“Would you mind gwine wid me, Skeeter?” Tick inquired. “I needs somebody to he’p me make de fust arrangements.”
“I never had no yuther idear!” Skeeter howled. “Ain’t dis here my plan? I don’t let no rooster like you crow up my big idears—I sees ’em through.”
He reached for his hat, and Tick stood up to go with him. Then he whooped:
“Oh, Little Bit! You take keer dis saloom till I gits back!”
VI
LOVE LESSONS
“You do de talkin’ fer me, Skeeter,” Tick begged as they entered Ginny Babe Chew’s yard. “I ain’t never got into no mess like dis befo’, an’ I cain’t tongue it out as free as you kin.”
“Dar she am,” Skeeter exclaimed, as he pointed to a young colored woman sitting on a bench under a pecan tree at the side of the house. “Come on!”
Dazzle Zenor was certainly the sort of woman a colored man would naturally select to teach him the art of love. She was slim and graceful, neat as a new pin and beautifully dressed; she had fine Moorish features, and smiled with beautiful teeth and did flattering things with her eyes, for Dazzle was a real actress.
“Dis here cullud gen’leman is got de love-bug, Dazzle,” Skeeter explained. “He wants to cote a gal so dat he kin marry her real prompt, an’ he don’t know how it is did. I tole him you wus a female actor an’ you could teach him how to love wid one lesson.”
Then Skeeter executed an elaborate wink.