The Revolt of the Oyster

by Don Marquis

“No, suh,” says Uncle Zeb. “No, suh! I thank yo' kindly fo' yo' offer, suh, but Burnin' Deck, he ain't gwine inter no show whah he likely ter be sicked on ter no cullud pusson. Burnin' Deck, he allers been a good Republican, bringed up that-a-way, des de same as me, an' we ain't gwine ter take no paht in any gwines-on agin' de cullud nation.”

“But see here,” says the boss. “In this show the coloured people get all the best of it. In this show the coloured people go to Heaven!”

Uncle Zeb says he had heard a good deal about that Uncle Tom show in his life, first and last, and because he had heard so much, he went to see it one time. And he says if getting chased by bloodhounds and whipped by whips is giving them the best of it, he hopes he never obtains admission to any show where they get the worst of it. The boss, he says that show is the show that helped make the coloured people free, and Uncle Zeb ought to be proud of Burning Deck acting in it. But Uncle Zeb says he ain't to be fooled; it was General Washington set 'em free first, and Abraham Lincoln set 'em free the second time, and now President Wilson is licking them Germans and setting them free again. And as for him, he says, he will stick to his own white folks that he knows and janitors for and whose clothes fit him, and Burning Deck will do the same. And as far as them Tom-show coloured folks' going to heaven is concerned, he reckons he don't want to be chased there by no bloodhounds; and it ain't likely that a man that has janitored for a Baptist church as faithful as he has would go anywhere else, anyhow. So he takes Burning Deck and goes along home.

“I've got to have a dog,” says the boss, watching them get the tent fixed up, and rubbing his head.

“Would Spot do?” says Freckles, which is my boy, Spot being me.

Well, I never expected to be an actor, as I said before. But they struck a bargain, which Freckles was to get free admission to that show, and I was to be painted and dyed up some and be a bloodhound. Which the boss said the regular bloodhound which Burning Deck had eat so much of wasn't really a bloodhound, anyhow, but only a big mongrel with bloodhound notions in his head.

Well, maybe you've seen that show. Which all the bloodhound has to do is to run across the stage chasing that Uncle Tom, and Freckles was to run across with me, so there wasn't much chance to go wrong.

And nothing would have gone wrong if it hadn't been for Burning Deck. Uncle Zeb White must have got over his grouch against that show, for there he was sitting in the front row with a new red handkerchief around his throat and his plug hat on his knees, and Burning Deck was there with him. I never had anything but liking for Uncle Zeb, for he knows where to scratch dogs. But Burning Deck and me have never been close friends, on account of him being jealous when Uncle Zeb scratches you too long. He even is jealous when Uncle Zeb scratches a pig, which all the pigs in town that can get loose have a habit of coming to Uncle Zeb's cottage to be scratched, and they say around town that some of those pigs never find their way home again. Squeals have been heard coming from Uncle Zeb's kitchen, but the rest of the pigs never seem to learn.

But no self-respecting dog would be jealous if his boss scratched a pig. For after all, what is a pig? It is just a pig, and that is all you can say for it. A pig is not a person; a pig is something to eat. But Burning Deck is a peculiar dog, and he gets ideas into his head. And so, right in the midst of the show, when I chased that coloured man across the stage, Burning Deck all of a sudden jumped up on to the platform and grabbed me. I would have licked him then and there, but what was left of the show's bloodhound come crawling out on to the stage dragging two of his legs, and Burning Deck turned from me to him, and then all the actors run on to the stage to save what was left of the bloodhound, and Si Emery, the city marshal, threw open his coat so you could see his big star and climbed on to the stage and arrested everybody, and somebody dropped the curtain down right into the midst of it.

And the way it happened, on the outside of the curtain was left Freckles and me and the Little Eva of that show, which she is beautiful, with long yellow hair and pink cheeks and white clothes like an angel. And before Freckles could stop her, she took hold of him by the hand and says to the audience won't they please be kind to the poor travelling troupers and not let them be under arrest, and let the show go on? And she cried considerable, and all through her crying you could hear Si Emery behind the curtain arresting people; and after while some of the women in the audience got to crying, too, and the city fathers was all in the audience, and they went up on to the stage and told Si, for the sake of Little Eva, to release everyone he had arrested, and after that the show went on.