Chapter V: Trouble’s Twin

All the afternoon Pap Curtain played trombone solos on the streets of Kerlerac while Mustard Prophet rested his feet.

About four o’clock Mustard and Pap slipped into a negro eating-house and ordered food.

“Whar you cullud pussons come from?” Smart Durret, the negro restaurant keeper, inquired as his patrons consumed large quantities of fried catfish.

“We stays at Tickfall,” Mustard answered.

“When did you-alls arrive down?”

“We come dis mawnin’,” Pap responded.

At this point another occupant of the restaurant rose from a table in one corner of the room, gesticulated mysteriously and forcibly to Smart Durret and went out of a rear door into the kitchen. The mulatto proprietor followed.

“Don’t ax so many questions, Smart,” was the prompt advice of the little negro to the mulatto. “I wucks fer Sheriff Ulloa, an’ I heard tell dis mawnin’ dat somebody robbed a sto’ in Tickfall an’ dey’s offered a hunderd-dollar reward-bill fer who done it.”

Smart Durret’s mud-colored eyes opened wide.

“Dat sto’ was robbed Saddy night,” the little negro continued. “Dem two coons come to town dis mawnin’ early. Dey been takin’ turns hidin’ on de yuther side of de levee all day. Dem niggers is shore it.”

“Is you gwine tell de sheriff, Solly?” the mulatto asked.

“Naw,” Solly exclaimed in disgusted tones. “I figgers dat you an’ me kin kotch ’em out alone, arrest ’em ourse’ves an’ ’vide up de reward-bill even.”

“Dat’s de music!” Smart exclaimed, admiringly. “You keep track of ’em an’ you an’ me’ll git togedder on it to-night.”

Thus advised, Solly Saddler, amateur detective, shadowed Mustard Prophet and Pap Curtain all the afternoon and when darkness came was prepared to report their location to Smart Durret.

“Now, Solly,” Smart advised, “we ain’t got no permit to ’rest dese niggers accawdin’ to de law. So I argufies dat de best way to do is to git in a fight wid ’em, sen’ somebody fer de cornstable, an’ let him tote us all to jail. Den we kin esplain to de sheriff whut we knows, an’ he’ll let us out because you’re a frien’ of his’n.”

“Smart,” Solly exclaimed, “when yo’ mind goes off it kicks like a muzzle-loader. Dat plan’ll hit de bull’s-eye. But ef you ain’t got no objections, I’ll be de one whut goes atter de cornstable. Dem two coons looks powerful perilous to me.”

“All right,” Smart acquiesced reluctantly. “But don’t you lose no time gittin’ dat cornstable. I ’speck you better fetch de sheriff, too.”

They separated to meet an hour later in the Chicken-Wing saloon, a negro resort where Mustard and Pap were loudly advertising their presence by playing duets.

The plan of the two conspirators to start trouble was simple but effective.

Solly Saddler entered the place with a bucket of red paint and a broad paint-brush. Smart Durret came in with a large bottle filled with a foamy, milk-colored liquid--soap-suds.

The two avoided each other for a time, then they got together.

“Whut’s dat you got in dat bottle, Smart?” Solly inquired in a nigger-minstrel tone.

“Dis here is a new kind of cleaner fer clothes,” Smart answered. “It takes all de dirt spots, grease spots, fade spots, an’ paint spots offen clothes, suits, dresses, an’ sich like.”

“Dat stuff won’t conjure loose no paint spots,” Solly argued, flourishing the bucket of paint at Smart.

“I bet yer fo’ bits,” Smart answered promptly.

Then followed a heated discussion of the merits of the paint remover. The crowd slowly gathered around the disputants, and Solly gradually worked his way around until he stood directly in front of Mustard Prophet.

Setting the bucket of paint on the floor and stooping over it, he began to stir it with his brush while the argument waxed hotter and hotter. Then Solly arose, with the dripping paint-brush in his hand.

Then with a quick turn and flourish, he swiped the dripping paint-brush up and down the front of Mustard Prophet’s clothes.

“Now, nigger Durret,” Solly bawled dramatically, “lemme see you take de paint off dis cullud brudder’s coat!”

Mustard reeled backward to escape the paint, a guffaw of loud laughter swept around the circle, and Solly followed Mustard, still busy plying the brush.

Mustard was a sight.

Then Mustard got busy. Solly felt a hard hand on the back of his neck, lost his grip on the brush, and Mustard caught it.

Irresistibly, Mustard led the struggling negro back to the red paint, held him there as easily as a man can hold a wiggling fish suspended from a hook, and proceeded to paint him red, frescoing both the garments and the man within them.

Solly bawled and shrieked and struggled and bit, but Mustard did not release him until the bucket was exhausted of paint.

Solly, too, was a sight.

Then Smart Durret entered the fracas. Seizing his bottle of magic cleanser by the neck and manipulating it like a club, he struck it over the dome of Prophet’s head.

But the soapy neck of the bottle was slick and slipped from Durret’s hand, bounced from the armor-plated skull of Mustard Prophet like a rubber ball, and was smashed to fragments halfway across the room.

Pap Curtain, in his turn, came to the aid of his friend. Picking up the paint-bucket with a circular motion of his long arm, he brought it down upon the head of Smart Durret. The bucket did not bounce, but Durret did.

Deciding it was high time to go for the constable and the sheriff, Solly departed with expedition, deeply regretting that the State militia and the Federal army were not available in this hour of need.

But Smart and Solly had loyal friends, and in a moment Mustard and Pap stood with their backs to the wall, each in possession of a heavy chair, holding it like a lion-tamer to keep the crowd from rushing them.

Drawn by E. W. Kemble.

Mustard proceeded to paint him red.]

“Don’t scrouge, niggers!” Mustard bawled, as he held his chair poised for battle. “I done kilt so many coons I can’t count ’em. A feather fell from a buzzard’s wing an’ hit me on de head when I wus little, which am a sign dat my path is crossed wid dead men. Come right on an’ git your’n!”

Then for a minute Mustard and Pap were the center of a whirling wheel of legs and arms and hands and heads; holding their chairs before them they charged through the ring like two angry bears. Men doubled up before them and went down and they took a side-swipe at the rest as they passed.

They had reached the door in safety and were just about to pass through when the door was blocked by the portly form of the town constable.

The combatants came to a full stop. The battle was ended.

“Dat’s dem, Mister Rogers!” Solly Saddler squealed, as he pointed out Pap and Mustard. “Dey wus peckin’ on me an’ Smart Durret.”

“You four bucks march along in front of me,” the officer announced briefly. “Go to jail.”

At the jail door Mustard stopped to make a plea which was ably seconded by the others.

“Please, boss, don’t put us togedder.”

“Naw,” Solly exclaimed earnestly. “Let me an’ Smart go upstairs. Lock us away from dem terr’ble mens!”

“Go upstairs, then,” Rogers said.

A minute later, Pap and Mustard stood together behind the bars.

“I done been in jail two times in two days,” Mustard mourned. “Sorrer’s done kotch me again.”

“Me, too,” Pap lamented. “Bad luck’s got me by de lef’ hind leg wid a downhill pull!”

“Same back at you, brudders!” a strange voice from the darkness in tragic tones. “I’s Trouble’s twin!”

Having no charge against the four negroes except disorderly conduct, the constable had merely separated the combatants, allowing each pair the freedom of the entire floor. Mustard and Pap had believed that they were alone upon this lower floor until the strange voice spoke.

Their hair stood up in superstitious fear, but the voice spoke again:

“Howdy, brudders!”

“Who dat talkin’ to hisse’f?” Mustard asked in frightened tones. “Whar is you at? Name yo’ name!”

“Dey calls me Mobile,” the stranger confessed, coming forward. Then he proposed in a whisper: “Less go in one of dese little cages an’ set an’ talk.”

“Naw,” Pap replied forcibly. “De wind might blow dat iron do’ shet. I likes de outside.”

So, instead, the three groped their way down the corridor and sat down on the window-sill, using the grating behind them as a rest for their backs.

“My name is Mustard Prophet.”

“I’s Pap Curtain.”

“Huh,” was the surprised grunt from Mobile.

“Which?” Pap and Mustard asked in duet.

“Whar you-alls from?” Mobile asked.

“Tickfall.”

There was a long silence.

“Whut dey got you in fer?” Mobile asked next.

“A nigger painted my clothes in de Chicken-Wing an’ I fit him to a finish,” Mustard chuckled. “Pap helped.”

“Oo-ee, brudders!” Mobile exclaimed mournfully. “I bet dey gives you ’bout fo’teen years fer dat. Dis is a _mean_ town to niggers! I got to dis town on Sunday mawnin’, and got drunk, and got in a rookus in de Chicken-Wing, an’ dey put me in jail befo’ dinner-time an’ tuck all my money off me--an’ I had ’bout fifteen cents!”

“Dat’s too bad,” Mustard sighed, leaning back against the grating behind him. Then he sprang forward suddenly and exclaimed: “Looky here, Mobile! De bars on dis here winder is plum’ loose!”

“Suttinly,” Mobile whispered.

“How come?”

“I sawed on ’em all Sunday atternoon, an’ Sunday night, an’ all to-day, an’ a leetle bit to-night,” Mobile told him.

“You ain’t figgerin’ to git out, is you?” Mustard inquired innocently.

“Naw, son!” Mobile denied in tones which throbbed with disgust. “I jes’ wants to let in a leetle mo’ fresh air.”

“Us favors mo’ fresh air, too,” Pap snickered.

“I done got ’em sawed loose--mighty nigh,” Mobile said. “Dey’s sawed plum’ across on de sides an’ de bottom, but dey ain’t sawed on de top. You reckon us-all is got muscle enough to ketch holt dat gratin’ an’ bend her in or shove her out?”

“Shorely!” Mustard asserted eagerly. “I kin heft a bale of cotton an’ tote it up de gang-plank of a steamboat.”

The three stood up in the window with their feet resting on the sill.

They stooped and caught hold of the grating at the lower end, and leaning backward, they lifted up and in. Under that mighty strain, the iron grating attached to the masonry by four bars at the top slowly bent and left an opening underneath large enough to allow their bodies to pass through.

The three lost no time in climbing out. They had gone around to the front of the jail when Mustard stopped.

“Hol’ on dar, Mobile,” he muttered. “I done ferget my cawnet-hawn an’ lef’ it in de jail. I needs dat hawn.”

“Leave it be,” Mobile advised.

“I done fergot my trombone-hawn,” Pap added. “Go back an’ git ’em fer us, Mustard.”

“Naw,” Mobile protested. “I got plenty money. I’ll pay you fer ’em.”

“Naw,” Mustard rejoined vehemently. “Marse Tom gimme dat cawnet-hawn, an’ he’s powerful proud of it. He say he’d know de sound of dat cawnet in Chinee.”

Their argument ended right there, for suddenly from a window in the second story of the jail two voices screeched like a calliope:

“Murder-r! He’p! Come here, eve’ybody!”

Yells and whoops and screams and wails came from Solly and Smart who realized that Mustard and Pap had escaped and who saw the reward for their capture slipping away, leaving themselves in durance.

At the first screech, Rogers, the constable, who was sitting on a near-by door-step, ran to the jail and arrived just in time to empty his pistol at the fleeing forms of the three negroes as they passed under the last electric street light, and ran onto the protection levee at the river.

Then the constable hastened back to the jail and became the recipient of some surprising misinformation from the wailing negroes in the prison. In an eager antiphony, they recited what they knew, snatching the sentences from each other’s lips:

“Dem two niggers whut got away robbed de sto’ at Tickfall----”

“An’ kilt dat Mister Skull whut owned it----”

“De feller whut blows de cawnet-hawn done it----”

“He brag his brags dat he done kilt mo’ coons dan he kin count----”

“De monkey-faced tromboner hid behind de levee all mawnin’----”

“An’ de cawnet-nigger axed eve’ybody did us know de tromboner befo’ de tromboner would come out----”

“Ef you ketch ’em agin, Mister Rogers, does us niggers git de reward bill?”

Mister Rogers, accompanied by the two negroes, left the jail in a trot and a few minutes later the constable pounded with his night-stick on the front door of Sheriff Ulloa’s home, demanding admittance on most important business.