第 27 页

livin'. THEY ain't a-goin to suffer. Why, jest think--there's thous'n's

and thous'n's that ain't nigh so well off. Bless you, THEY ain't got

noth'n' to complain of."

Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and said all

right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to stay, and that

doctor hanging over them. But the king says:

"Cuss the doctor! What do we k'yer for HIM? Hain't we got all the fools

in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?"

So they got ready to go down stairs again. The duke says:

"I don't think we put that money in a good place."

That cheered me up. I'd begun to think I warn't going to get a hint of

no kind to help me. The king says:

"Why?"

"Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out; and first you know

the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds up

and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run across money and not

borrow some of it?"

"Your head's level agin, duke," says the king; and he comes a-fumbling

under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I stuck tight to

the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I wondered what them

fellows would say to me if they catched me; and I tried to think what I'd

better do if they did catch me. But the king he got the bag before I

could think more than about a half a thought, and he never suspicioned I

was around. They took and shoved the bag through a rip in the straw tick

that was under the feather-bed, and crammed it in a foot or two amongst

the straw and said it was all right now, because a nigger only makes up

the feather-bed, and don't turn over the straw tick only about twice a

year, and so it warn't in no danger of getting stole now.

But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was half-way down

stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I could get

a chance to do better. I judged I better hide it outside of the house

somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the house a good

ransacking: I knowed that very well. Then I turned in, with my clothes

all on; but I couldn't a gone to sleep if I'd a wanted to, I was in such

a sweat to get through with the business. By and by I heard the king and

the duke come up; so I rolled off my pallet and laid with my chin at the

top of my ladder, and waited to see if anything was going to happen. But

nothing did.

So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones hadn't

begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.

CHAPTER XXVII.

I CREPT to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I tiptoed

along, and got down stairs all right. There warn't a sound anywheres. I

peeped through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the men that was

watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs. The door was open

into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and there was a candle in

both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door was open; but I see there

warn't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter; so I shoved on by;

but the front door was locked, and the key wasn't there. Just then I

heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind me. I run in the

parlor and took a swift look around, and the only place I see to hide the

bag was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot, showing

the dead man's face down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and his

shroud on. I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just down beyond

where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and

then I run back across the room and in behind the door.

The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very soft, and

kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her handkerchief, and I see

she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back was to me. I

slid out, and as I passed the dining-room I thought I'd make sure them

watchers hadn't seen me; so I looked through the crack, and everything

was all right. They hadn't stirred.

I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thing

playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so much

resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right; because

when we get down the river a hundred mile or two I could write back to

Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it; but that ain't the

thing that's going to happen; the thing that's going to happen is, the

money 'll be found when they come to screw on the lid. Then the king 'll

get it again, and it 'll be a long day before he gives anybody another

chance to smouch it from him. Of course I WANTED to slide down and get it

out of there, but I dasn't try it. Every minute it was getting earlier

now, and pretty soon some of them watchers would begin to stir, and I

might get catched--catched with six thousand dollars in my hands that

nobody hadn't hired me to take care of. I don't wish to be mixed up in

no such business as that, I says to myself.

When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, and the

watchers was gone. There warn't nobody around but the family and the

widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if anything

had been happening, but I couldn't tell.

Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man, and they

set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of chairs, and then

set all our chairs in rows, and borrowed more from the neighbors till the

hall and the parlor and the dining-room was full. I see the coffin lid

was the way it was before, but I dasn't go to look in under it, with

folks around.

Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls took seats

in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a half an hour the

people filed around slow, in single rank, and looked down at the dead

man's face a minute, and some dropped in a tear, and it was all very

still and solemn, only the girls and the beats holding handkerchiefs to

their eyes and keeping their heads bent, and sobbing a little. There

warn't no other sound but the scraping of the feet on the floor and

blowing noses--because people always blows them more at a funeral than

they do at other places except church.

When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in his black

gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last touches, and

getting people and things all ship-shape and comfortable, and making no

more sound than a cat. He never spoke; he moved people around, he

squeezed in late ones, he opened up passageways, and done it with nods,

and signs with his hands. Then he took his place over against the wall.

He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man I ever see; and there

warn't no more smile to him than there is to a ham.

They had borrowed a melodeum--a sick one; and when everything was ready a

young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and

colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the only one

that had a good thing, according to my notion. Then the Reverend Hobson

opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk; and straight off the most

outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body ever heard; it was only

one dog, but he made a most powerful racket, and he kept it up right

along; the parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and wait--you

couldn't hear yourself think. It was right down awkward, and nobody

didn't seem to know what to do. But pretty soon they see that

long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to say,

"Don't you worry--just depend on me." Then he stooped down and begun to

glide along the wall, just his shoulders showing over the people's heads.

So he glided along, and the powwow and racket getting more and more

outrageous all the time; and at last, when he had gone around two sides

of the room, he disappears down cellar. Then in about two seconds we

heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or

two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn

talk where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's

back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he glided and

glided around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and shaded his

mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the preacher,

over the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "HE HAD

A RAT!" Then he drooped down and glided along the wall again to his

place. You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people, because

naturally they wanted to know. A little thing like that don't cost

nothing, and it's just the little things that makes a man to be looked up

to and liked. There warn't no more popular man in town than what that

undertaker was.

Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome; and

then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual rubbage, and at

last the job was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up on the

coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat then, and watched him

pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just slid the lid along as soft

as mush, and screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was! I didn't

know whether the money was in there or not. So, says I, s'pose somebody

has hogged that bag on the sly?--now how do I know whether to write to

Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up and didn't find nothing, what

would she think of me? Blame it, I says, I might get hunted up and

jailed; I'd better lay low and keep dark, and not write at all; the

thing's awful mixed now; trying to better it, I've worsened it a hundred

times, and I wish to goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch the whole

business!

They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces

again--I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. But nothing come

of it; the faces didn't tell me nothing.

The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened everybody up,

and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out the idea that his

congregation over in England would be in a sweat about him, so he must

hurry and settle up the estate right away and leave for home. He was

very sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody; they wished he could

stay longer, but they said they could see it couldn't be done. And he

said of course him and William would take the girls home with them; and

that pleased everybody too, because then the girls would be well fixed

and amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls, too--tickled

them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world; and told

him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be ready. Them poor

things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see them getting

fooled and lied to so, but I didn't see no safe way for me to chip in and

change the general tune.

Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and the niggers and all

the property for auction straight off--sale two days after the funeral;

but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to.

So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls' joy

got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come along, and the king

sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as they called it,

and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their

mother down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls and them

niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each other,

and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. The girls said they

hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold away from the

town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor

miserable girls and niggers hanging around each other's necks and crying;

and I reckon I couldn't a stood it all, but would a had to bust out and

tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no account and the

niggers would be back home in a week or two.

The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out

flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the

children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he

bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell you

the duke was powerful uneasy.

Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king and

the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look

that there was trouble. The king says:

"Was you in my room night before last?"

"No, your majesty"--which was the way I always called him when nobody but

our gang warn't around.

"Was you in there yisterday er last night?"

"No, your majesty."

"Honor bright, now--no lies."

"Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth. I hain't been

a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed it

to you."

The duke says:

"Have you seen anybody else go in there?"

"No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe."

"Stop and think."

I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:

"Well, I see the niggers go in there several times."

Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't ever

expected it, and then like they HAD. Then the duke says:

"What, all of them?"

"No--leastways, not all at once--that is, I don't think I ever see them

all come OUT at once but just one time."

"Hello! When was that?"

"It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn't early,

because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see