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.