Part 2

“Is dat so?” the old man asked in uncertain tones. He held the card up and looked at the photograph for a long time.

“Whut you think about him, Popsy?” Scootie asked.

“Dat dead nigger’s face an’ head shore growed strong on hair an’ whiskers,” Popsy quavered, as he laid the photograph in the crown of his upturned stove-pipe hat, “like a damp marsh--don’t grow nothin’ but rank grass!”

“Dat was de way Figger wus,” Scootie laughed. “His head wus shore kinder soft an’ oozy.”

“When is we gwine git our dinner, Scootie?” the old man demanded.

“Right now!” Scootie told him.

“All right!” Popsy said, as he leaned back in his chair. “You call me when she’s ready. Feed me chicken an’ hot biskits an’ ice-water--lemme taper off wid a dram an’ a leetle nap--den I want you to lead me to de bank whar Marse Tommy Gaitskill stays at. Lawd! Lawd! I ain’t sot my eyes on little Tommy fer fifty year!”

* * * * *

At two o’clock that afternoon Scootie conducted Popsy Spout through the door of the Tickfall National Bank, down a corridor in the rear of the big vault, and knocked upon a door which bore in dainty gold lettering the word: “President.”

In response to a voice within she opened the door and pushed Popsy Spout forward.

Colonel Tom Gaitskill sat beside a table in a swivel chair, a tall, handsome man with the air of a soldier, ruddy-faced, white-haired, genial, and smiling. Gaitskill’s fine eyes took him in with a photographic glance.

The old negro stood before him, immaculately neat, though his garments were ragged and time-worn. Dignity sat upon his aged form like virtue upon a venerable Roman senator. Indeed, there flashed through the banker’s mind the thought that men like this one who stood before him might have sat in the Carthaginian council of war and planned the campaign which led young Hannibal to the declivities of the Alps where his horde of Africans hung like a storm-cloud while Imperial Rome trembled with fear behind the protection of her walls.

Then fifty years rolled backward like a scroll.

Gaitskill saw a blood-strewn battlefield torn with shot and shell; he saw clouds of smoke, black, acrid, strangling to the throat, rolling over that field as fogs blow in from the sea; he saw a tall, young, black man emerge from such a pall of smoke carrying a sixteen-year-old boy dressed in the bloody uniform of a Confederate soldier. The young soldier’s arms and legs dangled against the negro’s giant form as he walked, stepping over the slippery, shot-plowed ground. He saw the negro stagger with his burden to an old sycamore tree and lay the inanimate form upon the ground at its roots, composing the limbs of the boy with beautiful tenderness; then he saw the negro straighten up and gather into his giant paws a broken branch of a tree which two men could hardly have handled.

Waving this limb at the creeping pall of smoke, he screamed like a jungle beast, and whooped: “You dam’ Yanks, keep away from dis little white boy--you done him a-plenty--he’s dead!”

Gaitskill stood up and stepped forward. He held out a strong white hand, clasping the palsied brown paw of Popsy Spout. No white man ever received a warmer greeting, a more cordial welcome than this feeble black man, aged, worn, tottering through the mazy dreamland of second childhood.

Unnoticed, Scootie Tandy walked to a window and seated herself.

The two old men sat down beside the table and Scootie listened for two hours to reminiscences which went back over half a century. Frequently Popsy Spout’s mind wandered, and Gaitskill gave him a gentle stimulant of liquor, as thoughtful of the darky’s waning strength as a courtier would be of the comfort of a king.

“How old are you now, Popsy?” Gaitskill smiled, after they had talked of old times.

“I’s sebenty year old--gwine on a hundred.”

“Do you really expect to live that long?” Gaitskill asked.

“Yes, suh, ef de white folks takes good keer of me,” Popsy answered.

He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a bulky package, tied up with many pieces of many-colored string.

“Dat’s my money, Marse Tommy. Please unwrop it an’ count it out loud fer me.”

Gaitskill poured the currency and coins upon the table and with a money-handler’s expert ease, he counted it aloud, announcing the total in about a minute:

“One thousand dollars!”

Scootie Tandy gasped like a woman who had been under water for about five minutes and had just come up, but neither of the men noticed her.

Popsy Spout hesitated a minute, scratched his snow-white hair, and looked at the neat piles of money with an air of perplexity.

“Isn’t that correct?” Gaitskill asked.

“Yes, suh, dat’s c’reck,” Popsy said uncertainly. “Dat’s de same number I got when I counted it, but somepin is powerful strange ’bout dat money.”

“What’s the trouble?” Gaitskill asked.

“You counted it so quick, Marse Tommy!”

“Well--I counted it right, didn’t I?”

“Yes, suh, but--I reckin’ it’s all right, Marse Tommy. But, you see, it tuck me five whole days to count dat money an’ it wus de hardest wuck I ever done--I sweated barrels of sweat! It ’peared like a whole big pile, when I counted it. But ef I spends it as quick as you counted it, ’twon’t las’ me till I kin walk outen dis here bank!”

“I understand,” Gaitskill smiled. “But you don’t want to spend this money. How long did it take you to accumulate it?”

“Fawty year,” Popsy told him. “Bad times comes frequent to a nigger, an’ I wanted to save a leetle ahead.”

“The idea is to take as long spending it as you did accumulating it,” Gaitskill said. “In that case, it will last you until you have passed one hundred.”

“Yes, suh, dat’s de properest way to do,” Popsy agreed. “Dat’s why I fotch dis money to you. Kin you keep it fer me?”

“Certainly. That’s what this bank is for.”

“Marse Jimmy Gaitskill over in Burningham--his bank paid me int’rust prannum on dat money,” Popsy said.

“I’ll pay you interest per annum, too,” Gaitskill smiled, well knowing that his brother had supported Popsy Spout for half a century. “How much money will you need to live on each year?”

“I kin git along on ’bout ten dollars a month, Marse Tommy--wid de clothes an’ vittles dat de white folks gimme. I kin save a little out of dat to ’posit back in de bank fer rainy days.”

“That’s one hundred and twenty dollars a year with clothes and food,” Gaitskill laughed. “Some of the bank’s patrons would like to get that much interest per annum.”

“Yes, suh. Marse Jimmy Gaitskill specified dat my nigger money drawed powerful int’rust outen his bank.”

“You can come here and draw ten dollars every month,” Gaitskill said, and he picked up a card and wrote a few words upon it.

“Dat’ll fix me fine, Marse Tommy. I kin live scrumpshus on dat.”

“Where are you going to live?”

“I ain’t got nowhar yit,” Popsy said.

“Would you like to live in the log cabin where you lived fifty-five years ago?” Gaitskill inquired.

“Whar I married at? Whar me an’ Ca’lline live happy till all us boys went off to de war? Whar you an’ me an’ Marse Jimmy an’ little Hinry useter roast goobers in de hot ash?” Popsy asked eagerly.

“The very same,” Gaitskill answered softly. “With the big pecan tree still standing before it, and the big stone door-step where we boys cracked the nuts.”

Popsy Spout rose to his feet and bowed like some aged patriarch standing in the presence of a king. His high, quavering voice sobbed like the wailing of a child:

“Marse Tommy, de Gaitskill fambly is de top of de heap fer kindness an’ goodness to dis pore ole nigger!”

He sank back into his chair, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“I guess so,” Gaitskill said, and his voice was so soft that each word was like a caress. “We all remember Henry.”

“Dat’s so, suh,” Popsy said, suddenly straightening his bent and quivering shoulders. “Marse Jimmy is told me frequent ’bout you an’ him gwine up dar an’ findin’ Hinry under dat sycamo’ tree whar I buried him at. I’s glad you fotch him back home an’ buried him wid his own folks.”

“Yes, we’ll walk out to his grave together some day,” Gaitskill murmured.

He rose and walked to the window. He looked out for a moment, then turned and handed Popsy the card on which he had written a few minutes before.

“I’ll see you often, Popsy,” he said. “Your old cabin is still at the foot of the hill by the old spring. It’s unoccupied--move in as soon as you please.”

“Whut is dis, Marse Tommy?” Popsy asked, as he looked curiously at the folded paper.

“It’s an order on my store for food,” Gaitskill said. “You can draw some groceries every Saturday night. That’s part of the interest per annum, you know.”

“Bless Gawd!” Popsy Spout quacked. “Ten dollars a month wages an’ reg’lar rations eve’y Saddy night! You shore is a noble white man, Marse Tommy! Come on, Scootie. Us’ll git gwine befo’ we gits happy an’ gits to shoutin’ an’ bust up all de furnisher in dis white man’s bank!”

* * * * *

“My Lawd, Figger Bush!” Skeeter Butts exclaimed, as his friend entered the Hen-Scratch saloon. “You look like a skint mule.”

“I done disguised myse’f!” Figger grinned as he took off his battered wool hat.

Figger’s famous shoe-brush mustache was gone, and his head was shaved until it was as smooth and slick as a black piano key.

“Whut you did yo’se’f so funny fer?” Skeeter demanded, as Figger smiled and revealed a row of teeth like new tombstones.

“I decided to stay in town an’ be a corp’,” Figger explained, “so I had myse’f fixed up so dat not even my widder would know me.”

“Is you seed Popsy yit?” Skeeter asked.

“Yep. I hid behime de cornder of de deppo when de train trundled in, an’ Popsy dismounted off. Scootie cried an’ tuck on consid’able, an’ I wus plum’ satisfied wid de results.”

“Did Popsy ’pear much broke up?” Skeeter inquired.

“I couldn’t tell ’bout dat,” Figger chuckled. “Scootie tuck him to her cabin fer dinner an’ I seed ’em walkin’ aroun’ town--I s’pose dey is huntin’ fer my grave.”

“How do bein’ a corp’ feel like--so fur?” Skeeter snickered.

“’Tain’t so bad,” Figger remarked. “It mought be better ef de town would take a notion to gib me a fust-class fun’ral. Of co’se, de Tickfall quawtette would hab to sing, an’ I’s de male serpranner in dat quawtette. It would be a real nice somepin new fer a corp’ to sing at his own fun’ral.”

“Mebbe us could git de Nights of Darkness to hold a lodge of sorrer on you,” Skeeter cackled.

“Ef dey does, I wants to sing my new solo ’bout ‘Locked in de stable wid de sheep,’” Figger announced.

“Whut about de death ben’fit?” Skeeter inquired. “Is you gwine apply fer dat?”

“Naw,” Figger laughed. “Ef de cormittee ’vestigates an’ repotes me dead, dey kin gib dat ben’fit to Popsy.”

At this point the green-baize doors of the saloon were pushed open and Scootie Tandy blew in quivering with excitement.

“Whut’s up, Scootie?” Skeeter exclaimed, springing to his feet.

“Gawd pity you, Figger!” Scootie howled in tragic tones. “You made a awful mistake in gwine dead so suddent!”

“Which way?” Figger asked in a frightened voice.

“I went to de bank wid Popsy Spout an’ found out dat Popsy an’ Marse Tom Gaitskill is kinnery!” Scootie gushed forth.

“Hear dat, now!” Skeeter exclaimed in a voice of wonder.

“Popsy gib Marse Tom a wad of money dat it took Popsy five days to count!” Scootie ranted.

“Oh, my _Lawd_!” Figger wailed.

“Marse Tom gib Popsy one hundred an’ twenty dollars int’rust prannum on his money, an’ a awder on de sto’-house fer reg’lar rations, an’ a cabin to live in!” Scootie squalled.

“My gawsh!” Figger bleated in dismay. “I done busted a egg on my own doorstep an’ hoodooed my own se’f!”

“Dat’s whut you done, Figger!” Scootie howled. “I tole Popsy real prompt dat he needed a nuss an’ housekeeper in his ole age, an’ as Figger’s widder I wus lawfully ’lected to dat job, an’ he tuck me up right now!”

“Oh-huh!” Figger grunted in despair.

“Me an’ Popsy is gwine move in de ole log hut behime Marse Tom’s house to-morrer,” Scootie exulted. “Ten dollars per month an’ reg’lar vittles, chicken an’ pie--I won’t never hab to wuck no more.”

“Lawdymussy!” Figger sighed.

“Good-by, niggers!” Scootie exclaimed in a happy voice. “I won’t never reckernize you-alls no mo’--I draws a pension!”

She swept out of the house and left two men struck speechless by the information she brought.

A moment later they were interrupted again. Vinegar Atts plowed through the swinging doors, puffing like a steam-boat and sweating like an ice-pitcher.

“Whar kin I find Brudder Popsy Spout, Skeeter?” he bellowed. “I wants to ’vite him to jine de Shoofly chu’ch an’ set heavy in de amen cornder. Dat’s de biggest nigger whut ever come to dis town. Word is sont out dat he old-soldiered wid de Gaitskills--fit wid de white folks! I needs him in my chu’ch!”

Neither Skeeter nor Figger made a reply. Their air of tragedy silenced Vinegar Atts, and he crept forward on tiptoe to where the two men were sitting, smoking cigarettes and sighing. When Vinegar reached a point, where he could see the face of Figger Bush, he jumped as if he had seen a ghost.

“My--good--_gosh_, Figger!” Vinegar wailed in his siren-whistle voice. “You done suicided yo’se’f! Took five days to count his money--got it in de bank fetchin’ int’rust--livin’ in his own cabin an’ drawin’ rations--an’ you is de only blood kin of Tickfall’s leadin’ nigger sitson an’ you--is--dead!”

“Tell me whut to do, Revun?” Figger wailed.

“I ain’t got time, Figger!” Atts bawled. “I got to tote a Christyum greetin’ an’ welcome to dat noble nigger man!”

Vinegar Atts went out of the saloon with the rolling walk of a big bear.

“Tell me whut to do, Skeeter!” Figger wailed.

“Search me!” Skeeter exclaimed. “’Tain’t no trouble fer a nigger to die--dat comes nachel. But when a nigger tries to come to life an’ make folks b’lieve it--Lawdy!”

“I’s gwine right down an’ see Popsy!” Figger announced with sudden determination. “I’ll tell him dat Scootie is been lyin’ to him all de time. I kin prove by Marse Tom an’ all de white folks dat I ain’t never been dead a-tall!”

“I hopes you luck, Figger!” Skeeter exclaimed in a tone which indicated that he considered such an enterprise futile.

Figger lost no time in getting to the cabin where Scootie lived.

He found Popsy sitting upon the porch, smoking a corn-cob pipe which had been the property of Scootie’s deceased husband, and languidly slapping at his face with a turkey-wing fan. His stove-pipe hat rested upon the floor at his feet and contained a big red handkerchief.

“Howdy, Popsy!” Figger greeted him cordially, holding out his hand. “Don’t you reckomember me?”

The old man removed his pipe from his mouth, rested his turkey-wing fan upon his lap, reached for his long patriarchal staff as if he were about to rise; then he leaned back in his chair and surveyed Figger a long time.

“Naw, suh, I ain’t never seed yo’ favor befo’,” he quavered.

“I’s little Figger,” Figger informed him ingratiatingly.

“Little Figger is dead,” Popsy answered, looking at Bush with faded eyes, in which the light of doubt and suspicion and a little fear was growing. “I lives wid little Figger’s widder.”

“Dat’s a mistake, Popsy,” Figger protested. “I ain’t died yit. Scootie’s been lyin’ to you ’bout me.”

The old man leaned over and fumbled in the crown of his stove-pipe hat. He brought out his big red handkerchief, and slowly unwrapped the photograph which Scootie had given him when he first entered her home, a photograph of a negro with a woolly head and a shoe-brush mustache. Handing this to Figger, he asked sharply:

“Does you look like dat nigger in dat photygrapht?”

“Naw, suh,” Figger replied with evident reluctance.

“Dat’s de little Figger Bush I mourns,” Popsy said. “Dat’s Scootie’s dead husbunt. You ain’t look like him a bit--you look like a picked geese!”

“I’s de very same man, Popsy!” Figger wailed in desperation. “Only but I done had my hair an’ mustache cut off.”

“I don’t believe it!” Popsy declared in positive tones. “I raised dis here Figger Bush, an’ I knows he never earnt enough money in his dum lazy life to commit a shave an’ a hair-cut!”

“O Lawdy, whut muss I do?” Figger wailed.

“Git away from dis cabin an’ don’t never show yo’se’f here no mo’!” the old man howled. “I wouldn’t b’lieve you wus Figger Bush ef you sweared on de Bible an’ all de twelve opossums!”

Popsy pounded upon the floor of the porch with the end of his long staff.

“O Scootie!” he called. “Git outen dat kitchen an’ come here a minute.”

Hope flamed up in the heart of Figger. He knew that no one could convince Popsy that he was not dead more certainly than the woman who pretended to be his widow.

Scootie came out upon the porch and gazed with popping eyes at Figger Bush.

“Is dis here nigger yo’ dead husbunt?” Popsy snapped, pointing a palsied finger at Figger.

“Naw, suh,” Scootie replied truthfully.

The old man stood up. He caught his long staff at the little end as a man grasps a baseball bat. He balanced it a moment, poising himself on his feet, as if he were getting ready to knock a “homer,” aiming the stick at Figger’s round, ball-like head!

“_Git out!_” Popsy whooped.

Figger got out.

* * * * *

Early the next morning Scootie sent two wagonloads of household goods to the log cabin in the rear of Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s home, where Popsy had taken his young wife fifty-five years before.

Scootie deposited these goods in the two front rooms, fixing them up so that Popsy would have a comfortable place after his arrival, and while she was arranging the rest of the rooms. In one room she placed a rickety sofa, a couple of chairs, and a table. She hung a few pictures on the wall, placed a few ornaments upon the mantelpiece, and from the spring beside the house she brought a pitcher of water, placed it on the table, and set a drinking glass beside it.

In the other room she set up Popsy’s bed, placed beside it the only comfortable rocking-chair she possessed, put Popsy’s old, battered suit-case, which contained all his worldly goods, under the bed, and placed upon the mantelpiece all the tobacco and pipes which her late husband had left her.

Then she returned to her own cabin to superintend the removal of the remainder of her goods.

As she came into the yard, Popsy called to her from his seat on the porch.

“I ain’t no good settin’ here in dis rockin’-chair, Scootie. I’ll be gittin’ along to’des my own cabin!”

“Don’t go yit, Popsy,” Scootie begged. “Wait till de nex’ wagon comes. I’ll set de rockin’-chair up in de wagon an’ let you ride to yo’ cabin wid de load!”

“I ain’t gwine do it!” the old man shouted irascibly. “I ain’t gwine be kotch settin’ up in a rockin’-chair in a wagon like a ole nigger woman ridin’ to a all-day nigger fun’ral wid dinner on de grounds. I’ll walk an’ tote my own carcass to dat cabin, like a man!”

“Ef pore Figger wus livin’, I’d git him to hitch up de kerridge an’ drive you to de cabin,” Scootie said mischievously.

“Huh!” the old man shouted. “Figger wouldn’t hab sense enough to find my ole cabin. When de good Lawd passed aroun’ brains, Figger had his head in a woodpecker’s hole lookin’ fer aigs!”

Muttering to himself in sheer perversity, he pranced down the road for a hundred yards or so, then, out of sight of Scootie, he settled down to a sedate and dignified walk. In a little while he began to use his long staff, leaning heavily upon it as he climbed the long hill which led to the Gaitskill home.

At the foot of the hill he passed a negro sitting disconsolately upon the end of a log. He was a scarecrow sort of a negro, with ragged, flapping clothes; a close observer might have noticed that he had recently worn a stubby, shoe-brush mustache; his head was shaved as smooth and slick as a black piano-key.

“Good mawnin’,” Popsy Spout quavered.

“Mawnin’, Popsy,” Figger murmured in a tragic tone--a voice from the tomb, a greeting from the dead!

The old man walked on, his step feebler now, his staff serving him more and more, his progress slower.

The August sun shone with scorching heat, the sunlight spraying from the leaves of the trees like water; the August breeze was like a breath from the open furnace-doors where iron is melted and flows like water; the sand of the highway was like embers scorching the feet. The old man staggered on, muttering to himself.

Figger Bush arose slinkingly and walked behind Popsy at a respectful distance, like a dog which had been whipped and told not to follow. He kept close to the high weeds and the bushes which grew beside the road, so that he could hide promptly if Popsy turned and looked back.

But Popsy did not look back. His age-dimmed eyes were set upon a big white house with large colonial columns which stood upon the top of the hill. Half a century had passed since he had seen this home last, and eagerness overcame his physical weakness and carried him to the hilltop where the beautiful lawn lay like a green carpet spread before the door.

Popsy leaned weakly upon the gate and gazed long and earnestly at the stately old home. He assumed the attitude of one who was listening for some familiar sound, and was perplexed because he could hear nothing.

Alas! Popsy was listening for footsteps that were silent and for voices which for fifty years had not been music in the porches of the ear! For a moment the old man had forgotten the years which had passed since last he saw this house, and he was listening for the voices of a young bride’s father and mother, and for the laughter and shouting of three Gaitskill boys--Tom, Jim, Henry!

“I bound dem boys is huntin’ squorls over in de swamp, or mebbe dey’s monkeyin’ aroun’ dat wash-hole,” the old man murmured doubtfully. “Dat house shore do ’pear powerful still ’thout dem noisy, aggervatin’ bullies bellerin’ to each yuther.”

Popsy fumbled feebly through his pockets and brought his hands out empty.

“Dem dum boys is mighty stingy wid deir chawin’ terbacker,” he mumbled in an irritated tone. “Dey don’t gimme half enough to keep me runnin’! Sence Tom hitched up wid dat pretty Mis’ Mildred, he done lef’ off chawin’, an dat cuts down my ’lowance. Nev’ mind! I knows whar dem dum boys keep deir chawin’, an’ I’ll ’vent some excuse to go to de house an’ I’ll holp myse’f liberal.”

Suddenly Popsy Spout remembered certain boyish pranks which Tom and Jim and Henry had played upon him fifty years before. He dimly recalled finding his tables and chairs hanging from the limbs of trees, his bed carried over in the cow-pasture and placed in the middle of the field, his few cooking pots crowning the tops of fence-posts around his cabin!

“Hod zickety!” he exclaimed. “I bound dem rapscallions is pesticatin’ my Ca’lline plum’ to death!”

He turned away from the gate and hurried as rapidly as his feeble legs would carry him down the road.

When at last he reached the cabin, he sat down upon the big stone step completely exhausted.

A big pecan tree stood in front of the house, its wide-spreading branches completely shading the front yard. Under this tree three of Popsy’s piccaninnies had romped, and countless generations of hound puppies had rolled in the dust, and scratched in the sand at its roots.

To Popsy’s left was the big stone spring-house, the roof entirely gone, and leaves and branches had blown into the four walls and choked the stream which flowed from the hillside.

“I been aimin’ to fix dat roof,” Popsy murmured. “It ’pears like I cain’t hardly find time to do nothin’, I got to wuck fer de white folks so hard.”

He turned and looked behind him.

Two doors opened out upon the front porch, and the two rooms visible to him were furnished. Having seen the furniture in Scootie’s cabin, he recognized it now, and thought it was the furniture of his old home fifty years before.