“I turned de hoss in de pasture back of de sheriff’s house,” he volunteered. “Part of de trade wus dat I wus to take keer of de hoss. I reckin de tenth part dat I bought is de part whut eats.”
“Would you be held responsible if anything happened to the animal?” Nuhat asked.
“Not onless he choked to death,” Skeeter laughed. “I jes’ takes keer of de eatin’ end.”
“I’m sorry I could not go on to Shongaloon,” the white man said quietly. “There’s a lot of good money to be picked up betting on that horse at the races.”
“We’ll slick him up an’ git him feelin’ good an’ bet on him some ourselfs,” Skeeter said.
“Don’t make him look too fit,” Nuhat warned him. “That horse’s looks get the odds against him. Nobody bets against something that looks like a winner.”
A few minutes later the white man bought a package of cigarettes from Skeeter Butts, thanked him for the sale of the horse, and walked out.
Until midnight Skeeter was alone in the Hen-Scratch. No one came in to patronize his soft-drink emporium. The man was in the depths of despair. His place had always been the popular hang-out for all the plain loafers and fancy sons of rest. Now there were none so lazy as to enter a place which had nothing of its former attractiveness but a name.
“De niggers avoids dis place like it wus a pesthouse,” Skeeter lamented to himself. “Ef I had about two hundred dollars I could start me a movin’-picture show fer colored only in dis little house, an’ sell soft drinks on de side. Dat would fotch de crowd back, an’ de men would bring de lady folks, an’ I could git rid of a lot of ice-cream combs an’ things like dat.”
He smoked many cigarettes, lighting a fresh one on the stub of each old one, trying to think out a way to get some money for his new enterprise.