 Chapter 7 of J. Poindexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb. The sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. COUNTRY SIDE For instances, now, take this here Saturday last past. Down home Mr. Dallas would have been down to that there oil-office of his, brightened early, shaking hands with the paying customers and helping boss the clerks whilst they draw it off the oil and all. But nothing like that don't happen here with us. No, sir. Not none whatsoever. He lays in bed until it's going on pretty near ten o'clock, and then he gets up and I packs him, and along about dinner time, which they call it lunchtime round this town. We puts out in the car to the country for a weekend. Only for the amount of baggage we totes with us you'd have thought it was going to be a month-end. I'm token along to look after his clothes and to do general balloting for him. We takes Mr. Rainer and Mr. Bellows and the permanent wavy lady, Mrs. Gaylord, along with us. Mr. Witt and Miss O'Brien is also headed for the same place we is, but they comes in the blue runabout, travelling close behind us. By now I has done learned not to expect Mrs. Gaylord to bring a husband with her. It seems like she can get him, but she can't keep him. She's been married three times in all, but from what I can hear her first husband hauled off and died on her, and the second one kind of strayed off and never come back. I ain't heard him say what happened to the present incumbent, but since he ain't never been produced, I judge he must have got mislaid some way. So now she's practically all out of husbands again. Still she seems to be bearing up very serene at all times. If she misses him, she don't let on. Well we loads up the car with the white folks, and with the leases and gulf sacks, and one thing and another, and starts for the country. But I must say for it that it's totally unsimilar to any country like what I has been used to here before. The front yards which we passes all looks like the owners must take them in at nights, and in the mornings brush them off good and put them back outdoors again. And most of the residences is a suitable size to make good high school buildings, or else evil mind institutes. And even the woodlots has a slipped up appearance, like as if they'd just come back that same day from the dry cleaners. In more than an hour's steady travel, I don't see a single rail fence, nor a regulation weed patch, nor a lie kettle, nor an ash hopper, nor a corn crib, nor a martin box, nor a hound dog, nor a smokehouse, nor scarcely anything which would signify it to be sure enough country. I think to myself that if a cottontail rabbit was aiming to camp out here, he'd naturally be obliged to pack his bedding along with him. When we arrives where we is headed for, I is still further surprised, because beforehand Mr. Dallas tells me we is going to stop at a country place. But it looks to me more like a city hall, which has done strayed far off from its functions, and took root in a big clump of trees alongside the river. Why, it's got more rooms in it than our new county infirmaries got, and grounds around it all beautiful like a cemetery. It belongs to a very spry acting lady named Mrs. Bannister, which she is a friend of Mrs. Gaylord's. There's a Mr. Bannister, too. But as far as I can judge, the lady is the sole proprietor, and his job is just being Mrs. Bannister's mister, and helping with the drinks when the butler is busy doing something else. I hear the cook saying out in the kitchen that he can also mix a very tasty salad dressing. Well, that's what he looks like to me, just a natural-born salad dressing mixer. But we don't arrive there until it's getting towards four o'clock, by reason of us stopping for quite a sojourn at a tea-house along the road. Least wise they calls it a tea-house, but the principalist functions, so far as I can note, is to provide accommodations for folks to dance and to drink up the refreshments, which they fetched along with them in pocket flasks. And you might call that tea if you prefer's to, but it's the kind of tea which now sells by the case for cash down, and is delivered at your house after dark. That's mainly what our outfit does there, dance and refresh themselves with what the gentlemen brought along on their hips. From where I'm sitting in the car outside, I can see him weaving in and out amongst the tables, whilst a string band plays jazzing tunes for him to dance by. But Mr. Dallas don't appear to be getting the hang of it so very well, and the chauffeur, who's sitting there with me, he allows probably the boss ain't caught on to these here new dances yet. I says to him, I says, Huh, does you call at a new dance? He says, Sure, the newest one of them all. That's the Reizenberger grapple. It's just hit town. And I says, Then it sure must have been a long time on the road getting here. Because niggers down my way, I says, does dance and ad-air dance fully ten years ago? Only they'd done so behind closed doors, I says. Being feared the police mount claim this oddly conduct, and stop them from it. He says, Did you ever dance it? I says to him, Who me? Many's a time. But not lately, I says. What made you stop? He says. I got religion, I says. There was also considerable careless dancing done at the banister place that night and early the following morning. In fact, there was considerable of a good many things done there that Saturday and Sunday. Tennis and golf and horseback riding and billiards and pool and going and swimming in a private lake on the premises and playing a card game which they calls it auction bridge and eating and drinking and smoking. Everybody is so busy all day changing clothes for the next event they ain't got very much time for the thing that's on at the time being. But when the night time comes the ladies strips down to full dress and all hands just settles in for the three favourite sports which is dancing and cards and drinks both long and short. I has seen thirsty gentlemen before in my day, but to the best of my recollection I ain't never encountered no ladies that seemed so parched like as one or two of these here ladies was. I'm thinking in particular of Mrs. Gaylord. She certainly is suffering from a severe attack of the genuine parchments. But I'll say this much for her. She's doing her level best to get shut of it by taking the ordained treatment. That Saturday evening whilst I is upstairs in Mr. Dallas' room laying out his dress clothes the guests about a dozen of them is out in the front yard setting round little tables where I can see him from the window and every time I passes the window and looks out it seems like she's being served with a little bit more. She carries it just beautiful though. She certainly has my deep personal admirations for her capacity. But next day when she comes downstairs she acts daunty and low spirited for a while. She's got on a fresh complexion to be sure. But even so she looks sort of weather-beaten round the eyes. You take them when they is either prematurely old or else permanently young and the morning is always the most tellingest time on them. Well several of those present ain't feeling the best in the world seemingly. That Sunday when they strolls forth for late breakfast long about half past eleven. It was after three o'clock before they dispersed and some of them ain't entirely got over it yet. They is still kind of dispersed looking if you gets my meaning. Well all day Sunday is just like Saturday evening was. Only if anything more so. And late Sunday night the party busts up and scatters and we starts back to town. Mr. Dallas he elects for to ride back in the runabout with Miss Billy. Most of that throws Miss O'Brien, the one which they calls Pat for short, into the big car with the rest of our crowd. Starting off she quarrels right puret with Mrs. Gaylord. I gathers that they was partners at the bridging game part of the time and they can't get reconciled with one another over the way each one of them handled her cards. The more they scandalizes about it the more unreconciled they get too. It seems like each one thinks the other don't scarcely know how to deal. Let alone play the hands after she gets them. Setting their listening to him carrying on I thinks to myself these here northern white folks must hate to lose even a little bit of money. I knows these two ladies couldn't have lost much neither. I heard Mr. Rainer saying beforehand they was going to play five cents a point. But to overhear them debating now you'd have thought it had been a real stiff game, like dollar limit poker say, or set back at six bits a corner. After a while Miss Pat she quits argufying and drops off to sleep and Mr. Bellows he likewise drifts off into a doze and that leaves Mrs. Gaylord and Mr. Rainer talking together in the backseat kind of confidential. But the hood of the car being over them it seems like it throws their voices forward. And setting up with the chauffeur I can't keep from eavesdropping on part of what they is confabbing about. Presently I hear Mr. Rainer saying, well you never can guess in advance what a sap will like, can you? You would have thought he'd fall for a kiddo with a good strong up-to-date tomboy line, like little Patsy here. But no, not at all. He takes one look into those languishing eyes of our other friend and goes down and out for the count. Funny a what? Well it only goes to show that while the vamp stuff is getting a trifle old-fashioned it still pays dividends. If only you pick the right customer. Then I hear Mrs. Gaylord saying, her system may be a bit passe, but you can't say she doesn't work fast once she gets under way. Clever I call it. Clever, he says, you bet. She works fast and she works clean, tidying up as she goes along and burying her own dead. I always did say for her that when it came to being a gold digger she had the original forty-niners looking like inmates of the Baidawee home. Fast I'll say so. She has need to be fast, working opposition to you, herby dear, says Mrs. Gaylord. Being of expert bloodsuckers I shouldn't exactly call you a vegetarian. Hush, honey, he says, let's not talk shop out of business hours. And anyhow, he says, I don't mind a little healthy competition on the side. It stimulates trade under the main tent. If it's done in moderation. You should know, herby. She says sort of laughing. With your experience you should know, if anybody does. Then he laughs, too. A kind of a low and meaning chuckle. And they goes to talking about something else. But I has done heard enough to set me to studying mighty earnest. Neither one of them ain't specifying who they means by he and she. But I can guess. Once more, I says to myself, I says, ah ha, ah ha. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of J. Poindexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb. This sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. Dark Secrets Some of the folks which has been following our experiences, as I has wrote them down, might think it was my bounden duty to go straight away to Mr. Dallas, and promulgate to him these here remarks which I here is past betwixt Mr. H. C. Rayner and the permanent wavy lady on that Sunday night six weeks ago, coming back from our weekend in the country. But I does not by no means see my way clear to doing so. In the first place I ain't never been what you might call a professional promulgator. In the second place I figures the time ain't ripe to start in telling what I believes and what I suspicions. In the third place I don't know yet if it ever will be ripe. Some white folks seems like is just naturally beset with a craving to bust into Colored folks's business, and try for to run their personal affairs forum. Mr. Dallas he is not gated that way in no particular whatsoever. Him having been born and raised south, and naturally knowing better anyhow. But some I might mention is, still and even so, most white folks don't care deeply for anybody at all, much less it's somebody which is Colored, to be telling him unpleasant and unwelcome tidings. And he is white, and I is black. And there you is. Another way I looks at it is this way. There's a whole heap of white folks, mainly northerners, which thinks that because us black folks talk loud and laugh so plenty in public, that we ain't got no secret feelings of our own. They thinks we is ready and willing at all times to just blab all we knows into the first white ear that passes by. Which I reckon that is one of the most monstrous mistakes in natural history that ever was. You take a black boy, which he working for a white family. Being on close relations that a way with him. He's bound to know everything they does. What they is thinking about. What all they hopes and what all they fears. But does they for their part know anything about how he acts amongst his own race? I'll say contrary. They maybe might think they knows, but you take it from Jay Poindexter. They positively does not do nothing of the kind. All what they gleanse about him, his real inside emotions I means, is exactly what he's willing for him to glean. That and no more. And usually that ain't so much. Yes, sir. The run of colored folks is much more secretious than what the run of white folks give them credit for. I reckon they has been made so. In times past they has met up with so many white folks which taken the view that everything black men and black women done in their lodges or their churches or amongst their own color was something to joke about and poke fun at. Now you take me. I is perfectly willing to laugh with the white folks and I can laugh to order for them if the occasion appears suitable. But I is not filled up with no deep yearnings to have them laughing at me and my private doings, especially if it's strange white folks. Furthermore there's this about it. I've taken due notice that whites and blacks alike, pretty near anybody, will resent your coming to them on your own say so and telling them right out of a clear sky that they is making a grievous big mistake in doing this or that. If they themselves takes the lead, they seeks you out of their own accord and says to you, confidential like, they is in a peck of trouble and craves to know how they is going to get out from under the load. Why, that's different. Then you can step in in friendship's name and do your best to help them unravel the tangle which they has got themselves snarled up in it. If you asks me, I would say that advice gets a heap warmer welcome where you goes hunting for it, than where it comes hunting for you. And likewise sympathy is something which you appreciates all the more if you went out shopping for it yourself. You don't want it to come knocking at the door like one of these here old peddlers taking orders for enlarging crayon portraits and forcing its way right into your fireside circle whether or no and camping there in your lap. Moreover, speaking in particular of our own case, what right has I got to be intimating to Mr. Dallas my private beliefs about the private characters of this here brisk crowd which he has gone and got so thick with since we arrived here on the scene. Right from the first I has had my own personal convictions about the set he's in with. I has made up my mind that they ain't the genuine real quality, that they is just a slipped up highly polished imitation of the real quality, that they ain't doing things so much as they is overdoing them. The way I look at it, they bears the same relation to regulation high-tony folks which a tin minnow does to sure enough live bait. You maybe might fool a fish with it, but you couldn't fool the world at large for so very long. And as for me, I ain't been fooled at all, not at no time. But I naturally can't go stating my presentiments to Mr. Dallas without he the same as practically invites me first for to do so. Now can I? But if he finds it out for himself and approaches me, that's a ron horse of another color. So the above reasons is why I is at present keeping my mouth shut in front of him about what concerns him solely. Besides, so many things continues to happen from day to day here in New York, it keeps me right busy just staying up with the procession and not overlooking the stray vets. For instances now there's my moving picture scheme which I think's up out of my own head and which promises to turn out mighty profitable if everything goes well. Chapter 9 of J. Poindexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb This lever-box recording is in the public domain. Having so much else to keep track of, I has plum-forgot up till now to set forth how comes it we gets ourselves interested in the movies. You see, both Miss Pat and Miss Billy is in that line, although not working at it very steady. In fact, practically all our crowd lets on to be doing something or other or to earn a living when they can't think of nothing else to do. It seems like Mr. Bellows sets himself up to be one of these here interior decorators, which I don't know exactly what that is, though I has my notions, for I has seen him decorating. Let somebody else provide the materials and he's right there with the interior. Mrs. Gaylord, she's an alimony collector by profession, and doing right well at her trade, too, from all I can gather. And Mr. Raynor, he calls himself a broker. I hear Mrs. Gaylord saying once, sort of joking, that being a broker is the present tense of being broke, which I reckon that is not only grammar but facts, except when somebody like Mr. Dallas comes along with ready cash on hand. But the two young ladies has both been in theatricals for going on several years now, first on the old-fashioned talking stage, and more lately with the films. So naturally there's a right smart talk about films and screens and all, going on from time to time. It seems like all hands amongst them agrees there's a heap of money in the film business, if only the right folks was to take hold of it and get it away from the parties, which is now trying to run it. It also seems that if only Miss Billy could get the proper sort of a chance, which she can't on account of jealousy and one thing and another, she'd be a brightly shining star in no time. All she needs is for somebody to put her out in a piece which'll suit her, and then she'll be a sensational success, and all concerned will make more money than they'll know what to do with. I hear her saying so more than wants to Mr. Dallas, all the time looking at him, with them yearning big black eyes of hers. It seems like that is the one thing which she requires for to make her perfectly happy. And seeing as how that appears to be Mr. Dallas' chief aim in life these times, making Miss Billy more happy, I says to myself that first thing we know will be investing in a new line on the side. Mr. Rainer, though, he ain't so favourable to the notion. I can tell that he don't want Mr. Dallas to be spreading his play round so promiscuous. It ain't so much what he says. It's by the way he looks when the subject comes up that I can figure out what his private emotions is. Anyhow, the upshot is that Mr. Dallas takes to spending considerable of his spare time at a studio uptown where the two young ladies works, getting pointers and so on. One evening, I should say one afternoon, he telephones down to the apartment for me to bring one of his heavy overcoats up there to him, because what with late fall time being here now, the weather has turned off sort of cold. And that's how befalls, that I get my look at the insides of one of these here studio places, which I must say, alongside of the one I seen, a crazy house is plum rational and abounding in restfulness. From the outsides it looks to be like something suitable for a tobacco stemmery, or maybe a skating rink. But once I get past the watchman on the outer door, whoo-ee, that's all, whoo-ee. I stops close by the door, and for a spell I watches what's going on, and I thinks to myself that whilst there may be a plenty of money in the moving picture business, and doubtless is, the bulk of it is liable to stay in it, permanent. Never before in my whole life has I seen so many folks letting on like they was fixing for to transact something important, and then not doing it. If they was all on piecework, they couldn't earn enough to pay for half-solling the shoes which they wears out running about, getting in one another's way. But as I understand it, they mainly is hired by the day and not by the job, and my heart certainly goes out in sympathetical feelings for the man, whoever he may be. That's putting the bills at the end of the week. If I was him I'd charge general admittance for the public to come in and witness these here carrying's on, and thereby get some part of my wastage back. Almost the first thing which distracts my attention is a pestered-looking man, with a pair of these here high-leather leggings on, like he was fixing to go horseback riding. But in his frenzy has mislead the horse, which he is full of authority and dashing to and fro with a big megaphone in one hand, and in the other a bunch of wadded-up paper with writing on it. He appears to be in sole charge, and if hollowing loud was worth fifty cents a hollow, he'd be a millionaire inside of a month if his voice didn't give out on him. I find's out a little later that he's what they call the director. Well, he certainly does directicate. One minute he's yelling at a couple of the hands up in the loft overhead, which their job is to handle some of the lights, and then he's yelling at the little fellow which is running the picture-taking machinery, and then he's yelling at a bunch of men which has charge of the scenery. Only this crowd don't pay no attention to him, but just goes on doing their work very languid-like, so I judge as they must belong to a union, and therefore can afford to be independent. But most in general he devotes his yelling to a whole multitude of folks all dressed up in acting-clothes, with their faces painted the curiousest ever I seen. And at that I seen a sight of face-painting since I come to New York. Under them funny lights their skins is an awful corp-seat greenish-yellowish-whitish, and their lips is purple, like as if they had been drowned at nine days and has just now come to the top. He herds all these people together and gets them set to act at peace, and then something goes wrong. Either he ain't satisfied with the lights or with their actions, or else he remembers something important which has been forgotten, and he yells for somebody to fetch it, and six or eight runs to get it, and brings the wrong thing back, and he raves and cusses under his breath, and tells everybody to go back to their marks, and start in all over again. And the next try is just the same as the first, and the third try is not no more successful than the other two was. So then the director, he shoes the whole crowd back out of the way, and walks up and down, and waves his arms, and wildly states that he hopes he may be hanged if he's going to go on until they learn how to rehearse. And I remarks to myself that if I was them white folks, I certainly would give him his wish and hang him. So then everybody loaves round a spell, whilst the director confabs with a little thin, nervous-looking man called Mr. Simons, with glasses on. And then the director announces that they won't try to shoot the mob scene today, and all the extras can go till nine o'clock tomorrow morning. And in the meantime he trusts and prays that they may get a little sense or something in their heads. So accordingly most of the multitude departs, leaving only about a dozen or more actor-ladies and gentlemen, setting round on odds and ends, and seemingly very grateful for the peaceful lull. By this time I has done localised Mr. Bulliam, where he's standing over in a corner, talking with Miss Billy, and a couple more ladies, and I makes my way to him. Doing so I has to pass behind some of the scenery. On the other side it's just like a row of houses with roofs and porches and all. But here on the behind side of it there ain't nothing only plastering laths and raggedy ends of burlaps and chicken-coupe wire, and naked joists. It puts me right sharply in mind of some of these folks we has been associating with up here. Everything in stock devoted to making a show for the front, and nothing except the rubbish left over for the backing. Well, I reckons it's always like that when you is making believe to be something you truly ain't, whether it's in a moving picture studio or out in the great world at large. After I gives Mr. Dallas his coat he tells me to hang round if I wishes to do so, and watch him working. So I hangs round. But there ain't much working done for quite a spell. But instead a lot of general speechifying and explaining betwixt this one and that one. Finally, though, the pestered man he yells out something about being ready to shoot an interior. All hands rambles over to another part of the building, where there is more scenery which is fixed up to look like the insides of a short-order restaurant. One of the young ladies and one of the young gentlemen sets down at a table in front of the camera and lets on to be eating a quick snack, whilst a white man, which is dressed up like a waiter and blacked up to look like he's colored, waits on him. The two at the table appears to be giving satisfaction, but the ruler of the roost ain't pleased with the way the waiter acts out his part. I ain't blaming him for not being pleased neither. To start with, the waiter is blacked up too much. He don't look like he's genuine colored. He looks more like he's been shining up a cook's dough and got most of the polish rubbed off onto his space and hands. He don't act like he's genuine colored neither. I judges he must have studied the business of acting like colored folks from watching nigger minstrel shows. He keeps rolling his eyes up in his head and smacking his lips, the same as an end man does. Which is all right, I reckon, when you is an end man, but which does not fill the bill when you is letting on to be a sure enough black person. Because for years past I ain't never seen scarcely no minstrel man which really deported himself as though he had colored feelings inside of him. Still I must say for him that he's doing his level best to oblige. But what with him trying to remember to keep the eyes rolling and the lips smacking and the director yelling at him through that megaphone to do the next step this away or that away. He's presently so muddled up in his mind that it seems like he can't get nothing at all accomplished. It makes me feel actually sorry for him. But I ain't sorry for the director. One of them is ignorant and willing to admit it. The other one is ignorant but is trying to cover it up by behaving bossified and making loud sounds and laying the blame on somebody else. Least wise that's how I figures it out. I says to myself, I says, it's all wrong from who laid the rail. Yes, I'll tell the latent world. They don't neither one of them understand the least particle about nigger actions and nigger depotement. I must upset it out loud without thinking because right alongside of me somebody speaks up and says, what do you know about this business? I turns my head and looks and it's that there quiet little man with the big glasses on, name of Mr. Simons. I says to him, I says, I don't know nothing about this year's business, but I does know something about being colored, seeing as I is one myself. He sort of squints up his eyes like he's got an idea. He says, could you take the director's place there and show that man how to get through with his scene? Who, boss? Me, I says. No, sir. I may be mount could take his place, provide in white folks's didn't mind having me fell in orders at him. But even so, I couldn't never plant the right IDs in at other gentlemen's mind. Why not, he says? Because it's plain to me, I says, at in the first place he ain't got no notion as to how a black boy would carry his sif whilst waiting on a table. Excuse me for saying so, if he's a friend of yours. But that's the facts of the case, boss. The feelings ain't bar. All right, he says. Then could you play the waiter's part yourself? Well, sir, I says. Maybe I could if they wouldn't expect me to act like a actor. But just allowed me to act like a human being. I ain't never done no acting, I says. But I've been a human being for as far back as I can remember. You've got it, he says. What this business needs in it is fewer people trying to act and more people willing to behave like human beings. How would you like to put on the jacket and the apron that man is wearing and see if you could get away with the job he's trying to do? F would be a favor to you. Yes, sir, I says. But I'm scared the direct and gentleman mount object. I think possibly I could fix that, he says. I happen to be the owner of this plant. I'll go speak to him. Hold on, I says. If you please, sir. The only way I could do it, I says, would be for you to tell me just what you wanted done. And then you'd have to mech all hands, stand back, and keep quiet whilst I was trying to do it. It show, I says, would get me all razzle-dazzled to have some gentleman yelling at me, though at megaphone, ever half second or so. There's another idea that's worth experimenting with, he says. I've thought the same thing myself before now. You stay right here a minute. Well, to make a long story no longer, he goes over and whispers something to the director. And first off the director he shakes his head like he's dead set against the proposition. But Mr. Simons keeps on arguing with him. And after a little bit the director flings up both hands, sort of despairful, and goes over and sets down at a little table, looking very sulky. Then Mr. Simons he tells the blacked-up man to take off his apron and his jacket, and tells me to put him on me. And then he tells me very slow just what he wants me to do. But he says I'm to do it in my own way. And if, as I go along, I think of anything else which a real colored waiter would do under such like circumstances, why I'm to stick that in too. Try to forget that it's all pretending, he says. And try to forget that there's a camera grinding in front of you. Just remember that you're a waiter in a cheap dump serving a couple of young people that have run away from home to be married, and are in a hurry to get something to eat. Try to register your expectations of getting a nice big tip from the young fellow. And when you slip the girl the note that'll tip her off to the fact that her old sweetheart is waiting outside and wants to see her, you want to make sure that the man at the table with her can't see you. But that people sitting out in the audience watching the show will see the note pass. Get me? We won't have any rehearsals. Too much preliminary stuff might make you self-conscious. I'll have them start shooting just as soon as you come on. Now go to it. Which I does it all according to orders. I must have gave utter satisfaction too, because when we get through, everybody setting round claps their hands and applause's me same as if they was at a regular show. That is, everybody does so except the director, which he continues to act peevish. This here, Mr. Simons, he goes yet farther than applausing. He comes over to me and he says I has put him under obligations to me, by helping him out, and if ever I feels like doing some more moving picture work, just to call on him either down at his office or up here at the studios. Because he says there ain't no telling when he may have another show with a part in it for a smart, spry colored person, and with that he slips his card into my hand, and along with it a ten-dollar bill, which that is more money than ever I has earned before in my whole life for a light job. Let alone just acting natural for about five or six minutes. He starts on away then, but suddenly he turns round like a notion had just hit him between the eyes, and he comes back to me and says he wants to speak to me a minute, and I follows him back around a corner where nobody won't be liable to hear us. I want to ask you about something, he says, when we arrives there. You seem to be a person who keeps his eyes and his ears open. Besides your colored yourself and what I need here, I think, is somebody who can look at a proposition from a colored man's slant, rather than from a white man's. And finally, my guess is that you haven't been away from your own part of the country very long, and that probably means you haven't lost your perspective. Do you get my drift? I wouldn't know a perspective if I met up with one in the big road, but I ain't aiming to expose my ignorance before this strange gentleman. I try to look like I'm mighty glad that I've been so careful as not to lose it. And I tell him, yes, sir, I get his drift. Good, he says. Well, making it snappy. The idea is just this. New York City is full of colored actors. Not merely singers and dancers, but real artists, some of them, who can act and are especially strong in comedy. That's point number one. In nearly every good-sized town in this country, north and south, there is at least one moving picture-house catering to your people. That's point number two. But day after day, and night after night, those patrons see nothing but pictures written by white people, directed by white men, and acted by white people. That's point number three. Now I've been carrying round a scheme in my head for quite a while, a scheme to try the experiment of turning out a line of two realers, say, done by colored castes, and selling them, if I can, to these three or four thousand houses run by colored people and playing to colored people. I've got the studio right here. I've got the organization and the equipment. And at any time I need it, I can put my hand on plenty of acting material, colored people, I mean, who will only need a little training to make them fit for my purposes. Some of them have already had some training, as extras around the local plants. As I dope it out, if I can produce pictures which will appeal particularly to your people, I'll have a steady market through the big exchanges, because if I know anything about the tastes of the general public, white people will enjoy all colored comedies, if they're done right, almost as much as colored people will. And that's point number four. Now then, give me your idea of the value of the notion. Mr., I says, I can only tell you how one colored person feels, which at one is me. The way I look at it, you ain't needn't to bother much about fancy scenery and special fixings. With a crowd of niggers, the mainest point will be the acting. The acting part is war, you can't fool them. And I says, if you can get hold of a crowd of colored actors, which is willing to act lack the show enough old-time colored, and not lack unbleached imitations of white folks, it seems lack to me the rest of it ought to be plum easy. Mostly I'd mech the pictures comical, if I was you. You can do at and still not hurt nobody's feelings, white or black. If you wants to produce a piece showing a lot of niggers getting skinned, let it be another nigger which skins them. Then I says, when at the last they gets even with him, it'll still be nigger against nigger. And if, once in a while, you mechs a kind of a serious lack picture, showing maybe how the race is a striving to get a hate in the world, add ought to fetch these year new issue-colored folks, which, I says, is seemingly becomes so plentiful up north. But mainly I'd stick to the laugh in line, if I was you. Niggers is one kind of folks in this country, which they ain't afeard to laugh. And whatever else you does, I says, don't mess with no race problem. We gets malty tired, sometimes, of being treated the way we often is. Check my own case, I says. I ain't no problem, I's a person. I craves to be so regarded. And that's the way I always is been regarded by my own kind of white folks down where I comes from, I says. Say, he says, when I gets through saying this, I think you've earned another ten spot. And with that he shoves one more of them desirable bills at me, which he don't have no real struggle inducing me to take it. Because I'm a powerful, easy person to control in such matters. And always has been, from a child up. I was practically convinced all along that the proposition was worth trying, he says. What you say helps to confirm a judgment I already had. Well, don't forget about coming to see me if you want work in my line. There may be plenty of it if this thing pans out. And he shakes hands with me again and walks off. Right after that a young white gentleman he comes looking for me to take down my full entitlements. And he says I will be honorably mentioned by name on the program of the picture, which they now is making when it's done. And Mr. Dallas, he tells me I can take the rest of the day off, for to celebrate having broke into the movies. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of J. Poindexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Black Belt But I figures I has got something better to do than just to be gallivanting to and fro on a frolic. A notion has busted out in sides of my brains. So right off I puts off across town for West 135th Street, hoping for to find one USG Petty, colored. Some time back, as I remember, I made brief mention about having affiliated myself into the pastime-colored pleasure and recreation club, Inc. Only the last word, Inc., is not usually spoke when you is naming the club, by reason of its sounding so much like a personal reflection upon the prevailing complexion of some of the members. Still, that is the way it is rode out on the letter heads and the initiation planks. I has belonged for going on more than a month now, and I spends much of my spare time in the club rooms. I feels more comfortable among my fellow affiliators than I does any place else in this town. Looking back on it, I'm convinced it was up there I first began to get shut of the grievous homesick pangs which afflicted me so sorefully following our advent into these parts. Up to now I has not spoke of my being homesick, because it seemed like to me the mainest job was to set down what come to pass without paying much heed to private sensations upon the part of the scribe thereof. But if the truth must now be confessed, I often times was mighty nigh completely overcome by my sufferings from the same, during them opening weeks of the present sojourn. At the beginning I used to get so tired night-times, tramping about streets which was full of utter strangers, and not never speaking a word to nobody, nor seeing a friendly face, that I liked to died, dad blame if I didn't. If I stood still they'd run right on over me, and if I walked on I didn't have no wares to go, and I'd be so exhaustified from looking at sights all by myself, that I'd get to wishing I'd never see another sight again as long as I lived, without I had somebody I knowed along with me to help me look at it. And then I'd come morosing on back to the apartment, and probably Mr. Dallas he'd be out. And nobody there but that there slick-headed Japanese boy. I'd tried sociable talk with him once or twice, but you really don't derive no great amount of nourishment, from talking with somebody which thinks language is sucking your breath in through your front teeth and wants in a while grinning like one of these here pumpkin Jack Merlanterns. So I soon learned the lesson of just letting him be. I'd go on back to my room and take off my shoes for to ease my aching feet. But whilst taking off your shoes is good for your feet, it don't help the ache in your soul none. I'd set at the window and look out on them millions and millions of lights, all winking and blinking at me like hostile bright eyes. And away down below me in the street I could hear old automobile horns blatting like lost ghosts. And every now and then there'd rise up to my ears a sort of a rumble and a roar, like as if New York City was having indigestion pains. And I'll say it positively was lonesome. I could shut my eyes and see my own hometown, with the shade trees leaning down towards the sidewalks, like they was interested in what went on underneath them. And I could hear the voices of the neighbors, both white and black, calling back and forth to one another. And I could seem to smell frying catfish spitting in the skillet at old Uncle Isom Woolfolk's hot snack stand down back of the market house. And I also could smell that damp, soothing kind of a smell which it rolls in off the river on a warm night and then, oh, my blessed maker, something would hurt me like having the misery in your side. That's the way it was very frequent at the outsetting. But pretty soon I get sequented with a couple of coloured boys, which works in the apartment house next door to ours. Not West Indians, but regulation-coloured boys. One being from Macon, Georgia, and one from Memphis, Tennessee. And they take to escorting me round with them at night, mainly in what the white folks call the Harlem Black Belt. Fussing back and forth, thus like, I mix yet more acquaintances, and then, bam, all at once there's a quick change in me, and I ain't so choked up with lonesomeness like I was. All of a sudden my having lived here to fore always down in Kentucky has become to me just a kind of a far-off dream, and it's almost like as if I had been a New York residenter for years past. Especially does I feel so when I goes up to the pastime club, which I joins it by invitation about a month ago, and is now already being talked of for one of the honoree offices at the next annual election, which will come along in about five or six weeks from now. I finds that the most of my race up here aims to copy their actions after white folks when they is showing themselves off in public. They is forever trying to talk like whites and trying to appear deeply uninterested in passing things, the same as some white folks does, and even trying to think like whites, I expect. But when they gets off amongst themselves, their natural feelings comes out on them, and the true colorism breaks forth, and they cuts loose and enjoys themselves regardless. That's the way it is behind the closed doors of our club rooms. Also there's suitable games and indoor sports, such as Coon Can and Two-Bit Limit Poker, with the Joker running wild, and a round of rum-doodlems after every face-spool. And when hunger gnaws at you, there's a Chinese restaurant right handy by, which it caters specially to the colored trade. Here is where I first meets a crock of this here chop suey face-to-face, which it may be a Chinese dish, but certainly has got a kind of an African flavor to it. If you can't get a mess of cow peas and some real corn-pones, and maybe half a fried young spring chicken with an abundance of gravy, I don't know of nothing which makes a more desirable light snack between meals, than about fifty cents worth of chop suey, with a double order of boiled rice on the side and some of that there greasy black Chinese sauce to sop it in. It's one time in the front room of the club that I first take special notice of this here USG Petty, which he is the same person I goes seeking upon leaving the studios on this day in question. The way he comes to bring himself to my attention is this way. One night five or six of us past timers in good standing is setting round not doing nothing in particular, but just setting. When talk arises concerning of Gabriel, the black prophet of Abyssinia, which his name is now on everybody's tongue more or less, it seems that the black prophet come projecting himself onto the local scene last spring, him claiming to hail from a far off latitude called Abyssinia, and immediately he creates a big to-do, which is only to be expected considering of his general aspect. In the first place he's a powerful orator, and just overflowing with noble large words. In the second place he's a great big overbearing looking man, and wearing at all times a flowing garment of purple, like the night-shirt of a king, and instead of having a hat on, he's got his head all bandaged up in many silken folds like he's got scalp trouble. Naturally folks turns out to look at him, but language and curious clothes is not the sole things by which he recommends himself. He's got something even more compelling to the colored mind than what these two is. He's had a glorious vision, so he states, and he craves for to tell about it on all occasions where folks'll give heed, which they freely does, because he certainly can explain the why-fors and numerate the where-as's and show the where-ins. But showing where-in is his main hold. From the way he tells it, he laid down one night in his native country for to sleep, and whilst he slept, an angel appeared before him in a dream, bearing a flaming scroll and a golden sword, and the angel anointed his brows with the oils of understanding, and wiped the scales of blindness from off his eyes, and smeared his lips with the salves of eloquence. Altogether it seems like the angel must have been working on him half the night, getting him greased up to suit, and along towards morning the command is laid on him to go forth into the world and deliver his race from bondage in every hemisphere there is. So it transpires that he takes his foot in his hand, and he comes on across the seas over to these here United States of North America, and starts in his administrations in New York. Least wise that is the account as he lays it down, which he calls it an inspired prophecy from on high. But it sounds more to me like an inspired real estate scheme, because the plan as he preaches it is that all us black folks everywhere must straight away rise ourselves up and follow after him, which he will then lead us back to our original own country of Africa, where he will cause all the white folks which has settled there to pull out and leave us in sole charge for to run the state, and run our own government, and be a free and independent people from thence forth on forever. So you pays down so much for to join, and so much every month in dues, and soon then, to hear him tell it, you will be happy on your way across the ocean to find your haven in the promised land. But not me. I ain't lost no haven. Moreover, if ever anybody does promise me one such, I ain't aiming to go seeking after it under the guidance of a dark stranger, which he ain't no credentials for to endorse him in my eyes, excusing it's a purple silk night-shirt and a tale about him having been lubricated all over, with a lot of different kinds of fancy ointments, by an Abyssinian angel. No, sir. If I has to do traveling in extreme far and off parts, I'll go along with some of my own white folks which I can put trust in their words and dependence on their acts. And finally, the idea of my returning to Africa does not seem to appeal to me in no way nor at no time whatsoever. What's the use of returning to a place where you ain't never been? As I says to myself the first time the notion is expounded to me, I says, I ain't from Africa. I is from Paducah, Kentucky. Some of my former folks may a-hailed from there. Leasewise, that's the common rumour. But the poindexter family is been away so long, it seems lack I ain't inherited the taste to go traipsing back. Mow over, if what I hear is about it is correct. Africa is full of alligators and lions and unreconciled Bengal tigers and man-eaten cannibals, which I wouldn't be surprised but what they all of them specially favours the dark meat. And year I is, a pronounced brunette. So when they starts making up the excursion list, they can kindly leave my name off, because I expects to be very busily engaged, stay and write while I dog-gaunt is. END OF CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI OF J point extra-coloured by Irvin S. Cobb. This Lieberbox recording is in the public domain. AFRIC CHORES Thus is what I says to myself very first crack out of the box, and I subsequent seize no reason for it to change my views. But this night at the past time, when the subject is brung forward for discussion, I just lurks in a corner, not saying nothing myself, but doing some very vigorous listening. Being a new member, the way I is, I prefers not to declare myself in at the go-off, but just to sort of hang back and catch the general drift of the old heads before I commits myself. Regardless of your private convictions, it don't hurt you none, sometimes, to throw in with the majority. Traveling with the current instead of against it, you may be is not so prominent, but you get fewer bumps across your head. A minnow sliding downstream with a parcel of other minnows stands a heap better chance of leading a pleasant life than if he strives for to conspicuous himself by swimming upstream all by himself. Old brother-channel cat is liable to come sauntering down past the tow-head and see him going along there all alone, and open wide that their big mouth of his, and then, little Mr. Minnow, I ask you, where is you? So I sets and harkens to the pow-wow-ing. It seems that two or three present has been swept right off their feet by the masterful preachments of this here Gabriel, the black prophet. They is all organized up before to accept him as the chosen apostle of the colored race. It looks like they can't hardly wait for the blessed day to come when they'll pull out with him. They lous a lot of these here overbearing white folks is going to feel mighty funny the morning they wakes up and finds that all the black folks is done up and gone from them and there ain't nobody left for to pack their heavy burdens for them and wait on them without they turns in and does it themselves. They says a lot more like that, and pretty soon the old camp-meeting tone comes creeping into their voices, and their eyes starts shining like they was repentant sinners gathered at the mourner's bench, and they begins to sort of sing their words and generally work themselves up into a state of grace. Right about then this here USG Petty, which they calls him Lissus for short, speaks up. Until now he has been reared back in his chair listening the same as I is. But now he opens up and his words hits them enthusiastic ones like a dipper full of ice-water throwed in their faces. He says to him, he says, When does all you niggers at so homesick for the sight of the dear African shore aims to start on your jubilatin way? I is heard a lot tonight and other times, too, about this year's journey. I is heard it called a crusade and a pilgrimage and a whole parcel of other fancy names. But so fur, nobody ain't confided to me the details of the departure. The first batch goes as soon as the first boat is ready, says one of the true believers, name of Oscar Jordan, and the rest will follow with rejoicing on the other boats of the fleet as they is made ready. Well, me, I ain't seen Herner hide of one boat yet, says Lissus, let alone it's a whole fleet. But ain't you seen the picture of her in the literature of which the Black Prophet give out, says Oscar? I has, brother, says Lissus. I suddenly has. I also has seen pictures of the late Kaiser ex-Wilhelm of Germany, but that ain't no sign I specs to meet him strolling up Lenox Avenue some pleasant morning this coming week. Yes, but the bind in payments is done been made on the first ship, says Oscar. The grand treasurer, which he is the Black Prophet's brother-in-law by marriage, he announced the full particulars at the last monster-mass meeting. He specifies she is to have a colored brass band on boat, and a colored string band, and a colored crew, and a colored cappin, and uh-huh, says Lissus, a colored cappin, huh? All right, boy, you can give your confidences to a colored cappin if you's a mind to, but speaking is your friend and well-wisher. I should advise you at the same time when you is picking out your favorite colored cappin. At you, lack-wise, also picks out your favorite flower for display at the memorial services, in case of a storm coming up on the way across the high seas. Because, he says, it stands to reason the higher them seas is, the deeper they is. And if you get yourself drowned it out yonder, it'll be a fewa job. Mind you, he says. I ain't sayin' nothin' again my own race, so long as they remains far they naturally belongs, which is on the solid ground. But if I'm goin' journey across the broad nulantic ocean, I craves me a white cappin, yazz, and a white crew, too. One or two, including this here Oscar, tries to break in on him, but he keeps right on. He says to him, he says, I wonder as you all home-weekers been figurin' out how you is goin' get control of your beloved native Africa when you arrives safely thar in. Seems lack to me, as a pint which you better be payin' a right smart attention to it beforehand. Cuz from what I can gather, white folks is done already laid claim to the most part of Africa, which is fit for a Christian to live in. I bet you wherever they is a diamond mine, or a gold diggin's, or an ivory mine, or anythin' worth havin', you'll find a bunch of white men roostin' close to by, with posted signs up on every hand. What does you aim to do in? They ain't got no right for to be thar in the first place, says Oscar. The profit done oritate fully bout that. Didn't Africa belong to us black folks's to begin with? Has we ever deeded it away? No, that we ain't. Then it's still orange, ain't it? So there, foe, we goes back in force, and through our chosen leaders we demands at these your trespassers re-hands it back over to its rightful owners. Which, he says, that's us. Even so, says Lissus, even so. You lands, and you demands. And in what? This your country belonged once upon a time to the engines. And white folks come along and chiseled them out of it. Didn't they? They sure did so. But I ain't hear about no gentle movement in favor of turnin' it back over again to the engines. The engines mount feel that away, but I ain't expectin' to see many white folks's loatin' in favor of it. Listen, once you let white folks get their feats rooted in the ground, and they stays fast, regardless of what the former proprietors may think about it, white folks in gentle is very funny that way, and more specially, if they is angler saxons. I don't know myself why this year angler saxony is. I've done look for it on the map, and taint thar. I reckon so many angler saxons must have moved off to other parts of the world, seekin' what they could confiscate unto themselves at the original country they hailed from has done vanish. Judging by their names, some of them must have been Scotch, and some of them must have been Irish, and plenty more of them must have been English. But no matter what their names is, they is all a lack in one respect, and that's clingin' fast to all the unimproved real estate which they gets their hands on. I knows, because I was born and brung up amongst them, down in North Colina, and they is still a right smart sprinklin' of them left round, these yer noven parts too. You just try to mech'em give up somethin' which they desires for to keep on keepin' it, and you'll find them a powerful, unhealthy crowd to prank with. They's a heap of talk, he says, about the other races, which is poor and in-year, crowdin' a plum out of New York City, in time, not with standin' of them havin' been amongst the fussed settlers here. But lemme tell you somethin', if they wasn't but two of them angler Saxons left in this whole town, I bet you one of them would be the mayor, and the other'd be the chief of police. Next to holdin' on to the land, runnin' the government, is the most favourite sport they follows after. And, he says, if that is true of this year country, you take it from me, it's true of Africa. Me, I, looks for a lot of coloured funnels to take place before you has your wish about regaining your former homesteads over bar, he says. Then his tone sort of changes. But, he says, I has just been statin' the arguments on the no side. I want's to be fair, so I will lackwise allow there's somethin' to be said on your side, too. In fact, he says, if only the suitable arrangements can be made beforehand, I aims to unlist myself in wid the movement and give to it, he says, my most hearties suppote. That seems to sort of take'em by surprise. The Sir Oscar Jordan, being the most gabby one, is the first to get over his suprisement. How come you can feel that way, Lysis, he says, when for the past ten minutes you've been prechivin' again the whole notion. How come you will infer to remove yourself off to the proposed All-Athican Republic, if you holds them views which you just expound? Who, me, says Lysis? You got me wrong. I ain't aimin' to remove myself no wars. I is most comfortable where I is at. No sir, what I aims to do is to attach myself to the collector's office year at home and handle the money dues as they comes a rollin' in from the rest of you niggers. That's going to be me and my job. Collectin' and also dispersin', specially the last named. I rises from where I is setting, and I crosses to him, and I extends to him the right hand of fellowship, and I says to him, I says, you, I says, and me both. I nominates myself to help you with them duties. Brother Petty, I says, you speaks words of wisdom, which they sounds lack my own. Let's us two promenade forth into the fresh air of the evening, I says, and exchange mo views on the subjects of the day. I feels, I says, at we is goin' be agreeable companions, one to the other, and vice versa. So from that hour we becomes good friends, and sees quite much of one another. And the more I sees of him, the better the cut of his jib seems to suit me. He follows after cornet playing for a living. He plays in the orchestra at the coloured Crescent Vaudeville theatre, on the corner below where the pastime club is. So what with him being in the profession, and us friends and all. I thinks of him the next minute after this big idea comes to me up at the studio. And that's why I goes seeking for him in West 135th Street, which without much trouble I finds him. I takes him aside, and I starts telling him what I has in my mind. Before I has been speachifying to him more than a minute, I can tell he's getting interested, and he begs me for to continue. And when I gets through, he's just acclimatious over the notion of going in partners with me on the proposition. So we spends the rest of the day, and until far into the night, discussing the thing from every angle. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of J. Point extra coloured by Irvin S. Cobb. The sleeper box recording is in the public domain. Business Deals Bright and early next morning, along about half past ten o'clock, which is bright and early for New York, I is at Mr. Simon's offices down on Broadway. I sends my name into him by a white boy, which is on guard in an outside room, amongst a lot of gold railings. In less than no time at all the word comes back that I is to walk right in. I walks in and I finds Mr. Simon's setting behind the largest desk that ever I seen, in a room mighty near big enough for a church. He acts like he's glad to see me again, and he invites me for to have a seat and tell him what's on my mind, because, he says, he found my conversation the day previous to be most edifying and helpful. So I says to him, I says, Boss, I want to ask you a question, and pun your answer depends whether or no, I'm going to ask you a favour, lack-wise. Shoot, he says. I says, the question comes first, which it is as follows. F.U. is earnest about going into the mech-en coloured pictures for coloured audiences, lack you told me yesterday. I desires, please, to know when you aims to give out your plans to the public at large through the newspapers. He says, pretty soon, I guess, just as soon as I get the scheme sort of shaped up. Why, did you want a job when we open up? No, sir, not at so much, I says. I got a steady job now, valetton for Mr. Dallas Pulliam. But I has a right smart extra time on my hands, and I has been kind of figurant on maybe doing a little something on the side in my sparen hours. And so what I specially craves to know from you is whether, when you gets ready, you intends for to announce your plans in the coloured papers year in this town. Well, he says, I hadn't thought of it before, but if it would mean anything to you, I'd see to it, personally, that it was done, and also that, in the press notices, your name was mentioned in a complementary way, as having given us valuable aid and advice. Something of that sort. I suppose you'd like to be put in a favourable light among your friends. Well, I don't blame you. I'm somewhat addicted to printer's ink myself. Was that the favour you wanted to ask of me? Yes, sir, I says, in a way it is, and then again, in a way it ain't. Here's the ID, boss. I want to know from you beforehand, if you please, when you proposes to mech the announcement, cause on at sef same day, there'll be another announcement in the coloured papers set in folk at the new firm of Poindexter and Petty, spectfully desires to state, at bay is open in a booking agency for coloured move-in picture actors in the neighbourhood, and at, lack-wise, also, in connection with it, a school for training coloured folks how to act for the screen will later on be added on. He rears back in his chair and sort of smiles to himself, quiet like. Oh, I see, he says. I congratulate you on being wide awake anyhow. But, he says, what do you know about training people to act for the screen? Well, sir, I says, I was aiming to pick up a few pinters, year and bar, for future use. And if the worst comes to the worst, I says, I can get me a pair of these year tall, yaller leather leggings, an omega foam, an act influential, and maybe I could thereby get by, I says. Some of the white directors are getting by with about that much equipment, he says. Perhaps you could too. Well, anyhow, the venture has my best wishes for its success. I can promise you a little more than that. It's probable that later on I can throw some business in your way. Thank ye, sir, most kindly, I says. That was mainly what I was hoping for. Do you need any funds to help you out in financing your undertaking? He says. Nasa, I thinks not, I says. I got some ready cash on hand, and my partner he's going to put in a amount equal to what I risks. If I need any more on top of that, I aims to ask Mr. Dallas Poliam for a small loan. Then I tells him we lives at the Wheatley Court, so he can write to me there as soon as he is ready to proceed ahead, and I bids him good-bye, and goes back on uptown with hope singing inside of me, like one of these here yellow breast field-larks down home. It turns out, though, it's a good thing we don't need no borrowed capital from Mr. Dallas' pocketbook at the outsetting, because in less than two months from that time, old, mis-bad luck starts shooting at him with the scatter-gun of trouble, both barrels at once. Which I will go into full details about all that mess the next time I take my pen in hand. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of J. Poindexter Colored by Irvin S. Cobb The sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. Private Life It seems to me it's highly suitable that I should get to the edge of telling about Mr. Dallas misfortunate visitations. Just as Chapter 13 is starting—which, as everybody knows, full well already—13 is the unluckiest number there is in the whole alphabet. When you projects with old Lady 13, you flirts with sudden disaster. With Mr. Dallas, though, his troubles don't come on all at once, like a stroke. They come on sort of gradual—one behind the other, like the symptoms of a lingering complaint. Up to a certain point, everything with us has gone along very lovely. The same as usual, with parties occurring regular at the apartment, and the Japanese boy cooking up fancy mixtures, and me serving drinks by the drove. Thanksgiving time we has a special blowout, with 12 setting down to the table at once. But Christmas is when we cut sluice and just naturally out to do's all previous to do's. All day long folks is dropping in to sample the available refreshments, and most of them likes the sample so well they camps right there till far into the night. I mingles up a big glass reservoir full of eggnog, which it seems to give special satisfaction to one and all. The way these here guests of ours bails it up. You'd think they was in a sinking skiff half a mile from shore. As he ladles out the first batch, Mr. Dallas states that this here eggnog is made according to a recipe, which has been handed down in his family, since right after the revolutionizing war. But when she's took the second helping, Miss O'Brien, who's got a mighty hurt way about her of saying things, allows that it sure must be older even than that. She says she's willing to bet it had a good deal to do with bringing on the revolution. Of all the crowd that Mr. Dallas is in with, I likes her the best. She's got a powerful high temper, and is prone to flare up when matters don't go to suit her. But it seems like to me she ain't devoting so much of her time as some of the others is, to seeing what she can get for nothing. Sometimes I catches her looking at Mr. Dallas, like as if she's sort of sorry for him, on account of some reason or other. But to look at him on this Christmas day, doing his entertainingest best, you'd think nothing had ever bothered him and that nothing ever would. As long as that egg-nog holds out, he's bound and determined the party shall be a success, which it is. But Mr. Bellows, he ain't got no storage room for egg-nogs. Seemingly he figures that all them eggs and that rich cream and sugar and stuff will take up space which is needed for chambering the hard liquor. He just sets off in a corner with a bottle of scotch and a bottle of squirt water, handy-by, curing his drought or striving to. He may not be such very good company, but one thing they've got to say for him, he's a man of regular habits. You may not like the habits, but they certainly is regular. I hear Mrs. Gaylord saying once that Mr. Bellows can hold any given number of drinks, sort of pressing her voice down on the word given. She don't need to say it twice, neither, so far as I personally is concerned. I got her the first time. It's maybe two or three days after Christmas. Anyhow it somewhere is around the middle of Christmas week that I first take notice of a sort of a change coming over Mr. Dallas' feelings. When there's nobody else round but just me and him, he acts plum-bothered. His appetite is more picky and choosy than it used to be, and by these signs I can tell something is on his mind of praying. On New Year's Eve he goes forth with his friends for a party, but first they all stops by our place for what they call appetizers, and whilst they is gathered together, it comes out that him and Miss Billy is now engaged. Not no regular announcement is made, but all of a sudden seems like everybody present appears to know how things stand with him and her. Also Miss Billy starts in treating him more or less like he belonged to her. I don't scarcely know how to state it in words, but it's like as if up until now she's been holding a piece of property under mortgage, but has finally decided for to foreclose on it, and is eager for the papers to be fixed up in order for to begin making improvements and alterations. She's what you might call proprietary. Well, I can't say the news is much of a shock to me, seeing what has been the general drift of events since last August when we first got here. But on the other hand, neither I can't say that, considering everything, I'm actually overcome with joyfulness on Mr. Dallas' personal account. I can't keep from thinking to myself that he's fixing to marry himself off into a mighty different set of folks from the kind he was born and brung up amongst. And I can't keep from thinking what a sight of difference there is betwixt this here Miss DeWitt and Miss Henrietta Farrell, which, as I said before, he was courting her before we moved to New York. One of them sort of puts me in mind of a rosebud picked out of the garden in the dew of the morning. And the other, which I means by that, Miss DeWitt, reminds me of one of these here big pale magnolia blooms which has growed on the edge of a swamp. I ain't meaning no disrespect by having these thoughts. Only I can't keep from having them. I reckon it's having them ideas floating round in my head, which makes me study Mr. Dallas especially close that new year's eve. For all that he's laughing and joking and carrying on, I figures that way down deep insides of him he ain't entirely happy over what's come out. By my calculations he ain't got the true feelings which a forthcoming bridegroom should have. As near as I can judge he ain't hopeful so much as he's sort of resonated. Also and furthermore, likewise, he's got a kind of a puzzled up, the flustered look on his face, as if he'd been took up short by something he wasn't exactly expecting to happen so soon, if at all. It ain't exactly bewilderment, and it ain't exactly distressfulness. But it's something that's distant kinfolks to both of them.