Chapter II: “took In.”

“De fust thing I needs is a sack of peanuts an’ a awange to cut de dust outen my throat,” Hitch said to himself, as he walked slowly down the village street.

He entered a small grocery, made his purchases, and thrust his fingers into his hip-pocket to bring forth his money.

Instead he extracted a wad of newspapers.

Hitch stupidly unfolded the paper, gazed at it with hypnotic fascination, searched all his pockets for his lost money, then searched them again, hunting for loose change.

The disgusted clerk tossed the bag of peanuts back into the roaster, laid the orange back on the shelf, walked over to a chair and sat down, his mind spluttering like wet fireworks with his unspoken comments on the colored race in general and Hitch in particular.

Hitch stumbled stupidly out of the store, broke and broken-hearted.

He looked around him uncertainly, then dragged his ponderous feet back toward the depot, hoping to find his lost money. After half an hour’s search he gave it up and started aimlessly toward the river.

Half-way down the block he met a tall negro whose face was slightly disfigured by a broken nose. The man wore a checkerboard suit of clothes, a cowboy hat, and a sport shirt. Hitch’s eyes fell first upon the emblem of a negro lodge which the man wore on the lapel of his coat.

Hitch eagerly laid hold upon his lodge brother, “I’s in powerful bad trouble, brudder,” he moaned. “I ain’t know nobody in dis town an’ I done loss all my money on my way to dis place. Whut kin be did?”

“De next best thing is to go down to de big mill an’ set on de buzz-saw,” the brother advised.

“Whut good will dat do me?” Hitch inquired.

“It’ll fix you so trouble won’t trouble you no more,” Checkerboard grinned, patting Hitch on his powerful back. “Atter you takes yo’ seat you won’t need no money--de Nights of Darkness lodge will bury yo’ remainders free fer nothin’ an’ sot you up a real nice tombstone.”

“I got plenty white folks in my own home town,” Hitch continued, paying no attention to his companion’s foolishness. “I mought could git some he’p mebbe ef I had somewhar to wait at ontil dey sont me de money.”

The checkerboard negro looked Hitch over; then his eyes narrowed and he smiled.

“As a lodge brudder in good standin’, I could lead you to my own house an’ keep you a little while,” Checkerboard remarked. “Whar is yo’ lodge pin?”

Hitch glanced down at the lapel of his coat.

“My gosh!” he mourned. “I done loss my money an’ my lodge breastpin too. Dat breastpin wus jes’ perzackly like de one you is got on an’ wus gib me by Skeeter Butts.”

“Suttinly,” Checkerboard laughed. “Dey is all made alike an’ look jes’ de same. Mebbe de feller whut touched yo’ wad frisked yo’ pin, too.”

“Dat’s whut happened,” Hitch sighed. “But it don’t he’p me none to know dat news.”

“You’se too blame young to be trabbelin’ alone,” Checkerboard snickered. “You needs a fust-rate gardeen. Foller atter me!”

He conducted Hitch to the rear of the big sawmill, led him through a maze of immense lumber piles, and brought him around the big mill-pond to a cluster of houses built by the owners of the mill for the occupancy of their negro employees.

There was one two-story house which looked like a barracks, and was intended for use by men who had no families. Into this Checkerboard led his companion.

“Set down, Revun,” he smiled. “Dis here is my boardin’-house. I keeps it fer de ’commodation of de nigger workers in de mill whut ain’t got no wifes an’ no home. Dey eats in dat eatin’-house down dar by de mill-pond an’ sleeps here.”

“It’s powerful hot in dis place,” Hitch complained as he seated himself.

“We keeps de winders down in de daytime because eve’ybody whut stays here is busy in de mill,” Checkerboard explained, as he pulled off his coat and hung it across his arm. “Pull off dat coat of yourn, an’ I’ll take yo’ stove-pipe hat an’ coat an’ hang ’em up wid mine.”

Hitch gratefully removed his hat and coat and sat down. He took a stogie from his vest-pocket and felt for a match.

“Don’t you wanter take off dat vest, too?” Checkerboard inquired. “You might git seegar ash all over it.”

“Dat’s right,” Hitch said, as he handed his friend the vest.

“Make yo’se’f at home, Revun,” Checkerboard said graciously. “Smoke all you please to--spit on de flo’--ack like you wus at yo’ own house! I got to hump aroun’ a leetle on bizzness befo’ de mill blows de whistle fer closin’ time. But I tells you in eggsvance, dat as fur’s I’m concerned, you kin stay in dis house fer a mont’.”

“You is a true lodge brudder,” Hitch rumbled in real gratitude. “I won’t never fergit you!”

Checkerboard left the room, walked through the hallway, passed out of the rear door, clambered down into a gulley, and carried Hitch’s clothes through a labyrinth of lumber piles to a place far, far away!

Hitch waited for nearly an hour for Checkerboard to return. Feeling the lack of companionship, he walked down to the mill-pond and accosted the slouchy negro woman in the kitchen of the eating-house.

To his surprise he learned that she had never seen nor heard of the man in the checkerboard suit.

“It ’pears to me like dese here folks ain’t plum’ honest,” Hitch mourned as he walked disconsolately around the mill-pond trying to find his way back to the village.

He spent a long time looking for the man who had his clothes, mumbling complainingly to himself the while. At last he wandered to the wharf on the Mississippi River and sat down with his back resting against a post.

His feet were unaccustomed to the wear of patent-leather shoes, and they felt swollen and tired. He took off his shoes, set them side by side in front of him, waved his feet in the cool river breeze, and gazed upon his footwear lovingly.

“I kin git me anodder hat an’ coat,” he muttered. “But dem shoes would be a powerful loss. Dar ain’t no more shoes in N’Awleens dat’ll fit my foots!”

Half a block away two little white boys were cutting monkey-shines on the sidewalk. In the dusty gutter one boy picked up a long, black stocking.

The two considered this find for a moment, then they gathered small sticks and thrust them into the stocking. One youth produced a ball of kite twine and tied an end of the twine around the open end of the stocking. After that, they dropped the stocking upon the pavement and pulled it along by the string, observing the effect.

“It wiggles all right,” they chuckled.

They looked around for a victim and spotted Hitch Diamond.

One of the boys held the stocking and concealed himself behind a pile of lumber on the wharf. The other boy, playing out the ball of twine, walked along the wharf, his bare feet making no sound. He passed close behind Hitch Diamond and stopped and concealed himself on the other side of some shipping about one hundred feet beyond the point where Hitch Diamond sat.

Then the boy with the ball began to wind the twine in. The long black stocking crawled up closer and closer to the inert form of Hitch Diamond.

Finally, when the stocking had wriggled grotesquely to within ten feet of Hitch Diamond, there was a loud whoop--a white boy ran from behind some lumber and shrieked:

“Look at that sna-a-a-ke, nigger! Jump!”

Hitch jumped.

He sprinted down the wharf a hundred yards, pattering along in his sock feet, leaving his precious shoes behind him.

The little white boy shrieked with laughter, picked up the wriggling stocking, and jumped next for Hitch’s shoes.

For a moment he paused, filled with awe when he beheld their monstrous and incredible size; then, doubtless reflecting upon their resemblance to a big mudscow, he put each shoe where a mudscow properly belongs--in the river!

“Hey, you nigger!” a wharf watchman called sharply, as Hitch, looking behind him, ran full tilt into the watchman’s portly form.

“’Scuse me, boss!” Hitch grunted.

The watchman hung three strong fingers in the collar of Hitch’s white shirt. Hitch didn’t like that. He pulled away. The watchman pulled too. The inevitable happened.

Hitch’s shirt tore half in two and hung limply in the watchman’s hands as Hitch raced down the wharf clad in socks, pants, and a red undershirt!

The watchman disgustedly tossed his spoils on top of a lumber pile and gave himself up to the placid contemplation of the flight of some gulls on the river.

“Lawd,” Hitch sighed, when he had dodged around the distant end of the wharf and had time to look down at his deficient apparel. “Dis here town shore is hard on clothes!”