Chapter IV: The Conquest of Kerlerac

“Marse Tom say I warn’t to blame and Sheriff Flournoy turned me loose. But dem white gemmans whut kicked me an’ blimblammed me in de sto’house las’ night ain’t say _nothin’_. Mebbe dey’s gwine hang me yit. I dunno. I ain’t gwine be aroun’ handy till dey gits deir minds sottled dat they _ain’t_,” Mustard Prophet declared.

“Ef dey finds out dat you and me wus bofe in dat house stuffin’ ourse’ves wid vittles, dey’ll take a notion dat dey _am_,” Pap Curtain asserted.

“I’s done heerd de call of de migrashun nigger, Pap,” Mustard said mournfully.

“Go wid me to my cabin an’ lemme git my trombone-hawn,” Pap replied. “Den I’ll mosey wid you.”

The two spent the day under the willows on the banks of the Dorfoche Bayou, lamenting their luck.

“Pap,” Mustard said, “de good Book say dat troubles is seasoning. Pussimmons ain’t good till dey’s fros’-bit. But it ’pears to me like I done had my sheer of sorrer.”

“Me, too,” Pap agreed. “Now I argufies dat de only fitten occupation for a sorrowful man is fishin’. Less go ketch some grasshoppers and see kin we land a few trouts.”

“All right,” Mustard said. “But I favors fishin’ to’rds de railroad bridge, because we’s gwine ketch de souf-boun’ freight.”

Just at dark, the whistle of the freight train screeched for the Dorfoche crossing. Mustard and Pap tossed their poles into the middle of the stream and ten minutes later were aboard an empty freight car, nursing their musical instruments in their laps, bound for an unknown destination.

The fact that the side door of the car which they had caught was open would have published to an experienced traveler that that particular car was not going very far.

When Mustard and Pap woke up, they thought at first that the train had stopped.

Then peeping out cautiously, they ascertained that the engine had sidetracked their car and gone on. Finding themselves in the middle of an immense sugar plantation, they climbed on top of the car to reconnoiter.

Their first familiar sight was a broad, muddy river.

“Dar now!” Pap exulted. “Dat’s ole Massasap. Home’s up de ribber.”

“I bet dis here plantation ain’t fur from some town,” Mustard reasoned. “Less hoof it up de river an’ see kin we find some place whut ain’t so lonesome.”

Picking up their musical instruments, they walked to the levee and turned upstream.

“I smells Tickfall,” Mustard muttered, sniffing the air. “’Tain’t no matter how fur it is, dis river goes past it.”

“I hopes Tickfall ain’t smellin’ us,” Pap declared. “I’s got it proned into me dat we made a good riddunce outen dat place.”

Two miles up the levee and around a bend in the river, they came to a little town squatting like a bullfrog under the protection levee, its gutters running constantly with the seepage water from the dike, its few houses clothed in river fog and standing on high foundations like stilts, the paint upon them cracking and their eaves dripping with moisture.

“Dis here town looks like a spindle-shanked crane,” Mustard declared in disgust. “Dem legs under dem houses is shore fixed fer wadin’.”

Then a prominent building came into view, and Pap Curtain stopped like a man turned to stone.

“I knows dis here town,” Pap declared. “Dey calls it Kerlerac.”

“How fur from Tickfall?” Mustard inquired.

“Thuty mile.”

“Come on, den. Less meet deir ’quaintance.”

“Naw, _suh_!” Pap protested. “You see dat high buildin’ over dar? Two nigger womans helt me up in front of dat Red El’phunt s’loon an’ robbed me of a dollar an’ fo’ bits. One of ’em helt a razor at my neck, an’ de yuther tuck my loose change.”

“Dat don’t make no diffunce,” argued Mustard. “Dey ain’t dar now.”

“I reckin not!” Pap said positively. “I kotch ’em when dey wusn’t lookin’ and helt ’em by deir hair and bumped deir heads togedder! An’ what you reckin dem womans done? Dey paid a white lawyer my own good money to git me in a lawsuit wid de cote-house, an’ dey put me in de chain-gang fer six mont’s.”

“Hear dat, now!” Mustard exclaimed. “Bad luck!”

“Shore wus. But I didn’t stay dar no time. I lef’ dat chain-gang in fo’ days. Dat’s how come I ain’t so glad to see dis town agin,” Pap said. Then after a moment’s thought, he suggested: “I tells you how to do, Mustard. You take yo’ cawnet-hawn an’ go out an’ pick de town.”

“Pick it?”

“Stop on all de cornders, play ’em a toon, den pass de hat,” Pap explained. “I’ll set down here an’ res’ my mind till you gits a little money, an’ in de nex’ town we goes to I’ll do de pickin’.”

So Mustard walked up the levee toward the town alone.

In the Red Elephant saloon, he said to the bartender:

“Mister, dese here white genmans need wakin’ up dis mawnin’. Lemme toot a toon or two?”

“Crack away, nigger.”

A few experimental strains issued from the cornet, followed by a high, piercing note; then Mustard started the music of a song everywhere dear to the heart of the Mississippi River negro:

Oh, honey, when you hear dat roan mule whicker;
When you see Mr. Sun turnin’ pale an’ gittin’ sicker
Den it’s time fer to handle dis job a little quicker
Ef you wanter git a smell of de boss-man’s jug of licker.
Git up an’ move aroun’! Set dem han’s to swingin’
Befo’ de boss-man comes aroun’ a dangin’ an’ a dingin’.
Git up an’ shout aloud! Let de white folks hear you singin’--
Hey! O--Hi--O! Hear dem voices ringin’!

All the morning in various sections of the town Pap Curtain, hiding under the levee, could hear the strains of Mustard’s cornet.

Just at noon, Mustard came back, walking slowly, his good-natured face burdened with grief and disappointment, his defeat and dejection revealed even by the dragging of his ponderous feet.

“Whut ails you, Mustard?” Pap inquired solicitously.

“I’m a son of sorrer, Pap,” Mustard wailed. “Nobody but de good Marster kin ’preciate what bad luck I’s had.”

“Whut come to pass?” Pap inquired with interest.

“At de fust offstartin’ I blowed my hawn in de Red El’phant till de white folks gimme a dollar, all in nickles and dimes. Den a white man follered me out when I lef’ an’ tole me ef I would loant him dat money he would show me how to make it disappear.

“Of co’se, I loant it to him, an’ he put it in his pocket an’ said escuse him a minute, an’ he went away an’ I ain’t seed dat white man sence dat time.”

Pap Curtain gazed at Mustard with an expression of mingled pity and disgust. Mustard continued his tale of woe:

“Two white kunnels gimme fo’ bits apiece to play _Dixie_ fer ’em. I had dat money changed over to a paper dollar so it wouldn’t roll away like de yuther dollar done. Den anodder white man come along an’ say ef I gib him dat paper dollar he’d show me how to double it.

“Of co’se, I needed it doubled right quick because I wus already behine one dollar, so I loant it to him to double it. He jes’ folded it over one time; den he shet one eye at me an’ stuck my dollar down in his pocket.”

“Didn’t you ax him to give it back?” Curtain asked.

“Naw, suh, dat was a powerful brave-lookin’ man an’ he acted like he mought ’a’ fought a sawmill ef he wus peeved up.”

“Mustard, you is a plum’, nachel-bawn, stark-naked fool,” Pap informed him.

“I agrees wid dem sentiments,” Mustard said sorrowfully. “Lawdy, my foots shore hurts me scandalous. Lemme set down.”

“Ain’t you got no money a-tall?” Pap inquired peevishly.

“Naw,” Mustard informed him.

“Is you had anything to eat?”

“Naw,” Mustard lamented. “An’ I’s so hungry I could eat a houn’-dog biled in soap grease.”

The two sat for a moment, looking out at the river. Then Mustard suggested:

“You go out an’ try ’em a few toons, Pap. I axed eve’ybody I met ef dey knowed a nigger named you, an’ dey said dey didn’t.”