The Left Hind Foot (continued 2)

Mustard’s negro wife went into Miss Virginia’s room every day to straighten up. Mustard helped Hopey around the house all the time. The fact that Mustard was in the house, or even in his sister’s room, made no difference to the boy. That part of it was all right.

Orren was determined that Mustard should not see him. He lay down flat upon the stair-steps and crawled with the greatest caution toward the top.

Just as the steamboat navigated the dangerous waters of Miss Gaitskill’s room and threw out a line on the dressing-table, the Indian peeped around the door-jamb!

It is better to abandon the rhetorical and imaginative now; it is too easy to forget which is who, and get the Indian and the steamboat mixed.

What Org saw as he peeped around the door was Mustard Prophet, his nervous black hand resting upon the dressing-table. Slowly Org raised himself to his feet and took a big breath and jumped.

There was a loud whoop, which Org imagined was the equivalent to a blood-curdling yell!

It curdled Mustard Prophet, all right!

The negro was absolutely petrified! He stood like a statue carved of ebony, apparently nothing alive about him except the eyes, which got bigger and burned with fires of terror. Fright sometimes paralyzes temporarily; nothing moves, even the mind stands still. The victim helpless, disaster swoops down like an eagle upon its prey.

Orren was disappointed.

“Why didn’t you jump when I hollered?” he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone. “I’m playing Indian.”

Orren was completely blind to the negro’s pitiful fright. It was fully a minute before Mustard could utter a word. The vital forces had ceased, and they started slowly as when a street-car grips the vital force of the cable and gets going.

“Dat yell wus so disturbin’ dat I felt—er—sorter disturbed, Marse Org,” he sighed weakly, walking toward the hall and resting his hand upon the door-jamb. “I wus plum’ putrified wid bein’ so skeart!”

“You don’t act like it,” Org snorted. “The next time I yell like that, you jump!”

“I will, Marse Org, I shore will!” Mustard promised him fervently. “I got to hurry down to de kitchen now. Goo-good-by!”

Org jerked open the drawer of the dressing-table, flirted a green-plush box which contained a rabbit-foot out of his way, picked up his own little purse and extracted twelve dollars.

Slamming the drawer shut, he went racing back to the court-house to pay for his mule.

XIII THE HIRELINGS

When Org stopped in front of the court-house and placed the twelve dollars in the auctioneer’s sweating, dirt-begrimed palm, that functionary bellowed:

“Twelve, I’m bid, once! Twelve, I’m bid, twice! Twelve, I’m bid, three times, and sold! Sold to this boy for twelve dollars! Go git your mule, son!”

The auctioneer sought a convenient place to quench a consuming thirst. Old Jinx stood in the middle of the street, his eyes closed, his big, loose ears hanging down like a couple of banana-leaves that had broken and were flapping down around the stalk of the plant. Org caught hold of one big ear and spoke down into its fuzzy, dusty depth, exactly as a man speaks into the mouth-piece of a telephone:

“Hello, hello! Wake up!”

Little Bit placed the end of a small leading-rope into Org’s hands and announced:

“You done bought a mule, Marse Org. Whut you gwine do wid him?”

“What?” Org asked.

“You cain’t leave dis here mule standin’ still an’ blockin’ up de street,” Little Bit explained. “Dey’ll arrest dis mule an’ put him in de holdover like dey does all de stray cows, an’ it’ll cost you five dollars to git him out.”

“I haven’t got any five dollars,” Org announced. “That man took all the money I had.”

“I reckin we better lead him somewheres,” Little Bit laughed.

“Help me up on him,” Org commanded. “I want to ride him now.”

“You ain’t got no bridle,” Little Bit demurred. “Dat mule ain’t know whar you want him to go ’thout no bridle onless you kin gee-haw him, an’ you ain’t know nothin’ about ploughin’. An’ he’ll shore take you back whar he came from ef you ain’t guide him somewhar else.”

“I guess we better go ahead of him and show him the way,” Org proposed. Then gazing at the closed eyes, he said: “I guess we better take him home and let him take a nap; he looks awful sleepy to me.”

“He’s like a nigger,” Little Bit snickered. “A mule an’ a nigger kin sleep standin’ up an’ walkin’!”

At the foot of the hill near the Gaitskill home, Jinx uttered a loud groan and sank down upon his side, slapping the earth with a jolt that shook the ground under their feet.

“Dar now, he shore come down wid a looseness like he’s fixin’ to die,” Little Bit exclaimed. “Ef he dies here in dis town, it’ll cost you fo’ dollars to hab him hauled away.”

“I haven’t got four dollars,” Org replied, and then ran down the street, waving his arms at an automobile.

The machine stopped and Dr. Moseley leaned out and listened:

“Doctor, I know you ain’t a mule physician, but I just bought a big mule and he’s took sick and if he dies it’ll cost a lot of money to have him hauled off. I ain’t got the money to have him hauled away, and so you must come and keep him from dying.”

“Got any money to pay my doctor’s bill?” the physician asked.

“No, sir.”

“Got any money to pay for medicine to cure your mule?”

“No, sir.”

“Charity patient, by jacks!” the physician grinned.

“No, sir,” Org protested. “Me and my mule will pay. Whenever your automobile breaks down, I’ll let you ride my mule!”

No offer could be fairer, so Org swung up on the foot-board and rode with the obliging physician to the sick-bed of the mule. That able physician had once been all-boy himself, and he understood.

“Bless my soul, if it ain’t Jinx!” he laughed as he drew near the prostrate animal. After a moment’s examination he added: “That mule is hungry, boys. Feed him! Feed him quick! Feed him high! Repeat the dose three times a day before each meal!”

Laughing, he turned his automobile and went off.

Two hours passed while the boys were getting feed and watching Jinx eat. They did not mind waiting. They sat on the curb in great contentment, discussing their purchase and planning for the future. Several men and women passed and stopped to chat with the boys, attracted by the novelty of a mule lying on the side of a road attended by two small boys. Without exception they recognized Jinx, for that mule was an established institution in Tickfall.

When Jinx got up the hill to the Gaitskill home he appeared very familiar with the place. In fact, he had been one of the Gaitskill mules several times in his varied career, and had found few other places where he had been as well treated.

“I guess we better let him stay in the front yard to-night, Little Bit,” Org said as he opened the gate and turned the animal in upon the Gaitskill lawn. “He’s too feeble to walk back as far as the stable, and I haven’t got any more time to fool with this mule. All our family are going to eat at Captain Kerley Kerlerac’s home to-night.”

The boys walked back together, separating at the court-house, and Little Bit went to the Hen-Scratch saloon.

He found Skeeter Butts in charge—told the story of Jinx, incidentally remarking that the whole Gaitskill family had gone to Kerlerac’s to eat dinner with his “boss.”

This last information pleased Skeeter Butts very much. He went out in the rear of the saloon to be by himself and think it over.

“Dat rabbit-foot is as good as got back already. I knows all about Marse Tom’s house. I done wucked in dat house so much dat I could walk eve’ywhar in it wid my eyes shut.”

About that time Hopey Prophet informed Dazzle Zenor of the absence of the Gaitskill family that evening. She knew the house, knew the people, and while she had not quite the liberty of an old family retainer, she fixed her plans to take this opportunity to raid the house.

“I’ll git dat foot certain,” she answered.

Skeeter waited impatiently until nine o’clock, then lighted a cigarette and sauntered out of the saloon. Under ordinary circumstances he would have entered the Gaitskill house from the rear. But, knowing that no one was at home, he came to the front porch and entered the front door. Once inside the house, he became extremely cautious. No use making a noise, even if there was no one to hear except himself.

It was very dark in the reception room, and while Skeeter was familiar with the house, and was sure that he was alone in it, he did not care to disarrange any furniture, and still less did he wish to fall over something and break it. He crept silently up the stairs and paused within a few feet of the room he intended to enter.

He heard a sound. Listening for a moment, he decided that someone was moving in the house, and that he had better not try to secure the rabbit-foot that night. His close-clipped hair stood up on his head like pig bristles as he began to retreat, and he lost no time in beating his way back to the hall below. He started to open the front door and escape that way, but on the second thought he decided it would be safer to go out through the kitchen.

As he passed into the back hall he heard some one coming down the steps of the back stairs. He crouched in a corner, waiting for the person to descend. Whoever it was, passed within a few feet of him, crossed the kitchen, and went out of the door. Skeeter noiselessly followed.

Once safely outside the house a senseless panic struck him, and he shot around the corner toward the front at full speed. On the walk in front of the house he collided with a terrible force with something, the impact jarring every bone in his body, and for a moment knocking him breathless, senseless. The second party in the collision, with a whistling expiration of breath sank limply against Skeeter Butts. He thrust out his arms and embraced a woman!

Skeeter was fond of the lady folks, and was usually chivalrous. But on this occasion he “dropped” the lady right there; cut her dead, so to speak. And started across the lawn at a speed never before attained by his pedal extremities.

Skeeter traveled crawfish fashion; he went forward, but he looked back. He turned to see where he was going, and there suddenly loomed before him a big, black object which looked to him as large as a house.

It was Jinx, lying on the ground.

Skeeter hit the front end of Jinx first and fell sprawlingly forward, and his arms and legs, outspread, were spraddled across Jinx’s bony back. The startled mule, aroused from his slumber, bellowed like a cow and began to get up, rising in bony sections, like a folding ladder.

For a moment Skeeter hung on to a few protruding bones, then he emitted a little whimpering sigh, slided off the bony sides of the ever-rising mountain, and lay flat upon the ground. The second collision had knocked him out.

Skeeter did not lose consciousness. He just lost breath. It was a long time before he rallied sufficiently to sit up, and when he did he heard a woman weeping softly.

“Who is dat onwindin’ dat bawl?” Skeeter inquired softly.

“Dis here is me,” the woman answered, which was enough for Skeeter, for he knew that voice.

“Whut wus you doin’ in dat house, Dazzle?” Skeeter asked, when he found her in the dark, sitting on the bottom step of the porch.

“I wus tryin’ to git dat rabbit-foot,” she said simply.

“How come you know about dat foot?”

“Hopey tole me. I wants de money Mustard is put up to git it back.”

“I wants dem dollars, too,” Skeeter laughed. “Less go in togedder an’ ’vide up de money even-Stephen.”

“I takes you on,” Dazzle said, finding comfort in her grief.

“Not no more to-night,” Skeeter said. “Dar’s a mule runnin’ loose in dis yard as big as a battleship. I butted him like a torpedo.”

“Whut happened?” Dazzle asked.

“I wus Jinxed,” Skeeter said simply. “Less go home.”

XIV THE ALLIGATOR

Jinx became the greatest plaything that Org and Little Bit possessed. He could not fatten, but under the care and treatment he received he acquired a little more interest in life, and showed quite a fondness for his youthful owner.

Gaitskill laughed, and decided that the mule would keep Org out of mischief, which would justify the cost of its keep. Tickfall smiled at the sight of a little boy sitting on a big saddle while a diminutive black boy sat behind him, proud of his position and waving a greeting to all his black friends as he passed. Org and Little Bit would not have swapped Jinx for an automobile.

“A automobile gits out of fix,” Little Bit said as they discussed this one day. “When she stops nothin’ kin make her go. Ef somepin gits de matter wid it, nobody knows whut ails her.”

“But this mule is different,” Org said proudly. “I like something that wags its tail.”

“Dis hay-burner suits me,” Little Bit agreed.

They found to their delight that Jinx was thoroughly familiar with that great jungle called the Little Moccasin Swamp. The boys could ride out to that swamp upon Jinx and turn into any path which led into the jungle. The mule would carry them for miles along the winding animal trails, and then to their surprise they would find themselves in the highway again. They explored recesses in that swamp which they could never have reached without the mule, and they were never uneasy about losing their way.

They found great pools of water where large fish swam that were easily visible to the eye, and apparently unafraid. They found great sinks of vegetation where ugly snakes crawled, and they learned that Jinx could smell a snake as far as the eye could see, and that he had no desire to get near enough to be bitten. They saw immense turtles sunning themselves upon the logs and stumps. They found droves of wild pigs, extremely dangerous to man when he was standing upon his two feet, but harmless when a four-footed animal carried them upon his back.

Hence arose this matter of debate between them: Can a wild hog count? If he cannot, how does he know the difference between two legs and four legs?

They found an eagle’s nest, came too near, and were followed for miles by a screaming bird which swooped down upon them, fanned her immense wings within an inch of their hats, and snapped her vicious beak in their faces with a noise like the snip of immense shears. Once they saw a panther crouched upon a live-oak limb, his eyes glowing in the jungle shadows like living rubies; the animal screamed at them—the only thing which ever extracted a burst of speed from Jinx. They were followed for miles as they went out of that swamp by that screaming, snarling, hissing, spitting cat.

Once Little Bit turned around and made a noise like an exploding pop-bottle, a method which he had found efficacious in frightening domestic cats away. The vocal answer to Little Bit’s elocutionary effort was so terrifying that Jinx nearly jumped out of his skin.

Then one day, on the edge of a little clearing, they found a six-foot alligator asleep in the sun.

They dismounted and walked closer. The alligator slept on.

“How close can we get to this thing before he wakes up, Little Bit?” Org asked.

“He’s awake right now,” Little Bit told him. “He pretends like he’s so sleepy he’s mighty nigh dead, but he knows we is here all right. But he won’t move till you gits right on him, close enough to tech him wid yo’ hand.”

“What’ll he do then?” Org wanted to know.

“He’ll slap his tail aroun’ and knock yo’ foots out from under you an’ bite yo’ leg plum’ off,” Little Bit informed him. “He’s layin’ dar now waitin’ fer a wild pig to come rootin’ aroun’ him like wild pigs does aroun’ logs. Den he’ll slap ’em wid his tail an’ bite ’em in two.”

The boys backed away, climbed upon the trunk of a fallen tree, and looked across the underbrush at the alligator. He was as still as an old rusty stove-pipe, which he somewhat resembled.

“Less take that rope off our saddle and rope him,” Org suggested. “They rope everything in California, cattle and everything.”

“Who’s gwine put dat rope aroun’ dat alligator?” Little Bit asked.

“You can do that,” Org replied as he untied the rope from the saddle.

“Mebbe I kin, but I ain’t gwine to,” Little Bit asserted, climbing up on the back of the mule. “Little Bit don’t choose but a little bit of alligator in his’n. Dis mule don’t hanker fer none.”

“All right, ’fraid-cat,” Org taunted. “You hold the mule, and I’ll throw the rope.”

Like most boys who had lived in the West, Org had often played with a rope, looping it and throwing it in imitation of the cowmen. He climbed upon a trunk of a fallen tree about thirty feet from the quiescent alligator, coiled the rope, and threw it with wonderful luck. The coil straightened, and the open loop fell right in front of the alligator.

In the less remote sections the alligator is fearful, for it has learned the menace of man. But this one had possibly never seen a human being before. When the rope fell it moved forward a few feet and became quiet again. Org gave the rope a quick jerk, and the loop caught under one of the alligator’s front feet and over his head. Org was standing by a limb upon the fallen tree, bracing himself to keep his balance. Quickly he twisted his end of the rope around the limb and tied it.

The creature was still unaware that it was captive. Org threw a few branches from the tree in its direction, and it crawled slowly forward a few feet. At last it came to the end of the rope.

A hoarse, coughlike bark rang through the forest, and instantly that six-foot alligator was a snarling fury as it entered into combat with its bonds. For ten minutes the two frightened boys beheld the most terrifying spectacle they had ever imagined. Org scuttled down from the treetrunk and took refuge with Little Bit upon the back of the mule, making ready for instant flight.

Within a radius of that rope the alligator beat down the marsh-grass as flat as if a road-rolling machine had passed over it. He got into the low underbrush and pounded it down, making a noise like an express train with his powerful clawing feet and his slapping tail. He roared and raised himself almost upright on his tail, and clawed at the rope with his front feet as a man would fight with his hands, and snapped his great jaws together like the slapping of two clapboards.

But he could never succeed in getting the rope between his teeth, for the reason that he could not turn his head or lower his chin. Finally, in an awful burst of fury, he threw himself backward, rolled over and over, slapping, thrashing, clawing, snarling, uttering awful coughlike barks to which a thousand echoes in the forest responded in kind. The boys wondered at the creature’s catlike agility, shuddered at the concentrated venomous fury of the battle, quivered with awe at the agonizing, snarling vociferation emitted from between those terrible, gnashing, snapping teeth.

Yet the very configuration of the woods fought for the boys. The rope was constantly taut, for the reason that it could hardly be moved without becoming entangled with roots and cypress knees and the tough underbrush and the clinging, almost unbreakable vines called bamboo. The struggle against these obstacles slowly exhausted the alligator’s strength.

At last he sank down and remained quiet.

After a while the boys mustered their courage and crept forward to see. They found their captive had twisted the rope around the cypress knees and projecting roots until he was tied to the ground and helpless. His eyes were not sleepy now. They glowed with baleful flames, ugly, piglike, with glints of green in their fires of fury. The big mouth gaped wide when he saw the boys, and the jaws snapped with frightful force.

After a consultation, the two boys ran across the clearing to a switch-cane jungle and cut two long cane poles. Returning with these, they began to prod and torment the alligator, thrusting the poles into his mouth when he opened it; and when he no longer would let them look at his tongue, they still pursued their medical examination by punching him in every place where they thought he might have a particularly tender spot.

This roused him to another performance, a fury of struggle in which he fought and roared and barked and clawed at the rope, and thrashed with his tail, and chased the two boys up a tree until his activities abated.

All day long they tormented the alligator, exhausting every resource in their efforts to get him, as they expressed it, “to cut up some more.” But after five or six hours there was no more fight in him.

When the alligator showed plainly that he had made positively his last appearance as an entertainer, the boys decided it was time to start for home.

“How we gwine git our rope back?” Little Bit asked.

“Let that old sucker keep his old rope. I don’t want it,” Org said, wiping the sweat from his face on the sleeve of his shirt and sitting down in utter weariness.

“Marse Tom will bust us ef we leaves dat rope out in dese here woods,” Little Bit warned him. “Ropes comes high in de store ef you got to pay fer ’em.”

“I’ll tell Uncle Tom where it is, and let him come after it when he wants it,” Org replied.

“You better not let dat white man know we been out here monkeyin’ wid a alligator,” Little Bit said. “He’ll sell our mule an’ put me in jail an’ flay de hide offen you.”

“That’s so,” Org agreed. “Well, the old alligator is nearly dead. Let’s tie our end of the rope to the saddle and make old Jinx drag the alligator up to the house. Then when he dies we can get the rope off him.”

Little Bit agreed to this, and it was not hard to do. They had whipped the alligator until there was no more fight in him, and wearied him until there was not more strength to fight. Their hardest work was untwisting the rope, for as they got nearer to the alligator they had to pry the rope from around the roots and snags with a pole. They never got the courage to get close to those jaws which had snapped at them so terribly.

Jinx did not object to a little light hauling when a white boy walked on one side and a black boy on the other, acting as escort of honor. The alligator was easily dragged over the marsh-grass and along the animal trails toward the town. Although dragged for over three miles, he at no time showed resistance or attempted to “cut up.”

In the rear of the Gaitskill stables there was a large pig-pen, to which admittance was gained by a gate. Org led the mule in such a way that the alligator faced the gate. Then he led the mule around to the other side of the pen, led him forward, and thus dragged the alligator through the open gate.

Then the boys took a rake, hung one of the teeth through the loop in the rope, and by considerable juggling they managed to make the loop loose and large.

“Now, if he kicks around any before he dies, he’ll walk out of that rope,” Org announced. “Then we won’t have to say anything about it.”

“Dat big old animile ain’t gwine die,” Little Bit chuckled. “Us ain’t hurt him none, an’ by dis time to-morrer he’ll be ready to fix fer anodder fight.”

“I’m through fighting alligators,” Org said wearily. “I never was as hungry and tired in my life. But we’ll keep this old sucker in his pen and make him our pet alligator.”

XV BLASTING POWDER

Org and Little Bit loved to play in an old storehouse situated in the corner of the yard in the rear of Gaitskill’s home. There was a reason. Both loved sweets, and in that house was where Colonel Gaitskill stored his famous ribbon-cane sirup.

This sweet, so famous in the State, is not marketable. When once it is put in a barrel or other container, it cannot be moved or it will turn to sugar. Even with the greatest care, it is pretty sure to turn sugary before it is all used up. The sugar forms first a hard crust around the inside of the barrel and around the spigot from which it is drawn. Sometimes you can turn that spigot on full and the stream will be a tiny thread of liquid sweetness which flows with exasperating slowness. A moment later the sugary obstruction may break from around the spigot, and after that, the flood!

Doubtless Shakespeare had such a catastrophe in mind when he wrote of

The taste of sweetness, whereof a little

More than a little is by much too much.

Half a dozen times a day Org and Little Bit slipped into this storeroom, turned on the spigot of the sirup barrel, caught the tiny stream of sweetness in the palms of their hands, and lapped it out with their tongues.

They were at that enjoyable diversion now.

Suddenly there was a loud whoop of fright from the direction of the orchard where Mustard Prophet had gone to gather some figs for lunch. The boys ran to the door and looked out. They saw Mustard climb down from a rickety step-ladder, fold that ladder together and hurl it in the direction of some object. Then he came out of that orchard, stepping high like a turkey wading through mud, looking constantly behind him, and making as many different noises with his mouth as a whole brass band.

Hopey, thinking he had been bitten by a snake, met him half-way to the house.

“Whut ails you, Mustard?” she asked.

“My Gawd, Hopey!” he panted. “Dar’s a alligator out in dat orchard fawty feet long! I seen it!”

The noise Mustard made had brought all the members of the family out to see what the trouble was. When he told them of seeing the alligator, Org said nothing, and the others of the household were skeptical and laughed at him.

“How do you know you saw an alligator?” Colonel Gaitskill asked.

“I throwed a step-ladder at it, Marse Tom,” Mustard wailed. “It wus longer dan de ladder.”

“Come back to the orchard and show me,” Gaitskill ordered.

“Naw, suh!” Mustard whooped. “Go look fer yo’se’f, boss. Dis nigger is done seen aplenty!”

“Whut wus he doin’ in dat orchard?” Hopey howled.

“He wus aimin’ to climb dat step-ladder an’ bite my leg off when I seen him,” Mustard shuddered. “I gib him de ladder an’ tole him he could take my place!”

“Don’t make so much noise, Mustard,” Gaitskill commanded, as he turned away and entered the house. Nobody credited Mustard’s story, except Org and Little Bit, and they slipped away as soon as they could to see if their alligator was still in captivity.

They found that he had escaped, and a broad trail led across the dust of the pig-lot toward the orchard. The alligator had crawled through a hole. The boys promptly decided not to enter the orchard for any purpose whatsoever. Thinking further, they decided they had better absent themselves from home for the day, for that alligator might do all sorts of sensational stunts, and they had seen enough of his performances the day before.

Besides, Colonel Gaitskill might want to know how the creature got on the premises, and Org had found that the best way to avoid answering questions was to be where questions could not be addressed to him.

At that moment there came to the ears of the two boys a dull explosion. They turned their faces in the direction of the sound and left home.

It is a pity that they did not first return to the storehouse and turn off the spigot of the molasses barrel. But they did not. That sirup ran two days and one night!

One of the annoyances of agriculture in Louisiana is stumps. Whenever a farmer undertakes to blast the stumps out of the ground with dynamite or powder, he is sure to have a crowd of small boys to watch him. Org had been on the trail of the dynamiters for a number of days. Whenever they heard an explosion, they knew that some farmer was having a celebration of fireworks and profanity, and they hurried to the spot, guided by the explosive noises.

By being around, they had surreptitiously acquired a number of dynamite caps, also several yards of fuse in various lengths. The sound they had heard a few minutes before was over in the direction of the Cooley bayou, and they went.

What they saw when they got there, put the fear of dynamite in their souls forever.

There was a man who lived on the Cooley bayou who walked on a wooden peg. He had attempted to dynamite a fish-hole. He lighted the fuse of the dynamite stick and walked toward the pool to toss the stick into the water. His wooden peg found a soft place in the earth, and he sank into the mire up to his knees. He pitched forward on his face, the stick of dynamite fell from his hand and rolled just a few feet out of reach. The peg leg was twisted under the sod and marsh-grass in such a way that the unfortunate man could not tear himself loose and escape from the stick of dynamite.

The explosion tore a hole in the ground in which a large automobile might have been easily concealed, and friends of the cripple found scraps of him hanging in the trees a hundred yards away.

Org and Little Bit arrived just in time to view the effects of the tragedy, and came away with a deep impression of the explosive power of dynamite.

“Dat stuff ain’t nothin’ fer us to fool wid, Marse Org,” Little Bit said earnestly. “Jes’ look whut dat little stick of dynamite done to dat big growed-up man. Ef a wad of dynamite wus to bust close to us, de white folks would hab to put on deir readin’ specks to find de pieces, an’ dey’d tote us bofe back to Tickfall on a shingle.”

“I know where plenty of blasting powder is,” Org remarked. “Uncle Tom has a whole keg of powder in his barn.”

“Dat’s de stuff fer us to monkey wid,” Little Bit agreed. “Us don’t hab to play wid so much at one time dat we git blowed plum’ away.”

They found the keg of powder and carried it down to the little branch which ran around the edge of the town. They were very careful as they went around the stable, not to step on the alligator. As they carried their powder away, they looked back frequently to assure themselves that the alligator was not in pursuit. When at last they had reached the woods, they decided that it would be a good idea to make several loud explosions to scare the alligator and keep him from coming in that direction.

They spent several hours experimenting with the powder, enjoying themselves in a variety of dangerous ways without coming to any harm.

Then Little Bit thought of a hollow log under the wooden bridge that crossed this little branch on the road to the Nigger-Heel plantation. The log was about four feet long, the hollow through the center being about four inches in diameter, and extending nearly the entire length. To the imagination of boys, this thing would be suggestive of a cannon. When Little Bit showed the log to Orren Gaitskill, that was the first thought in his mind.

“Let’s put some gunpowder in this log and shoot her off,” he proposed. “It’s just like a cannon.”

“Us ain’t got no fuse-hole,” Little Bit remarked.

“We can go up to Uncle Tom’s and borrow a auger and bore a fuse-hole,” Org replied. “I know where an auger is.”

They concealed their keg of powder under some brush and spent an hour going after the tool, playing along the road both coming and going. Then they took turns in working, as they bored the hole.

“Less load her up now and shoot off, and that’ll make an end of a perfect day,” Org remarked, quoting a part of a song he had heard his sister sing to Captain Kerlerac.

“Dis ole cannon is gwine use up all our powder,” Little Bit declared, as he peeped up the hollow to where the light of the fuse-hole showed.

“We don’t care,” Org laughed. “This powder don’t cost us nothing.”

They placed their fuse properly, then emptied the contents of the keg into the muzzle of the log cannon. They rammed the charge home with a number of old sacks which they had been thoughtful enough to pick up in the barn and bring with them when they went after the augur. Then they added several hat-loads of leaves and grass which they mixed with mud from the branch. After that they charged the “cannon” to the very end with great quantities of sod torn up from the edge of the branch and rammed hard into the muzzle with the blunt end of a big stick.

“Now she’s ready to shoot. Who’s going to light the fuse?” Org asked.

“Not me,” Little Bit said positively. “I’m jes’ a little fool nigger, an’ ain’t to be trusted wid no important jobs.”

“I’ll light the fuse,” Org announced. “Go up on the road and see if anybody is coming.”

Little Bit ran up on the little frail wooden bridge which was about twelve feet long, made a survey, and announced that all was clear. Then he ran far over in the woods.

Org lighted the fuse and followed his black companion at his best speed. When they reached what they thought was a safe distance, they paused and waited.

The idea of the boys was that the powder would simply shoot the mud out of the log, just as a bullet is propelled from the muzzle of a gun. But blasting powder is not a propulsive force; it is something that rends and tears, exerting as much pressure in one direction as in another.

Therefore the boys were very much surprised, when they heard the explosion, to see the frail wooden bridge which spanned the narrow branch rise in the air, break into a number of pieces, and scatter all over the place!

The log cannon went to pieces also.

The boys went somewhere else. They did not run. They could easily have overtaken and passed anybody that was merely running. They just went away from there.

When completely overcome by exhaustion, they dropped down under a tree far away from the scene of their exploit. When, after a long time, they had somewhat recovered their composure and their breath, they began to plan for the future, when, as they thought, they would have to give an account of themselves.

“What does the law do to a feller that busts up a bridge, Little Bit?” Org asked.

“Ef he’s a nigger, like me, dey hangs him,” Little Bit shuddered.

“But if he’s white?” Org inquired.

“Dey shoots him,” Little Bit said.

“Then we won’t confess,” Org announced decisively.

They meditated awhile, and again Org asked a question.

“Did anybody see us with that kag of powder?”

“Nope. Us wus all alone.”

“Then we needn’t say anything about that kag,” Org declared. “Uncle Tom won’t miss it for some time.”

“Don’t we say nothin’ about nothin’ bustin’?” Little Bit asked.

“No.”

“Look at all de scratches dat de briars cut on my face when I wus runnin’ away,” Little Bit pointed. “How’s I gwine esplain dese here scratches? I got to say dat somepin’ busted on me, ain’t I?”

“No, you fool!” Org exclaimed. “Don’t you ever confess that anything busted on you or that you were ever round any busting thing. Tell ’em that you cut your face—er——”

“You had better think up a powerful good lie,” Little Bit quavered. “My mammy, she kin ketch on powerful easy to tales.”

“Tell her that you cut your face—er—shaving!” Org replied, uttering the last word with triumphant emphasis.

“Dat shows you don’t know nothin’ about niggers,” Little Bit scoffed. “Most niggers ain’t got no hair on deir face an’ don’t never hab to shave. A nigger whut kin grow a moustacher an’ whiskers—he’s proud of hisse’f!”

“Aw, shucks,” Org said in disgust. “That ruins our perfectly good excuse.”

“My face don’t look like it’s been cut with a razor,” Little Bit said obstinately. “It looks like it’s been sawed acrost wid a lot of blackberry briars, dat’s whut.”

“I know it does, but you’ve got to tell some kind of tale to keep us from being found out,” Org said impatiently.

“We don’t hab to tell nothin’,” Little Bit sighed. “Dat bridge will say a plum’ plenty. It’ll preach a whole sermont.”

“Don’t you say nothing about that bridge,” Org howled. “Keep your mouth shut.”

“’Spose de white folks axes me?”

“Tell ’em you don’t know anything.”

“I’ll tell ’em dat,” Little Bit said doubtfully. “But ain’t gwine bear down on dat very hard. Ef a nigger tells too many lies, Gawd’ll kill him!”

“If you don’t tell a few about that bridge the white folks will kill you before God can get around to you,” Org declared.

Then there popped into Orren’s head, the final recourse of all the guilty, the establishment of a false alibi.

“Come on,” he howled, springing to his feet. “We’ll go back to town and prove to everybody that we have not been in the woods at all to-day. We’ll let ’em see us.”

XVI A PAIR OF FEET

Dazzle Zenor went to the Hen-Scratch saloon and sent word to Skeeter that she must see him right away. When he came out to the rear, she lost no time in stating her business.

“Hopey jes’ come to my place an’ tole me dat dar ain’t no Gaitskills at home. Org an’ Little Bit is goned to de woods; Marse Tom is down to de bank, an’ ole miss an’ Miss Virginny is gone out fer a automobile ride; Mustard Prophet is gone out to de Nigger-Heel plantation, an’ is takin’ Hopey an’ Popsy Spout wid him to give ’em a outin’. Now is yo’ time to git de rabbit-foot.”

“Yes’m,” Skeeter agreed. “Dis time am choosen of de Lawd. Is you willin’ to he’p me?”

“Suttinly. I’s in on de reeward bill.”

“Dis is de plan,” Skeeter said. “I walks up to Marse Tom’s jes’ easylike, kinder moseyin’ along, an’ I sneaks in de back way an’ I sneaks out de back way an’ I walks down de back side of de hill an’ makes a roundance to de road at de front of de bottom of de hill.”

“Dat’s de properest way to do,” Dazzle said.

“Yo’ plan is dis,” Skeeter continued. “You drives my little automobile an’ waits fer me at de foot of de hill on de side of de road. You keeps dat engyne runnin’ an’ you heads dat machine to’rds out of town. We goes straight to de Nigger-Heel an’ gits our money.”

For half an hour Dazzle amused herself by riding around the town. It was Saturday afternoon, a great crowd of country negroes was in Tickfall, and the girl showed her skill as a driver by seeing how close she could shave to the tail of the farm-wagons and the rear end of the mules and horses and cattle that were on the street.

At one corner there was a drove of mules waiting to be sold at auction; a little farther up the street there was a herd of bony cattle that had been driven down from the hill farms to be sold; at another point there was a flock of sheep lying in the dust, panting with the heat. Around each of these there stood dozens of negroes, inspecting what was for sale whether they intended to buy or not. Dazzle greeted all these friends from the country, but firmly refused all requests for a ride, for she was watching the time, and was determined to be at the meeting-place when Skeeter arrived.

Skeeter sauntered around the streets for a little while, watching the auctioneer in his business and admiring his line of talk. Then he slipped quietly out of the crowded street and hurried to the home of Colonel Tom Gaitskill.

It was not difficult or dangerous to rob a house with nobody at home. Satisfying himself by an inspection, that he was really alone on the premises, Skeeter entered through the kitchen, went into the little back hall, climbed the back stairs, and entered the room of Miss Virginia Gaitskill. He opened the drawer in her dresser and took out the green-plush box, being careful not to disarrange anything in the drawer. He paused long enough to open the box and assure himself that the rabbit-foot was in it, then he placed the box in the inner pocket of his coat and went out as quietly as he had come.

It had been so easy that he decided to go out the front way and thus avoid the long detour necessary if he went down the hill on the far side and had to walk around to the road. He peeped around the corner of the house in the front, and dodged back in a hurry.

He saw Org and Little Bit climbing over the fence into the horse-lot. They looked tired, as if they had run a long distance, and they looked either excited or scared, as if something unusual had happened; and they were in a hurry, for they climbed the fence rather than take the time to open and shut the gate.

Skeeter’s short hair stood upon his cranium like hog-bristles. Had Orren Randolph Gaitskill found out in some way that he was trying to steal the rabbit-foot? Could Little Bit have been around the saloon and overheard the conversation about the rabbit-foot between himself and Dazzle? Were they coming to the house now to protect this precious green-plush box from theft?

“I reckin I’s gwine take de long roundance,” Skeeter muttered in a panicky tone as he ran with all his speed toward the rear of the house, keeping the building between himself and the two boys, and when he started down the hill, dodging from bush to bush like a rabbit.

But the boys had something on their minds besides Skeeter Butts. On their long run from the little branch where the bridge had been blown up, Org had thought of something that would attract the attention of the people in Tickfall and register in their minds the fact that he and Little Bit were in town.

Org had ridden with his Uncle Tom in the automobile, and had seen Colonel Gaitskill shut off the power from the engine and coast down the hill from his house to the town. This had given Org an idea on which he had been working for several days. Under a shed in the rear of the Gaitskill stable there was an abandoned, worn-out buggy, without any shafts. Org had tied a rope to each end of the front axle near the front wheels, and had found by experiment that he could guide the buggy by pulling on the rope, just as if he were driving a horse. Little Bit had pushed the buggy around the smooth, level horse-lot and Org had been able to guide it without difficulty.

So now, confronting this emergency, he decided that the best game he could play would be that of coasting down the Gaitskill hill toward the town in that old buggy. It would be plenty of fun of a kind that would attract attention from those in town.

He instructed Little Bit what to do, and the two boys pushed the buggy out of the horse-lot and stopped it on the brow of the hill. Org climbed into his buggy on the top of the hill just about the time that Skeeter Butts seated himself in his automobile beside Dazzle Zenor at the foot of the hill.

The two started about the same time.

Skeeter planned to go up the street about a block, then turn to his right and go out the principal street to the Nigger-Heel plantation.

Org expected to stop at the foot of the hill, and push his buggy back to the top and coast down again.

One thing that Org had overlooked was that his Uncle Tom’s automobile had a brake. The buggy lacked that very important accessory, and when Little Bit pushed it off and climbed on behind, it had not traveled one hundred feet until it was going thirty miles an hour. Half-way down the hill it was “doing fifty,” and at the foot of the hill it was just a rattling horror of incredible speed with momentum enough to carry it half a mile on a level road.

That Providence which looks out for fools, drunken men, and children, gave the buggy just the right turn at the right time to shoot it out toward Main Street. Its momentum carried it across the street like a rocket, sent it plunging madly across the court-house lawn, hurled it into the middle of a lot in the rear of the court-house where the country people hitched their horses and mules, and there it ended its sensational and spectacular flight by colliding with a hitching-rack, spilling out the two boys like peas are tossed from a spoon, and tearing itself to pieces!

The two youngsters sprang up unhurt and made tracks away from there.

One old mule had seen the buggy coming over the court-house lawn with nothing to pull it and nothing to push it. It did not look natural to him; it made the same impression on him that a pair of pants would make on you if you saw the pants coming down the street with nobody in them.

That mule opened his great mouth and uttered a trumpetlike bray just as the vehicle hung up on the hitching-rack. Then mister mule broke his bridle and went galloping up the street, looking back and bawling with every jump.

Every mule in the hitching-lot promptly broke loose and went galloping after the first mule, also looking back at the strange vehicle which had come among them. All the horses followed, neighing their fright, some pulling buggies and some wagons; some with harness on, some with saddles, and as they all went up the street together, every horse and mule on both sides of the street broke away and joined in the procession.

Many of the animals did not know what it was all about. But it is a fact that if one runaway starts down a street, all the other horses and mules will run with him. They believe in safety first.

Two blocks away there was a herd of cattle standing in the middle of the street being sold at auction. They saw the cyclone coming and fled before it. A block farther up the street a flock of terrified sheep saw the cattle coming, and started out ahead of the cows. A block farther on a drove of hogs saw the sheep coming, and they also believed in safety first, and decided to get there first, so they led the procession.

As the grunting, bleating, bellowing, braying, nickering procession of animals swept forward, all the country dogs which had followed their masters into town from every point of the compass fell in behind and became a mighty chorus of yelping, barking canines, and their number was augmented and their chorus strengthened by all the dogs which Tickfall could contribute. And all the men, women, and children, white and black, and all the shades of color between, swept out of the stores and offices and shops to see what the disturbance was about, and these fell in behind and added their multitudinous shoutings to the noise and excitement which was like the ululation of wind and wave during a great storm at sea.

In an incredible time the principal street of Tickfall was swept clean of all its live stock and of all its men, but it was littered everywhere with pieces of broken buggies, broken wagons, broken harness, and a dust-cloud was settling upon that vacated street as if Mother Nature was trying to bury what was left out of her sight.

Now for the luck which attends the escapades of youth: every person on the street had looked toward the teams which were running away, and not back at what had originally caused their flight. Those boys had careened over the court-house yard, had come to smash in the middle of the hitching-lot, and had got up and gone away from there without being seen by a single person who identified them as the source of all the trouble. As for Colonel Gaitskill’s buggy, he never missed it, and if he had, he could never have identified it among the smashed and broken vehicles that were junked in the hitching-lot after the animals broke loose.

The farmers knew that if one mule runs away every other mule follows; so the poor mule who first saw the buggy and uttered his frightened bawl was blamed for the whole catastrophe!

As for Skeeter Butts and Dazzle Zenor, they were about two blocks from the court-house when they heard that first terrified bray behind them. In a moment the braying and bawling and bleating and squealing and barking and yelling increased greatly.

We have the best authority for the statement that the wicked flee where no man pursueth.

Skeeter and Dazzle decided that all the inhabitants of Tickfall were after them for the theft of the rabbit-foot!

Skeeter took one look behind him at that cloud of dust, caught hold of his spark lever and pulled it down to the last notch, then slowly opened his throttle until it could go no farther. The speed of his flight broke all records in Louisiana for his make of automobile.

His eyes were upon the road just as far ahead of him as he could see, for he knew that going at his present speed it would take a long time to stop. In less than a minute he was drawing near to the bridge over the little branch where Org and Little Bit had played with the “cannon” a short time before to the complete wreckage of that frail structure. Skeeter knew this bridge was too narrow for him to cross at his present rate of progress, and he began to slow up.

Suddenly Dazzle uttered a terrified shriek and pointed ahead—the bridge was gone!

Skeeter shut off all the power, pressed with all his strength upon the foot-brake, set his emergency brake with all the muscle in his arm, came to the very edge of the branch, going no faster than a boy could push a wheelbarrow, and—rolled in!

Dazzle Zenor foresaw what would happen and jumped out. But Skeeter was behind the wheel and could not move quick enough, and he went down ten feet into the creek with his little machine.

There was the crack of a broken spring, the explosion of two blown-out tires, the rending, grinding noise of torn fenders, and the terrified wailing of a little barkeeper who had been bounced out into the creek and who had his clothes wet and his feelings hurt and nothing else!

And even that wailing ceased when Skeeter heard what was coming. Dazzle saw it coming first. She could not get off the road because of a barbed-wire fence on each side, so she hopped down into the water of the branch beside Skeeter. And there, crouched beside the bank of the creek, they saw the strangest sight two people ever witnessed.

First, a herd of hogs came squealing to the broken bridge, looked down at them, uttered a surprised series of grunts, split into two parties and ran down into the creek and over into the woods. Next followed a flock of bleating sheep, and they took a look at Skeeter and Dazzle, split into two like the pigs had done, some going down on one side, some on the other, and all of them scattering in the woods. Then followed a herd of cattle, then a lot of mules and horses, then a great multitude of dogs, then excited men in automobiles, then men, women, and children afoot!

All of them without exception came to the very edge of the branch where the bridge was broken, looked down at Skeeter and Dazzle, expressed surprise either by grunt or squeal or bellow or bray or neigh or yell or laugh—then turned to one side and went down into the branch and into the woods!

By the time this unique procession had arrived at one end of the broken bridge, a farm-wagon drove up and stopped at the other end. The wagon contained Mustard and Hopey Prophet and Popsy Spout on their way to town from the Nigger-Heel plantation. Popsy was asleep.

About seven hundred people had assembled at that spot, and nearly all the live stock in the Parish was out in the woods!

To Skeeter’s unbounded amazement he found himself a wounded hero instead of a criminal and a captured fugitive.

“Did the stock run you down on the bridge, Skeeter?” Sheriff Flournoy asked; and that gave Skeeter his cue.

“Yes, suh. De bridge is been pretty rickety a long time, an’ dem animiles piled up all aroun’ me an’ we jes’ nachelly all went down.”

“If you want to bring suit against this Parish for injuries to yourself and damage to your automobile, I’ll help you,” Colonel Gaitskill snapped. “I’ve been telling that road commissioner to repair this bridge for the last three years, and now he’ll get what is coming to him, and we’ll make him pay for his neglect of duty.”

That word “damages” sounded good to Skeeter.

“I’s pretty bad hurt, Marse Tom,” he sighed, when he saw a chance to collect money for his injuries. “Bofe ankles is spraint an’ my back is busted, an’ my neck feels kinder stretched and loose, an’ my head——”

“Tell all that to the trial jury,” Gaitskill snapped. “You can ride back in the wagon with Mustard Prophet—I think you had better go on right now!”

Mustard drove down into the woods and, crossing the branch, came up on the other side of the broken bridge to the road. It took four men to help Skeeter in the wagon, so great were his injuries after he heard that magic word—damages!

The first place they passed on the way back was the Shin Bone eating-house. Skeeter decided that this was a good place to demonstrate how badly hurt he was, and he could exhibit his disability in the presence of many witnesses.

“I cain’t trabbel a inch furder, brudders,” he sighed. “I’s gittin’ weaker an’ weaker all de time. You better drap me off here at de resteraw.”

So Mustard picked him up from the bed of the wagon, carried him bodily into the eating-house and laid him out on one of the dining-tables. Dazzle and Hopey and Popsy Spout followed them in, and Shin Bone hurried to see what the trouble was.

“I think I’s fixin’ to die, Mustard,” Skeeter wailed, thrusting his yellow hand into the inside pocket of his coat. “So I passes dis little thing over to you befo’ I j’ines de angel band dat toots de horns aroun’ de golden throne.”

The little thing was a green-plush box containing a rabbit-foot.

“Dat reminds my mind, Mustard,” Shin Bone exclaimed, as he beheld the box. “I got somepin dat b’longs to you, too.”

He went to his cash-drawer, opened it, and in an apartment underneath he brought out his treasure and handed it to Mustard.

It was a green-plush box containing a rabbit-foot.

Skeeter’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. As for Mustard, he was so completely dumfounded that he merely stared at the two green-plush boxes in helpless wonder.

“Whar did you git dis green-plush box, Skeeter?” Mustard asked at last.

“Ask Dazzle,” Skeeter wailed. “She knows—you know, too.”

“Whar you git yo’ green-plush box, Shin?” Mustard asked next, in a tone of superstitious consternation.

“About three weeks ago, ole Popsy Spout went out to yo’ house to spend de day. When he got back, he come in here an’ et, an’ he lef’ dis green box on de eatin’ table. He explavicated about it a little bit an’ said it b’longed to you!”

Mustard turned around with the righteous fury of Michel the archangel contending with the devil to “bring against him a railing accusation”—but, alas, Popsy had taken a hint from Skeeter’s recumbent attitude, and was stretched out upon a dining-table sound asleep.

The unexpected duplication of the rabbit-feet and the two boxes had the effect of relieving Skeeter’s pretended injuries to the extent that he was able to travel a little farther.

“Take me home, Mustard,” he wailed. “Lemme die at home in my own little cabin whut Marse John gib to me.”

Mustard quickly understood that what Skeeter really wanted was to get to some place where he could talk about the new complication in the matter of luck charms. He lifted Skeeter in his arms and carried him back to the wagon, leaving Popsy asleep upon the table, and leaving Dazzle and Hopey to find their own conveyance to their house in their own feet.

When Mustard and Skeeter had closed the door upon their conference in Skeeter’s cabin, Mustard laid the rabbit-foot on Skeeter’s knee.

“You got to take it back, brudder,” he said earnestly. “’Twon’t do fer us folks to steal Marse Tom’s rabbit-foot. Us is got to ack hones’.”

“Mebbe so,” Skeeter said doubtfully. “But fur’s I’m concerned, Marse Tom kin hop along widout dis foot.”

“It cain’t be did, Skeeter. You got to take it back.”

“I done been hurt in a automobile bust-up,” Skeeter protested. “I ain’t able to git about. De dorctor will come here in a little while an’ examinate me fer cote-house damages on account my many injuries.”

“I makes dis trade wid you,” Mustard replied. “You’s got fifty dollars of my money dat you ain’t earnt because you didn’t recover my lucky foot. I’ll gib you dat fifty to tote dis foot back.”

“I got you,” Skeeter answered promptly. “When do I tote her back?”

“To-morrer night,” Mustard told him. “Marse Tom is gibin’ a big dinner at his house an’ you kin slip in de house while dey is eatin’.”

“I’ll do it,” Skeeter promised. “But dis is de last thing I’s gwine do fer you as long as I live. No more detecative stealin’ jobs fer me!”

XVII LUCK AND LOVE

The next day, being Sunday and a dull day, Skeeter found it both convenient and comfortable to remain in bed and pretend to be severely injured by his automobile accident. He planned to spend the day in bed, and slip out at night and carry the rabbit-foot back to the dresser-drawer in Miss Virginia’s room.

But about ten o’clock the road commissioner called upon Skeeter, expressed his great regret at the automobile accident and told Skeeter he had come to settle for the damage that had been done.

“I don’t want any lawsuit, Skeeter. It takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of money which has to be paid to the lawyers and the courts. We’ll fix this up between ourselves.”

“Dat suits me,” Skeeter told him.

“I’ll have your automobile repaired, put in perfect condition, painted and polished and fixed like new. Besides that I’ll give you one hundred dollars.”

With these words, he laid the money out on his knee, one hundred dollars in one-dollar bills.

Skeeter sat up, reached for the money, and thrust it under his pillow on the bed.

“Whar do I sign?” he grinned.

The smiling commissioner indicated the dotted line, Skeeter inscribed his name with a flourish, and before that gentleman was out of the yard Skeeter was kicking off the bed covers, preparing to dress and go out.

“Dis here is my lucky day,” he announced to his immortal soul.

About this time, Orren Randolph Gaitskill, returning from Sunday-school, met Little Bit who had been waiting for him at the corner for an hour. The two boys played around the streets for a while, then wandered aimlessly down the alley and into a vacant place in the rear of the Gaitskill store. There they found something which interested them very much.

It was a discarded advertisement.

A piece of cardboard, life-size, represented a big, grinning negro man. Both arms were folded across his chest and he was hugging a brand of cured meat called the Hallelujah Ham to his bosom while his great mouth was wide-spread in a toothsome grin of anticipation over its sugar-cured sweetness. Having served its purpose, this cardboard man had been tossed upon the trash heap to be carted away. Org and Little Bit beat the trash man to it and regarded it as a great possession.

They carried the thing to the corner of the street and set it up in the middle of the alley.

A negro woman passed, humming a tune. When she saw the big negro, she jumped to one side with loud bawl:

“My Gawd! Who you tryin’ to skeer?”

When she saw it was merely a cardboard standing up, she went laughing down the street.

“This is our lucky day, Little Bit,” Org chuckled. “We can have a heap of fun with this thing. There is plenty of fun scaring people if they don’t get mad and fight you afterwards.”

“Niggers don’t fight when dey is skeart,” Little Bit said. “Dey runs.”

“But we can’t play with this to-day,” Org said virtuously, recalling his recent Sunday-school instructions. “This is the Sabbath of the Lord and this big negro man ought to rest on this day. We’ll take him up to my house and lay him down in the stable so he can rest.”

“Restin’ time an’ Sonday shore sounds good to a nigger,” Little Bit giggled. “Even dis here paper pasteboard man is a-grinnin’.”

But this was not a day of rest at the Gaitskill home. They were arranging to give a great dinner that evening at which would be announced the engagement of Miss Virginia Gaitskill and Captain Kerley Kerlerac.

All day long Hopey Prophet, famous cook, was preparing that dinner, Dazzle Zenor was helping in the kitchen, Mustard Prophet was errand boy, Skeeter Butts was slipping in and out of Hopey’s cabin in the yard, seizing such opportunities as he could find to discuss with Mustard the return of the rabbit-foot.

Org was called in and impressively informed that his beautiful sister was engaged to Captain Kerlerac and the announcement would be made that evening; that he would not be permitted to be at the dinner because he had to be corrected seventeen times at an ordinary meal, and this occasion was so extraordinary that he was eliminated.

“I don’t care—I’m glad I’m out of it,” Org growled. “Gince didn’t ask me nothing about her business and I’m not going to help her through. Let old Gince go and get herself engaged. Little Bit says that Cap’n Kerley is a easy boss.”

“What I want you to do is to be a good boy all day and stay around the house,” Mrs. Gaitskill requested.

“I’ll promise not to leave this place all day,” Org said. “There’s nothin’ doing on Sunday nohow.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Gaitskill said, much relieved by the promise. “If you are very good, I’ll promise to do something very nice for you.”

“Will you lemme have a party and invite Little Bit?” Org asked.

“Oh, dear! I can’t promise what I will do just now,” Mrs. Gaitskill smiled.

“Say!” Org exclaimed, struck by a sudden thought. “Don’t I get anything to eat out of this?”

“Certainly. But you’ll have to wait until the others have eaten.”

“Is Little Bit in on the eats, too?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll be good,” Org announced.

And he kept his promise. He and Little Bit played in the stable all day long. About dark it pleased his fancy to carry his cardboard negro man to the house where there could be no danger of anyone stealing it. At first he thought he would take it up to his own room, then he decided to store it in a room which Colonel Gaitskill called his “office,” for he knew that no one would enter that room that night.

The Gaitskill home was arranged in this fashion: Entering the front door a guest stepped into the reception room in the rear of which was a staircase leading to the bed-rooms above. On the left of the reception room was the dining-room, behind that the butler’s pantry and the kitchen. In the rear of the staircase was a back hall with a flight of back stairs leading to the bed-rooms above. On the right of the reception room was the drawing-room, and in the rear of that, entered by folding doors, was what Mrs. Gaitskill called a library, and Miss Virginia called a den, and Colonel Gaitskill called his office.

In this “office” Org set up his cardboard man, knowing that Gaitskill never entered this room on Sunday, and that no guest would be admitted to it that night.

As Org came out of the room, he was captured by Dazzle Zenor, who conducted him to his room, ordered him to bathe, and superintended his dressing. Then she dismissed him with instructions not to leave the house and hastened to assist Miss Virginia with her toilet.

Orren sneaked down to the dining-room and gazed with awe at the wonderfully picturesque table; boylike, he began to seek what he might devour. There was nothing good to eat on the table yet, nothing on the sideboard. He pulled open a door in the sideboard, and found far back a cut-glass dish full of candies.

“Oo-oo!” he exclaimed. “Candy mints! They put ’em way back here to hide ’em from me!” and he filled his pockets.

Then he smuggled Little Bit up-stairs to his room to keep him company, and showed him the candy mints.

“Dat looks good to me,” the little negro said.

“I bet it’ll make our mouths run water to eat ’em. When eatin’ time comes, us is gwine expe’unce joy.”

“We’ll lay ’em on this table till everybody goes to eating down-stairs,” Org said.

There were some Tickfall notables at that dinner.

There was Dr. Sentelle, clergyman, a hang-over from Civil War times, an unreconstructed rebel, a cripple since Antietam, whose voice was music, whose speech was eloquence, and every word a caress; whose face was beautiful, written all over with the literature of experience. There was John Flournoy, who had served forty years as sheriff of the Parish, a man with the physical frame of an ox, the strength of Samson, a mouth like a bear trap, and the gentle heart of a woman—the little children followed him on the streets. There was Judge Haddan, a pale, sickly man with a weak voice, trembling hands, and the stooped shoulders of the student; but his head was massive and Websterian, his eyes glowed like the eyes of some jungle beast, and no man within the borders of the State commanded more respect as a lawyer and a jurist. There was Colonel Gaitskill, the host, serene, powerful, with his snow-white beard and hair, his face glowing like an alabaster vase with a lamp in it, such a man as one beholds once in a lifetime and remembers forever. And around these a bevy of women and girls who had known these men since their babyhood.

And there was the girl of the evening, Miss Virginia Harwick Gaitskill, descendant of a long line of beautiful women and handsome men, her skin like the faint iridescence of pearls, her eyes like cornflower sapphires, her hair like cobweb, thick and wavy, colored like the heart of a ripe chestnut burr, her whole face like pearl and pomegranate and peachbloom, with the amber nimbus above it always from that soft brown hair, her laughter light and happy like a Sicilian shepherd’s reed, and her heart like oil on salt sea-water—all the beauties of the world moving, circling, advancing, retreating, but smoothing out all ruffled surfaces and stilling the storm!

And Captain Kerley Kerlerac, such a man as every mother wants her son to be that he might fill her heart and satisfy her love completely—but it is customary to ignore the man in a case like this, or dismiss him with faint praise.

The dinner was about half finished when Little Bit, in Orren’s room up-stairs, looked longingly at the candy mints upon the little table and remarked:

“All dem eaters down dar makes me feel hongry.”

“Me, too. Less eat our candy mints,” Org suggested.

“I’ll bet dey’ll make my mouf water when I gits ’em inside,” Little Bit chuckled. “My mouf is been waterin’ jes’ to look at ’em.”

Indeed, they did make his mouth water.

These candy mints were not what Orren Randolph Gaitskill thought they were. They were shaped like candy mints, but they contained no candy and no mint; they were little wafers, which dropped in water in the finger-bowls, would effervesce, causing the water to bubble and sparkle and look pretty.

Both boys grabbed a handful of these things and poured them in their mouths.

They tasted sweet. The saliva moistened them, and suddenly one of them exploded in each mouth. It was a very slight explosion, just enough to cause all the tablets to crumble into tiny pieces and get under their tongues and between their teeth, and fill the entire cavity of the mouth like an expanding balloon.

When the explosion occurred in Little Bit’s mouth, that little darky felt like the whole top of his head had been blown off, and he opened his mouth and uttered a startled bellow.

Then in both mouths, each little globule began to explode as the moisture penetrated it. Half a dozen popped under each tongue, several cracked between the teeth of the boys, and the vibration of the nerves of the teeth made them feel as if there was a sound like a pistol shot at each tiny explosion.

“Poison!” Org gurgled.

“P’ison!” Little Bit seconded.

The two boys decided that they needed expert medical attention at once. Dr. Moseley was down in the dining-room. They would not wait for him to come up; they would go down to him! They ran down the hall and galloped down the back steps, their feet making as much racket as a pair of mules crossing the gangplank of a steamboat. They burst into the dining-room, foaming at the mouth, their frothy tongues protruding, gargling their words as they tried to speak. Little Bit, his coal-black face smeared with foamy white bubbles, looked like he had swallowed the handle of a shaving brush and left the soapy end sticking out!

“I’m poisoned!” Org gargled.

“My Gawd! I’m p’isoned!” Little Bit squalled.

Simultaneously with the startling advent of the children in the dining-room, there came a scream, so shrill, so terror-fraught, so penetrating, that all the guests sprang to their feet in consternation.

From the kitchen, Dazzle Zenor’s voice sounded like a steam whistle:

“Oh, my Gawd! A alligator is tryin’ to git in dis kitchen!”

Almost instantly in the reception room there was a sound like the delivery of a ton of coal——

Skeeter Butts had fallen down-stairs!

Hopey Prophet, hearing all the commotion, started from the pantry to see what it was about; glancing across the back hall into Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s office, she beheld a strange negro man with a broad grin on his black face, hugging a Hallelujah Ham to his bosom!

She hurled herself into the dining-room among the astounded guests, her fat arms stretched up toward the ceiling, her dough-like face ashen with fright as she bawled at the top of her voice:

“Fer Gade ’lmighty’s sake, white folks! Dar’s a big nigger man in Marse Tom’s library!”

When Mustard Prophet heard Dazzle’s scream of fright, he rushed from a little side porch where he was waiting to serve the cream when they were ready, taking a pistol from his pocket as he ran. There had been no doubt in Mustard’s mind that he had really seen an alligator in the orchard the day before and he had armed himself for protection in case he saw it again.

But before Mustard got to the kitchen, he heard the sound made by Skeeter Butts in his tumble down the front stairs, so he changed his course and started in that direction.

Just as Mustard arrived in the reception room, he heard Hopey’s wild whoop and her statement that a strange negro was in the library. So Mustard ran across the drawing-room floor, pushed open the folding doors and entered the library, knocking over in his haste a cardboard representation of a negro man who stood holding a Hallelujah Ham to his bosom. Approaching from the rear of this figure, Mustard could not see what it was. It fell face downward and nobody recognized it.

Captain Kerley Kerlerac hastily excused himself from the table, stepped into the back hall on his way to the library. Looking about for a suitable weapon, he laid hold upon Orren’s baseball bat standing in the corner.

He entered the library through one door just as Mustard entered it through the other. Kerlerac closed his door behind him, thus shutting out the light from the little back hall by which Hopey had been able to see the cardboard figure, and which would have shown Kerlerac that the negro was Mustard whom he confronted. But Kerlerac was in the dark, and Mustard had the light from the drawing-room behind him. What Kerlerac saw was a big negro with a big pistol in his hand.

The battle began at once!

Mustard shot ten times at Captain Kerlerac, the bullets flying in every direction. Three of them entered the dining-room among the guests, having no effect except to splash the diners out of that room, like a brick splashes water when dropped into a puddle of mud!

The last bullet in Mustard’s pistol skimmed along the cheek of Kerlerac, making a long, painful cut, just under the lobe of his ear, adding one more bullet wound to the two he had previously received when he was fighting for Uncle Sam in the world war.

Then the captain’s baseball bat landed on the top of Mustard’s head and Mustard sank to the floor unconscious.

Kerlerac walked over with the intention of pounding the negro’s head to a jelly, but just then——

From a little house in the yard by the side of the residence, there sounded the thrilling scream of Miss Virginia Gaitskill. The woman he loved! A moment later she began to shriek, and in her tones were all the concentrated essence of agonized terror!

Miss Virginia, in her effort to escape from the flying bullets, had run out of the house through the kitchen. As she rushed out of the door into the yard, the light from the door shone full into the eyes of a six-foot alligator. He opened his mouth wide at her approach, and when she screamed, he snapped his jaws like a bear-trap!

The shrieking girl fled for refuge to the storehouse.

Alas!

A stream of sweetness from a barrel of ribbon-cane sirup had been running from the spigot for two days and one night. Over the floor of that storehouse was a pool of molasses one inch deep.

Virginia stepped into that mess and both her dainty slippers stuck! She screamed. She tried to retreat and stepped out of both her slippers, and her feet stood ankle-deep in the molasses. Then came a series of shrieks which were the essence of agonized terror!

Captain Kerley Kerlerac, leaving Mustard unconscious upon the floor, ran to the rescue of the beauty in distress. Plunging out of the kitchen door, he leaped over something which looked like an old mud-caked log, and which snapped at him viciously as he passed.

Failing to get a bite of the captain’s leg, the alligator walked around to the front of the house.

Kerlerac hurled himself through the door of the storehouse like a catapult.

Alas for the hero! Both feet landed in the molasses, both feet slipped from under him, he fell flat on his back, rolled over and over in the sweetness, and stopped his progress only when both feet struck against the empty barrel from which all that saccharine had dripped!

He sprang up, threw his sweet arms around the woman he loved, drew her close to his sirupy form, laid his bleeding cheek against her amber hair, and carried her forth to safety!

In the meantime, Skeeter Butts was lying in the reception room under a leather couch, grasping the green-plush box in his nervous hand.

He had started up-stairs to restore it to its rightful owner, just as Org and Little Bit, thinking they were poisoned, had run down the hallway above in their flight to the dining-room. Skeeter had turned his body to retreat, had lost his balance, and had fallen down the steps, taking refuge under the leather couch, where he was happy to remain during the subsequent scenes of that memorable night.

When the screams of Miss Virginia Gaitskill attracted all the guests to the rear of the house, Skeeter crawled from under the couch, crawled across the reception room, slipped out of the front door and began to crawl toward the gate.

Someone in the house turned the electric switch, causing the globe light on the front porch to flash up. Skeeter jumped, hastily concealed himself behind a bit of shrubbery, and glancing around him nervously, found himself squatting within two feet of an immense alligator.

The alligator opened his mouth like a door to the pit of the nether regions, and Skeeter, with that peculiar impulse which everyone has to strike, or throw something, at a peril, hurled the green-plush box into the alligator’s gaping mouth!

The jaws snapped together and the box containing the rabbit-foot was gone.

By that time Skeeter was gone too.

As soon as Mustard Prophet was identified, half a dozen armed men from the dinner party patroled the lawn with guns and flash-lights, hunting for the negro whom Hopey had seen. The alligator, disturbed by the flash-light, which whipped across the grass, crawled under the fence into the horse-pasture, and was there discovered and killed by Sheriff Flournoy.

Skeeter Butts, who was hiding in the bushes just across the road, drew a big sigh of relief.

“Dem white mens is done killed a alligator whut’s got five foots an’ dey don’t know it,” he chuckled. “One foot is gone down de red lane of his gullet in a cute green box!”

Skeeter waited until the men returned to the house and then moved away.

“I knows whar dat rabbit-foot is,” he muttered. “But I ain’t gwine atter it. No Jonah in de whale fer me!”

Over in the negro settlement called Dirty-Six, Skeeter entered the Hen-Scratch saloon, saying nothing of the exciting scenes he had witnessed that night. But his mind dwelt upon them, as evidenced by a song which he sang again and again:

“Some folks do not believe

Dat a whale could Jonah receive

But dat don’t make my tale a-tall untrue.

Dar are whales on eve’y side

Wid deir mouths open wide

An’ you better look out or one will swallow you!”

XVIII THE KISS

Ten days had passed.

At the Nigger-Heel plantation Mustard Prophet, nursing a battered head, was curing an alligator skin which he had nailed upon a barn door, and was keeping careful guard over two green-plush boxes, each containing a rabbit-foot.

Mustard entered the junk-room full of Marse Tom’s curiosities, opened a drawer in a desk, and brought forth the two luck charms which had caused him so much trouble.

“It ’pears to me like dese here lef’ hind foots is lost dere power,” he muttered to himself.

He held up one box which looked rather messy, because Mustard had rescued it from an alligator’s stomach. He continued his soliloquy:

“Now you take de hist’ry of dis here foot: Cap’n Kerlerac gib dis’n to Miss Virginia Gaitskill fifteen years ago when she warn’t nothin’ but a little ole spindle-leg gal. An’ whut come to pass? Her paw an’ maw died in furin parts somewhar an’ she had to move back to Tickfall. Little Bit tole little Marse Org dat a rabbit-foot fotch luck, so he stole dis’n out of his sister’s room, swiped a pipe an’ smoked rabbit terbacker, an’ mighty nigh died. When Skeeter Butts tuck Org home an seen dis rabbit-foot, he thought it wus mine an’ I thought it wus mine because it looked jes’ like mine. So I sneaked up to Miss Virginia’s room to steal it back, an’ I had my hand on de very place whar it wus, when dat little ole Org boy skeart de gizzard outen me, playin’ Indian an’ whoopin’ behime my back.

“An’ Skeeter swiped dis foot fer me, an’ hopped in his automobile to make his escapement, an’ he run off a busted bridge into de Cooley bayou, chased by all de hawgs an’ sheeps an’ cattle an’ hosses an’ mules an’ dawgs an’ mens in Tickfall. Atter dat, Skeeter tried to fotch dis rabbit-foot back to Miss Virginia because it ’twarn’t de one we wanted, an’ he had dis foot on his own pusson when he tuck dat hell-bustin’ tumble down Marse Tom’s steps, an’ he had it in his hand when he snuck across de yard an’ dat alligator tried to eat him up. Den Skeeter throwed dis rabbit-foot, plush box an’ all, down dat alligator’s gullet, an’ whut happened to dat varmint atter he swallowed dis foot, an’ had all de luck inside his own hide? He got kilt!”

He laid this unlucky foot back in the green-plush box, placed it reverently in the drawer, shaking his head over the mystery how a luck charm could be attended with so much misfortune.

“Naw, suh, dis’n is done lost de power,” he announced.

Then he lifted the other green-plush box, lifted a rabbit-foot out of it, and gazed with sacred awe upon this talisman.

“Dis here is Marse Tom’s left hind foot of a rabbit kilt in a graveyard in de dark of de moon,” he announced. “But take de secret myst’ry of de hist’ry of dis here foot: it wus in Marse Tom’s own house when all dat rousement touck place an’ busted up Miss Virginia’s party. An’ I had dis foot in my own coat pocket on my own pussonal self when Cap’n Kerley busted my head wid dat bat an’ I mighty nigh shot his snout off wid my pistol!”

Mustard Prophet reached up and tenderly caressed a bandage upon his wounded head.

“Naw, suh,” he sighed. “’Tain’t resomble to me dat dis foot is still got de authority. I’ll keep it, but I don’t never trust it no more. Mr. On-lucky Foot, I axes you good-by!”

He solemnly placed his thick lips upon the cushiony bottom of the rabbit’s foot, and kissed it farewell.

In Gaitskill’s stable in Tickfall, an ideal playhouse for two boys, Orren Randolph Gaitskill and Little Bit had formed a joint ownership over eleven interesting objects: One baseball bat which had “busted a nigger’s head,” and ten pistol bullets which had been extracted from the walls in the Gaitskill home. At frequent intervals an argument started between them as to which of the ten bullets had wounded Captain Kerley Kerlerac in the face.

“Ef I knowed which one it wus, I’d shore tote it roun’ wid me fer luck,” Little Bit said.

“This bat is a lucky bat. It blooded Mustard’s head. But we can’t carry it around for luck,” Org said.

“Naw, suh, but we can kiss it fer luck,” Little Bit proclaimed.

“That’s right,” Org said. “You kiss one end and I’ll kiss the other.”

They solemnly held it up between them, and white lips and black lips caressed opposite ends of the big stick.

In the Gaitskill home, Captain Kerley Kerlerac entered and asked for Virginia. This was his tenth call since the night of the dinner ten days before. But now, for the first time, the bandage was removed from his face.

A long red scar marked the face from the point of the chin to the lobe of the ear.

For the first time Virginia saw that mark which he would carry to his grave. Kerlerac noticed that look of distress, but he had a little question which he often asked, and it always had the effect of diverting her mind from anything, however important, to something which was vastly more important.

“Do you love me as much as ever?” he asked quietly.

But the girl could not take her eyes from the long red scar. Her chin quivered with emotion and her lips drooped with the pain of the thought of that night of comedy when he had to suffer this wound.

“Stoop over and I’ll tell you,” she whispered.

He bent his head to hear the whisper from her fragrant lips.

She put both arms around his neck and kissed the scar upon his cheek.