Part 9

“I ain’t got no money, white folks,” Mustard declared. “You-all ax Marse Tom! An’ Marse Tom say me not to let nobody in dis sto’--”

“Aw, come off!” another voice exclaimed. “You ain’t been sleeping through all this racket. Tell us where the bag of money is!”

“Befo’ Gawd, white folks!” Mustard replied. “I ain’t got no bag of nothin’.”

Then Mustard saw Colonel Gaitskill. “Bless gracious, Marse Tom!” he pleaded. “Come here and fotch me away from dese pesticatin’ white gemmans. Dey examinates me ’bout money like I done sold all de Nigger-Heel cotton ’thout turnin’ in de tickets--”

Colonel Gaitskill whispered to Flournoy.

“Put him in jail, John, and after the crowd disperses, we’ll slip around there and talk to him.”

Flournoy promptly acted upon this suggestion, and on the way picked up Pap Curtain, now restored to consciousness--Dr. Shuttle had had better luck with Pap--and incarcerated them both.

The crowd followed and watched the sheriff until he locked the two negroes behind the bars.

“Nothing more doing to-night, friends,” he announced in his drawly voice. “We’ll all go to bed and discuss the matter to-morrow. Good-night.”

He walked down the street toward his home. The crowd gathered in little groups, talked for a few minutes and dissolved.

Colonel Gaitskill returned to the store, issued orders to his clerks concerning the disposition of the Skull’s body, and went home.

Just at daybreak Sunday morning, Gaitskill and Flournoy, after another fruitless search for the lost money, entered the jail.

They found Mustard and Pap Curtain sitting side by side, steeped in deepest gloom. Gaitskill became the spokesman:

“Where were you all last night, Mustard?”

“I wus in de sto’-house, Marse Tom. I didn’t leave dat place a minute till de white folks tuck me to jail.”

“What did you do after I left?”

“At de fust offstartin’, I et.”

“What did you eat?” Gaitskill asked, wondering what food could produce slumber as profound as Mustard seemed to have experienced.

“I et two cans of sawdines, an’ a can of devilish ham, an’ a hunk of cheese.”

“What else?”

“I et some crackers an’ some beelony sausage, an’ two awanges, an’ fo’ bananers, an’ a box of candy.”

“What else?”

“Nothin’ else, Marse Tom. Of co’se, I kinder nibbled aroun’ a little. I foun’ some raisins an’ a diffunt kind of cheese whut smelt like somepin dead to me, an’ some cakes wid white icin’ on de top, an’ a can of oystyers.”

“Did you get enough to satisfy your appetite?”

“Satisfy--oh, yes, suh, I felt powerful well fed.”

The sheriff broke into a loud laugh.

“No use to cackle, Mister Johnnie. I’s tellin’ de trufe. I shore had a plenty.”

“What did you do next?” Gaitskill inquired.

“I fotch out one of dem long Perique seegaws an’ lit up.”

Both white men had begun to laugh. Mustard knew there was no harm coming to a negro from white men with the giggles. So he dismissed his fears and became expansive in his remarks:

“Dem Perique seegaw stogies ain’t as good as dey looks, Marse Tom. No man ain’t got a sucker in his mouf strong enough to make ’em draw, an’ when dey does draw, no man ain’t got no cornstitution powerful enough to stan’ de smoke.”

“What did you do next, Mustard?”

“I laid down on dem oat-sacks an’ went to sleep.”

Gaitskill had known Mustard so long that he could read the negro’s mind like a book. Although no question had been asked about the robbery, he was sure that Mustard had nothing to do with it. Then he began to explain to Mustard:

“Somebody robbed my store last night, Mustard.”

“Lawdymussy, Marse Tom! Bad luck is shore kotch you by de forelock. I’s powerful sorry to hear dem bad news.”

“The man who blew open the safe was killed in a fight, but we can’t find the bag of money,” Gaitskill continued.

“Dar now!” Mustard declared with unction. “Mo’ bad luck! It ’pears like it’s jes’ sorrer piled on top of sorrer in dis here grief-strucken-down worl’. I’s shore sorry, Marse Tom--”

“The reason I wanted you to sleep in that store was to guard that safe.”

“Hol’ on dar, Marse Tom,” Mustard said, coming quickly to his own defense. “You didn’t say me no words ’bout dat safe. All you said wus: ‘I want you to sleep in dis sto’ to-night.’ Ain’t dat so?”

“Yes.”

“Well, suh, I done it. I done it fur a fack. I done jes’ whut you tole me. I sleeped in de sto’.”

“That’s a fact,” Flournoy chuckled, imitating the negro’s mode of speech: “Dat’s whut he done!”

“I’se sorry, Marse Tom,” Mustard said, “but I ain’t to blame.”

Sheriff Flournoy looked at his watch.

“Look here, Tom,” he said. “If we are going to find the money, we’d better let this sorry son of sorrow skedaddle. He ain’t got it.”

Mustard showed that he favored the sheriff’s suggestion by rising to his feet with alacrity.

“Mister Sheriff Johnnie--” Pap Curtain, who had been a silent listener, began plaintively.

“Shut up, Pap,” the sheriff interrupted. “You can come, too. I can’t keep a nigger in jail for falling down and bumping his head.”

The four walked out of the jail door together. At the door Mustard asked:

“Marse Tom, please, suh, dem white gemmans pestered me so stout las’ night dat I couldn’t git my hat an’ my cawnet-hawn befo’ dey tuck me to jail. Will you open de sto’ so I kin git ’em?”

Consenting to this request, Gaitskill opened the door, and said:

“Go in and get them, Mustard.”

A minute later, within the store, there was a loud whoop and a wailing cry:

“Oo-oo-ee! Oh, my blessid gracious goodness! He’p, Marse Tom, fer Gawd’s sake!”

The two white men ran into the store and found Prophet down upon his knees, hiding the horror before him by shielding his eyes with his hands, which was the still form of Slatey the Skull outstretched upon a cooling-board in the office.

Mustard had found his hat near his pallet of oat-sacks, but his beloved cornet was on top of a desk in the office.

“Get up, Mustard,” Gaitskill commanded, striking him with his foot. “This is the man who blew open the safe.”

The big-hearted, giant-bodied sheriff gazed upon the criminal, then stepped over and felt the emaciated hands and arms.

“He was as frail as a girl, Tom,” he said, with a note of pity in his voice. “But he fought like a snake. I simply had to crush him.”

“Oh, lawdymussy, take me away from dis here terr’ble place!” Mustard bawled, kneeling before the broken office safe as before an altar.

Handing the negro his cornet, Gaitskill made him rise, and followed him to the door, where Pap Curtain stood pop-eyed and trembling.

“Marse Tom,” Mustard quavered, “I’s gwine leave dis land of sorrer. I ain’t never comin’ back no mo’ escusin’ you come atter me an’ fotch me back.”

“Me, too!” Pap Curtain piped.

The two white men watched the progress of the two negroes as they hastened down the street.

“Mustard didn’t have a thing to do with it,” Flournoy said.

Gaitskill nodded his assent.

IV

THE CONQUEST OF KERLERAC

“Marse Tom say I warn’t to blame and Sheriff Flournoy turned me loose. But dem white gemmans whut kicked me an’ blimblammed me in de sto’house las’ night ain’t say _nothin’_. Mebbe dey’s gwine hang me yit. I dunno. I ain’t gwine be aroun’ handy till dey gits deir minds sottled dat they _ain’t_,” Mustard Prophet declared.

“Ef dey finds out dat you and me wus bofe in dat house stuffin’ ourse’ves wid vittles, dey’ll take a notion dat dey _am_,” Pap Curtain asserted.

“I’s done heerd de call of de migrashun nigger, Pap,” Mustard said mournfully.

“Go wid me to my cabin an’ lemme git my trombone-hawn,” Pap replied. “Den I’ll mosey wid you.”

The two spent the day under the willows on the banks of the Dorfoche Bayou, lamenting their luck.

“Pap,” Mustard said, “de good Book say dat troubles is seasoning. Pussimmons ain’t good till dey’s fros’-bit. But it ’pears to me like I done had my sheer of sorrer.”

“Me, too,” Pap agreed. “Now I argufies dat de only fitten occupation for a sorrowful man is fishin’. Less go ketch some grasshoppers and see kin we land a few trouts.”

“All right,” Mustard said. “But I favors fishin’ to’rds de railroad bridge, because we’s gwine ketch de souf-boun’ freight.”

Just at dark, the whistle of the freight train screeched for the Dorfoche crossing. Mustard and Pap tossed their poles into the middle of the stream and ten minutes later were aboard an empty freight car, nursing their musical instruments in their laps, bound for an unknown destination.

The fact that the side door of the car which they had caught was open would have published to an experienced traveler that that particular car was not going very far.

When Mustard and Pap woke up, they thought at first that the train had stopped.

Then peeping out cautiously, they ascertained that the engine had sidetracked their car and gone on. Finding themselves in the middle of an immense sugar plantation, they climbed on top of the car to reconnoiter.

Their first familiar sight was a broad, muddy river.

“Dar now!” Pap exulted. “Dat’s ole Massasap. Home’s up de ribber.”

“I bet dis here plantation ain’t fur from some town,” Mustard reasoned. “Less hoof it up de river an’ see kin we find some place whut ain’t so lonesome.”

Picking up their musical instruments, they walked to the levee and turned upstream.

“I smells Tickfall,” Mustard muttered, sniffing the air. “’Tain’t no matter how fur it is, dis river goes past it.”

“I hopes Tickfall ain’t smellin’ us,” Pap declared. “I’s got it proned into me dat we made a good riddunce outen dat place.”

Two miles up the levee and around a bend in the river, they came to a little town squatting like a bullfrog under the protection levee, its gutters running constantly with the seepage water from the dike, its few houses clothed in river fog and standing on high foundations like stilts, the paint upon them cracking and their eaves dripping with moisture.

“Dis here town looks like a spindle-shanked crane,” Mustard declared in disgust. “Dem legs under dem houses is shore fixed fer wadin’.”

Then a prominent building came into view, and Pap Curtain stopped like a man turned to stone.

“I knows dis here town,” Pap declared. “Dey calls it Kerlerac.”

“How fur from Tickfall?” Mustard inquired.

“Thuty mile.”

“Come on, den. Less meet deir ’quaintance.”

“Naw, _suh_!” Pap protested. “You see dat high buildin’ over dar? Two nigger womans helt me up in front of dat Red El’phunt s’loon an’ robbed me of a dollar an’ fo’ bits. One of ’em helt a razor at my neck, an’ de yuther tuck my loose change.”

“Dat don’t make no diffunce,” argued Mustard. “Dey ain’t dar now.”

“I reckin not!” Pap said positively. “I kotch ’em when dey wusn’t lookin’ and helt ’em by deir hair and bumped deir heads togedder! An’ what you reckin dem womans done? Dey paid a white lawyer my own good money to git me in a lawsuit wid de cote-house, an’ dey put me in de chain-gang fer six mont’s.”

“Hear dat, now!” Mustard exclaimed. “Bad luck!”

“Shore wus. But I didn’t stay dar no time. I lef’ dat chain-gang in fo’ days. Dat’s how come I ain’t so glad to see dis town agin,” Pap said. Then after a moment’s thought, he suggested: “I tells you how to do, Mustard. You take yo’ cawnet-hawn an’ go out an’ pick de town.”

“Pick it?”

“Stop on all de cornders, play ’em a toon, den pass de hat,” Pap explained. “I’ll set down here an’ res’ my mind till you gits a little money, an’ in de nex’ town we goes to I’ll do de pickin’.”

So Mustard walked up the levee toward the town alone.

In the Red Elephant saloon, he said to the bartender:

“Mister, dese here white genmans need wakin’ up dis mawnin’. Lemme toot a toon or two?”

“Crack away, nigger.”

A few experimental strains issued from the cornet, followed by a high, piercing note; then Mustard started the music of a song everywhere dear to the heart of the Mississippi River negro:

Oh, honey, when you hear dat roan mule whicker; When you see Mr. Sun turnin’ pale an’ gittin’ sicker Den it’s time fer to handle dis job a little quicker Ef you wanter git a smell of de boss-man’s jug of licker. Git up an’ move aroun’! Set dem han’s to swingin’ Befo’ de boss-man comes aroun’ a dangin’ an’ a dingin’. Git up an’ shout aloud! Let de white folks hear you singin’-- Hey! O--Hi--O! Hear dem voices ringin’!

All the morning in various sections of the town Pap Curtain, hiding under the levee, could hear the strains of Mustard’s cornet.

Just at noon, Mustard came back, walking slowly, his good-natured face burdened with grief and disappointment, his defeat and dejection revealed even by the dragging of his ponderous feet.

“Whut ails you, Mustard?” Pap inquired solicitously.

“I’m a son of sorrer, Pap,” Mustard wailed. “Nobody but de good Marster kin ’preciate what bad luck I’s had.”

“Whut come to pass?” Pap inquired with interest.

“At de fust offstartin’ I blowed my hawn in de Red El’phant till de white folks gimme a dollar, all in nickles and dimes. Den a white man follered me out when I lef’ an’ tole me ef I would loant him dat money he would show me how to make it disappear.

“Of co’se, I loant it to him, an’ he put it in his pocket an’ said escuse him a minute, an’ he went away an’ I ain’t seed dat white man sence dat time.”

Pap Curtain gazed at Mustard with an expression of mingled pity and disgust. Mustard continued his tale of woe:

“Two white kunnels gimme fo’ bits apiece to play _Dixie_ fer ’em. I had dat money changed over to a paper dollar so it wouldn’t roll away like de yuther dollar done. Den anodder white man come along an’ say ef I gib him dat paper dollar he’d show me how to double it.

“Of co’se, I needed it doubled right quick because I wus already behine one dollar, so I loant it to him to double it. He jes’ folded it over one time; den he shet one eye at me an’ stuck my dollar down in his pocket.”

“Didn’t you ax him to give it back?” Curtain asked.

“Naw, suh, dat was a powerful brave-lookin’ man an’ he acted like he mought ’a’ fought a sawmill ef he wus peeved up.”

“Mustard, you is a plum’, nachel-bawn, stark-naked fool,” Pap informed him.

“I agrees wid dem sentiments,” Mustard said sorrowfully. “Lawdy, my foots shore hurts me scandalous. Lemme set down.”

“Ain’t you got no money a-tall?” Pap inquired peevishly.

“Naw,” Mustard informed him.

“Is you had anything to eat?”

“Naw,” Mustard lamented. “An’ I’s so hungry I could eat a houn’-dog biled in soap grease.”

The two sat for a moment, looking out at the river. Then Mustard suggested:

“You go out an’ try ’em a few toons, Pap. I axed eve’ybody I met ef dey knowed a nigger named you, an’ dey said dey didn’t.”

V

TROUBLE’S TWIN.

All the afternoon Pap Curtain played trombone solos on the streets of Kerlerac while Mustard Prophet rested his feet.

About four o’clock Mustard and Pap slipped into a negro eating-house and ordered food.

“Whar you cullud pussons come from?” Smart Durret, the negro restaurant keeper, inquired as his patrons consumed large quantities of fried catfish.

“We stays at Tickfall,” Mustard answered.

“When did you-alls arrive down?”

“We come dis mawnin’,” Pap responded.

At this point another occupant of the restaurant rose from a table in one corner of the room, gesticulated mysteriously and forcibly to Smart Durret and went out of a rear door into the kitchen. The mulatto proprietor followed.

“Don’t ax so many questions, Smart,” was the prompt advice of the little negro to the mulatto. “I wucks fer Sheriff Ulloa, an’ I heard tell dis mawnin’ dat somebody robbed a sto’ in Tickfall an’ dey’s offered a hunderd-dollar reward-bill fer who done it.”

Smart Durret’s mud-colored eyes opened wide.

“Dat sto’ was robbed Saddy night,” the little negro continued. “Dem two coons come to town dis mawnin’ early. Dey been takin’ turns hidin’ on de yuther side of de levee all day. Dem niggers is shore it.”

“Is you gwine tell de sheriff, Solly?” the mulatto asked.

“Naw,” Solly exclaimed in disgusted tones. “I figgers dat you an’ me kin kotch ’em out alone, arrest ’em ourse’ves an’ ’vide up de reward-bill even.”

“Dat’s de music!” Smart exclaimed, admiringly. “You keep track of ’em an’ you an’ me’ll git togedder on it to-night.”

Thus advised, Solly Saddler, amateur detective, shadowed Mustard Prophet and Pap Curtain all the afternoon and when darkness came was prepared to report their location to Smart Durret.

“Now, Solly,” Smart advised, “we ain’t got no permit to ’rest dese niggers accawdin’ to de law. So I argufies dat de best way to do is to git in a fight wid ’em, sen’ somebody fer de cornstable, an’ let him tote us all to jail. Den we kin esplain to de sheriff whut we knows, an’ he’ll let us out because you’re a frien’ of his’n.”

“Smart,” Solly exclaimed, “when yo’ mind goes off it kicks like a muzzle-loader. Dat plan’ll hit de bull’s-eye. But ef you ain’t got no objections, I’ll be de one whut goes atter de cornstable. Dem two coons looks powerful perilous to me.”

“All right,” Smart acquiesced reluctantly. “But don’t you lose no time gittin’ dat cornstable. I ’speck you better fetch de sheriff, too.”

They separated to meet an hour later in the Chicken-Wing saloon, a negro resort where Mustard and Pap were loudly advertising their presence by playing duets.

The plan of the two conspirators to start trouble was simple but effective.

Solly Saddler entered the place with a bucket of red paint and a broad paint-brush. Smart Durret came in with a large bottle filled with a foamy, milk-colored liquid--soap-suds.

The two avoided each other for a time, then they got together.

“Whut’s dat you got in dat bottle, Smart?” Solly inquired in a nigger-minstrel tone.

“Dis here is a new kind of cleaner fer clothes,” Smart answered. “It takes all de dirt spots, grease spots, fade spots, an’ paint spots offen clothes, suits, dresses, an’ sich like.”

“Dat stuff won’t conjure loose no paint spots,” Solly argued, flourishing the bucket of paint at Smart.

“I bet yer fo’ bits,” Smart answered promptly.

Then followed a heated discussion of the merits of the paint remover. The crowd slowly gathered around the disputants, and Solly gradually worked his way around until he stood directly in front of Mustard Prophet.

Setting the bucket of paint on the floor and stooping over it, he began to stir it with his brush while the argument waxed hotter and hotter. Then Solly arose, with the dripping paint-brush in his hand.

Then with a quick turn and flourish, he swiped the dripping paint-brush up and down the front of Mustard Prophet’s clothes.

“Now, nigger Durret,” Solly bawled dramatically, “lemme see you take de paint off dis cullud brudder’s coat!”

Mustard reeled backward to escape the paint, a guffaw of loud laughter swept around the circle, and Solly followed Mustard, still busy plying the brush.

Mustard was a sight.

Then Mustard got busy. Solly felt a hard hand on the back of his neck, lost his grip on the brush, and Mustard caught it.

Irresistibly, Mustard led the struggling negro back to the red paint, held him there as easily as a man can hold a wiggling fish suspended from a hook, and proceeded to paint him red, frescoing both the garments and the man within them.

Solly bawled and shrieked and struggled and bit, but Mustard did not release him until the bucket was exhausted of paint.

Solly, too, was a sight.

Then Smart Durret entered the fracas. Seizing his bottle of magic cleanser by the neck and manipulating it like a club, he struck it over the dome of Prophet’s head.

But the soapy neck of the bottle was slick and slipped from Durret’s hand, bounced from the armor-plated skull of Mustard Prophet like a rubber ball, and was smashed to fragments halfway across the room.

Pap Curtain, in his turn, came to the aid of his friend. Picking up the paint-bucket with a circular motion of his long arm, he brought it down upon the head of Smart Durret. The bucket did not bounce, but Durret did.

Deciding it was high time to go for the constable and the sheriff, Solly departed with expedition, deeply regretting that the State militia and the Federal army were not available in this hour of need.

But Smart and Solly had loyal friends, and in a moment Mustard and Pap stood with their backs to the wall, each in possession of a heavy chair, holding it like a lion-tamer to keep the crowd from rushing them.

“Don’t scrouge, niggers!” Mustard bawled, as he held his chair poised for battle. “I done kilt so many coons I can’t count ’em. A feather fell from a buzzard’s wing an’ hit me on de head when I wus little, which am a sign dat my path is crossed wid dead men. Come right on an’ git your’n!”

Then for a minute Mustard and Pap were the center of a whirling wheel of legs and arms and hands and heads; holding their chairs before them they charged through the ring like two angry bears. Men doubled up before them and went down and they took a side-swipe at the rest as they passed.

They had reached the door in safety and were just about to pass through when the door was blocked by the portly form of the town constable.

The combatants came to a full stop. The battle was ended.

“Dat’s dem, Mister Rogers!” Solly Saddler squealed, as he pointed out Pap and Mustard. “Dey wus peckin’ on me an’ Smart Durret.”

“You four bucks march along in front of me,” the officer announced briefly. “Go to jail.”

At the jail door Mustard stopped to make a plea which was ably seconded by the others.

“Please, boss, don’t put us togedder.”

“Naw,” Solly exclaimed earnestly. “Let me an’ Smart go upstairs. Lock us away from dem terr’ble mens!”

“Go upstairs, then,” Rogers said.

A minute later, Pap and Mustard stood together behind the bars.

“I done been in jail two times in two days,” Mustard mourned. “Sorrer’s done kotch me again.”

“Me, too,” Pap lamented. “Bad luck’s got me by de lef’ hind leg wid a downhill pull!”

“Same back at you, brudders!” a strange voice from the darkness in tragic tones. “I’s Trouble’s twin!”

Having no charge against the four negroes except disorderly conduct, the constable had merely separated the combatants, allowing each pair the freedom of the entire floor. Mustard and Pap had believed that they were alone upon this lower floor until the strange voice spoke.

Their hair stood up in superstitious fear, but the voice spoke again:

“Howdy, brudders!”

“Who dat talkin’ to hisse’f?” Mustard asked in frightened tones. “Whar is you at? Name yo’ name!”

“Dey calls me Mobile,” the stranger confessed, coming forward. Then he proposed in a whisper: “Less go in one of dese little cages an’ set an’ talk.”

“Naw,” Pap replied forcibly. “De wind might blow dat iron do’ shet. I likes de outside.”

So, instead, the three groped their way down the corridor and sat down on the window-sill, using the grating behind them as a rest for their backs.

“My name is Mustard Prophet.”

“I’s Pap Curtain.”

“Huh,” was the surprised grunt from Mobile.

“Which?” Pap and Mustard asked in duet.

“Whar you-alls from?” Mobile asked.

“Tickfall.”

There was a long silence.

“Whut dey got you in fer?” Mobile asked next.

“A nigger painted my clothes in de Chicken-Wing an’ I fit him to a finish,” Mustard chuckled. “Pap helped.”

“Oo-ee, brudders!” Mobile exclaimed mournfully. “I bet dey gives you ’bout fo’teen years fer dat. Dis is a _mean_ town to niggers! I got to dis town on Sunday mawnin’, and got drunk, and got in a rookus in de Chicken-Wing, an’ dey put me in jail befo’ dinner-time an’ tuck all my money off me--an’ I had ’bout fifteen cents!”

“Dat’s too bad,” Mustard sighed, leaning back against the grating behind him. Then he sprang forward suddenly and exclaimed: “Looky here, Mobile! De bars on dis here winder is plum’ loose!”

“Suttinly,” Mobile whispered.

“How come?”

“I sawed on ’em all Sunday atternoon, an’ Sunday night, an’ all to-day, an’ a leetle bit to-night,” Mobile told him.

“You ain’t figgerin’ to git out, is you?” Mustard inquired innocently.