skeeter think. The negro’s face was a pantomime of conflicting emotions, and the general effect made for gloom and depression. Finally Flournoy spoke:

“My information seems to discourage you, Skeeter. What’s the problem?”

“It’s dis way, Marse John,” Skeeter said earnestly. “Dat uppity, biggity nigger is done offered twenty-five dollars reward fer any handcuff he cain’t git off in five minutes, an’ I figgered dat I had a show to make de money.”

Flournoy thought a moment, then broke into a loud chuckle.

“I think you have a splendid chance to copper the coin, Skeeter. Wait here a minute!”

Flournoy opened a steel door, walked to the rear of the vault, and pawed over a lot of trash in one corner. Then he came out and tossed a handful of police hardware on the floor at Skeeter’s feet.

“I think they will hold him,” Flournoy laughed.

Skeeter gasped as he eyed the cruelest collection of manacles and shackles he had ever seen.

There was a pair of home-made wrought-iron handcuffs with a stiff iron bar a foot long to connect the bracelets instead of a chain. There was a pair of cumbersome leg-irons which were used a half century ago in Southern convict camps, but whose use is now prohibited. And there was something else which gave Skeeter a sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach merely to look at. It was a pair of trigger cuffs. Any attempt to loosen them by the wearer has the effect of tightening the bracelets while at the same time a needle trigger presses deeper and deeper into the flesh of the wrist until the captive is helpless with pain.

“When I was first elected sheriff, forty years ago, this stuff was in use, Skeeter. I won’t give you the keys to these manacles. If you get them on that coon he’ll certainly need me! You can telephone me at the house to-night after Deo the Diddle forks over that twenty-five plunks to you!”

Skeeter wrapped the hardware in a newspaper and trod on air as he walked back to the Hen-Scratch saloon. When he told the waiting crowd of his success and showed them the manacles the darkies had a jubilee and then waited with the impatience of children for the night to come.

The front row of seats was occupied that night by Skeeter Butts, Figger Bush, Vinegar Atts, Pap Curtain, Prince Total, Hitch Diamond, and a few others of that type who were smarting under the public revelations of the recording angel the night before.

The house was crowded to suffocation and the performance consisted of fortune-telling, feats of magic, singing, and dancing.

At last the time came for the Monarch of the Manacle to make good his boast that he could get out of any handcuff or leg-iron which the community could provide for his bonds.

Up to this time Deo had found it perfectly safe everywhere to offer to release himself from any handcuffs which the negroes could provide, for a handcuff was something which no negro possessed, and with all their barbaric love of jewelry it was an ornament which no darky cared to wear. When no manacles were supplied by the audience, Deo would then invite a committee to come upon the stage and examine his. He would present forty different kinds for their inspection and let them choose any sort to place upon his legs and wrists. As they were all familiar to Deo, well oiled and in good condition, he had no trouble in releasing himself.

But this time Deo Diddle was up against it!

Skeeter Butts was Sheriff John Flournoy’s “nigger.” And for that reason he was probably the only colored person in the South who could go to a sheriff and get the assortment of manacles which he now had wrapped in a newspaper and hidden under his seat.

When Deo invited a local committee to come upon the stage, asking for anyone who would volunteer, every occupant of the first row of seats sprang to his feet and started for the platform.

This prompt and concerted action told Deo Diddle that he was in danger, that the men were out for his blood. He was frightened, and although he tried to carry himself with an easy manner it was apparent to all the committee that he was anxious and distrait.

Deo promptly decided not to ask for any handcuffs to be provided by the people in the assembly. To cover his retreat he began his announcement of the next evening’s performance:

“Dis is de las’ stunt on our plogram to-night, but tomorrer we is gwine hab de biggest show of all. I’ll ax a cormittee to nail me up in a box atter dey has handcuffed me, an’ I’ll let ’em tie de box up wid a rope, an’ I’ll promise to git out in five minutes!”

Then for twenty minutes Deo entertained the audience by escaping from his own leg-irons and handcuffs. The negroes devised every sort of method to manacle his legs and wrists, but when the curtain of the little booth which was rigged upon the stage had been pulled together in half a minute or a minute Deo walked out a free man!

Then Skeeter Butts unwrapped his newspaper and tossed his assortment of police hardware at the feet of Deo Diddle!

Deo looked down at that appalling mass of wrought iron and steel and shuddered. He had never seen anything like them before. His heart stood still and his breath stopped. Then he laughed, a nervous, cackling, uneasy laugh, merely to gain time to think.

He picked up the three dreadful instruments and held them before the audience--the wrought-iron bracelets with the lateral bar--old, rusty, out of date, the keyhole filled with rust and dirt; the horrible leg-irons which a man could not escape from in half a day with the use of a sharp file, and the cruel trigger cuffs with their torturing needle. He described each fetter minutely, explained how it was made, told how quickly and easily he expected to escape from its bonds, all the time praying desperately for some way of escape from his awful predicament.

During this speech Tella Tandy came and sat down beside Skeeter Butts. Skeeter grinned triumphantly into her face, then gave his entire attention to the spiel of Deo Diddle. Several times Tella spoke to Skeeter, but he answered in gruff tones and finally told her to shut up.

Then Deo did something which made Skeeter’s jaw drop with despair--he closed each of the gaping manacles with a loud snap!

And Skeeter did not have a key to open them again!

Then Tella Tandy did a most astounding thing--she sprang to her feet with a loud, shrill scream!

Everybody turned and looked at her with astonishment--Skeeter Butts most astonished of all.

“Whut you mean by sayin’ dat to me, Skeeter Butts?” she whooped. “You is a low-down nigger to insult a lady like dat! Oh, my Gawd!”

Tella put her hands over her face and staggered from the stage, crying aloud like a baby.

Skeeter Butt’s jaw dropped down and he gaped like an idiot--he had not said a word or done a thing!

He was so startled by the woman’s accusation and her dramatic exit that when he tried to speak and deny his guilt he stammered and spluttered and looked guiltier than ever.

“Whut you mean by insultin’ my wife, you low-down animated outrage?” Deo Diddle howled, approaching Skeeter with blood in his eye.

“I--I--didn’t--say--nothin’!” Skeeter stammered.

“Kill him! Put him out! Bust him one in de jaw!” the men in the audience roared, as they listened to the heart-rending wails of the caterwauling Tella Tandy somewhere in the wings.

Deo Diddle’s fist lunged out with all his strength behind it. Skeeter ducked, dodged under the showman’s arms, grabbed up Sheriff Flournoy’s criminal hardware, and fled for his life.

* * * * *

The next morning Skeeter was kept busy explaining to his many patrons that he had been guilty of no offense and that Tella Tandy had played a trick on him to keep him from winning the twenty-five dollars.

To Skeeter’s surprise, nobody believed him.

“Naw, suh,” the reverend Vinegar Atts proclaimed, “you muss hab said somepin shameful to dat little gal. She wusn’t show-actin’ when she bust out cryin’ like dat.”

“Dat’s de way I figger,” Hitch Diamond growled. “Ef you wus a’ innercent man, how come you didn’t stan’ yo’ ground’ an’ fight when dat Deo wus fixin’ to pound yo’ face in?”

“I ain’t no fightin’ man,” Skeeter protested. “I’s a bizzness man. But I didn’t say nothin’ an’ I didn’t do nothin’--I wus discriminated agin by dem show folks!”

“Aw, hush!” Pap Curtain exclaimed disgustedly. “I heerd whut you said to dat little gal an’ it wus plum’ insultin’.”

“You better fetch dem same handcuffs back tonight, Skeeter,” Prince Total grinned. “Yo’ bes’ chance to insult dat lady is atter we nail Deo up in dat box.”

“Aw, shut up!” Skeeter snapped.

The men gradually talked themselves out and went away. Skeeter turned to his one friend and sympathizer, Figger Bush.

“Figger,” he said, “I’s gwine git even wid dat pair of crooks or die. Is you willin’ to he’p me?”

“Suttinly,” Figger agreed eagerly. “I think dem show folks done you powerful bad.”

“We begins right now,” Skeeter announced, as he got up and went back to a rear room and came out with Tella’s Spitz dog.

“Come out in front wid me, Figger,” Skeeter said, as he led the dog out of the door and stopped in the middle of the cinder sidewalk. “I want you to hold dis dawg for me.”

“Whut you gwine do?” Figger inquired.

“I’s gwine git back about fawty feet, take a little run, an’ kick dis dang dawg so fur dat de nex’ time he spits it’ll be in Arkansas!” Skeeter announced viciously.

“I’s wid you!” Figger chuckled, as he spraddled his legs and grasped the Pomeranian by his bushy, silky tail. “Kick de goal!”

Skeeter made a little run and almost kicked a hole in the sky. His right foot went up like he had hitched it to a star. For the little dog squatted and Skeeter missed him!

Then the dog got busy.

He snapped at Figger and Figger let go his tail. He sunk his sharp little teeth in the seat of Skeeter’s pantaloons and Skeeter went down the street at full speed, exhausting the treasuries of his throat to vocalize his fright. The dog held on until the seat of Skeeter’s trousers parted company with the rest of the garment and came away. Then the dog, well satisfied, trotted happily down the street, growling ferociously and stopping at intervals to shake the everlasting stuffing out of the piece of cloth which he had captured.

Figger Bush lay flat down upon the ground and whooped with laughter until the town reverberated with the echo of his hilarity like a pack of hounds chasing a fox. When he saw Skeeter returning, he decided it would be safer to go down town and see what time it was. So he went.

But in less than an hour Figger returned in great excitement, bringing with him a little, timid negro woman with a tiny baby upon her arm.

He led her through the saloon to a rear room, motioning mysteriously to Skeeter as he passed. When they were all seated at a table Figger said:

“Now, Mrs. Diddle, you tell dat tale whut you jes’ told me--dis man who wants to listen is Skeeter Butts.”

The woman hesitated a moment, looked down fondly at the tiny bundle on her breast, and began to speak in a trembling, uneasy voice:

“I come up here huntin’ fer a nigger named Deo Diddle. He’s my cote-house husbund. Dis is his little pickaninny chile I’s nursin’. Deo, he gibs shows, but he’s got kinder keerless an’ done fergot all about me, I reckin. So I come to rattle up his remembrunce.”

“Yes’m,” Skeeter exclaimed with unction. “Dat wus de most properest thing you could do. I’s shore glad you foun’ me so prompt, fer I’s jes’ de man to lead you straight on to Deo Diddle.”

“Dat’s fine,” the woman exclaimed, rising eagerly to her feet. “I hopes you’ll take me dar right now.”

“No’m,” Skeeter declared. “It cain’t be did suddent like dat. I don’t know whar dat nigger is now, but he’s gwine gib a show in dis town to-night, an’ I’ll take good keer of you an’ dat baby an’ den lead you to de show. Dat is, ef you’ll do jes’ whut I tells you.”

“I shore will,” the woman said fervently.

“Figger,” Skeeter commanded, “you take sister Diddle over to de Halfacre an’ tell ole sister Ginny Chew to keep her till I come atter her to-night. Den you come right back to dis saloom, an’ you an’ me will fix up our plans fer de evenin’ pufformance.”

The day passed slowly for Skeeter Butts, and when the night came he occupied a seat in the front row in the hall directly in the center of the stage, with Figger Bush sitting beside him.

None of the performance interested Skeeter until Deo Diddle announced that he was now ready to accomplish the “box escape.” He challenged the negroes to provide a pine box in which he would be securely nailed and roped up, first being handcuffed and shackled in any way the negroes chose. Then he proposed to escape, leaving the box and the ropes intact.

When the committee climbed upon the stage, Skeeter did not join them. He handed a tiny vial of liquid to Figger Bush and said:

“Now, Figger, you go up dar an’ do exackly whut I told you!”

Deo Diddle was carefully handcuffed, manacled, chained, and bound by the grinning, laughing negroes; then he was lifted up and lowered carefully into the box.

Figger Bush reached for a hammer, and Tella Tandy stood by with a cigar box full of long wire nails, handing them to Figger as he nailed Deo in the box. Then Tella produced a long rope, and the husky negroes bound that box as a trunk is wrapped for a journey. When all were satisfied they stepped back, but Figger returned for a moment and made another careful examination of the box and the ropes.

Finally the curtains were drawn around the little booth and the crowd waited breathlessly.

Skeeter Butts arose and hastily departed from the hall.

Two things had happened to Deo Diddle which were sure to cause him trouble, and Deo found it out instantly.

First, Figger Bush had nailed Deo’s coat-tail to the top of the box. And second, when Figger went back to examine the box a second time he had emptied a small bottle of formaldehyde into one of the air-holes!

If there is one chemical fluid with which the inhabitants of Louisiana, white and black, are familiar, it is that colorless, volatile liquid, chemically intermediate between methyl alcohol and formic acid, called formaldehyde. It has an odor which suggests all the dead and decaying things of earth, animal and vegetable, all the putrefaction and corruption imaginable. When a man gets a whiff of it for the first time, he kneels down right there and prays to die--he doesn’t want to live another second with that stench in his nostrils. It is the supreme germicide and disinfectant of every yellow-fever epidemic, which accounts for Louisiana’s close and intimate acquaintance with it. Any self-respecting yellow-fever germ will instantly tuck his tail and scoot when he gets a good smell of that gosh-awful disinfectant.

But formaldehyde was a preparation with which Deo Diddle was not acquainted.

Figger Bush, listening intently, heard sounds which resembled those made by a dog having a fit in a cigar box and knocking his feet against the box on all sides. Then Figger heard a loud panting like a worn-out engine pulling a grade with a log-train. After that, a moan, which deepened into a hoarse cry; then Deo Diddle lost hold of himself completely and began a hideous sort of sharp yelping like a dog.

“Hel-lup! Hel-lup! Fer Gawd’s sake----” he screamed.

But long before this Tella Tandy had torn the curtains aside and was fighting the box with her hands, trying to let in the air.

Skeeter Butts, standing by the door at the side entrance with Mrs. Deo Diddle and the baby, heard the excitement and the screaming, and grinned with delight.

“Come on, sister Diddle,” Skeeter exclaimed exultantly. “I’ll show you yo’ kind, good husbunt now. Us is got him in a box!”

He led her through the side entrance to the stage just as Vinegar Atts struck the pine box a heavy blow with the ax, cut the ropes, knocked off the top, and lifted the half-unconscious, and wholly terrified Handcuff King out of the box, his coat-tail nailed securely, his hands and ankles still manacled, and the bottom of the box containing dozens of keys which Deo had dropped in his eagerness and haste to escape!

In the meantime, the entire audience had taken its departure. Even Vinegar Atts left after he released the formaldehyde with the magician. There was no attraction on the stage which could enable them to endure that dreadful odor. Figger Bush lingered around the front door, sticking his head out at intervals to get a breath of pure air.

“Dat’s him!” Skeeter exclaimed dramatically, as he pointed to the drooping form of Deo Diddle, who was rapidly reviving, although he still hung to the shattered box by his coat-tail. “Dat’s de villyum whut is done run off from his wife an’ chile an’ tuck up wid anodder woman!”

“Who--_him!_” Mrs. Diddle exclaimed, pointing to the performer. “Huh--dat ain’t my husbant--his name is Jim Tom Wyatt!”

Then she turned and faced the frightened Tella Tandy.

“Hello, Tella!” she exclaimed. “Whar is Deo?”

“He got drunk in Kerlerac an’ fit a white man to a shirt-tail finish an’ de jedge put him in jail fer fawty days,” Tella explained. “Me an’ Jim Tom is tryin’ to carry on de show till Deo gits out, an’, of co’se, Jim Tom is usin’ Deo’s name.”

“Dar now, Skeeter Butts!” Mrs. Diddle exclaimed. “Whut you lie to me fer?”

“Did dat little yeller debbil hab anything to do wid dis?” Tella asked, pointing at Skeeter’s face.

“Of co’se he did!” Mrs. Diddle exclaimed. “He done it all!”

Tella Tandy promptly wrenched off a piece of the shattered box about two feet long and three inches wide, and gave Skeeter a resounding slap across the jaw.

Skeeter reeled backward, stumbled down the steps, and fled out into the street.

Figger watched the people on the stage for a minute, then hastened down the street after Skeeter. He found his friend sitting on a curb-stone nursing a bloody face.

“Dey done me up, Figger,” Skeeter mourned. “I never seed de beat of show-folks fer fust-rate brains. Even dat Spit dawg is smarter dan me!”

“Whut is us gwine do nex’, Skeeter?” Bush asked sympathetically.

“I’s gwine to de cote-house an’ hab dat Tella Tandy arrested fer assault an’ battery!” Skeeter exclaimed revengefully.

Figger sighed pitifully.

“’Twon’t do you no good, Skeeter,” Figger informed him. “You can’t git her fer nothin’ but assault.”

“How come?” Skeeter asked.

“Atter she hit you dat whale across de face,” Figger explained, “I saw her take de ax an’ chop dat battery all to little pieces!”

All is Fair.

I

THE HORSE RACE.

Shin Bone needed money badly. He sat on the edge of the sidewalk by the old cotton shed, his feet in the gutter and his head resting upon his hands, and did the heaviest thinking of his whole thoughtless life.

“I’d rob Marse Tom’s bank ef I jes’ knowed how,” he said, speaking aloud to himself.

Then he wondered if he had spoken too loud, for Colonel Tom Gaitskill stopped directly behind him in his walk to the bank, and surveyed with amusement a number of gaudy lithographs which had been pasted upon the side of the cotton shed.

Shin Bone sat perfectly quiet until he had assured himself that Gaitskill had not overheard him, then a shrewd look came into his eyes, and he rose to his feet. Taking a corn-cob pipe from his pocket, he filled it with tobacco, and edged up closer to the white man.

“When is de succus gwine be, Marse Tom?” he asked, as he struck a match and applied the flame to the bowl of his pipe.

“This is no circus, Shin,” Gaitskill said shortly. “Where have you been all the time? Haven’t you heard anything about the nigger uplift?”

Every negro knows the advantage which accrues to himself from letting the white man tell him. Carefully concealing the fact that these same gaudy lithographs had caused his grief over his poverty, Shin said:

“Naw, suh--yes, suh. De white folks is always doin’ somepin to us niggers. But I cain’t figger out dese shiny new bills on dis wall.”

“Those lithographs announce a negro fair at the old race track,” Colonel Gaitskill told him. “There will be prizes for all kinds of garden truck and field crops, prizes for chickens, pigs, and cattle, prizes for draft horses, carriage horses, and all kinds of horses. Admission is free for all the negroes, all the exhibits will be by the negroes, and the white folks are financing the fair for the benefit of the negroes.”

“Dat shore will be a lift-up,” Shin Bone grinned, as he gazed with admiration at the pictures of the running horses. “Does us be allowed to had races, too?”

“Yes, there’ll be speed exhibits,” Gaitskill smiled. “But every negro who enters a horse for a race must own the horse.”

“Dat’s right,” Shin Bone agreed heartily. “Ef dat’s de rule, de niggers cain’t borry no real race hosses an’ git all our money away from us.”

“Betting will not be permitted,” Gaitskill remarked, watching Shin Bone closely. “That is against the law.”

“Huh,” Shin Bone grunted, and the tone of his voice and the expression on his face were those of a baby just tuning up to cry. But Gaitskill checked the deluge of tears by his next remark:

“Of course, the chief characteristic of the sport of kings must not be allowed to die out entirely, and if a few bets are made on the quiet, it is nobody’s business. I am sure every darky will put down a dollar or two just to try his luck.”

“Huh,” Shin Bone grunted, and this time the tone of his voice and the expression on his face set Gaitskill to laughing merrily.

“Dat’s de only spote whut will fetch de niggers to even a free fair, Marse Tom. Dey ain’t comin’ here jes’ to show deir spindle-laig chickens an’ deir little runt pigs. Dey wants to action aroun’ wid de ponies.”