“And, listen, Tick!” Gaitskill exclaimed as he turned to pick up some papers on his desk and resume his interrupted work. “If you find a woman who is willing to marry you, let me know, and I’ll furnish the marriage license—it won’t cost you a cent!”
“Thank ’e, suh!” Tick grinned. “Dat ’ll he’p me a heap!”
Tick passed out of the bank and stood on the street in front of the big plateglass window. He took off his battered wool hat and scratched his woolly head in real perplexity. Certainly, Marse Tom had assigned him a tremendous task.
The world was full of marriageable colored women.
What woman should he ask?
He looked up and down the street with an appraising eye. He could see ten women; some were fat and some were lean, some were kind and some were mean—what kind should he choose?
“Dat white man shore is wropped up my kinky hair with a strong string,” he sighed as he mopped the sweat from his face. “I b’lieve I’ll go ax a few advices outen Skeeter Butts.”
II
SKEETER HELPS
No one knows how Skeeter Butts got his reputation among the members of his race as the possessor of supernal wisdom. Nevertheless, in every emergency it was their custom to ask Skeeter Butts, and Skeeter was always there with the good advice.
Inexpert physicians frequently say to their patients, “I’ll try this medicine, and if it don’t do the work, I’ll change to something else.” Skeeter followed the same method with his advice. With the inexpert physician, too, often one medicine calls for another; always with Skeeter, one suggestion led to another; and the reason with both was the same—because dangerous complications “set up.”