Part 2

Little Bit was mystified and terrified. He followed the shrieking white boy through the woods. Org ran into the open field, uttering a terrified wail at each jump. His fright became contagious, and while Little Bit did not have the least idea what it was all about, he added his wails to Org’s lamentations, and the woods echoed with the sounds of woe.

They scrambled over the fence and into the yard and ran screaming up the steps and into the house, just as Popsy had suggested that they hunt a place to sit down.

Mustard ran into the hall and confronted two boys, naked as the day they were born, both screaming at the top of their voices.

“Shut up, you idjit chillun!” Mustard howled. “Whut de debbil ails you? Whar is yo’-all’s clothes at?”

The terrified white boy ran to Mustard, threw both arms around his waist, and buried his face in Mustard’s coat-tail to shut out the awful sight. But he did not stop his screaming.

“Hey, you brats!” Mustard whooped. “Shut up yo’ heads! Whut you howlin’ about? Hush!”

Both boys suddenly stopped screaming, and there was a moment of silence. Mustard waited for them to get their breath and explain. All sorts of things had happened in Mustard’s variegated career, but this was new, to have two boys come prancing into his house without a stitch of clothes on their bodies, both screaming like maniacs. Little Bit was the first to catch his breath and speak.

“Whut ails you, Marse Org?” he asked in that soft, drawling, pathetic tone, whose minor note is the heritage of generations of servile ancestors. “Is a snake done bit you? Is you done fall straddle of a allergater when you jumped in de water? How come you ack dis-a-way?”

These questions served as a sufficient explanation to Mustard for their lack of clothes. Something had frightened them while they were swimming in the bayou.

Org opened his eyes and peeped around Mustard’s hip at Little Bit. Then he stepped aside and took a long look at the colored boy’s ebony body.

“Why, Little Bit,” Org exclaimed, “you are black all over your body!”

“Suttinly,” Little Bit agreed heartily. “I’s black as de bottom of a deep hole in de night-time. I’s a real _cullud_ pusson, I is.”

“But—but—I thought you would be white under your clothes,” Org exclaimed.

“Naw, suh, I ain’t never been no color but black, inside an’ out, on top an’ down under,” Little Bit chuckled.

“But you said you were the cap’ns white nigger,” Org argued.

“Dat don’t mean white in color,” Little Bit explained. “De cap’n, he jes’ calls me dat because I remembers my raisin’ an’ does my manners an’ acks white.”

“It ’pears to me like you boys is bofe fergot yo’ raisin’ an’ yo’ manners,” Mustard snorted. “Whut you mean by comin’ up to my house as naked as a new-hatched jay-bird? ’Spose dey wus lady folks in dis house—whut dey ain’t, bless Gawd! Wouldn’t you two pickaninnies cut a caper runnin’ aroun’ here wid nothin’ on but yo’selfs an’ yo’ own skins?”

“I was so scared I left my clothes on the creek,” Org explained shamefacedly.

“I’ll go back wid you-alls. I don’t b’lieve you bofe got sense enough to find yo’ gyarments,” Mustard grumbled. “Whar wus you-all swimmin’ at?”

As the three walked out, Popsy Spout stood for a moment, his vacant eyes wandering over a room full of the most astounding accumulation of junk any collector ever assembled. It all meant nothing to Popsy. He was tired, awfully tired. The ride from town had wearied him, Mustard’s talk had wearied him, the pickaninnies on the plantation seemed to make a lot of noise. A long time ago he had asked Mustard to find him some place to sit down. He decided he would prefer to lie down. He needed rest and calm.

But Mustard was gone somewhere. He could hear his bawling voice getting farther away from the house all the time. He might be gone for a long time. He couldn’t sit down on that pile of junk. So Popsy walked feebly to the door and stood looking into the hall.

As he put his hand up to the door-jamb to support himself, he discovered that he was holding something. It was a green-plush box. He wondered what the box was. It was probably something, he could not remember what.

He put the box in the pocket of his coat, found a rocking chair, sat down and went to sleep.

V

THE PLUSH BOX

Org walked back to the bayou under the escort of Mustard Prophet. He seemed unable to take his eyes off of Little Bit’s shiny black skin. He was slow to overcome his amazement at his discovery that a negro was black all over.

When they were riding home in big Mustard’s farm-wagon, he referred to it again.

“You’re a negro, ain’t you, Little Bit?” he asked, speaking in a softly apologetic tone, as if fearing to cause offense.

“Suttin!” Little Bit laughed. “I’s a black Affikin nigger. Anybody dat looks how dark complected I is kin see dat.”

“I never saw many colored persons in my life,” Org explained.

“You ain’t had no eyes ef you ain’t seed no niggers,” Little Bit chuckled. “Niggers is eve’ywhar. Gawd made ’em in de night, made ’em in a hurry an’ fergot to make ’em white. Dar’s niggers in heaven, an’ dars even plenty niggers in hell.”

At the Shin Bone eating-house, Mustard helped Popsy Spout down from the wagon and the two boys jumped to the ground. Popsy entered the restaurant, walked feebly over to a table and seated himself with a thankful sigh. He took out his pipe and placed it upon the table at his elbow, then spread a red bandana handkerchief over his head to keep the flies from disturbing him. Then he sank into a restful state of dreamy inanity, his mind just as near empty as it is possible for anything to be, considering the fact that nature abhors a vacuum.

In one corner of the room, the proprietor, Shin Bone, was engaged in some interesting experiments with loaded dice. He seemed never weary of his task as he rolled the cubes across the table, retrieved them again, and repeated. He tried to familiarize himself with their vagaries, to study their oddities and eccentricities, and in his imagination he planned many victories and great winnings through the aid of these pet bones.

The process was absorbing to him. His eyes popped out, the whites showing in a wide ring. His breathing was quick and husky as he shook the dice, and he muttered prayers and imprecations and incantations. Sometimes he threw the dice with one hand, sometimes with the other; he used certain luck charms, changing them from one pocket to the other, practising and experimenting with every sort of “conjure,” for he expected those little white cubes with the black spots to bring him the money with which to make a loud noise in Tickfall colored society.

Popsy roused himself from his dreamy vacuity and felt in his pocket for his tobacco-pouch. He would take a little smoke before dinner. He found the tobacco-pouch, also something else.

He brought forth a green-plush box and looked at it curiously. He opened it with hands which shook from senile palsy and examined its contents. It was a rabbit-foot surmounted with a silver cap on one end. He wondered where he had acquired the thing.

“Come here, Shinny!” he called. “Look whut I done found on myse’f.”

Shin Bone crossed the room, gazed at the treasure for a moment, and gave a surprised grunt.

“Whar did you git dis rabbit-foot?” he inquired suspiciously.

“I dunno, Shinny,” the old man replied in a complaining voice. “Whut is it fur?”

“Lots of folks has rabbit-foots,” Shin said. “I don’t b’lieve in ’em. I got four, an’ dey don’t fotch me no luck. Whar did you git dis’n?”

“I dunno.”

“Whar you been at to-day?” Shin asked.

“Well, suh, early dis mawnin’ I went to de Shoofly chu’ch an’ conversed de Revun Vinegar Atts a little; atter dat, I went out to de Nigger-Heel wid Mustard Prophet—ah—dat’s whar I got dis here foot. Mustard gib it to me. He esplained a whole lot about it an’ tole me dat Marse Tom gib it to him, an’ he passed it on.”

“Whut yo gwine do wid it?” Shin asked.

“’Tain’t no good to me,” Popsy whined, working at his tobacco-pouch and shaking some tobacco in his hand. “De only luck-charm I b’lieves in is de chu’ch. Ef de good Lawd is on yo’ side, who kin be agin you?”

Shin Bone knew better than to get Popsy started in a discussion of religion. His conversation on that theme was interminable. Besides, the plush box lying on the table between them had awakened several interesting trains of thought:

First, he knew Popsy had a trick of putting things into his pocket and walking off with them, forgetting where he acquired them, and even failing to remember what they were for. Second, he remembered that Mustard Prophet had often attributed much of his good fortune to the possession of a rabbit-foot. Thirdly, he knew that Colonel Gaitskill also had a rabbit-foot, for he had often heard him refer to it in his hearing and in the presence of the other negroes.

Now, did Popsy inadvertently take possession of Gaitskill’s rabbit-foot? Or did he absent-mindedly walk off with Mustard’s foot? Or did Mustard give his famous luck-charm away? Shin doubted this last supposition. If a luck-charm is good, it is very, very good. Or did Mustard steal Gaitskill’s rabbit-foot and Popsy take it from Mustard?

Popsy lighted his pipe and began to smoke. Shin Bone decided that he could make nothing of the mystery. A rabbit-foot was no good to him. He had tried them before. But loaded dice, now—he pulled the “bones” from his pocket and renewed his former operations.

In the kitchen a bell rang. A number of patrons who had been lingering outside came through the door and seated themselves at the table. Shin Bone arose to bring in the dinner. Popsy knocked the ashes from his pipe and got ready to eat.

As for Org and Little Bit, they did not get back to the Gaitskill home until the sun had sunk below the line of the tree-tops. And not until Orren Randolph Gaitskill beheld his sister sitting upon the porch did he think of the errand on which she had sent him ten hours before.

His small hand investigated his trouser-pocket, to see if he was still in possession of the fifty-cent piece. He might have lost it when he tossed aside his garments on the banks of the Cooley bayou.

“Org!” Virginia called sharply. “Where are those stamps?”

Org’s nervous fingers caressed the half-dollar in his pocket. His mind reached out like the tentacles of an octopus, grasping after an excuse.

“Where are my stamps?” she repeated.

“Er—ah—I went down-town,” Org began. “I went down-town—and—er—ah—Miss Paunee, that mustang woman in the post-office—she told me—she said——”

“Well?” Virginia’s tone was icy.

“Miss Paunee—she told me—ah—she said she didn’t have no two-cent stamps; she had sold out.”

If the glance of a sister’s eye could kill, most brothers would now be dead. Org survived the look she gave him, and sheepishly offered her the fifty-cent piece.

“You don’t need no stamps, Gince,” Org said soothingly. “Them guys you left behind ain’t worth writing letters to.”

“Please keep your opinions to yourself,” his sister advised. “Where have you spent the day?”

“I have been to the Nigger-Heel plantation with Little Bit. Little Bit is a colored person and a very good friend. A colored man named Mustard took me out in a wagon and brought me back,” Org informed her. Then eagerly: “Say, Gince, do you know that a negro is black all over his body, even under his clothes?”

“Where did you meet these blacks?” Virginia asked, avoiding Org’s question as to the color-line.

“I met Little Bit at the foot of the hill. He told me he was the captain’s white negro. I met Mustard Prophet in front of the Hen-Scratch saloon in Dirty-Six. We picked up Popsy Spout at Shin Bone’s hot-cat stand in Hell’s Half-Acre!”

Under this appalling summary of information, Miss Virginia reeled back in dismay.

“No doubt,” she said weakly.

“If you want to save stamps, Gince,” Org suggested eagerly, “you better write to Little Bit’s captain and let me carry the notes for you. I saw the captain when we were coming home. He’s got a’ automobile as big as a street-car. He was in the army and a German shot him——”

A slight flush appeared on Miss Virginia’s cheek. It spread slowly, like the unfurling of some flag—the star-spangled banner for instance.

“I don’t care to hear the personal history of the acquaintances you have made to-day,” Miss Virginia interrupted.

“His name is Captain Kerley Kerlerac, Gince,” Org persisted. “Little Bit told me. Little Bit, my colored friend, is the captain’s pet coon.”

VI

THE RAFT

In Tickfall, religion was reduced to the least common divisor. That is to say, there was one church for the white people and one for the black. The white children felt that they were imposed upon by the older and more dominating members of their families in that they were made to go to Sunday-school, whereas, the black children were permitted by their parents to grow up in that ignorance which is bliss.

Org had no particular love for religious instruction. All the time that he was trying to learn a sufficient portion of that day’s lesson to satisfy his teacher, he was thinking of a buzzard’s nest which Little Bit had told him about, a buzzard’s nest which contained two baby buzzards, both of them white as snow. If that buzzard’s nest had been concealed in some Sunday-school book—but Org never found anything interesting in a Sunday-school book. What little he knew of that day’s portion of the Scripture had been imparted to him by the laborious efforts of his sister, and he was now walking down the hill toward the church, mumbling his newly acquired information to himself.

“Whar you gwine, Marse Org?”

“Sunday-school. Come and go with me.”

“Ain’t fitten,” Little Bit giggled. “A little black coon like me ain’t got no place in a white chu’ch. Excusin’ dat, I janitors in a saloon, an’ Sunday-schools ain’t made fer such.”

“I’ll tell you all I know about the lesson,” Org urged. “Listen: Methusalem—oldest man ever was: nine hundred and sixty-nine years old—was not, for God took him—gathered to his fathers——”

“How ole you say he wus gwine on when he died?” Little Bit asked.

“Nine hundred and sixty-nine years.”

“Whoop-ee! Whut did de ole gizzard die of when he died?”

“I dunno,” Org replied. “He died of smoking cigarettes, I reckon. If you go with me, we’ll ask the teacher.”

“I mought stan’ outside behime de chu’ch while you axed,” Little Bit said doubtfully. “Who am dis here teacher?”

“Captain Kerley Kerlerac.”

“I ain’t gwine to no Sonday-school to ax my boss nothin’,” Little Bit said positively. “Dat white man don’t ’low no niggers to pesticate him wid ’terrogations. I knows!”

Org was not willing to part with his companion. He could have a great deal more fun with Little Bit than he could contemplating the career of a man who had lived nearly a thousand years and had been dead for several thousand more. Besides, he was a little skeptical of the alleged age of that old party. So when Org came to a corner where he should have turned to the right, he turned to the left, and from that time on there was a vacant chair in the Sunday-school.

The old cotton-shed on the edge of the Gaitskill sand pit was the first thing to attract the attention of the pair. In that storehouse, they found an old cotton-truck, and a door which had been torn off the hinges and was lying on the floor near the office.

They found amusement for a while by pulling each other around on the truck. Then they sat down in the door to cool off and gazed out over an expanse of water which formed a shallow pond in the sand pit.

“If we could get this old broken-down door over to that pond, we could have a raft to ride on,” Org remarked.

“’Tain’t no trouble,” Little Bit replied. “Jes’ load de door onto de cotton-truck an’ push de truck down to de pond.”

“You are certainly intell’gent, Little Bit,” Org exclaimed admiringly as he sprang to his feet.

“Pushin’ things an’ liftin’ things an’ loadin’ things—dat’s a cullud pusson’s nachel-bawn job,” Little Bit chuckled. “’Tain’t no trouble fer a nigger to think up dat.”

“Let’s get this door on the truck and move our raft,” Org urged.

It was not hard to do. The pine door was not very heavy, and from the time they got it out of the building, the route was down hill to the edge of the pond. They pushed the truck into the water, easily floated the door off, and then tugged mightily to drag the truck back to the empty storehouse again.

They found two long poles which would serve to steer with, and raced back to the edge of the pond and climbed aboard their raft.

The door sustained them just as long as most of their weight was on their poles, and they were trying to push off. At last they worked their raft out to about four feet of water and felt free to lift their steering-poles and ride.

Then that door slowly sank under their weight until the water was up to their knees, to their waists, to their shoulders. It stopped in its downward journey when it rested on the sandy bottom, and the two lads stood on it, looking at each other with the utmost astonishment, raising their chins to keep the water out of their mouths.

“You done got yo’ nice Sunday clothes all wet,” Little Bit sighed.

“Yours are wet, too,” Org retorted.

“Dis here is my eve’y-day suit. I ain’t got no all-Sonday gyarments. I wears dese ladylike clothes all de time.”

“I’m sorry you spoilt your only suit,” Org sympathized.

“’Tain’t spiled—it’s jes’ wet,” Little Bit replied. “Whut is us gwine do now?”

“We’re both wet. We might as well have a good time,” Org suggested philosophically.

“I likes good times an’ dis’n is started off real good,” Little Bit laughed. “You git offen dis ole door an’ le’s see ef it will hold me up.”

VII

LOST BOYS

About four o’clock that afternoon somebody in the Gaitskill home asked where Orren Randolph Gaitskill was. He had not been seen since he left the house that morning to attend the Sunday-school.

Miss Virginia Gaitskill called Captain Kerley Kerlerac on the telephone and asked if Orren had been in his class that morning.

When a devilish boy happens to be the brother of an angelic girl, even a disillusioned war-veteran finds that lad possessed of qualities which he loves and admires for the boy’s sister’s sake.

Kerlerac informed her that he had missed Orren very much, that he was the brightest boy in his class, that all the others had made anxious inquiry about him, that he was about to call at the Gaitskill home to inquire if Orren was sick.

The answer which he heard to this panegyric was a giggle.

“Hello! Hello! What’s that?” he exclaimed.

The telephone clicked in his ear, indicating that she had hung up the receiver.

Kerley stood at the telephone scratching his head, a wry smile on his lips.

“I believe that giggle meant that she called me a liar,” he announced to his immortal soul. A reminiscent light beamed in his eyes. “She hasn’t changed in the past fifteen years—little spitfire!”

For half an hour Miss Virginia found something else to think about besides her wandering brother, but as the evening wore on, and he did not appear, she began to get uneasy again.

“That dang boy has played hookey and gone out in the woods with that pickaninny,” Colonel Gaitskill announced.

“Oh, maybe he’s lost in the swamp!” Virginia gasped.

“No danger of that,” Gaitskill said easily. “These little niggers around here can go across that swamp like a fox. They can’t get lost.”

But as the shadows lengthened across the Gaitskill lawn the women of the household were thrown into a panic. They insisted that it was not a natural or ordinary thing for Orren to miss his meals; that a hungry boy might be having a very good time at some amusement, but he would always be willing to postpone his play to eat, resuming his play after this meal.

“That’s so,” Gaitskill admitted. “When I was a boy nothing was ever more attractive to me than the consumption of food, and I enjoy being regular at my meals now. But, maybe he ate his lunch somewhere else?”

By telephone they made inquiry of every place where they thought Orren could have eaten. He had not been seen at any of those places.

Gaitskill saw that he was going to have to get out and hunt that boy. The prospect did not appeal to him. That boy was a nuisance. If he was lost, it was good riddance. He wasn’t worth finding—let him find himself. He went to the telephone and called up Captain Kerley Kerlerac.

“Say, Kerl, where’s that damn little pet nigger of yours?”

“Haven’t seen him to-day, Colonel.”

“He’s run off somewhere with Orren, and Orren hasn’t come home yet.”

“I’ll find him,” Kerley said eagerly.

“Oh, no! Don’t trouble yourself,” Gaitskill smiled. “I just wanted to know about Little Bit.”

Gaitskill sat down with a sly grin. He was getting old, he reflected, and the strenuous life was no longer attractive. If a searching party should have to be organized, he had now laid its foundation. It was a certainty that Kerlerac would organize the party and lead the search. Good old Kerl would see that Virginia’s brother was not lost.

It does not take a rumor long to spread over a little village. In a brief time, it was known to the remotest parts of Tickfall that Little Bit and Orren Gaitskill were lost.

Little Bit’s mother, in spite of the fact that she had fourteen others just like him in her cabin, aroused all the negro section of the town by her frantic wails. She announced in a voice like a calliope that she knew that her angel child had fallen into a well, had been eaten by an alligator, had been bitten by a snake, had been drowned in a bayou, had been stolen and carried away by white folks, had been lost in the swamp—and she howled like a banshee over each one of these possibilities, and others of the same general nature as she thought of them.

A great bellow of excitement went up from all the negroes, and a band of them hurried to the home of Captain Kerlerac to inquire the latest information about Little Bit. Their excitement was contagious, and the captain caught it, the white citizens of the town were inoculated, and in an incredibly short time the town was seething with an intense desire to organize a search-party and explore the woods for the lost boys.

“We’ll wait until night, men,” Kerlerac said. “If the boys don’t come in by dark, we will go out on the Little Moccasin Road and build fires on the highway for ten miles. Wherever they may be in the swamp, they will see that trail of fire and come to it.”

“That’s the way to do it,” several approving voices spoke.

“Don’t bother Colonel Gaitskill with it,” Kerley suggested. “He’s getting too old to be running around at night and exposing himself. If the boys don’t come in by dark, I will ring the court-house bell. Meet me there.”

It had not been very long since Kerlerac had been a boy himself. He knew every spot in that vicinity which was dear to boys, white and black. He listed each one in his mind and started on a lone search to each of these places.

His automobile carried him first to all the swimming-holes, then to the old picnic-grounds, then to the old tabernacle, where the negro camp-meetings were held, to the pool where the colored members of the Shoofly church conducted their baptizings, to the old stables and sheds around the fair-grounds. Finally, he left his machine beside the road and walked across the field to the old cotton-shed beside the sand pit.

The noise of shouting and laughter came to him before he arrived upon the scene. It was no trouble to locate the two boys as they splashed and paddled and fought with water and dived to the bottom to rise with a handful of sand to throw at each other.

Time had ceased to move for those two youngsters. Sunrise and sunset were just the same to them. A score of apple-cores strewn along the sandy shore indicated that they had lunched well and were not hungry.

“Hey, you!” Kerley called.

The two boys looked up with surprise.

“Come out of that water!” Kerley commanded. “Don’t you know it is nearly night?”