CHAPTER XXVII
I CREPT to their doors and listened; they was
snoring. So I tiptoed along, and got down stairs all
right. There warn't a sound anywheres. I peeped
through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the
men that was watching the corpse all sound asleep on
their chairs. The door was open into the parlor,
where the corpse was laying, and there was a candle
in both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door
was open; but I see there warn't nobody in there but
the remainders of Peter; so I shoved on by; but the
front door was locked, and the key wasn't there.
Just then I heard somebody coming down the stairs,
back behind me. I run in the parlor and took a swift
look around, and the only place I 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 his shroud on.
I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just down
beyond where his hands was crossed, which made me
creep, they was so cold, and then I run back across
the room and in behind the door.
The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the
coffin, very soft, and kneeled down and looked in;
then she put up her handkerchief, and I see she
begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her
back was to me. I slid out, and as I passed the din-
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ing-room I thought I'd make sure them watchers
hadn't seen me; so I 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 out that way after I
had took so much trouble and run so much resk about
it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right;
because when we get down the river a hundred mile or
two I could write back to Mary Jane, and she could
dig him up again and get it; but that ain't the
thing that's going to happen; the thing that's going
to happen is, the money 'll be found when they come
to screw on the lid. Then the king 'll get it again,
and it 'll be a long day before he gives anybody
another chance to smouch it from him. Of course I
wanted to slide down and get it out of there, but I
dasn't try it. Every minute it was getting 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 that nobody
hadn't hired me to take care of. I don't wish to be
mixed up in no such business as that, I says to
myself.
When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was
shut up, and the watchers was gone. There warn't
nobody around but the family and the widow Bartley
and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if
anything had been happening, but I couldn't tell.
Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come
with his man, and they set the coffin in the middle
of the room on a couple of chairs, and then set all
our chairs in rows, and borrowed more from the
neighbors till the hall and the parlor and the
dining-room was full. I see the coffin lid was the
way it was be-
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fore, 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 in the front row at the head of
the coffin, and for a half an hour the people filed
around slow, in single rank, and looked down at the
dead man's face a minute, and some dropped in a
tear, and it was all very still and solemn, only the
girls and the beats holding handkerchiefs to their
eyes and keeping their heads bent, and sobbing a
little. There warn't no other sound but the scraping
of the feet on the floor and blowing noses --
because people always blows them more at a funeral
than they do at other places except church.
When the place was packed full the undertaker he
slid around in his black gloves with his softy
soothering ways, putting on the last touches, and
getting people and things all ship-shape and
comfortable, and making no more sound than a cat. He
never spoke; he moved people around, he squeezed in
late ones, he opened up passageways, and done it
with nods, and signs with his hands. Then he took
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 is to a ham.
They had borrowed a melodeum -- a sick one; and when
everything was ready a young woman set down and
worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and colicky,
and everybody 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 the cellar a body
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ever heard; it was only one dog, but he made a most
powerful racket, and he kept it up right along; the
parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and
wait -- you couldn't hear yourself think. It was
right down awkward, and nobody didn't seem to know
what to do. But pretty soon they see that
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 glide
along the wall, just his shoulders showing over the
people's heads. So he glided along, and the powwow
and racket getting more and more outrageous all the
time; and at last, when he had gone around two sides
of the room, he disappears down cellar. Then in
about two seconds we heard a whack, and the dog he
finished up with a most amazing howl or two, and
then everything was dead still, and the parson begun
his solemn talk where he left off. In a minute or
two here comes this undertaker's back and shoulders
gliding along the wall again; and so he glided and
glided around three sides of the room, and then rose
up, and shaded his mouth with his hands, and
stretched his neck out towards the preacher, over
the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse
whisper, "He had a rat!" Then he drooped down and
glided along the wall again 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 cost nothing, and it's just
the little things that makes a man to be looked up
to and liked. There warn't no more popular man in
town than what that undertaker was.
Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison
long and tiresome; and then the king he shoved in
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and got off some of his usual rubbage, and at last
the job was through, and the undertaker begun to
sneak up on the coffin with his screw-driver. I was
in a sweat then, and watched him pretty keen. But he
never meddled at all; just slid the lid along as
soft as mush, and screwed it down tight and fast. So
there I was! I didn't know whether the money was in
there or not. So, says I, s'pose somebody has hogged
that bag on the sly? -- now how do I know whether to
write to Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up and
didn't find nothing, what would she think of me?
Blame it, I says, I might get hunted 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 hundred times, and I wish to
goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch the whole
business!
They buried him, and we come back home, and I went
to watching faces again -- I couldn't help it, and I
couldn't rest easy. But nothing come of it; the
faces didn't tell me nothing.
The king he visited around in the evening, and
sweetened everybody up, and made himself ever so
friendly; and he give out the idea that his
congregation over in England would be in a sweat
about him, so he must hurry and settle up the estate
right away and leave for home. He was very sorry he
was so pushed, and so was everybody; they wished he
could stay longer, but they said they could see it
couldn't be done. And he said of course him and
William would take the girls home with them; and
that pleased everybody too, because then the girls
would be well fixed and amongst their own relations;
and it pleased
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the girls, too -- tickled them so they clean forgot
they ever had a trouble in the world; and told him
to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be
ready. Them poor things was that glad and happy it
made my heart ache to see them getting fooled and
lied to so, but I didn't see no safe way for me to
chip in and change the general tune.
Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and
the niggers and all the property for auction
straight off -- sale two days after the funeral; but
anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted
to.
So the next day after the funeral, along about
noontime, the girls' joy got the first jolt. A
couple of nigger traders come along, and the king
sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day
drafts as they called it, and away they went, the
two sons up the river to Memphis, and their mother
down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls
and them niggers would break their hearts for grief;
they cried around each other, and took on so it most
made me down sick to see it. The girls said they
hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated
or sold away from the town. I can't ever get it out
of my memory, the sight of them poor miserable girls
and niggers hanging around each other's necks and
crying; and I reckon I couldn't a stood it all, but
would a had to bust out and tell on our gang if I
hadn't knowed the sale warn't no account and the
niggers 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 flatfooted and said it was
scandalous to separate the mother and the children
that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old
fool he
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bulled right along, spite of all the 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 duke come up in the garret
and woke me up, and I see by their look that there
was trouble. 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 our gang 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-near your 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 niggers 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 come out 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 I overslept. I was just
starting down the ladder, and I see them."
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"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. They tiptoed away; so I seen,
easy enough, that they'd shoved in there to do up
your majesty's room, or something, s'posing you was
up; and found you warn't up, and so they was hoping
to slide out of the way of trouble without waking
you up, if they hadn't already waked you up."
"Great guns, this is a go!" says the king; and both
of them looked pretty sick and tolerable silly. They
stood there a-thinking and scratching their heads a
minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a little
raspy chuckle, and says:
"It does beat all how neat the niggers played their
hand. They let on to be sorry they was going out of
this region! And I believed they was sorry, and so
did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever tell me
any more that a nigger ain't got any histrionic
talent. Why, the way they played that thing it would
fool anybody. In my opinion, there's a fortune in
'em. If I had capital and a theater, I wouldn't want
a better lay-out than that -- and here we've gone
and sold 'em for a song. Yes, and ain't privileged
to sing the song 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 -- if you got any. Long as
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you're in this town don't you forgit that -- you
hear?" 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 profits has turned out to be none,
lackin' considable, and none to carry, is it my
fault any more'n it's yourn?"
"Well, they'd be in this house yet and we wouldn't
if I could a got my advice listened to."
The king sassed back as much as was safe for him,
and then swapped around and lit into me again. He
give me down the banks for not coming and telling
him I see the niggers come out of his room acting
that way -- said any fool would a knowed something
was up. And then waltzed in and cussed himself
awhile, and said it all come of him not laying late
and taking his natural rest that morning, and he'd
be blamed if he'd ever do it again. So they went off
a-jawing; and I felt dreadful glad I'd worked it all
off on to the niggers, and yet hadn't done the
niggers no harm by it.
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