“Now, sonny,” he whispered. “You suck dat sugar-stick an’ fergit dat I is changin’ yo’ clothes. I cain’t handle dese city duds, but I knows how to put on little Shinny’s overalls an’ shirt beca’se I wore dem kind of drapery my own se’f.”
The little fellow murmured no complaint at the operation except when Skeeter momentarily separated his hand from his mouth and deprived him of his sugar-stick. But Skeeter quickly made the proper connection again, and when the child was dressed in little Shinny’s old clothes, Skeeter tossed the glad rags into a dark corner, lifted Ready in his arms, and carried him out on the street.
“Now, sonny,” he said, as he placed Ready on the ground, “us ’ll take a long, long walk!”
He started straight down the middle of the sandy road, the little boy trotting beside him sucking his candy. A quarter of a mile had been covered in this way when Ready Rocket dropped his candy.
“Ah-hah!” Skeeter said, as he picked up the sticky candy, wiped a little of the sand and dust off it, and stuck it back in Ready’s gaping mouth. “Dat’s a good sign—you is gittin’ tired an’ sleepy.”
They turned around and started back toward the saloon, Skeeter pressing the boy to walk as fast as he could. Half a dozen times in the return walk the little fellow dropped his candy and finally Skeeter grew tired of Ready’s carelessness. He merely picked up the sticky substance and helped Ready make connection with his mouth and hand, without taking the trouble to wipe off the dirt.
“Ef you git de colic eatin’ dat gorm of sugar an’ dirt, I hopes Shin Bone will hab you to wait on,” Skeeter remarked to his charge. “I ain’t got no expe’unce wid some yuther nigger’s stomick-ache.”
Within two blocks of the barroom, Ready’s little feet stopped like a clock with a broken spring. Skeeter dragged him for a few steps by the arm. Then he lifted the sleeping child, carried him to a ragged quilt in a corner of the rear room, and laid him down. The child’s tiny hand still clutched the muddy sugar-stick.
Skeeter entered the saloon and took his place behind the bar to wait for Shin Bone. He did not have long to wait, and when Shin Bone appeared Skeeter gasped, and his hand slipped to the little shelf under the bar where his automatic pistol rested.
Shin had been drinking heavily, but the liquor had not made him noisy. He was extremely quiet. He walked restlessly about the barroom with the prowling movements of a cat, careful not to make a noise with his feet as he staggered across the floor, answering if spoken to in a whisper, and glancing nervously around him all the time. The practised eyes of the negroes recognized the signs of danger. They knew Shin was out to kill. Some slipped away, and all the others became perfectly quiet. They knew that a loud laugh, the noise of an overturned chair, the breaking of a glass, the clatter of a stick falling to the floor, any of these things might start the drink-crazed negro to shooting. Shin had not only never been drunk before, but no one had ever seen him drinking. But now no jungle beast was more dangerous.