Gaitskill took a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket, felt its texture with a banker’s expert fingers, then said in a voice which dripped with the sweetness of appreciation and praise:
“That trick was the real stuff, Pap! How did you ever think it up?”
Every pore of Pap’s body was spouting cold sweat. His eyes burned, his throat choked, his brain reeled, his limbs trembled—he was racked, tortured with fear and anxiety—and yet this white man seemed to be talking kind words.
“Oh, Lawd,” he prayed, “let a leetle sunshine in!”
“It certainly takes a coon to catch a coon!” Gaitskill laughed. “The idea of making a negro pay a dollar for the privilege of working on a cotton plantation when the white folks are begging for hands—think of it, Pap!
“One hundred and eighteen niggers gone off on a cotton-picking picnic to the Niggerheel plantation, paying a dollar each for the privilege of gathering a thousand bales of cotton, and swearing that they will stick to the job because they paid to get it! Say, nigger, you are the greatest coon in Tickfall!”
Pap Curtain straightened up; his shoulders came back with a snap; he drew a breath so deep that it seemed to suck in all the air in the bank.
“I’m certainly much obliged to you, Pap,” Gaitskill said earnestly. “I take back what I said this morning. You’re a good nigger. Here’s ten dollars for your trouble.”
Gaitskill opened the door.
Pap Curtain stepped out, holding the crinkling bill in his hand. He reeled down the street like a drunken man, staggered across the village to Dirty-Six, and sat down on the rickety porch of his cabin.