I crept to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I tiptoed along, andgot down stairs all right. There warn’t a sound anywheres. I peeped through acrack of the dining-room door, and see the men that was watching the corpse allsound asleep on their chairs. The door was open into the parlor, where thecorpse was laying, and there was a candle in both rooms. I passed along, andthe parlor door was open; but I see there warn’t nobody in there but theremainders of Peter; so I shoved on by; but the front door was locked, and thekey wasn’t there. Just then I heard somebody coming down the stairs, backbehind me. I run in the parlor and took a swift look around, and the only placeI see to hide the bag was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about a foot,showing the dead man’s face down in there, with a wet cloth over it, and hisshroud on. I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just down beyond where hishands was crossed, which made me creep, they was so cold, and then I run backacross the room and in behind the door.
The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very soft, and kneeleddown and looked in; then she put up her handkerchief, and I see she begun tocry, though I couldn’t hear her, and her back was to me. I slid out, and as Ipassed the dining-room I thought I’d make sure them watchers hadn’t seen me; soI looked through the crack, and everything was all right. They hadn’t stirred.
I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thing playing outthat way after I had took so much trouble and run so much resk about it. SaysI, if it could stay where it is, all right; because when we get down the rivera hundred mile or two I could write back to Mary Jane, and she could dig him upagain and get it; but that ain’t the thing that’s going to happen; the thingthat’s going to happen is, the money ’ll be found when they come to screw onthe lid. Then the king ’ll get it again, and it ’ll be a long day before hegives anybody another chance to smouch it from him. Of course I wantedto slide down and get it out of there, but I dasn’t try it. Every minute it wasgetting earlier now, and pretty soon some of them watchers would begin to stir,and I might get catched—catched with six thousand dollars in my hands thatnobody hadn’t hired me to take care of. I don’t wish to be mixed up in no suchbusiness as that, I says to myself.
When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, and the watcherswas gone. There warn’t nobody around but the family and the widow Bartley andour tribe. I watched their faces to see if anything had been happening, but Icouldn’t tell.
Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man, and they setthe coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of chairs, and then set allour chairs in rows, and borrowed more from the neighbors till the hall and theparlor and the dining-room was full. I see the coffin lid was the way it wasbefore, but I dasn’t go to look in under it, with folks around.
Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls took seats inthe front row at the head of the coffin, and for a half an hour the peoplefiled around slow, in single rank, and looked down at the dead man’s face aminute, and some dropped in a tear, and it was all very still and solemn, onlythe girls and the beats holding handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping theirheads bent, and sobbing a little. There warn’t no other sound but the scrapingof the feet on the floor and blowing noses—because people always blows themmore at a funeral than they do at other places except church.
When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in his blackgloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last touches, and gettingpeople and things all ship-shape and comfortable, and making no more sound thana cat. He never spoke; he moved people around, he squeezed in late ones, heopened up passageways, and done it with nods, and signs with his hands. Then hetook his place over against the wall. He was the softest, glidingest,stealthiest man I ever see; and there warn’t no more smile to him than there isto a ham.
They had borrowed a melodeum—a sick one; and when everything was ready a youngwoman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and colicky, andeverybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the only one that had a good thing,according to my notion. Then the Reverend Hobson opened up, slow and solemn,and begun to talk; and straight off the most outrageous row busted out in thecellar a body ever heard; it was only one dog, but he made a most powerfulracket, and he kept it up right along; the parson he had to stand there, overthe coffin, and wait—you couldn’t hear yourself think. It was right downawkward, and nobody didn’t seem to know what to do. But pretty soon they seethat long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to say,“Don’t you worry—just depend on me.” Then he stooped down and begun to glidealong the wall, just his shoulders showing over the people’s heads. So heglided along, and the powwow and racket getting more and more outrageous allthe time; and at last, when he had gone around two sides of the room, hedisappears down cellar. Then in about two seconds we heard a whack, and the doghe finished up with a most amazing howl or two, and then everything was deadstill, and the parson begun his solemn talk where he left off. In a minute ortwo here comes this undertaker’s back and shoulders gliding along the wallagain; and so he glided and glided around three sides of the room, and thenrose up, and shaded his mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck outtowards the preacher, over the people’s heads, and says, in a kind of a coarsewhisper, “He had a rat!” Then he drooped down and glided along the wallagain to his place. You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people,because naturally they wanted to know. A little thing like that don’t costnothing, and it’s just the little things that makes a man to be looked up toand liked. There warn’t no more popular man in town than what that undertakerwas.
Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome; and thenthe king he shoved in and got off some of his usual rubbage, and at last thejob was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up on the coffin with hisscrew-driver. I was in a sweat then, and watched him pretty keen. But he nevermeddled at all; just slid the lid along as soft as mush, and screwed it downtight and fast. So there I was! I didn’t know whether the money was in there ornot. So, says I, s’pose somebody has hogged that bag on the sly?—now how doI know whether to write to Mary Jane or not? S’pose she dug him up anddidn’t find nothing, what would she think of me? Blame it, I says, I might gethunted up and jailed; I’d better lay low and keep dark, and not write at all;the thing’s awful mixed now; trying to better it, I’ve worsened it a hundredtimes, and I wish to goodness I’d just let it alone, dad fetch the wholebusiness!
They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces again—Icouldn’t help it, and I couldn’t rest easy. But nothing come of it; the facesdidn’t tell me nothing.
The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened everybody up, and madehimself ever so friendly; and he give out the idea that his congregation overin England would be in a sweat about him, so he must hurry and settle up theestate right away and leave for home. He was very sorry he was so pushed, andso was everybody; they wished he could stay longer, but they said they couldsee it couldn’t be done. And he said of course him and William would take thegirls home with them; and that pleased everybody too, because then the girlswould be well fixed and amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls,too—tickled them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world; andtold him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be ready. Them poorthings was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see them getting fooledand lied to so, but I didn’t see no safe way for me to chip in and change thegeneral tune.
Well, blamed if the king didn’t bill the house and the nigg*rs and all theproperty for auction straight off—sale two days after the funeral; but anybodycould buy private beforehand if they wanted to.
So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls’ joy gotthe first jolt. A couple of nigg*r traders come along, and the king sold themthe nigg*rs reasonable, for three-day drafts as they called it, and away theywent, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their mother down the river toOrleans. I thought them poor girls and them nigg*rs would break their heartsfor grief; they cried around each other, and took on so it most made me downsick to see it. The girls said they hadn’t ever dreamed of seeing the familyseparated or sold away from the town. I can’t ever get it out of my memory, thesight of them poor miserable girls and nigg*rs hanging around each other’snecks and crying; and I reckon I couldn’t a stood it all, but would a had tobust out and tell on our gang if I hadn’t knowed the sale warn’t no account andthe nigg*rs would be back home in a week or two.
The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out flatfootedand said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the children that way. Itinjured the frauds some; but the old fool he bulled right along, spite of allthe duke could say or do, and I tell you the duke was powerful uneasy.
Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king and the dukecome up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look that there wastrouble. The king says:
“Was you in my room night before last?”
“No, your majesty”—which was the way I always called him when nobody but ourgang warn’t around.
“Was you in there yisterday er last night?”
“No, your majesty.”
“Honor bright, now—no lies.”
“Honor bright, your majesty, I’m telling you the truth. I hain’t been a-nearyour room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed it to you.”
The duke says:
“Have you seen anybody else go in there?”
“No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe.”
“Stop and think.”
I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:
“Well, I see the nigg*rs go in there several times.”
Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn’t ever expected it,and then like they had. Then the duke says:
“What, all of them?”
“No—leastways, not all at once—that is, I don’t think I ever see them all comeout at once but just one time.”
“Hello! When was that?”
“It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn’t early, because Ioverslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see them.”
“Well, go on, go on! What did they do? How’d they act?”
“They didn’t do nothing. And they didn’t act anyway much, as fur as I see. Theytiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they’d shoved in there to do up yourmajesty’s room, or something, s’posing you was up; and found you warn’tup, and so they was hoping to slide out of the way of trouble without wakingyou up, if they hadn’t already waked you up.”
“Great guns, this is a go!” says the king; and both of them lookedpretty sick and tolerable silly. They stood there a-thinking and scratchingtheir heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a little raspychuckle, and says:
“It does beat all how neat the nigg*rs played their hand. They let on to besorry they was going out of this region! And I believed they wassorry, and so did you, and so did everybody. Don’t ever tell me any morethat a nigg*r ain’t got any histrionic talent. Why, the way they played thatthing it would fool anybody. In my opinion, there’s a fortune in ’em. IfI had capital and a theater, I wouldn’t want a better lay-out than that—andhere we’ve gone and sold ’em for a song. Yes, and ain’t privileged to sing thesong yet. Say, where is that song—that draft?”
“In the bank for to be collected. Where would it be?”
“Well, that’s all right then, thank goodness.”
Says I, kind of timid-like:
“Is something gone wrong?”
The king whirls on me and rips out:
“None o’ your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y’r own affairs—ifyou got any. Long as you’re in this town don’t you forgit that—youhear?” Then he says to the duke, “We got to jest swaller it and say noth’n’:mum’s the word for us.”
As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, and says:
“Quick sales and small profits! It’s a good business—yes.”
The king snarls around on him and says:
“I was trying to do for the best in sellin’ ’em out so quick. If the profitshas turned out to be none, lackin’ considable, and none to carry, is it myfault any more’n it’s yourn?”
“Well, they’d be in this house yet and we wouldn’t if I could agot my advice listened to.”
The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then swapped around andlit into me again. He give me down the banks for not coming andtelling him I see the nigg*rs come out of his room acting that way—saidany fool would a knowed something was up. And then waltzed in and cussedhimself awhile, and said it all come of him not laying late and takinghis natural rest that morning, and he’d be blamed if he’d ever do it again. Sothey went off a-jawing; and I felt dreadful glad I’d worked it all off on tothe nigg*rs, and yet hadn’t done the nigg*rs no harm by it.
