J. Poindexter, Colored

"What's the idea?" he says.

"Nummine," I says. "Wait 'twell I fetches you the book."

So I goes and gets it down from the shelf where it belongs. It's the furtherest one of a long row of big shiny black books, which all of them has got different names. But the name of this one is: Vet to Zym.

He takes a look at it when I lays it before him, and he says:

"Why, this is a volume of the Encyclopedia! What bearing can this possibly have on what we've just been talking about?"

"Mr. Dallas," I says, "you's no doubt of'en seen ole Pappy Exall, w'ich he is the pastor of Zion Chapel, struttin' round the streets at home in times gone by? Well, the Rev'n. Exall may look lak one-half of a baby-elephant runnin' loose, but lemme tell you, suh, he ain't nobody's bawn fool. One time yere some yeahs back he got hisse'f into a kind of a jam wid his flock 'count of some of 'em bein' mos' onhighly dissatisfied wid the way he wuz handlin' the funds fur to buy a new organ fur the church. Nigh ez they could figger it out, he'd done confisticated the organ money to his own pussonal an' private pu'pposes. Try ez they mout, they couldn't nobody in the congregation git no satisfaction out of him reguardin' of it. So one evenin', unbeknownst to him, a investigatin' committee formed itse'f, an' whilst he was settin' at the supper-table they come bustin' in on him an' demanded then an' thar how 'bout it? Wid one voice they called on him to perduce an' perduce fast, else they gwine start yellin' fur the police. Wid that he jest rise up frum his cheer an' he look 'em right in the eye an' he say to 'em, very ca'mlak: 'My pore bernighted brethren, in response to yore questions I directs yore prayerful considerations to Acts twenty-eighth an' seventeenth, also Timothy fust an' fifth, lakwise Kings sixth an' fust. Return to yore homes in peace an' read the messages w'ich is set fo'th in the 'foresaid Scriptures an' return to me yere on the morrow fur fu'ther guidance.' Well, they all dashes off fur to dig up they Bibles an' see whut the answer is. Bright an' early next mawnin' they comes back to say 'at w'ile them is mighty fine-soundin' verses w'ich he bade 'em to read, still they ain't nary one of 'em w'ich seems to relate in any way whutsomever to a missin' organ fund. Then he smiles sort of pitiful-lak an' he reaches his fat hand down in his britches pocket an' he hauls out the money to the las' cent. The trick w'ich he had done played on 'em had give him a chanc't to slip out an' borrow 'nuff frum a couple of w'ite gen'elmen frien's of his'n fur to mek up the shortage. Whut he needed wuz time an' time wuz whut he got.

"Now, Mr. Dallas, I aims to borrow a lesson frum the example of ole Pappy Exall. I asts you to set yere an' read a chapter out of 'is yere book. It don't mek no diff'ence to me w'ich chapter 'tis you reads, jes' so it's a good long one. I done looked th'ough 'at book the other day an' most of the chapters in it is long an' all of 'em is tiresome. You jes' read 'twell you gits good an' sleepy an' 'en you go on to baid an' refresh yo'se'f in slumber. An' in the meanwhile I aims to steddy right hard over these yere pressin' matters of your'n an' see ef I can't see the daylight breakin' th'ough somewhars."

I can tell by his looks that he ain't got no hope of success on my part, but he's so plumb wore out from worrying that he ain't got the spirit for to resist me. He says to me he won't promise to read the book, but he will promise to try to lay aside his botherments and go to bed early, which that is sufficient for me.

I leaves him there and I goes back to my room, after telephoning to 'Lisses Petty that something important has come up at our place which will detain me away from him for the time being. And then, when I gets to my room, I sets down and takes off my shoes. It seems like I always could think better when my feet was freed from them binding shoes.

When a nigger boy is fixing to run his fastest he's got to snatch his hat off and sail bareheaded; and I'm much the same way about my feet when I craves to think. So, my shoes being off, I just rears back and sets in for to give the problems before me the fullest considerations.

Chapter XV

Vet to Zym

THE way it looks to me, here is Mr. Dallas Pulliam, one of the most free-hearted, good-willingest young white gentlemen that ever lived, about to be throwed to the raveling wolves. He's elected to be the live meat, with a two-sided race on to see which one of the contesters can pick and clean him the quickest. And so, if he's going to be saved for future references, something is got to be done and done mighty speedy, too, else there won't be nothing left but the polished bones.

I therefore splits up my thinking into two parts; first I studies a spell about the one proposition and then I studies a spell about the other. To tell the truth, though, I don't need to have so very many concernings over the case of Mr. H. C. Raynor. I did not let on to Mr. Dallas what was passing through my mind, but at the very same instant when he turned to me for help after telling about the row down-town at the oil offices with Mr. Raynor, I hit spang on what might turn out to be proper medicine for what ails the gentleman. It ain't so very long, setting there in my room by myself, before the scheme begins to sort of routine itself out and look like something.

With regards to him I'm going mainly on the facts that he's like a lot of these here Northerners which ain't never been down South to speak of, and is therefore got curious ideas about the South in general. Long time before this I has took note that he thinks a colored person naturally enjoys being called "a dam black rabbit" or "a worthless black scoundrel" whilst he's waiting on white folks. Also, he can't seem to get over my failing to say "Yas, Massa" and "No, Massa" when Mr. Dallas asks me a question; and I can tell he's kind of put out because I don't go round speaking of myself as "dis nigga" this and "dis nigga" that and "dis nigga" the other thing. In other words, I ain't living up to the character of the imaginary kind of a Southern-raised black man, which he's been led to expect I'd be from reading some of these here foolish writings which they gets out up here from time to time.

I knows full well what his sensations is in these matters, not only from the look on his face, but from one or two things which I has overheard him saying in times past. So now I just puts two and two together, and I says to myself that if he's entertaining them misled ideas about my race, he doubtless is also got the notion in his head that every quality white gentleman from down South, and more especially them which hails from Kentucky, totes a pistol on the flank and is forever looking for a chance to massacrete somebody against which he's took a disfancy. I remembers now that he asked me once how many feuds there was going on in our part of the state at the present time. Rather than disappoint him, I tells him several small ones and one large one. And another time he wants to know from me whether they ever tried anybody in earnest for shooting somebody down our way. Secretively, at the time, I pities his ignorance, but I ain't undertaking to wean him from his delusions, because if that's his way of thinking it ain't beholden on me to try to educate him different. Looking back on it now, I'm mighty glad I didn't try neither, because in the arose situation I figures that his prevailing beliefs is going to fall right in with my plans.

Inside of half an hour I is through with him and ready to tackle the other matter, which is a harder one, any way you look at it. I takes my head in both my hands and I says to myself: What kind of a lady is this here one we got to deal with? With her raisings, what does she probably like the best in the world? What does she probably hate the most in the world? What would scare her off and what would make her mad, and what is it would probably only just egg her on? What would she shy from, and what would she jump at? Where would she be reckless, and where would she be careful? And so on and so forth.

All of a sudden —bam! – a notion busts right in my face. Casting round this way and that for a starter to go by, I recalls to mind what I heard Judge Priest norrating years ago touching on a funny will which a rich man in an adjoining county to ours drawed up on his death-bed, and how the row over it was fit out in the courts, and with that I says to myself, I says:

"Hallelujah to my soul, ole problem, I shore does believe I's got you whar the wool is short – dog-gone me ef I don't!"

It's getting on towards eleven o'clock when I puts my shoes back on and slips in to see what Mr. Dallas is doing. He's still setting right where I left him, with the book in front of him. But his eyes, seems to me, is beginning to droop a little. Well, there ain't nobody living could linger two hours over that there old Vet to Zym without getting all drowsied up.

"Mr. Dallas," I says, "I thinks the daylight is startin' to sift in th'ough the cloakin' clouds. I seems to see a bright streak, in fact a couple of streaks. But, even so, I is got to be lef' free to wu'k things out my own way. Is you agreeable, suh?"

"Jeff," he says, "I'm in your hands. There's no one else into whose hands I can put myself. What do you want me to do?"

"Well suh," I says, "first I wants you fur to go tek off yore things an' git yo'se'f settled in baid fur the night. Tha's the starter."

"Agreed," he says – "and then, what?"

"Well, next," I says, "I don't want you to go down-town a-tall tomorrow. I want you fur to stay right whar you now is. In the mawnin' keep 'way frum the telephone. Ef I ain't yere to answer it jes' you an' Koga let it ring its haid off an' don't pay it no mind. In the afternoon you may have a 'portant visitor answerin' to the entitlemints of Mr. H. C. Raynor, Esquire. Befo' he gits yere tell you whut's to come off betwixt you two, purvided the perliminary 'rangemints, ez conducted by me, has wukked out all right. But I ain't aimin' to tell you the full plans yit – too much is got to happen in the meantime. Tomorrow is plenty time."

"Just as you say," he says. "I'm going to my room now."

"Wait jes' one minute, please suh," I says, as he gets up. "Mr. Dallas, you ain't ownin' no pistol, is you?"

"What would I be doing with a pistol?" he says, sort of puzzled. "I never owned one in my life – I don't believe I ever shot one off in my life." Then a kind of a shamed smile comes onto his face. "Why Jeff," he says, "you aren't taking seriously what I said early tonight about suicides, are you? You needn't worry – I'm not thinking of shooting myself yet awhile."

"I ain't worryin' 'bout 'at," I says; "I ain't figgerin' on you shootin' yo'se'f, neither I ain't figgerin' on yore havin' to shoot nobody else. Never'less, though," I says, "an' to the contrary notwidstandin', sence you ain't got no pistol, you's goin' to have one befo' you is many hours older – a great big shiny fretful-lookin' one."

"What am I to do with it after I get it?" he says.

"Mr Dallas," I says, "please, suh, go on to bed lak you promised me. I got a haidache now, clear down to the quick, jes' frum answerin' my own questions."

I speaks this to him just like he is a little boy and I is his nurse. And off he goes, just like a wore-out, desponded, onhappy little boy.

Chapter XVI

Lady-Like!

AS I looks back on it now, after the passing of two weeks or so, it seems to me I never traveled so fast and covered so much ground in all my born days as I did on the next day following immediately along after this here night before. For awhile you just naturally couldn't see me for the dust.

In the first place, right after breakfast-time, I glides out and I scoots up-town and I puts up ten dollars for security and thereby I borrows the loan of one of his extra spare revolvers off of a yellow-complected person named Snake-Eye Jamison, which it is his habit to go round the colored districts recommending himself as the coroner's friend and acting very gunnery towards parties that he gets dissatisfied with. I don't know how many folkses he's killed in his life, but he must bury his dead where they falls, because I ain't never had none of the gravestones pointed out to me. But, anyway, he goes heeled on both hips at all times. But I makes him onload her before he turns her over to me, because I is not taking no chances on having that thing going off accidental and maybe crippling somebody. I totes this here large and poisonous-looking chunk of dark-blue hardware back to the apartment and stores it in a safe place where I can put my hand upon it on short notices.

Then I waits till Mr. Dallas is in the bathroom with the water running so as to hide the sound of my voice, and I goes to the telephone and I calls up Miss Bill-Lee's3 number over on Riverside Drive.

She must've rose early so as to have her complexion laid on so it'll get set good before she goes out for the day; because it's her which answers my call instead of the maid. I tells her it's me on the wire and I asks her, as a special favor, can I run over to her flat as soon as it's agreeable, to speak to her on a very important matter? She says yes, so eager-like it must be she's expecting I'm fetching a present from Mr. Dallas same as I has done quite often before this. She says I can come at ten o'clock.

Ten o'clock and I'm at the door. She's in her sitting-room waiting for me. She looks sort of disappointed when she sees I ain't brought along no flowers nor no candy nor no jewelry-box nor nothing with me; but she welcomes me very kindly. I don't lose no time getting going.

"Miss DeWitt," I says, making my voice as winning as I can, "now 'at you an' Mr. Dallas is fixin' to git married to one 'nother I been wonderin' 'bout what's goin' become of me in the shuffle. I 'preciates 'at he laks me fuss-rate; but he idolizes you so deeply 'at I knows he wouldn't keep on keepin' me nur nobody else round him widout he wuz shore 'at you laked 'em, too. Tha's what's been worryin' me – the question whether you felt disposed agreeable to me? An' so, after broodin' over the matter fur goin' on it's nearly a week, I finally has tuck the liberty of comin' to speak to you 'bout it. Yassum!"

"Jefferson," she says kind of indifferent and yet not hostile, "I have nothing against you – in fact I rather like you. If your services are satisfactory to Dallas I shall have not the slightest objection to his keeping you on as his servant."

"Thanky, ma'am," I says, "hearin' you say 'at frum yore own lips su'ttinly teks a big load offen my mind. I strives ever to please. 'Sides, I got a mighty winnin' way wid chillen. I'll come in handy w'en it comes to he'pin' out wid the nursin' an' all lak 'at."

She sets up straight from where she's been kind of half-laying down and some of that chain-gang jewelry of hers gives a brisk rattle.

"Children!" she says, plenty startled. "What in the world are you talking about?"

I answers back like I'm expecting of course she'll understand.

"W'y," I says, "the chillen w'ich enshores 'at Mr. Dallas don't lose out none in the final cuttin' up of the estate," I says.

By now she's rose bolt upright on her feet. All that languidsome manner is fled from her, and her voice is sharper than what I ever has heard it before.

"What's that?" she says, quite snappy. "What's that you are saying? Do you mean to tell me that Dallas has been married before – that he has a child, or more than one child, hidden away somewhere?"

"Oh, nome," I says, very soothing, "nuthin' lak 'at. 'Course Mr. Dallas ain't never been married – up 'twell now he's practically been heart-whole an' fancy-free. Yassum! I wuz merely speakin' – ef you'll please, ma'am, 'scuse me – of the chillen, w'ich natchelly 'll be comin' long ez purvided fur onder the terms of the ole gen'elman's will, you know. Tha's all I meant."

"Will!" she says. "What will? Whose will? Here, you, give me the straight of this thing! I haven't the faintest idea what it's all about."

"Now!" I says, acting like I'm overcome with a sudden great regret. "Ain't that jes' lak me, puttin' my big foot in it, gabblin' 'bout somethin' w'ich it ain't none of my affairs? Most doubtless, Mr. Dallas, he's been savin' it all up ez a happy surprise fur you. An' now, in my innocence an' my ign'ence, I starts blabbin' it fo'th unbeknowst. Lemme git out of yere, please ma'am, 'fore I gits myse'f in any deeper 'en whut already I is in!"

She comes sailing across the floor right at me. Them big floating black eyes of hers seems to get smaller and sharper until they bores into me the same as a pair of sharp gimblets.

"You stay right where you are," she says, commanding as a major's-general. "You don't leave this room until I get this mystery straightened out."

"Please, ma'am, I'd a heap ruther you spoke to Mr. Dallas 'bout it," I says, pretending to be pleading hard. "No doubt in due time he'll confide to you all 'bout the way the property is tied up an' 'bout his paw's views ez 'spressed in the will, an' also 'bout the way the matter stands betwixt him an' his twin brother, Mr. Clarence, an' all the rest of it."

"Twin brother!" she says, and by now she's been jolted so hard she's mighty near to the screeching point. "Where is this twin brother? I never heard of him – never dreamed there was such a person. Say, are you crazy or am I?"

"W'ich 'at do settle it!" I says, very lamentful. "Ef Mr. Dallas ain't told you 'bout his twin brother neither, it suttinly is a shore sign to me 'at he wuz aimin' to purserve ever'thing ez a precious secret frum you fur the time bein'. I 'spects he'll jest more'n snatch me ball-haided fur this, Miss DeWitt. Please, ma'am, don't say nothin' to him 'bout my havin' give you the tip, will you?"

"I don't want tips," she says, "I want facts. And I'm going to have them here and now – and from you! If you want to get out of here with a whole skin you'll quit your vague mumblings about wills and children and estates and twin brothers that I never heard of before, and you'll tell me in plain words the entire story, whatever it is, that has been held back from me so carefully. You tell it beginning to end!"

"Yassum," I says, "jest ez you wishes, ma'am." I tries to make my voice sound like I'm scared half to death, which it don't call for no great amount of putting-on on my part neither, because she has done shed all her laziness and all her silkiness and all her smoothness same as a blue-racer sheds his skin in the spring of the year, and she's done bared her real het-up dangersome self before me. "Jest ez you wishes," I says, "only I do trus' an' pray at you'll purtec' me frum Mr. Dallases' wrath w'en he finds out I done spilt ever'thin' so premanture-lak."

"Forget it!" she says. "It strikes me I'm the one who needs protection if anybody does. Now, without any more dodging or ducking you give me the truth, understand? No original embroidery of your own, either – the cold truth, all of it! And if I find out afterwards that you've been holding back a single detail from me – !"

With that she stops short and pins me with them eyes of hers. I can't hardly keep from flinching back from before her. If she was a hornet it'd be high time to start one of the hands off to the nearest drugstore after the soothing ointments, because somebody certainly would be due to get all stung up. Rejoiceful though I is inside of me to see how nice she's grabbed at all the hints which I has flung out to her like fishing-baits, one after another, I'd be almost as glad if I was outside that room talking to her through the keyhole. But it's shore dependent on me to set easy and keep on play-acting and not make no slips. Things is going well, but they has got to go still better yet if she's to swallow down the main dose.

Chapter XVII

Sable Plots

SO I spreads out both my hands like as if I'm plumb cowed down and licked, and then I starts in handing out to her the yarn which I'd spent half the night before piecing it together in my mind. It's a mighty nice kind of romancing, if I do say so, and full of plausibleness, 'specially that part of it which is built up on what I remembers the old judge having told me about the curious case which come up that time in one of the adjoining counties. But the rest of it, including the most fanciest touches, such as Mr. Clarence and the old maiden-lady aunt and the two sets of triplets and all, has been made up to order right out of my own head, and I asks credit.

And now, whilst I'm setting there telling it to her and watching her close to see how she's taking it, I'm praying to the Good Lord, asking Him will He please, Master, forgive me for onloading such a monstrous pack of what-ain't-so on an onsuspecting and worked-up lady. And at the same time I'm hoping the spirit of Mr. Dallases' dear departed father, which he was one of the nicest, quietest old gentlemen that ever breathed, won't come ha'nting me for low-rating his memory so scandalous. I knows full well he must be turning over in the grave faster and faster every minute which passes. I only can trust he don't see fit to rise from it.

"Miss DeWitt," I says, "lissen, please, an' you shell know all: You see, ma'am, ever'thin' in this connection dates back to the time w'en Mr. Dallases' paw made his dyin' will some six or seven yeahs ago. 'Course, as you doubtless has learned befo' now, he lef' the bigges' part of the estate tied up."

"I don't know any such thing," she says, breaking in again and even more savage-like than before. "Do you mean to tell me Dallas is not the sole master of his own property?"

I sort of stammers and hesitates like I'm astonished that she don't know that part of it, neither. My hanging back only makes her yet more fierce to hear the rest.

"Wellum," I goes on to say when finally I sees she's liable to blow clean up if I delays further, "the real facts of the case is 'at he ain't actually got no property a-tall, ez you mout say. He only draws down one-ha'f the intrust frum it. He don't get nigh ez much income, neither, ez whut folkses mout think frum his free way of spendin' his money right an' lef'. Ez a matter of fact, an' in the strictes' confidences, Miss DeWitt," I says, "he is mos' gin'elly alluz in debt to the trustees by reason of him bein' overdrawed. But, course," I says, "'at part of it ain't neither yere nor thar, is it? Ef Mr. Dallas wants to slather his money 'bout so fast that ever' dollar he spends looks to outsiders lak it's ten or twelve, tha's his bus'ness. Lemme git back on the main track. Le's see, now? I wuz specifyin' to you 'bout the will, wuzn' I?

"Well, it's lak this: W'en folkses down our way heared the terms of the will they wuz a heap of 'em said the old gen'elman's mind must a-went back on him in his last sickness fur him to be layin' down any sech curious 'quiremints ez them wuz. Yassum, some even went fu'ther 'en 'at. Some went so fur ez to say it wuz the streak of onsanity w'ich runs in the Pulliam fambly croppin' out ag'in in a fresh place."

"Oh, so it's insanity now!" she says. "The longer you talk the more interesting things I learn. Go on – go on!"

"Yassum," I says, "I'm goin'. Yassum, they wuz quite a host of folkses w'ich come right out an' said Mr. Dallas an' Mr. Clarence, ary one or both of 'em, would be amply justified in contestin' the will on the grounds 'at the late lamentable wuz out of his haid at the time he drawed it up. But no, ma'am, not them two! I figgers they knowed they own dear paw well 'nuff to know the idee w'ich he toted in his mind. 'Sides w'ich, all the members of that fambly is sort of techy on the subjec' of the lil' trickle of onsanity 'at flows in the blood, w'ich, I reckin, they natchelly is to be 'scused fur that. An' ef one or the other of 'em went to the big cotehouse tryin' to bust up the will on the claim 'at the ole gen'elman didn't rightly know whut he wuz doin' to'des the last, it'd only quicken up the talk 'bout the craziness strain. An' so, on 'count of the Pulliam pride an' all, they jes' lef' it stand lak it wuz. An' 'en, on top of 'at, Mr. Clarence he turned sort of onsatisfactory in the haid an' he strayed off an' wuzn' heared of ag'in till yere recently. An' 'en, soon ez Mr. Clarence wuz found, Mr. Dallas he come on up yere an' you an' him met an' – "

"In Heaven's name, quit drooling and get somewhere," she says, making her words pop like one of these here whip-lashes. "What did the will say?"