Part 14 (1/2)
”What'll you bet you've got it now?” he demanded gleefully. ”What'll you bet?”
”I'll bet my life--that's all,” answered Trencher. ”Here, I'll show you!”
He stood up. Because his wrists were chained he had to twist his body sidewise before he could slip one hand into his own trousers pocket.
He groped in its depths and then brought forth something and held it out in his palm.
The poor light of the single electric bulb glinted upon an object which threw off dulled translucent tints of bluish-green--not a trade dollar, but a big overcoat b.u.t.ton the size of a trade dollar--a flat, smooth, rimless disk of smoked pearl with a tiny depression in the middle where the thread holes went through. For a little s.p.a.ce of time both of them with their heads bent forward contemplated it.
Then with a flirt of his manacled hands Trencher flung it away from him, and with a sickly pallor of fright and surrender stealing up under the skin of his cheeks he stared at the detective.
”You win, Murtha,” he said dully. ”What's the use bucking the game after your luck is gone? Come on, let's go down-town. Yes, I b.u.mped off Sonntag.”
CHAPTER V
QUALITY FOLKS
In our town formerly there were any number of negro children named for Caucasian friends of their parents. Some bore for their names the names of old masters of the slavery time, masters who had been kindly and gracious and whose memories thereby were affectionately perpetuated; these were mainly of a generation now growing into middle age. Others--I am speaking still of the namesakes, not of the original bearers of the names--had been christened with intent to do honour to indulgent and well-remembered employers of post-bellum days. Thus it might befall, for example, that Wadsworth Junius Courtney, Esquire, would be a prominent advocate practicing at the local bar and that Wadsworth Junius Courtney Jones, of colour, would be his janitor and sweep out his office for him.
Yet others had been named after white children--and soon after--for the reason that the white children had been given first names having a fine, full, sonorous sound or else a fascinatingly novel sound.
Of these last there were instances amounting in the aggregate to a small host.
I seem to remember, for example, that once a pink girl-mite came into the world by way of a bedroom in a large white house on Tilghman Avenue and was at the baptismal font sentenced for life to bear the Christian name of Rowena Hildegarde.
Or is Rowena Hildegarde a Christian name?
At any rate, within twelve months' time, there were to be found in more crowded and less affluent quarters of our thriving little city four more Rowena Hildegardes, of tender years, or rather, tender months--two black ones, one chrome-yellow one, and one sepia-brown one.
But so far as the available records show there was but one white child in our town who bore for its name, bestowed upon it with due knowledge of the fact and with deliberate intent, the name of a person of undoubted African descent. However, at this stage to reveal the circ.u.mstances governing this phenomenon would be to run ahead of our tale and to precipitate its climax before the groundwork were laid for its premise. Most stories should start at the beginning. This one must.
From round the left-hand corner of the house came with a sudden blare the sound of melody--words and music--growing steadily louder as the unseen singer drew nearer. The music was a l.u.s.ty, deep-volumed camp-meeting air, with long-drawn quavers and cadences in it. The words were as follows:
_Had a lovin' mother,_ _Been climbin' up de hill so long;_ _She been hopin' git to heaben in due time_ _Befo' dem heaben do's close!_
And then the chorus, voicing first a pa.s.sionate entreaty, then rising in the final bars to a great exultant shout:
_Den chain dat lion down, Good Lawd!_ _Den chain dat lion down!_ _Oh, please!_ _Good Lawd, done chained dat lion down!_ _Done chained dat deadly lion down!_ _Glor-e-e-e!_
The singer, still singing, issued into view, limping slightly--a wizen woman, coal-black and old, with a white cloth bound about her head, turban fas.h.i.+on, and a man's battered straw hat resting jauntily upon the knotted kerchief. Her calico frock was voluminous, unshapely and starch-clean. Her under lip was shoved forward as though permanently twisted into a spout-shape by the task of holding something against the gums of her lower front teeth, and from one side of her mouth protruded a bit of wood with the slivered bark on it. One versed in the science of forestry might have recognised the little stub of switch as a peach-tree switch; one bred of the soil would have known its purpose.
Neither puckered-out lip nor peach-tree twig seemed to interfere in the least with her singing. She flung the song out past them--over the lip, round the twig.
With her head thrown away back, her hands resting on her bony hips, and her feet clunking inside a pair of boys' shoes too large for her, she crossed the lawn at an angle. In all things about her--in her gait, despite its limp, in her pose, her figure--there was something masterful, something dominating, something tremendously proud.
Considering her spa.r.s.eness of bulk she had a most astoundingly big strong voice, and in the voice as in the strut was arrogant pride.
She crossed the yard and let herself out of a side gate opening upon an empty side street and went out of sight and ultimately out of hearing down the side street in the hot suns.h.i.+ne of the late afternoon. But before she was out of hearing she had made it plain that not only a loving mother and a loving father, but likewise a loving brother and a loving sister, a loving nephew and a loving uncle, a loving grandmother and divers other loving relatives--had all been engaged in the hill-climbing pilgrimage along a lion-guarded path.
The hush that succeeded her departure was a profound hush; indeed, by comparison with the clamorous outburst that had gone before it seemed almost ghastly. Not even the shrieks of the caucusing blue jays that might now be heard in the oak trees upon the lawn, where they were holding one of their excited powwows, served to destroy the illusion that a dead quiet had descended upon a spot lately racked by loud sounds. The well-dressed young man who had been listening with the air of one intent on catching and memorising the air, settled back in the hammock in which he was stretched behind the thick screen of vines that covered the wide front porch of the house.