Joe (waving his hands): Oh, Misteh Porteh, doan tell me bout dem things, you make me spen de whole night cryin! Ah got to hustle, boss, Ah dassn linger, Ah doan want to spen dem extra six years an eight months in de state of Ohio! (runs off right; the music continues faintly)
Porter (sits at desk, in meditation): A Municipal Report. Nashville, Tennessee. What have I got about Nashville? That old atlas, perhaps! (digs out atlas from under a pile of books) T-E—Tennessee—Nashville. (reading slowly) “Nashville, a city, port of delivery, and the capital of the State of Tennessee, is on the Cumberland River, and on the N. C. & St. L. and the L. & N. railroads. This city is regarded as the most important educational center in the South.” Umm‑m‑m‑. “Nashville occupies a foremost place among the manufacturing centers of the country. It is the fifth boot and shoe market in the United States, the largest candy and cracker manufacturing city in the South, and does an enormous wholesale drygoods, grocery and drug business.” That’s bully! (sits lost in thought; gradually the lights shift to pale violet color) Uncle Caesar! His grandaddy was a king in the Congo! (Uncle Caesar enters at right, silently, like a ghost. Music: “Old black Joe.” He is Joe, the convict, made up in the role of his old father, with a woolly grey wig, a dilapidated coachman’s hat, and the extraordinary “ginral’s coat” previously described. He carries a coachman’s whip in one hand, and a feather duster in the other.) He must have got that coat from some Confederate officers. It was worn all through the war, it has been in battles. And that one button, that yellow button, big as a half a dollar, the last of the tribe, reminder of the dead glory. He looks out for customers, he hunts them as his grandaddy used to hunt heads in the Congo. He’s one of the crowd of hackmen—he storms down on you like a race riot, a company of freedmen, or Arabs, or Zulus, armed with whips!
(Uncle Caesar looks about, with growing energy and excitement; appearing to discover Porter, he stretches out the whip, crying): Kyar you anywhere in de town, boss, fo fifty cents! (he dusts an imaginary hack with his duster) Step right in, suh; aint a speck of dust in it—jes got back from a funeral.
Porter: Driver, take me to the home of Miss Azalea Adair.
Uncle Caesar (stretches out his arm, as if barring Porter’s way; an expression of suspicion and enmity on his face): What’s dat? (then, recovering himself, with blandishing air) What you gwine da fo, boss?
Porter: What’s that to you?
Uncle Caesar: Nothin, suh, jes nuthin. Only it’s a lonesome kind of part of town and few folks ever has business out dah. Step right in, de seats is clean.
Porter: All right; if that old hack of yours don’t fall to pieces at the next bump. (a pause; Porter turns his eyes to the atlas, and reads). “The city has an area of 10 square miles; 181 miles of streets, of which 137 are paved; a system of waterworks which cost $2,000,000, with 77 miles of mains.” (takes out his purse, rises, and offers Uncle Caesar a half and a quarter dollar) Here’s a quarter extra for you.
Uncle Caesar: It’s two dollars, suh.
Porter: How’s that? I plainly heard you call out: “Fifty cents to any part of the town.”