“It’s all plain enough,” he thought to himself. “Moses and old Lankyshanks, his buddie, have a half hour longer to loaf than the rest of them; that gives them time for a little extra feast. The supplies belong to them all alike, but Mose and Lankyshanks get double portions if—” Here he smiled again.
The preparation for the feast went on. Each man twisted out of tangled wire a rude but serviceable broiler. They joked and laughed as they worked, their dark faces shining like ebony.
“Po’k chops, po’k chops, po’k chops! Um! Um! Um!” they chanted now and then.
In time word was passed around the circle, and then eight right hands shot out and eight broilers hung out over the coals.
Snapping and sputtering, flaring up with a sudden burning of grease, whirled now this way, now that, the pork chops rapidly turned a delicious brown. The odor which rose in air would have made a chronic dyspeptic’s mouth water.
“Po’k chops, po’k chops, po’k chops! Um! Um! Um!”
Twice Pant lifted his eyes toward the stars. Twice he brought them down again.
“Haven’t got the heart to do it,” he whispered to himself; “I’ll take a chance and wait.”
The sweet potatoes had been dug from the roasting pit; the feasters had sunk their teeth deep in juicy fat, when Pant was suddenly startled by a groan close at hand.
Without moving, he turned his head to see a colored boy sitting near him.