“I’s in deep troubles,” Shin said sorrowfully.
“A nigger’s trouble is like de rainbow—’tain’t got no end,” Vinegar philosophized. “But I don’t turn no nigger friend down because his troubles won’t terminate. I’s willin’ to he’p you fer any amount up to one dollar.”
“’Tain’t money troubles,” Shin said. “My bizzness is doin’ fine, but I ain’t gittin’ along so powerful good in my fambly.”
“You ain’t got no fambly, excusin’ Whiffle an’ yo’ baby,” Vinegar observed.
“De baby is all right,” Shin explained; “but Whiffle ain’t doin’ so well.”
Vinegar sat for a while in an expectant attitude, waiting for Shin to go on with the narration; but Shin found it hard to tell what he had come to say. He made several abortive efforts to get his mouth to going which got no further than a wretched silence and made him look like an idiot.
“Well?” Vinegar bellowed. “Why don’t you say somepin? You ack like one of dese here deef an’ dumb mutes celebratin’ de Fo’th of July wis noiseless powder.”
“My ailment is dis,” Shin said desperately, speaking the words in a rush, as if in a hurry to get the confession over. “My wife, Whiffle, is payin’ entirely too much attention to yuther nigger men.”
Vinegar drew a corncob pipe from his pocket and took a long time to light it, while his attention seemed to be concentrated upon a row of dead trees whose snaggy branches were visible on the Little Mocassin Ridge, four miles away.
Shin fidgeted and twiddled his thumbs. Finally he reached down at his feet for his wool hat, and began to gnaw at its brim, as if he were starving to death. He had chewed nearly around the circuit of the brim before Vinegar took his eyes off the old dead trees; and even then Vinegar merely looked at him and said nothing.