I.
YES, suh, I feels plum' qualified to take on a wife."
The black negro blushed to a darker hue and his face shone like polished ebony in the blazing August sun. In his embarrassment he twisted his shapeless wool hat into a wad, thrust it under his arm like a bundle, turned his back upon the white man's quizzical eyes, and sat down upon the lowest step of the porch.
At the feet of the white man lay half a dozen pairs of handcuffs. He stooped and picked up a pair which showed rusty in the bright light, rubbed the rust off with sand-paper, squirted some oil into the mechanism from a little can, and busied himself for a few minutes seeing that his police hardware was in good condition.
The sheriff remained silent for so long that the negro imagined he had been forgotten. Then Flournoy fired a question so unexpectedly that the black man winced: "What's your name?"
"Dey calls me Plaster Sickety."
"Gosh!" the sheriff exploded. "Can any woman be induced to exchange a perfectly decent name for a smear like that?"
"Suttinly," the negro grinned. "Dat gal's name ain't so awful cute. Dey calls her Pearline Flunder."
"Plaster Sickety and Pearline Flunder—help, everybody! What sort of children will issue from a matrimonial alliance of such names?"
"I reckin our chillun will all be borned Huns, Marse John; but I cain't he'p it."
Under his manipulation the sheriff's worn handcuffs took on a polish like new. At intervals he glanced up from his task to see the sunlight spraying from the pecan-trees like water and the heat rising from the ground, visible as a boiling cloud. Once he heard an eagle scream, and glanced toward the Little Mocassin swamp to behold a black speck sail into the haze that hung like a curtain of purple and gold upon the horizon. The negro sat motionless except for glowing black eyes restless as mercury and all-perceiving.
Suddenly the bear-trap mouth of the big sheriff twisted into a little smile.
"How'd you like to give your girl one of these things for a wedding-present, Plaster?" he asked, as he tossed a polished pair of handcuffs on the step beside the negro.
"I's kinder pestered in my mind 'bout gittin' a fitten weddin'-present, Marse John, but—" Plaster rose to his feet and returned the manacles without completing his sentence.
"How much money have you got?" Flournoy asked.
"I ain't got none till yit."
"How you going to buy the license? How you going to pay the preacher?" Flournoy asked.
"Dat's whut I come to git a view from you about, Marse John. All de cullud folks gives you a rep dat you is powerful good to niggers an' I figgered dat you an' me mought fix up some kind of shake-down so I could git married 'thout costin' me nothin'."
"Don't you ever read the Bible?" Flournoy growled. "Even Adam's wife cost him a bone."
"Yes, suh," the negro grinned. "But I figger ef Sheriff Flournoy had been aroun' anywheres at dat time, maybe Adam would 'a' got off a whole lot cheaper."
"Have you got a job to support your wife?" Flournoy asked.
"Naw, suh."
"Have you got a house to live in?"
"Naw, suh."
"Where are you going to live with her—in a hollow sycamore-tree?"
"Yes, suh, I reckin so—dat is, excusin' ef you don't he'p us none."
"Where are you two idiots going to derive your sustenance—from the circumambient atmosphere?"
"Dat's de word, Marse John—dat is, excusin' ef you don't loant us a hand in our troubles," the negro murmured, wondering what the sheriff's big talk meant.
"Do you love this black girl very much?" the sheriff asked with that odd turn of tone with which every man speaks of love when he is in love with love.
"Boss," the black man answered in a voice which throbbed, "I been lovin' dat gal ever since she warn't no bigger dan—dan—dan a June-bug whut had visited accidental a woodpecker prayer-meetin'."
"Is she good to look at, Plaster?" Flournoy smiled.
"Well, suh, I cain't lie to no white man, Marse John; an' I tells you honest—she looks a whole heap better at night in de dark of de moon."
"If she ain't a good-looker, why do you love her?" Flournoy asked without a smile.
"She's good sense an' jedgment, Marse John," the black man answered earnestly. "An'—an'—I jes' nachelly loves her."
Flournoy studied a moment, twisting a pair of steel handcuffs in his giant hands. Finally he spoke:
"Plaster, I have a cabin down on the Coolie Bayou which I have given to three young married couples in succession on the condition that they live there in peace and amity one year."
"Yes, suh."
"Every couple broke up and got a divorce within nine months."
"Too bad, Marse John, dat's mighty po' luck."
"You niggers think you love each other until you get hitched and then you don't stay hitched."
"Some shorely don't—dey don't fer a fack."
"Now I make you and Pearline Flunder this offer. I will buy your marriage license, pay Vinegar Atts to marry you, bear all the expense of a church wedding, give you a job so you can support your wife, and I will make you a present of that cabin down on the Coolie Bayou if you and your wife will live together for three days without busting up in a row."
"Three days, Marse John!" the negro howled. "Boss, I motions to make it thurty years!"
"No!" Flournoy snapped. "Three days!"
"I's willin', Marse John," the negro laughed, cutting a caper on the grass.
"All right!" the sheriff said as he stooped and picked up a pair of handcuffs. "Now listen: I intend to cut the little chain on these two manacles and attach each cuff to a ten-foot chain. When you and Pearline are married, I am going to put one of these manacles around her wrist and one around your wrist"—the negro showed the whites of his eyes—"and bind you two honey-loves together with a ten-foot chain." The negro looked behind him toward the gate and the public highway, took a tighter grip upon his hat, and made a furtive step backward. "You are to remain bound together for three days." The negro smiled and stepped forward. "At the end of that time you are to come here and report, and if you agree to spend the remainder of your life together, the cabin is yours!"
"Make it a two-feets chain, Marse John, so us kin git clost to each yuther," Plaster pleaded.
"What I have spoken I have spoken," Flournoy proclaimed autocratically. "Now, go tell your sweetheart all about it."