Aint that your nigger boy Jeff? inquired Doctor Lake of Judge Priest, as the new comer, still boring deftly, emerged from the group and with a last muttered Scuse me, boss please, suh scuse me! darted away toward the head of the stretch, where others of his race were draping themselves over the top rail of the fence in black festoons.
Yes, I suppose tis probably, said Judge Priest in that high singsong of his. That black scoundrel of mine is liable to be everywhere except when you want him, and then hes not anywhere. That must be Jeff, I reckin. And the old judge chuckled indulgently in appreciation of Jeffs manifold talents.
During the parade of the veterans that day Judge Priest, as commandant of the camp, had led the march just behind the fife and drums and just ahead of the color-bearer carrying the silken flag; and all the way out from town Jeff, his manservant, valet, and guardian, had marched a pace to his right. Jeffs own private and personal convictions convictions which no white man would ever know by word of mouth from Jeff anyhow
were not with the late cause which those elderly men in gray represented. Jeffs political feelings, if any such he had, would be sure to lean away from them; but it was a chance to march with music and Jeff had marched, his head up and his feet cutting scallops and double-shuffles in the dust.
Judge Priests Jeff was a small, jet-black person, swift in his gait and wise in his generation. He kept his wool cropped close and made the part in it with a razor. By some subtle art of his own he could fall heir to somebody elses old clothes and, wearing them, make than look newer and better than when they were new. Overcome by the specious wiles of Jeff some white gentleman of his acquaintance would bestow upon him a garment that seemed shabby to the point of open shame and a public scandal. Jeff would retire for a season with a pressing iron and a bottle of cleansing fluid, and presently that garment would come forth, having undergone a glorious resurrection. Seeing it, then, the former proprietor would repent his generosity and wonder what ever possessed him to part with apparel so splendid.
For this special and gala occasion Jim wore a blue-serge coat that had been given to him in consideration of certain acts of office-tending by Attorney Clay Saunders. Attorney Clay Saunders weighed two hundred and fifty pounds If he weighed an ounce, and Jeff would never see one hundred and twenty-five; but the blue serge was draped upon Jeffs frame with just the fashionable looseness. The sleeves, though a trifle long, hung most beautifully. Jeffs trousers were of a light and pearly gray, and had been the property originally of Mr. Otter-buck, cashier at the bank, who was built long and rangy; whereas Jeff was distinctly short and ducklike. Yet these same trousers, pressed now until you could have peeled peaches with their creases and turned up at the bottoms to a rakish and sporty length, looked as if they might have been specially coopered to Jeffs legs by a skilled tailor.
This was Judge Priests Jeff, whose feet would fit anybodys shoes and whose head would fit anybodys hat. Having got his money safely down on Flitterfoot to win, Jeff was presently choking a post far up the homestretch. With a final crack of the starters coiling blacksnake and a mounting scroll of dust, the runners were off on their half-mile dash. While the horses were still spattering through the dust on the far side of the course from him Jeff began encouraging his choice by speech.
Come on, you little red hoss! he said in a low, confidential tone. I asks you lak a genleman to come on and win all that money fur me. Come on, you little red hoss you aint half runnin! little red hoss his voice sank to a note of passionate pleading whut is detainin you?
Perhaps even that many years back, when it had just been discovered, there was something to this new theory of thought transference. As if Jeffs tense whispers were reaching to him across two hundred yards of track and open field Flitterfoot opened up a gap between his lathered flanks and the rest of them. The others, in a confused group, scrambled and hinged out with their hoofs; but Flitterfoot turned into a long red elastic rubber band, stretching himself out to twice his honest length and then snapping back again to half. High up on his shoulder the ragged black stable boy hung, with his knees under his chin and his shoulders hunched as though squaring off to do a little flying himself. Twenty long yards ahead of the nearest contender, Flitterfoot scooted over the line a winner. Once across, he expeditiously bucked the crouching small incumbrance off his withers and, with the bridle dangling, bounced riderless back to his stable; while above the roar from the grandstand rose the triumphant remark of Jeff: Aint he a regular runnin and a-jumpin fool!
The really important business of the day to most, however, centered about the harness events, which was only natural, this being an end of the state where they raised the standard breds as distinguished from the section whence came the thoroughbreds. A running race might do for an appetizer, like a toddy before dinner; but the big interest would focus in the two-twenty pace and the free-for-all consolation, and finally would culminate in the County Trot open only to horses bred and owned in the county and carrying with it a purse of two thousand dollars big money for that country and a dented and tarnished silver trophy that was nearly fifty years old, and valued accordingly.
After the half-mile dash and before the first heat of the two-twenty pace there was a balloon ascension and parachute drop. Judge Priests Jeff was everywhere that things were happening. He did two mens part in holding the bulging bag down to earth until the spangled aeronaut yelled out for everybody to let go. When the man dropped, away over by the back fence, Jeff was first on the spot to brush him off and to inquire in a voice of respectful solicitude how he was feeling, now that hed come down. Up in the grandstand, Mrs. Major Joe Sam Covington, who was stout and wore a cameo breastpin as big as a coffee saucer at her throat, expressed to nobody in particular a desire for a glass of cool water; and almost instantly, it seemed, Judge Priests Jeff was at her side bowing low and ceremoniously with a brimming dipper in one hand and an itch for the coming tip in the other. When the veterans adjourned back behind Floral Hall for a watermelon cutting, Jeff, grinning and obsequious, arrived at exactly the properly timed moment to receive a whole butt-end of red-hearted, green-rinded lusciousness for his own. Taking the opportunity of a crowded minute about Uncle Isom Woolfolks barbecued meat stand he bought extensively, and paid for what he bought with a lead half dollar that he had been saving for months against just such a golden chance a half dollar so palpably leaden that Uncle Isom, discovering it half an hour later, was thrown into a state of intense rage, followed by a period of settled melancholy, coupled with general suspicion of all mankind. Most especially, though, Judge Priests Jeff concerned himself with the running of the County Trot, being minded to turn his earlier winnings over and over again.
From the outset Jeff, like most of the fair crowd, had favored Van Wallaces black mare, Minnie May, against the only other entry for the race, Jackson Berrys big roan trotting stallion, Blandville Boy. The judgment of the multitude stood up, too, for the first two heats of the County Trot, alternating in between heats of the two-twenty pace and the free-for-all, were won handily by the smooth-gaited mare. Blandville Boy was feeling his oats and his grooming, and he broke badly each time, for all the hobble harness of leather that was buckled over and under him. Nearly everybody was now betting on Minnie May to take the third and the decisive heat.
Waiting for it, the crowd spread over the grounds, leaving wide patches of the grandstand empty. The sideshows and the medicine venders enjoyed heavy patronage, and once more the stalled ox and the fatted pig were surrounded by admiring groups. There was a thick jam about the crowning artistic gem of Floral Hall a crazy quilt with eight thousand different pieces of silk in it, mainly of acutely jarring shades, so that the whole was a thing calculated to blind the eye and benumb the mind.
The city marshal forcibly calmed down certain exhilarated young bucks from the country they would be sure to fire off their pistols and yell into every dooryard as they tore home that night, careening in their dusty buggies; but now they were made to restrain themselves. Bananas and cocoanuts advanced steadily in price as the visible supply shrank. There is a type of Southern countryman who, coming to town for a circus day or a fair, first eats extensively of bananas red bananas preferred; and then, when the raw edge of his hunger is abated, he buys a cocoanut and, after punching out one of its eyes and drinking the sweet milky whey, cracks the shell apart and gorges on the white meat. By now the grass was cumbered with many shattered cocoanut shells, like broken shards; and banana peels, both red and yellow, lay wilted and limp everywhere in the litter underfoot.
The steam Flyin Jinny it would be a carousel farther North ground unendingly, loaded to its gunwales with family groups. Crap games started in remote spots and fights broke out. In a far shadow of the fence behind the stables one darky with brass knuckles felled another, then broke and ran. He scuttled over the fence like a fox squirrel, with a bullet from a constables big blue-barreled revolver spatting into the paling six indies below him as he scaled the top and lit flying on the other side. Sergeant Jimmy Bagby, dragging his Springfield by the barrel, began a long story touching on what he once heard General Buckner say to General Breckinridge, went to sleep in the middle of it, enjoyed a refreshing nap of twenty minutes, woke up with a start and resumed the anecdote at the exact point where he left off An en General Breckinridge he says to General Buckner, he says, General
But Judge Priests Jeff disentangled himself from the center of things, and took a quiet walk up toward the stables to see what might be seen and to hear what might be heard, as befitting one who was speculating heavily and needed all available information to guide him. What he saw was Van Wallace, owner of the mare, and Jackson Berry, owner of the studhorse, slipping furtively into an empty feed-shed. As they vanished within Van Wallace looked about him cautiously, but Jeff had already dived to shelter alongside the shed and was squatting on a pile of stable scrapings, where a swarm of flies flickered above an empty pint flask and watermelon rinds were curling up and drying in the sun like old shoesoles. Jeff had seen something. Now he applied his ear to a crack between the planks of the feedshed and heard something.
For two minutes the supposed rivals confabbed busily in the shelter of a broken hay-rack. Then, suddenly taking alarm without cause, they both poked their heads out at the door and looked about them searchingly right and left. There wasnt time for Jeff to get away. He only had a seconds or two seconds warning; but all the conspirators saw as they issued forth from the scene of their intrigue was a small darky in clothes much too large for him lying alongside the shed in a sprawled huddle, with one loose sleeve over his face and one black forefinger shoved like a snakes head down the neck of a flat pocket-flask. Above this figure the flies were buzzing in a greedy cloud.
Just some nigger full of gin that fell down there to sleep it off, said Van Wallace. And he would have gone on; but Berry, who was a tall red-faced, horsy man a blusterer on the surface and a born coward inside booted the sleeper in the ribs with his toe.
Here, boy! he commanded. Wake up here! And he nudged him again hard.
The negro only flinched from the kicks, then rolled farther over on his side and mumbled through a snore.
Couldnt hear it thunder, said Berry reassured. Well, lets get away from here.
You bet! said Van Wallace fervently. No use takin chances by bein caught talkin together. Anyhow, theyll be ringing the startin bell in a minute or two.
Dont forget, now! counseled Berry as Wallace started off, making by a roundabout and devious way for his own stable, where Minnie May, hitched to her sulky and with her legs bandaged, was being walked back and forth by a stable boy.
Dont you worry; I wont! said Wallace; and Berry grinned joyously and vanished in the opposite direction, behind the handy feedshed.
On the instant that both of them disappeared Judge Priests Jeff rose to his feet, magically changing from a drunken darky to an alert and flying black Mercury. His feet hardly hit the high places as he streaked it for the grandstand looking for Judge Priest as hard as he could look.
Nearly there he ran into Captain Buck Owings. Captain Buck Owings was a quiet, grayish man, who from time to time in the course of a busy life as a steamboat pilot and master had had occasion to shoot at or into divers persons. Captain Buck Owings had a magnificent capacity for attending strictly to his own business and not allowing anybody else to attend to it. He was commonly classified as dangerous when irritated and tolerably easy to irritate.
Capn Buck! Capn Buck! sputtered Jeff, so excited that he stuttered. P-please, suh, is you seen my boss Jedge Priest? I suttinly must see him right away. This here next heat is goin to be thro wed.
It was rarely that Captain Buck Owings raised his voice above a low, deliberate drawl. He raised it a trifle now.
Whats that, boy? he demanded. Whos goin to throw this race?
He caught up with Jeff and hurried along by him, Jeff explaining what he knew in half a dozen panted sentences. As Captain Buck Owings mind took in the situation, Captain Buck Owings gray eyes began to flicker a little.
Nowhere in sight was there any one who looked like the judge. Indeed, there were few persons at all to be seen on the scarred green turf across which they sped and those few were hurrying to join the crowds that packed thick upon the seats of the grandstand, and thicker along the infield fence and the homestretch. Somewhere beyond, the stable bell jangled. The little betting ring was empty almost and the lone bookmaker was turning his blackboard down.
His customary luck served Jeff in this crisis, however. From beneath a cuddy under the grandstand that bore a blue board lettered with the word Refreshments appeared the large, slow-moving form of the old judge. He was wiping his mouth with an enormous handkerchief as he headed deliberately for the infield fence. His venerable and benevolent pink face shone afar and Jeff literally flung himself at him.
Oh, Jedge! he yelled. Oh, Jedge; please, suh, wait jes a minute!
In some respects Judge Priest might be said to resemble Kiplings East Indian elephant. He was large as to bulk and conservative as to his bodily movements; he never seemed to hurry, and yet when he set out to arrive at a given place in a given time he would be there in due season. He faced about and propelled himself toward the queerly matched pair approaching him with such haste.
As they met, Captain Buck Owings began to speak and his voice was back again at its level monotone, except that it had a little steaming sound in it, as though Captain Buck Owings were beginning to seethe and simmer gently somewhere down inside of himself.