Chapter IV: A Pipe of ’backy

The gate opened and Dude Blackum stumbled in, walking to the door with every manifestation of suffering his imagination could devise.

Hitch, standing behind Dainty so she could not see, encouraged Dude’s painful progress by waving the other silk purple-and-yellow sock at him.

“My Lawd, Dainty,” Dude wailed, “whut you reckin dat ole bull went an’ done to me?”

“Butted you in de bayou!” Dainty answered promptly.

“Yes’m, dat’s it! I’s cripple in bofe behime legs fer life!” Dude told her as he clasped his back with both hands and groaned. “I couldn’t swim a lick because I couldn’t kick. Ef I hadn’t paddled out wid my hands I’d ’a’ been drownded.”

He looked appealingly toward Hitch Diamond, waiting for the bogus elder to suggest the booze. But Hitch merely wiped his hand across his mouth and grinned.

“Dainty, honey,” Dude said pleadingly, “I’s powerful hurted, an’ I feel like I’s gwine hab a rigger. Ain’t you got a leetle----”

“I shore has,” Dainty replied eagerly, without waiting for the question. “Git in de yuther room an’ take off dem wet clothes, an’ by dat time I’ll hab you a good dram ready.”

With a beatific grin at Hitch Diamond, to which Hitch responded, Dude retired to change his clothes. A moment later he came out and said to Hitch:

“Gimme dat yuther silk sock!”

“A trade am a trade,” Hitch grinned as he handed it over. “Ain’t one sock wet?”

“Naw!” Dude whispered. “I laid it on de groun’ till I jumped in de bayou, an’ I fotch it home under my hat.”

When Dude reappeared he was clothed in his best suit and wore the gaudiest socks he had ever owned.

“Set down by dis table, Dude,” Dainty said.

She went to the kitchen, and returned carrying a bowl, the rank odor of its contents permeating the room.

“My gawsh, Dainty!” Dude howled as she set the bowl of steaming liquid before him. “Whut is dis mess--a b’iled rat?”

“Naw,” Dainty said in her sweetest tones. “It’s a bowl of hot sass’fras tea!”

Dude howled his disgust.

“It’s mighty good fer a nigger whut’s had a accidunt, Dude,” Dainty told him with suspicious gentleness.

Dude glanced at Hitch Diamond. That gentleman’s face was set in a monstrous, mouth-stretching grin, and his eyes danced with unholy glee.

“Huh!” Dude grunted. He sheepishly bent his head over the bowl of sassafras tea and sipped its last drop without saying a word.

“Dat fake preacher prize-fighter is done scratched me out,” he reasoned. “I’ll git even, or die!”

Finishing his tea, Dude rose to his feet. “I’s gwine out to feed de pigs fer de night, Dainty,” he said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Dude sat down in the door of the corncrib and meditated deeply upon a proper method of retaliation.

“Dat Hitch Diamond thinks he’s purty blame peart in his head,” he announced to himself. “He thinks dat he’s got so much sense dat his eyes looks red.”

He ran his hands deep into his pockets and meditated some more. Then he shook his head hopelessly.

“I ain’t got nothin’ in my head but squash-seed. When I tries to ponder, it gibs me blind-staggers in my brains. I hope, some day, dat nigger will hab to swaller a whole sassafras-tree!”

He stood up and started slowly back toward the house. He looked tired and worn. He had most certainly never heard of Ralph Waldo Emerson, but he would have agreed with that philosopher in the statement that “thinking is the hardest work in the world.”

“I reckin I’ll hab to take dese new socks fer my pay an’ call it even,” he sighed. “Dar ain’t no revengeunce comin’ to me. Dainty an’ Hitch is too much team to pull ag’in.”

He walked into the room where the two sat, nursing a grouch and by no means disposed to be courteous to his guest. He took a corn-cob pipe from his pocket, scratched in the bottom of another pocket for some crumbs of smoking tobacco, and lighted up.

“Dude is got anodder pipe, elder. Would you wish to smoke?” Dainty inquired.

“Yes’m,” Hitch responded. “It’ll kinder sottle my stomick fer my supper vittles.”

Dude arose grumpily, walked to the mantle shelf, and picked up a pipe. Out of one pocket he brought a few crumbs of smoking tobacco, then scraped the bottom of another pocket for a few more crumbs. He emptied some papers and matches and pieces of string out of a mug on the mantle, and poured out a few more crumbs. Then, behind a picture, his eyes caught the gleam of metal, and he brought out something which looked like a flask. He poured a few crumbs out of this into his hand, finished filling the pipe as he turned his back, and reached for a match. Passing them to Hitch, Dude took his chair on the far side of the room near the open door.

Hitch struck the match and sucked the flame into the bowl of his pipe.

_Pow!_

The pipe burst into fragments, the room filled with smoke, Dainty screamed, and Hitch Diamond performed a number of interesting circus stunts and tumbled over in a squalling, bellowing heap upon the floor.

“Git de booze, Dainty!” Dude screamed. “Fotch out de jug! De elder is done cormitted death!”

Dainty sprang to the storeroom door, opened it, and handed Dude the jug.

“Oo-oo-ee!” Hitch whooped. “I’s dyin’ dead!”

“Go in de kitchen an’ fotch a drinkin’ cup!” Dude howled to his wife.

Dainty bounced into the kitchen, slamming the door behind her. Dude quickly latched the door so that Dainty could not enter the room again without going entirely around the house.

“Oo-oo-ee!” Hitch Diamond howled. “He’p!”

“Shut up, you ole fool!” Dude commanded as he walked over and bestowed upon the giant prize-fighter a most earnest and soul-satisfying kick. “Me an’ dis jug ain’t gwine ’socheate wid you no more. You ain’t fitten comp’ny!”

“Don’t leave me, Dude!” Hitch begged. “I’s all collapsed down!”

Dude picked up his derby hat, stopped at the door, and looked back:

“Sass’fras tea is mighty good fer a nigger whut’s had a accidunt, Hitch. Dainty makes it fine! Atter she fixes you a bowl I advises you to fill anodder pipe wid gunpowder outen dat flask behime dat picture an’ take anodder smoke. Good-bye!”

Dainty came running around the house and entered the door. She was mad.

“Whut made you lock me out, elder?” she demanded.

“Dude done it,” Hitch mourned, sitting upon the floor and feeling much better after learning what had caused his pipe to explode. “Dude is went!”

“Oh, Lawdy!” Dainty exclaimed. “Go an’ fotch him back, elder! He’ll be so drunk in no time dat he won’t know whut end of hisse’f is straight up! Go!”

Hitch went. His intentions were good. He really desired to find Dude, because Dude had the jug. He purposed to hunt for him. But a man who has had fourteen swallows out of a jug of free whisky twenty minutes before cannot be expected to maintain a given purpose very long.

By the time Hitch had crossed the pasture, he needed all the woods along the river for walking room. The entire width of the levee was not too much to accommodate his devious journey back toward Sawtown.

On the edge of the town, near the commissary store of the big sawmill, he found a most interesting ditch. It was about ten feet wide and fifteen feet deep, and was hard and dry at the bottom.

He leaned over to examine that ditch with great care. He seemed to want to remember it, to impress it on his mind. It may fairly be presumed that he did impress it on his mind. He fell into it on his head.

At midnight he was sleeping in it undisturbed. A little after midnight something happened. A man walking down the deep gulley stepped on Hitch Diamond and woke him up.