Part 13

“O my chile! my chile! my baby chile!” Happy screamed, wringing her hands, walking up and down the porch floor, and stopping her walk now and then to spin around like a top. “Lawd hab mussy! My onliest baby chile!”

“Aw, hush!” Skeeter pleaded, absolutely blind to the distress of the woman. “You done mourned a plenty ’bout dat little weanlin’. He ain’t nothin’ but a two-year-ole!”

“Stole by a drunk man!” Happy whooped. “Toted away! O my po’ little baby boy--he’ll be kilt!”

“Naw!” Skeeter protested. “Shin won’t do nothin’ like dat. Shin thinks dat is his boy. He’ll fotch little Ready back as quick as he gits sober.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Happy screamed, as she turned from Skeeter and staggered into the house. “Oh!”

The agony in the mother’s voice caused Skeeter’s hair to stand on end. Inside the room Happy fell flat upon the floor unconscious.

“Gawd he’p us!” Skeeter screamed. “She’s done throwed a fit!”

He called loudly for Hopey, Mustard Prophet’s wife, then instantly remembered that she had not yet come from the Gaitskill home where she was cook. He started out of the door in a run to seek for help and met Hopey at the gate. She had heard the screams and had come in a panic.

Hopey was fat and spread out like a dumpling soaked in gravy, and was sweating like an ice pitcher from her excitement and exertion.

“Whut’s de matter, Skeeter Butts?” she howled. “All dis flurry gibs me a toothache in my stomick.”

“Happy ain’t happy no more,” Skeeter lamented. “She’s hacked!”

“Whut made her dis way?” Hopey panted, as she bent over the young mother’s prostrate form.

“She got peeved up beca’se I borrered little Ready Rocket an’ couldn’t fotch him back,” Skeeter explained.

“Go git him!” Hopey whooped. “Hurry befo’ dis nigger woman dies!”

“Huh,” Skeeter grunted. “You ack like a little nigger cub is wuth a millyum dollars!”

“Go git him!” Hopey howled.

“I don’t know whar he am!” Skeeter retorted. “Shin Bone swiped him!”

“You nachel-bawn, ignernunt _fool_!” Hopey screamed. “Shin ain’t run off nowheres! I passed de restaurant jes’ now an’ he wus settin’ in dar by hisse’f singin’ religium toons! Go git Ready!”

Skeeter shot out of the door and ran across the yard, but before he reached the street, Hopey bawled atter him:

“When dis nigger woman comes outen her fit, I’s gwine tell her all about dat plan you fixed up to make Shin steal her darlin’ chile--an’ she’ll pull yo’ hind leg off an’ beat yo’ brains out wid it!”

At the nearest corner Skeeter came to a quick stop.

“Ef Shin Bone is settin’ in his eatin’ house drunk an’ singin’ religium toons, it’s a shore sign he’d shoot me in a minute ef I tried to git dat Ready Rocket.”

He snatched off his hat, clawed at his thinly cropped hair, and sighed like the exhaust of a steamboat.

“Ain’t I in a awful mess?” he panted. “I done twisted an’ turned myse’f till I’s too crooked to walk through a tunnel--when I die dey’ll hab to bury me in a round hat box!”

He dropped down upon an old stump, and his nervous feet beat a tattoo upon the sandy soil.

“I never knowed womans wus so crazy about deir chillun befo’,” he exclaimed. “_My_ mammy done los’ me out in de woods an’ Marse John Flournoy foun’ me in de swamp when I wus ’bout two year ole. He tole me I wus plum’ naked, jes’ crawlin’ aroun’ in de high marsh grass like a little lan’ tarrapin. Dat don’t look like nigger mammies loved deir brats. But den, dey done foun’ my mammy daid in anodder part of de swamp. But dese here moderm niggers--lawd, dey shore cherish spite!”

Suddenly a new thought galvanized him into action.

“Dat’s de idear!” he proclaimed, springing to the middle of the street and running at full speed. “I’ll ride out to de hog-camp in de Little Moccasin Swamp an’ make Whiffle Bone let me fotch back little Shinny to his real paw. Den I’ll get Shin Bone to swap brats wid me, an’ dat’ll make us even an’ end all dese troubles.”

He ran through the crooked lanes of Dirty-Six like a brown shadow, passed with unchecked speed through the portion of Tickfall occupied by the whites, and began to pant up the long hill on the summit of which stood the house of Sheriff John Flournoy.

Skeeter was perfectly at home here, for he lived in a cabin in the rear of Flournoy’s house, and had done just as he pleased about the place ever since Flournoy had found him in the swamp, a little naked baby crawling through the high marsh grass, mewing like a little blind kitten. He hurried around the house to the garage and opened the doors as noiselessly as he could. He had determined to use a little runabout which Flournoy kept for his fishing and hunting trips. In this machine he could go to the hog-camp, get Whiffle Bone’s baby, and return in a very short time.

He pushed the little runabout out of the garage, pushed it down the hill in the rear of the house, cranked it, sprang into the seat, and drove through a back pasture, out of a gate, and onto the rear street. He took one fearful look behind him and saw with gratification that no light had flashed up in Flournoy’s house to show that the occupants had been disturbed by his intrusion upon the property.

Skeeter shot through the white portion of the town, and turned into the lanes of Dirty-Six at a perilous speed. His dilapidated machine was rattling and squeaking a loud protest at every turn, but Skeeter did not heed the warning.

Then as Skeeter passed Pap Curtain’s house, a tire burst with a loud explosion, the runabout careened perilously, and before Skeeter could stop, it leaped from the road, crashed through Pap Curtain’s fence, and came to a halt within a few steps of Pap’s porch.

In the silence which followed, Skeeter heard a woman in Pap’s cabin whooping like a siren in a fog.

“Aw, shut up!” Skeeter snapped. “You ain’t in no danger. _I’s_ de coon whut oughter be howlin’.”

He leaped out of the machine, snatched open the tool box, wrenched off an extra tire from the rear of the car and began to make repairs.

The door opened and Whiffle Bone stepped out upon the porch!

“Bless gracious, Whiffle!” Skeeter exclaimed in a glad voice, as he worked with furious haste adjusting his new tire. “I thought you wus out at de hog-camp. Whar is little Shinny Bone?”

This question started another series of howls, and Skeeter had his tire fitted and was ready to crank his car before Whiffle had calmed down to where she could answer.

“Little Shinny has went!” Whiffle screamed. “I decided not to go to de hog-camp beca’se it wus so fur. I tried to keep little Shinny hid in dis cabin. But Hopey Prophet an’ a nigger woman named Happy comed here jes’ now, an’ Happy blacked my eye an’ punched my face an’ hurt my feelin’s at some yuther places an’ took little Shinny Bone away. Dey said dey wus gwine keep him fer security till you fotch back Ready Rocket! I woulder follered ’em, but I wus skeart dey would kill me!”

“Dat’s good news, Whiffle!” Skeeter exclaimed as he cranked his car, and sprang into the seat. “Keep ca’m, an’ plug up de calliope! I’ll go 364 git Ready Rocket an’ fetch little Shinny back in less’n a minute!”

* * * * *

“I’ll git little Shinny fust,” Skeeter decided as he shot down the street. He stopped his automobile a block away from Mustard Prophet’s house, ran down the street, and slipped into a little side yard by climbing the fence.

Hopey and Happy were in the kitchen, and Skeeter heard Hopey’s loud voice:

“’Tain’t no good fer you to howl, Happy. Skeeter will fotch back yo’ little boy as quick as he kin git him, an’ we done got dat yuther woman’s brat fer s’curity.”

’“Tain’t nothin’ like habin’ yo’ own chile!” Happy wailed.

“Hey!” Hopey bellowed. “Sup up dis hot tea now an’ stop blubberin’!”

Skeeter had heard enough to know that the women did not have the child in the kitchen with them. He stepped around the house, tiptoed up to the porch, and lo! the boy lay asleep upon the bed just inside of the open door.

“Dat gits me straight in dis bizzness,” Skeeter grinned, as he slipped into the room and lifted the sleeping child. “I’m shorely got de Lawd wid me dis time. Nobody cain’t git dis pickaninny away from me widout plenty compelment!”

He deposited Shinny in the machine, spun down the street to the Bone eating-house, and once more stopped his car a block away.

“Shin’s got killin’ on de brain,” he muttered. “I’s gwine spy aroun’ a little befo’ I crowds him too close.”

Shin Bone was seated alone in the middle of his restaurant which was lighted up like a circus. He was lining out a church hymn, singing it at the top of his voice, and beating the time with a large tin coffee pot. He had pounded the table with his tin pot until it was a certainty that it would never serve its original purpose again.

“I guess little Ready is sleepin’ in de back room,” Skeeter remarked, as he slipped around to the rear.

He entered the open door and found the child lying upon the bed which was usually occupied by Shin Bone’s real son. Carefully lifting the little fellow, Skeeter walked quickly down the street, grinning exultantly as he listened to Shin Bone’s raucous voice singing:

“O heaben’s mighty nigh, Mighty nigh, mighty nigh, Ef you got a eye fer visions In de sky, in de sky!”

When young Ready lay beside Shin Bone’s boy in the automobile, Skeeter felt almost happy.

“It ’pears to me like I got dis job by de tail wid a downhill pull!” he exulted, as he started his machine and drove away from Dirty-Six with a lighter heart.

“I’se gwine take dese babies to my cabin,” he decided. “Dem squallin’ womans kin wait fer deir brats--dey don’t ’preciate whut I done fer ’em nohow. But Marse John might git peeved up ef he missed dis automobile an’ I cain’t affode to git in no lawsuit wid de cotehouse.”

Entering Sheriff John Flournoy’s yard, Skeeter Butts drove his little rattling runabout up the asphalt runway toward the garage in as nearly perfect silence as he could command.

Quickly he dismounted and pushed the little machine back where it belonged. Then he lifted the sleeping children out of the machine and started toward his own cabin.

Instantly a long shaft of white light shot across his path and he scampered out of the way, hiding behind some shrubbery which grew close to the house. He looked down the runway and his hair stood on end.

Flournoy’s big automobile was coming up the drive, its powerful light turning from side to side, illuminating every inch of the way. Skeeter did not know what moment a turn of the wheel would cause the light to flash across his body, so he slipped along the side of the house out to the front.

Alas! Standing at the front gate where she had just left the car was Mrs. Flournoy, and the electric light upon the corner made the front lawn as bright as day.

Skeeter noted that Mrs. Flournoy’s back was turned to him, so he scampered up the front steps and entered the front door just as Mrs. Flournoy turned to come up the walk.

Flournoy never thought of locking his house for the reason that half a dozen bloodhounds were running at large on his lawn all the time. For a moment, because of this fact, Skeeter had escaped observation. What to do next was his problem.

The house was perfectly familiar to Skeeter. He could have gone all over it with his eyes shut. And he was perfectly welcome there night and day, for he had been coming and going in that house for twenty-five years with no one to question his actions. But he had no desire to be caught in that house with two strange babies in his arms!

The front door opened and Mrs. Flournoy entered, snapping on the electric light in the reception-room. Skeeter retreated to the dining-rooms still hugging the two children in his wearying arms.

“Huh,” he muttered to himself. “Dese folks always gits somepin to eat befo’ dey goes to bed. I better git outen dis dinin’-room!”

He was just in time, too, for the doors to the dining-room slid open just as Skeeter stepped into a little back hall, which contained a narrow staircase leading to the second story. Skeeter tiptoed up the steps. His idea was to wait until the folks had entered the dining-room, then go down the front stairs, out of the front door and around to his cabin.

But luck was against him!

At the top of the steps he paused to rest his arms and get another grip upon the children he was carrying. He laid the boys side by side, took one under each arm like a bundle, and started on. Then it happened. He attempted to enter a narrow door and a little woolly nigger head hit the sharp edge of the door jamb on each side with a thump!

The two pickaninnies let out a howl which turned Skeeter’s blood to ice water.

Any effort toward concealment was useless now, and Skeeter was consumed with desire to get out of that house. He galloped down the front steps, turned into the rear hall, and stepped out upon a side porch.

Sheriff John Flournoy met him at the steps!

Flournoy turned the electric flashlight he had been using at the garage into Skeeter’s face, and the blinded, terrified darky reeled backward and dropped the two howling nigger babies upon the porch floor.

“Turn on the light, Skeeter!” Flournoy commanded.

Skeeter reached up above his head and switched on an electric light suspended from a cord.

Flournoy looked down at the howling nigger babies and grinned. He saw nothing unusual in the fact that Skeeter was coming out of his home at eleven o’clock at night, for Mrs. Flournoy had left Skeeter in charge of the house a thousand times in their absence. Nor did the two black babies excite anything more than amusement, for several negro families lived on his place and their cabins were full of children.

“Did you steal those nigger babies, Skeeter?” Flournoy drawled in his easy, smiling way. The remark was merely to make talk.

“Naw, suh,” Skeeter stammered. “Naw, suh!”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Flournoy chuckled. “Since the Lamana kidnaping case, the Legislature has passed a law making the penalty for stealing children very severe in Louisiana.”

Skeeter attempted to moisten his parched lips with a dry tongue. Then he asked through jaws which felt like they were locked:

“Whut--whut--whut am de penalty, Marse John?”

“_Death!_” the sheriff answered.

Then an oath of surprise popped from his throat. Skeeter had crumpled like a broken weed and had fallen face downward between the two squalling black babies.

Flournoy leaped forward and turned the prostrate man over on his back.

The negro had fainted.

* * * * *

Mrs. Flournoy appeared upon the side porch and quieted the babies by the simple process of giving each of them a piece of fried chicken.

Sheriff Flournoy as quickly restored Skeeter to consciousness by pouring cold water on his head and hot liquor down his throat.

Then leaving the babies to play under the electric light upon the porch, they conducted Skeeter to the kitchen and demanded explanations.

Nobody can beat a negro making explanations.

Skeeter’s statement was utterly untrue, but when we remember that the frightened darky considered that he had been guilty of the crime of kidnaping and was hopefully attempting to save himself from the penalty of death, all kind-hearted persons will forgive him. Most of us would stretch the blanket just a little if by doing so we could save our lives.

“It happened dis way, Marse John,” Skeeter said in a trembling voice. “I wus givin’ dem two little black babies a little outin’, an’ I decided I would fotch ’em up here an’ let ’em see whar I lived at. I’s proud of dat little cabin whut you-all gib me, even ef I do say it myse’f. I ain’t been feelin’ so powerful well sence ’bout supper-time to-night--it muss had been somepin I et--an’ passin’ de house I got to feelin’ powerful bad, an’ I decided I would git me some medicine. I knowed you-all warn’t at home, but de med’cine chist is right up-stairs whar it’s been fer twenty year, so I wint up dar to git me some linimint to rub on my misery. When I heerd the auto come in, I comed down to ax Ole Miss whut to take, an’ when I wus talkin’ to you on de po’ch somepin jes’ nachelly happened!”

This sounded perfectly plausible to Skeeter’s two white friends who did not have the least hint of the mess he had mixed down in the negro settlement.

“You’d better go to bed, Skeeter,” Flournoy said kindly. “I’ve seen niggers pull many different stunts in my life, but you are the only darky I ever saw all in a dead faint.”

“I been feelin’ kinder faint an’ feeble fer a good while,” Skeeter moaned.

“I’ll give you some pills to take, Skeeter,” Mrs. Flournoy said. “Go to your cabin, and if you are not better in the morning we’ll have the doctor.”

Skeeter turned to her pleadingly.

“Whut is I gwine do wid dem two nigger babies?” he asked. “I bet deir maws is bellerin’ fer ’em right now like cows callin’ fer deir calves.”

“Do you feel strong enough to drive my little runabout, Skeeter?” Flournoy asked. “You can take the babies home in that.”

“Yes, suh,” Skeeter exclaimed eagerly. “I’s strong enough to run it an’ de fresh air will do me good.”

Flournoy pushed out the little machine, helped Skeeter arrange the children so they would not tumble out, cranked the car for the “sick” negro, and for the second time that night the sheriff’s little runabout started for Dirty-Six.

In the meantime things had been happening in that negro settlement. The grapevine telephone carried the news that Shin Bone had stolen Happy Rocket’s baby. A little later the message ran along the same mysterious channel that Happy Rocket had stolen Shin Bone’s baby. Then the startling information came that some party or parties unknown had stolen Shin Bone’s baby out of Happy Rocket’s cabin.

This was enough to bring the entire population of Dirty-Six out of their cabins into the street. They streamed up and down the narrow lanes, jabbering, gesticulating, telling again and again of the fight between Whiffle Bone and Happy Rocket, of the divorce of Shin and Whiffle, of the drunken spree of Shin Bone.

The general idea prevailed that Shin Bone had possession of both babies, but no one cared to go and inquire while Shin was crazy drunk, singing “heavy religion” songs, and pounding the table with a tin coffee pot.

Then Whiffle Bone caused a sensation by leaving her uncle Pap Curtain’s cabin and running down the street toward the Bone eating-house squalling like a catamount. Dozens of negroes fell into her wake and followed at a safe distance.

As they approached the restaurant they all recognized with pleasure that Shin Bone was sobering up. The best indication of this improvement was the character of songs he was singing. He had abandoned the heavy religion tunes, his voice had lost some of its volume, and the music was gay and lightsome:

“De boss he squall to de nigger boys: ‘Don’t bother dat jug in de spring!’ De jug he gurgle out: ‘Good, good, good!’ But me, I holler an’ sing: ’O gimme dat gal, De big, greasy gal-- Don’t nobody bother dat sway-backed Sal, Who wrops up her hair wid a string!’”

Whiffle Bone threw open the door of the eating-house, ran across the sanded floor, threw herself into Shin Bone’s outstretched arms, and broke into his song with a loud wail:

“O Shin, I loves you wid all my heart! Less don’t fuss no more--I’ll ’vide up de money even! An’ fer Gawd’s sake, come an’ he’p me find little Shinny, our darlin’, angel chile!”

“Don’t pester yo’ mind ’bout our angel chile,” Shin Bone vociferated, pounding the table with the battered coffee pot. “I fotch him home from de Hen-Scratch--he layin’ in de back room in his own little bed!”

Placing his coffee pot under his arm, he led his sobbing, hysterical wife into the back room and then stood gazing in pop-eyed, drunken amazement at the empty bed.

“Whar is he at? Oh, whar is he _at_?” Whiffle screamed.

“I--I thought I toted him home, Whiffle!” Shin Bone said in a hysterical tone. “I wonder did I drap him down a well--or somepin like dat?”

This suggestion threw Whiffle into a maniacal frenzy and administered such a shock to Shin Bone that it sobered him completely in a moment.

“Come on, squall-cat!” he bellowed. “Less go to de Hen-Scratch an’ ax Skeeter Butts ’bout dis!”

When they arrived at the saloon they found a dense crowd of negroes within the place listening to the whoops and howls of Happy Rocket and Hopey Prophet, both of whom had also come to the saloon to interrogate Skeeter Butts.

When Shin and his wife entered they occupied the opposite end of the barroom, and then began an antiphonal chorus between the two bereaved parties which was better as a show to the bystanders than a zoo full of ring-tailed monkeys.

Finally all their wails became focalized into one hysterical appeal:

“Where, oh, where is Skeeter Butts gone at?”

When Skeeter spun around the corner and looked up the street at the crowd assembled around his place of business, he availed himself of benefits of that intolerable nuisance called the muffler cut-out, and drew up to his saloon and stopped his car, popping like a battle of rapid-fire guns.

A man-sized voice at the door bawled the information to the people in the saloon:

“Here comes Skeeter Butts in Sheriff John Flournoy’s ought-to-be-a-mule!” A moment later he bawled another announcement: “Skeeter’s got the two lost babies wid him!”

In a moment more Skeeter was pushing and shoving at the door, while his voice cackled like a hen:

“Git out de way an’ lemme pass! Lemme git in wid dese here stole babies!”

They made a ring around him in the middle of the room as he placed the two grinning, bright-eyed children on the floor at his feet. Each baby was happily chewing a chicken bone. The two mothers rushed forward to embrace their children, but Skeeter’s commanding voice cracked like a bull-whip:

“Stan’ back, nigger womans! Don’t tech dem brats till I gib de word!”

There was a moment of intense silence while Skeeter gathered his wits to speak. No one in that crowd will ever know how frightened the little barkeeper was, nor how desperate. He had determined to risk his life and liberty upon the magic name of John Flournoy, Sheriff of Tickfall parish.

If this name failed to save him, he saw nothing before him but the prison and the hangman’s noose.

“I been talkin’ to Sheriff John Flournoy,” he began. “Me an’ Marse John is kinnery--I’m his folks.”

He paused and took out his handkerchief, mopping his face. He felt like every pore of his skin was a spouting fountain of perspiration and he was sweating ice water.

“I went up to Marse John’s house an’ tole him dat Shin Bone stole little Ready Rocket outen my saloon, an’ Marse John mighty nigh bust out cryin’! I tole him dat Happy Rocket stole little Shinny Bone right outen his mammy’s arms, an’ Marse John jes’ blubbered right out like a little baby!”

“I don’t see nothin’ so powerful bad!” Shin Bone interrupted.

“My Gawd, Shin!” Skeeter exclaimed with all the dramatic force of his nature. “Marse John says he ain’t had to hang no nigger sence he’s been a sheriff, but de law specifies dat _de penalty fer stealin’ a baby is death_!”

If Skeeter hoped to make a sensation, he did!

Whiffle Bone threw her arms around her husband’s neck and sobbed as if he were already dead.

Happy Rocket dropped upon her knees upon the barroom floor, raised her quivering hands in an attitude of prayer and sobbed:

“O mussiful Gawd! I’s a mean, wuthless nigger an’ I ain’t prepared to die!”

“Looky here, Skeeter!” Shin Bone howled in a desperate, frightened voice. “Didn’t you steal dem babies yo’ own se’f? How come you is got ’em wid you ef you didn’t steal ’em?”

“Naw, suh!” Skeeter Butts squealed. “I attached dem chillun in de name of de law an’ de sheriff an’ de Nunited States of Loozanny!”

Then Shin Bone broke down and howled:

“Gimme my baby! Me an’ Whiffle is gwine leave dis town till atter de gram-jury meets!”

“Take him!” Skeeter exclaimed. “I don’t want him--I’d druther hab a yeller-jacket under my shirt. Jes’ take yo’ brat an’ go!”