“Well, run then,” Jimmy interrupted impatiently. “We'll just slip down to the railroad and take a look at the niggers. You don't hafto get on the train just 'cause you down to the depot.”
So Miss Minerva's nephew, after tiptoeing into the house for her ink bottle and filling his pockets with contraband matches, met his chum at the cabin. There, under the critical survey of Bennie Dick from his customary place on the floor, they darkened their faces, heads, hands, feet, and legs; then, pulling their caps over their eyes, these energetic little boys stole out of the back gate and fairly flew down an alley to the station. No one noticed them in that hot, perspiring, black crowd. A lively band was playing and the mob of good-humored, happy negroes, dressed in their Sunday best, laughing and joking, pushing and elbowing, made their way to the excursion train standing on the track.
The two excited children got directly behind a broad, pompous negro and slipped on the car just after him. Fortunately they found a seat in the rear of the coach and there they sat unobserved, still and quiet, except for an occasional delighted giggle, till the bell clanged and the train started off. “We'll see Sam Lamb toreckly,” whispered Jimmy, “and he'll take care of us.”
The train was made up of seven coaches, which had been taking on negroes at every station up the road as far as Paducah, and it happened that the two little boys did not know a soul in their car.
But when they were nearing Woodstock, a little station not far from Memphis, Sam Lamb, making a tour of the cars, came into their coach and was promptly hailed by the children. When he recognized them, he burst into such a roar of laughter that it caused all the other passengers to turn around and look in their direction.
“What y' all gwine to do nex' I jes' wonder,” he exclaimed. “Yo' ekals ain't made dis side o' 'ternity. Lordee, Lordee,” he gazed at them admiringly, “you sho' is genoowine corn-fed, sterlin' silver, all-woolan'-a-yard-wide, pure-leaf, Green-River Lollapaloosas. Does yo' folks know 'bout yer? Lordee! What I axin' sech a fool question fer? 'Course dey don't. Come on, I gwine to take y' all off 'n dese cars right here at dis Woodstock, an' we kin ketch de 'commodation back home.”
“But Sam,” protested Billy, “We don't want to go back home. We wants to go to Memphis.”
“Hit don't matter what y' all wants,” was the negro's reply, “y' all gotta git right off. Dis-here 'scursion train don't leave Memphis twell twelve o'clock tonight an' yuh see how slow she am runnin', and ev'y no 'count nigger on her'll be full o' red eye. An' yo' folks is plumb 'stracted 'bout yer dis minute, I 'low. Come on. She am gittin' ready to stop.”
He grabbed the blackened hand of each, pushing Jimmy and pulling Billy, and towed the reluctant little boys through the coach.
“Yuh sho' is sp'iled my fun,” he growled as he hustled them across the platform to the waitingroom. “Dis-here's de fus' 'scursion I been on widout Sukey a-taggin' long in five year an' I aimed fo' to roll 'em high; an' now, 'case o' ketchin' up wid y' all, I gotta go right back home. Now y' all set jes' as straight as yer kin set on dis here bench,” he admonished, “whilst I send a telegraph to Marse Jeems Garner. An' don' yuh try to 'lope out on de flatform neider. Set whar I kin keep my eye skinned on yuh, yuh little slipp'ry-ellum eels. Den I gwine to come back an' wash yer, so y' all look like 'spectable white folks.”