He was the most innocent-looking chap you ever saw. He had the face of a cherub, eyes which inhabit the faces of angels, and a smile which every woman envied. During her lifetime his mother had called him an angel. His sister composed a title for him from the initials of his name, and for short called him Org. The neighbors called him—if everything the neighbors called him should be recorded, this story would have to be fumigated at the very start.
He had just come to Tickfall from California. His mother and father did not miss him when he left, for they were dead. The neighbors missed him, but they did not mourn his loss. When Orren Randolph Gaitskill had gone, some predicted that he would be the loudest tick in Tickfall. They did not mean to flatter the youth or pay him a compliment. Everybody breathed easier, the cats came down out of the trees, the little girls walked the streets without the fear that their pig-tails of hair would be used for leading ropes, and the old inhabitants thankfully prophesied that there would be no more earthquakes in California.
As for Miss Virginia Harwick Gaitskill, his sister—bless her! the earth never shook when she was around, but the hearts of men were strangely agitated.
Everybody called Miss Virginia an angel except her angelic brother. He called her “Gince.”
Just now that young lady stood upon the portico of Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s home, calling in a clear, deep-toned voice:
“Org! Oh, Org! Come here!”
That youth, who had been playing “Indian” upon the Gaitskill lawn, promptly dropped upon his stomach at the sound of her voice, kept himself concealed behind some thick shrubbery, and began, as he expressed it, to “do a sneak.” His intended destination was the capacious stable in the rear of the premises. But he did not get far.
“Hurry up, Org! Come on here! I see you!” his sister called.
Her last remark was an absolute falsehood. She did not see him. But angels have a language of their own. It is not possible to command their attendance by ordinary earthly methods, and Virginia’s way succeeded.
“Aw, what you want, Gince? A feller can’t have no time to himself when you are around.”
“I want stamps, Org,” the girl said sweetly. “Take this fifty-cent piece and bring me back twenty-five twos.”
“What’s the name of that there woman in that post-office?”
“Miss Paunee,” she told him.
“It sounds like a mustang name to me,” Org remarked, pocketing the money ungraciously, and starting away with his hat pulled down over his eyes.
A moment later he assumed his former character, that of a prowling Indian, and his progress toward the street was from bush to bush and from tree to tree. He crept noiselessly down the street, looking from side to side with alert watchfulness, giving each bit of shrubbery and clump of weeds a careful inspection in anticipation of lurking enemies. When he came to the brow of the hill he ran downward at full speed. It was easier to run than to walk; slower speed would require the effort of holding back, and a genuine Indian hates work. At the foot of the hill he stopped like a clock with a broken spring.
There stood before him a little negro boy, almost exactly his size, and apparently his own age. Org’s first impression was that the stranger was certainly dark-complected, there being no variation in the color scheme except the whites of his eyes. Org’s next thought was that the darky was queerly dressed.
He was wearing a woman’s silk shirt-waist; his coat had originally belonged to some woman’s coat-suit, adjusted to the present wearer by bobbing its tail. His trousers had once belonged to some man who was much larger in the waist and much longer in the leg; but the present owner of the nether garments had made certain clumsy adjustments and the trousers made a sort of fit. The stranger’s legs were covered with a woman’s purple-silk stockings, and on his flat feet were a pair of high-heeled pumps.
“Hello!” Org said, his eyes glued to the ladylike clothes.
“Mawnin’, Marse, howdy?” the little negro responded timidly.
“My name ain’t Marse, it’s Org,” the white boy replied. “What’s your name? Who are you?”
“Dey calls me Little Bit. I’s Cap’n Kerley’s white nigger, an’ I sorter janitors aroun’ de Hen-Scratch.”
“White nigger?” Org remarked wonderingly, after a comprehensive survey of the negro boy. “The white of your eyes is white. That’s all the white I can see. Where you going?”
“Out to de Cooley bayou on de Nigger-Heel plantation.”
“Me, too,” Org remarked as he fell in step beside the negro boy.
Which is the reason why Miss Gaitskill waited impatiently the rest of the day for her stamps.
Without knowing it, Orren Randolph Gaitskill had found the greatest playmate in the world. Let every man born south of the Ohio River say “Amen!”
Little Bit was an angel, too. His mother called him “her angel chile.” His mother had fifteen other angelic children in her cabin, Little Bit being the youngest and the last. So his mother named him Peter, after his father, and Postscript to indicate his location in the annals of the family; thus Peter Postscript Chew took his place in the world.
But white folks never pay any attention to a negro’s name. They called him Little Bit.
In front of the Hen-Scratch saloon in the negro settlement known as Dirty-Six, Little Bit climbed into an empty farm-wagon to which two mules were harnessed.
“Dis here is Mustard Prophet’s team. He’s de overseer on Marse Tom’s Nigger-Heel plantation. I prefers to set down an’ travel. It ails my foots to walk. Mustard’ll let us ride.”
“I rode in a automobile in California,” Org remarked as he climbed into the wagon beside Little Bit.
“You’s fixin’ to ride in a aughter-be-a-mule now,” Little Bit snickered.
Mustard came out of the saloon and viewed the two boys with a great pretense of surprise.
“You two young gen’lemans gwine out wid me, too?” he asked.
“Yes, suh,” Little Bit told him.
“Gosh! I’ll shore hab a busy day wid de babies,” Mustard growled in a good-natured tone. “Dat ole Popsy Spout is in de secont imbecility of his secont childhood, an’ dis here white chile an’ dis cullud chile—lawdy!”
He climbed upon the wagon seat and clucked to his mules, driving slowly down the crooked, sandy road toward the Shin Bone eating-house.
“You boys watch dis team till I gits back,” he ordered. “Popsy’s gwine out wid us.”