"Black rascals!" exclaimed Zebedee. "If it had not been for you, that monument need never have been erected."
But the little imps kept up their game with renewed glee, hoping to attract the attention of the tourists. Tourists were simply made of pennies, in the minds of the Charleston pickaninnies. Seeing we had noticed them, they flocked to where we had settled ourselves on some benches facing the monument and began in their peculiar South Carolina lingo to demand something of us—what it was it took some penetration to discover. There were five of them, about the raggedest little monkeys I ever saw. Their clothes stayed on by some miracle of modesty, but every now and then a streak of shiny black flesh could be glimpsed through the interstices. (I got that word from Professor Green, which I put down in my notebook for safekeeping.)
"Do' white fo'ks wan' we-all sin' li'l' song?"
"What?" from all of us.
"Sin' li'l' song! La, la, la, tim chummy loo!" and the blackest and sassiest and most dilapidated of them all opened his big mouth with its gleaming teeth and let forth a quaint chant.
"Oh, sing us a little song?" and we laughed aloud.
"Why, yes, we do," assented Professor Green, "but don't get too close. The acoustics would be better from a short distance, I am sure."
"Edwin is enough of a Yankee not to like darkies coming too close," laughed Mrs. Green. "You know a Northerner's interest in the race is purely theoretical. When it comes right down to it, we Southerners are the only ones who really understand them. I remember what one of the leaders of the negroes said: 'A Northerner loves the negro but has no use for a nigger, while a Southerner can't stand the negro but will do anything on earth for a nigger.'"
"That's right, I believe," said Zebedee; "but I must say I agree with Doctor Green, and think under the circumstances that a short distance will help the acoustics."
The five song birds formed a half-circle a few feet from us, and, led by the sassy black one, poured forth their souls in melody. The leader seemed to be leader because he was the only one with shoes on. His shoes were ladies' buttoned shoes, much too long and on the wrong feet, which gave their proud possessor a peculiar twisted appearance. Having good black legs of his own, he needed no stockings.