This was enough to bring the entire population of Dirty-Six out of their cabins into the street. They streamed up and down the narrow lanes, jabbering, gesticulating, telling again and again of the fight between Whiffle Bone and Happy Rocket, of the divorce of Shin and Whiffle, of the drunken spree of Shin Bone.
The general idea prevailed that Shin Bone had possession of both babies, but no one cared to go and inquire while Shin was crazy drunk, singing “heavy religion” songs, and pounding the table with a tin coffee pot.
Then Whiffle Bone caused a sensation by leaving her uncle Pap Curtain’s cabin and running down the street toward the Bone eating-house squalling like a catamount. Dozens of negroes fell into her wake and followed at a safe distance.
As they approached the restaurant they all recognized with pleasure that Shin Bone was sobering up. The best indication of this improvement was the character of songs he was singing. He had abandoned the heavy religion tunes, his voice had lost some of its volume, and the music was gay and lightsome:
“De boss he squall to de nigger boys:
‘Don’t bother dat jug in de spring!’
De jug he gurgle out: ‘Good, good, good!’
But me, I holler an’ sing:
‘O gimme dat gal,
De big, greasy gal—
Don’t nobody bother dat sway-backed Sal,
Who wrops up her hair wid a string!’”
Whiffle Bone threw open the door of the eating-house, ran across the sanded floor, threw herself into Shin Bone’s outstretched arms, and broke into his song with a loud wail:
“O Shin, I loves you wid all my heart! Less don’t fuss no more—I’ll ’vide up de money even! An’ fer Gawd’s sake, come an’ he’p me find little Shinny, our darlin’, angel chile!”
“Don’t pester yo’ mind ’bout our angel chile,” Shin Bone vociferated, pounding the table with the battered coffee pot. “I fotch him home from de Hen-Scratch—he layin’ in de back room in his own little bed!”
Placing his coffee pot under his arm, he led his sobbing, hysterical wife into the back room and then stood gazing in pop-eyed, drunken amazement at the empty bed.
“Whar is he at? Oh, whar is he at?” Whiffle screamed.