Chapter IX: Tick Celebrates

“I shore am feelin’ fine to-night,” Tick muttered, as he walked away from Gaitskill’s home. “I feels like a cel’bration of some kind. De fust notion whut comes acrost my head, I’ll back it.”

Feeling hungry, he wandered toward the Shin Bone eating-house, and there, near the entrance, he met Dazzle Zenor.

“How am de love case gittin’ on, Ticky?” she giggled.

“Eve’ything is done sot an’ settled,” Tick grinned back. “Dat piece of love lesson you gimme wus suttinly a plenty.”

“You oughter stayed through it all, honey,” Dazzle smiled. “I’d ’a’ learnt you how to flash de glad eye, how to hold yo’ gal’s hand, how to hug her so tight she’d holler fer her mammy, an’ how to bite yo’ name in her cheek.”

“I didn’t need dat many lessons,” Tick informed her.

“Rememberin’ dat you ain’t paid me nothin’ fer whut I did learn you, it seems nachel to me dat you oughter buy me somepin to eat,” Dazzle suggested.

“Dat’ll suit me,” Tick exclaimed. “I ain’t got de same five dollars whut you gib me back, but I got anodder five whut is jes’ as good.”

It did not occur to Tick until afterward that it is not wise to tell an actress how much money you have in your possession when you take her out to supper.

Dazzle revealed a perfectly amazing appetite for both food and drink. She wanted her food cooked in sundry unique and most expensive ways, and she wanted a mixture of drinks which were several times as expensive as any that Tick had ever had to pay for.

For two hours they sat at the table laughing and talking, and Dazzle found that she had merely to flatter Tick about his social accomplishments to get him to go the limit financially.

Finally Dazzle announced that she had to go, and refused to let Tick accompany her to her destination.

Left alone in the restaurant, Tick counted his change and found that less than fifty cents remained of the five dollars which Skeeter had lent him.

He left the restaurant, entered a nearby saloon, and invested some more of his money in drink. When he reappeared upon the street he possessed one silver dime and a jag.

“Huh,” he grunted, as he looked down at the battered dime. “I’s suttinly pretty well ’luminated up to now. Wonder how come I still got dis here little dime? I b’lieve I’ll buy a watermellyum.”

He entered the restaurant again, purchased a large melon, and staggered solemnly down the street, hugging it in his arms. He walked into a little grove of trees and sat down on the ground.

By this time his ideas were extremely vague.

He cut his watermelon in two halves, carving across the middle; he surveyed both ends with ludicrous gravity, cogitating deeply.

Then remembering that he had left his hat in the Shin Bone eating-house, he scooped all the red meat out of one end of his melon, and turned the empty rind over his head, fitting it on his skull like a cap! Thinking at the same time that he needed a chair, he scooped the red meat out of the other end of the melon, and sat down in that half of the empty rind. Having made himself comfortable, he proceeded with his meal!

“Hey!” he bawled to the world at large. “Dinner’s ready! Come an’ git it!”

The thunder roared, and a summer shower, driven before a strong Gulf breeze, swept over Tickfall. It was gone in five minutes, and the moon came out clear and bright, but the rain had drenched Tick Hush to the skin.

“It’s a good thing I fotch my hat out here wid me,” he mumbled, holding the watermelon rind on his head. “I mought ketch cold ef my head gits wet. Gotter take keer of myse’f--gwine git married.”

The cold water had a slightly sobering effect upon him, and he suddenly realized that he was without his coat.

“Dar now! I done lef’ dat coat at Button Hook’s house, an’ I done decided not to marrify Button. Dat’s bad luck! I’ll go ax Skeeter Butts ’bout dat!”

Still holding his watermelon-rind hat upon his wabbly head, he staggered slowly down the street, balancing himself carefully as he walked up the steps of the saloon and entered the swinging door.

Then he stumbled and threw out both hands to steady himself. His unique hat fell to the floor breaking into a hundred fragments, and splashing to all parts of the room. Tick gave a low moan of sorrow, stepped on a piece of the melon, slid about ten feet, and sat down upon the floor with a jolt which almost loosened his ears.

He got to his feet with difficulty, motioned mysteriously to Skeeter, and led the way to the room in the rear.

“Bad luck, Skeeter!” he growled. “I done messed my mattermony up agin.”

“Slop it out!” Skeeter snapped. “Whut you done now?”

“Button Hook is done promise to marry me, an’ Limit Lark is done promise to marry me, an’ Dazzle Zenor is done promise to marry me--leastwise, I think she done it. I cain’t remember real good.”

“Why cain’t you remember?” Skeeter snarled.

“I’s so full of booze my y-ears is stopped up an’ my back teeth is a-floatin’,” Tick explained.

“I know dat! Go on!”

“Whut griefs my mind is dis,” Tick went on. “I lef’ my coat wid dem two marrifyin’ letters in it down at Button’s house; Button is got my wrist-watch, an’ I ain’t gwine marry Button!”

“Aw, good gosh!” Skeeter exclaimed disgustedly.

“Whut is de most properest thing fer me to do nex’, Skeeter?” Tick inquired with alcoholic gravity.

“You better do like a mud-turtle do!” Skeeter snarled.

“How do a mud-turtle ack under dem succumstances?” Tick inquired.

“When a turtle gits in trouble, he puts his hands an’ foots in his pocket, takes a big breath, an’ swallers his head, den he rolls offen a log an’ stays under de water fer fawty days,” Skeeter informed him.

“Dat’s onpossible fer me to do, Skeeter,” Tick replied earnestly. “I’d git drowndead shore, an’ Marse Tom don’t want no harm to happen to me.”

“’Twouldn’t be no great big loss,” Skeeter snapped. “It ’pears to me like I could do widout you powerful easy.”

“De lady folks would miss me,” Tick said with a drunken grin.

“Git outen here, Tick, befo’ I git you put in jail,” Skeeter howled. “You is a noosunce.”

“Don’t go back on yo’ lodge brudder, Skeeter,” Tick begged. “Tell me whut to do to git outen my jam.”

“All right,” Skeeter said ungraciously. “Go down to Button Hook an’ git yo’ coat, yo’ letters, an’ yo’ wrist-watch back--an’ I hopes to Gawd dat Button Hook will chaw you up an’ spit you out!”

“Marse Tom don’t want his pest-house nigger ruint like dat!” Tick protested.

Skeeter pushed him out of the back door and returned to the barroom.

Thus dismissed, Tick went slowly toward the cabin occupied by Button Hook. Then he thought of something which quickened his footsteps and gave him courage.

“I won’t hab no trouble to git my coat back. I jumped through dat winder an’ busted it to smashereens, an’ of co’se it will be open.”

He sneaked up to the house from the side nearest to the woods, and approached the window with the utmost caution. Climbing in over the broken frame, he felt about the room until he located his coat. Thrusting his hand into the inside pocket, he brought it out empty.

“Dey’s gone!” he sighed. “Mo’ an’ mo’ trouble all de time!”

He stood thinking and listening until his attention was attracted by the loud ticking of a clock in the room.

“I gitcher!” he grinned. “Button said she hid de wrist-watch behime de clock.”

He thrust his hand between the wall and the clock, and in a hollow space behind the timepiece, he found the watch and the two envelopes.

“Huh,” he grunted, “dese here is shore my losted letters. De Lawd am shorely wid me.”

Climbing cautiously and noiselessly out of the window, he walked out of the front gate, and, all danger being over, he started jauntily down the street. He felt care-free and happy once more, and he began to sing.

Several hundred yards down the road Button Hook heard him, and concealed herself behind a clump of bushes. She carried a double-barreled, muzzle-loading shotgun, and she had the face and manner of one who was determined to use it.

Button had been hunting through all the negro settlements of the town for the man who was now approaching, singing at the top of his voice. She listened to the song with an ugly smile upon her lips:

“Look on de sunny side,
Git on de sunny side,
Stay on de sunny side
Of life!”

The song ended in a howl of fright.

Tick Hush came to a stand with both hands outstretched to ward off the attack of a girl who stood in the middle of the moonlit road with a shotgun at her shoulder.

“Git ready to die, Ticky!” she snarled. “Dis am de end of you!”

Then both barrels of the gun went off at about the same time.

Tick went off, too.

Fortunately for Tick, Button Hook was not familiar with the use of firearms. She had heard her father say that his old shotgun kicked like a yearling mule. She was afraid of the gun, afraid of the noise it made, and afraid of the kick. She had held it far from her shoulder to avoid the rebound, had shut both her eyes, and pulled both triggers. When the gun went off she dropped it on the ground, and went home at full speed, squalling at every step.

Tick leaped to one side of the road, tore both legs off his pantaloons at the knee clambering over a barbed-wire fence, and went howling through the woods, bumping against nearly every tree in his flight.

Like a crawfish, Tick went forward and looked back.

When at last he felt that he had escaped from danger, he was bleeding from a number of wounds on his head, bleeding at both knees, bleeding where the barbed-wire had cut his lips, and his nose was a spouting fountain of red.

“I’ll go ax Skeeter Butts ’bout dis,” the wretched man moaned.

When he staggered into the Hen-Scratch saloon he made a big sensation. Negroes were standing at the bar, others were playing pool, some were engaged at various games at the table, and a big group was assembled in the center of the room singing, cracking jokes, and laughing as they smoked. The crowd sprang up and rushed forward as Tick stumbled in, sobbing like a little child.

“My Gawd, niggers!” he howled. “Marse Tom is got to git him anodder nigger. Dis’n is plum’ ruint. Send fer de dorctor! I’s been helt up an’ robbed an’ shotted to death!”