Checkerboard left the room, walked through the hallway, passed out of the rear door, clambered down into a gulley, and carried Hitch’s clothes through a labyrinth of lumber piles to a place far, far away!
Hitch waited for nearly an hour for Checkerboard to return. Feeling the lack of companionship, he walked down to the mill-pond and accosted the slouchy negro woman in the kitchen of the eating-house.
To his surprise he learned that she had never seen nor heard of the man in the checkerboard suit.
“It ’pears to me like dese here folks ain’t plum’ honest,” Hitch mourned as he walked disconsolately around the mill-pond trying to find his way back to the village.
He spent a long time looking for the man who had his clothes, mumbling complainingly to himself the while. At last he wandered to the wharf on the Mississippi River and sat down with his back resting against a post.
His feet were unaccustomed to the wear of patent-leather shoes, and they felt swollen and tired. He took off his shoes, set them side by side in front of him, waved his feet in the cool river breeze, and gazed upon his footwear lovingly.
“I kin git me anodder hat an’ coat,” he muttered. “But dem shoes would be a powerful loss. Dar ain’t no more shoes in N’Awleens dat’ll fit my foots!”
Half a block away two little white boys were cutting monkey-shines on the sidewalk. In the dusty gutter one boy picked up a long, black stocking.
The two considered this find for a moment, then they gathered small sticks and thrust them into the stocking. One youth produced a ball of kite twine and tied an end of the twine around the open end of the stocking. After that, they dropped the stocking upon the pavement and pulled it along by the string, observing the effect.
“It wiggles all right,” they chuckled.