The gate opened and Dude Blackum stumbled in, walking to the door with every manifestation of suffering his imagination could devise.
Hitch, standing behind Dainty so she could not see, encouraged Dude’s painful progress by waving the other silk purple-and-yellow sock at him.
“My Lawd, Dainty,” Dude wailed, “whut you reckin dat ole bull went an’ done to me?”
“Butted you in de bayou!” Dainty answered promptly.
“Yes’m, dat’s it! I’s cripple in bofe behime legs fer life!” Dude told her as he clasped his back with both hands and groaned. “I couldn’t swim a lick because I couldn’t kick. Ef I hadn’t paddled out wid my hands I’d ’a’ been drownded.”
He looked appealingly toward Hitch Diamond, waiting for the bogus elder to suggest the booze. But Hitch merely wiped his hand across his mouth and grinned.
“Dainty, honey,” Dude said pleadingly, “I’s powerful hurted, an’ I feel like I’s gwine hab a rigger. Ain’t you got a leetle——”
“I shore has,” Dainty replied eagerly, without waiting for the question. “Git in de yuther room an’ take off dem wet clothes, an’ by dat time I’ll hab you a good dram ready.”
With a beatific grin at Hitch Diamond, to which Hitch responded, Dude retired to change his clothes. A moment later he came out and said to Hitch:
“Gimme dat yuther silk sock!”