CHAPTER XXVII
I crept to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I tiptoedalong, and got downstairs all right. There warn't a sound anywheres. Ipeeped through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the men thatwas watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs. The door wasopen into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and there was acandle 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; soI shoved on by; but the front door was locked, and the key wasn'tthere. Just then I heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behindme. I run in the parlor and took a swift look around, and the onlyplace I see to hide the bag was in the coffin. The lid was shovedalong about a foot, showing the dead man's face down in there, with awet cloth over it, and his shroud on. I tucked the money-bag in underthe lid, just down beyond where his hands was crossed, which made mecreep, they was so cold, and then I run back across the room and inbehind 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, andI see she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back wasto me. I slid out, and as I passed the dining-room I thought I'd makesure them watchers hadn't seen me; so I looked through the crack, andeverything was all right. They hadn't stirred.
I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thingplaying out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so muchresk 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 writeback to Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it; but thatain't the thing that's going to happen; the thing that's going tohappen 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 hegives 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 themwatchers would begin to stir, and I might get catched--catched withsix thousand dollars in my hands that nobody hadn't hired me to takecare of. I don't wish to be mixed up in no such business as that, Isays to myself.
When I got down-stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, and thewatchers was gone. There warn't nobody around but the family and thewidow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if anythinghad been happening, but I couldn't tell.
Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man, andthey 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 theneighbors till the hall and the parlor and the dining-room was full. Isee the coffin lid was the way it was before, but I dasn't go to lookin under it, with folks around.
Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls tookseats in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a half anhour the people filed around slow, in single rank, and looked down atthe dead man's face a minute, and some dropped in a tear, and it wasall very still and solemn, only the girls and the beats holdinghandkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their heads bent, and sobbinga little. There warn't no other sound but the scraping of the feet onthe floor and blowing noses--because people always blows them more ata funeral than they do at other places except church.
When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in hisblack gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the lasttouches, and getting people and things all ship-shape and comfortable,and making no more sound than a cat. He never spoke; he moved peoplearound, he squeezed in late ones, he opened up passageways, and doneit with nods, and signs with his hands. Then he took his place overagainst the wall. He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man Iever see; and there warn't no more smile to him than there is to aham.
They had borrowed a melodeum--a sick one; and when everything wasready a young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreekyand colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the onlyone that had a good thing, according to my notion. Then the ReverendHobson opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk; and straight offthe most outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body ever heard; itwas only one dog, but he made a most powerful racket, and he kept itup right along; the parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, andwait--you couldn't hear yourself think. It was right down awkward, andnobody didn't seem to know what to do. But pretty soon they see thatlong-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 begunto glide along the wall, just his shoulders showing over the people'sheads. So he glided along, and the powwow and racket getting more andmore outrageous all the time; and at last, when he had gone around twosides of the room, he disappears down cellar. Then in about twoseconds we heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a mostamazing howl or two, and then everything was dead still, and theparson begun his solemn talk where he left off. In a minute or twohere comes this undertaker's back and shoulders gliding along the wallagain; and so he glided and glided around three sides of the room, andthen rose up, and shaded his mouth with his hands, and stretched hisneck out towards the preacher, over the people's heads, and says, in akind of a coarse whisper, "_He had a rat!_" Then he drooped down andglided along the wall again to his place. You could see it was a greatsatisfaction to the people, because naturally they wanted to know. Alittle thing like that don't cost nothing, and it's just the littlethings that makes a man to be looked up to and liked. There warn't nomore 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 and got off some of his usual rubbage,and at last the job was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak upon the coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat then, andwatched him pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just slid thelid along as soft as mush, and screwed it down tight and fast. Sothere 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 upand 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 betterit, I've worsened it a hundred times, and I wish to goodness I'd justlet it alone, dad fetch the whole business!
They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching facesagain--I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. But nothing comeof 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 hiscongregation over in England would be in a sweat about him, so he musthurry and settle up the estate right away and leave for home. He wasvery sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody; they wished hecould 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 withthem; and that pleased everybody too, because then the girls would bewell fixed and amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls,too--tickled them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in theworld; and told him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they wouldbe ready. Them poor things was that glad and happy it made my heartache to see them getting fooled and lied to so, but I didn't see nosafe 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 allthe property for auction straight off--sale two days after thefuneral; but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to.
So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls'joy got the first jolt. A couple of nigger-traders come along, and theking sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as theycalled 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 girlsand them niggers would break their hear
ts for grief; they cried aroundeach other, and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. Thegirls said they hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated orsold away from the town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, thesight of them poor miserable girls and niggers hanging around eachother'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 knowedthe sale warn't no account and the niggers would be back home in aweek or two.
The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come outflatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and thechildren that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool hebulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tellyou the duke was powerful uneasy.
Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king andthe duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their lookthat 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 nobodybut 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 beena-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showedit 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 theniggers go in there several times."
Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't everexpected 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 seethem 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 seethem."
"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 Isee. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they'd shoved inthere 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 theway of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't already waked youup."
"Great guns, _this_ is a go!" says the king; and both of them lookedpretty sick and tolerable silly. They stood there a-thinking andscratching their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of alittle raspy chuckle, and says:
"It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand. They let onto 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, theway 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'twant a better lay-out than that--and here we've gone and sold 'em fora 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 ownaffairs--if you got any. Long as you're in this town don't you forgit_that_--you hear?" Then he says to the duke, "We got to jest swallerit and say noth'n': mum's the word for _us_."
As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, andsays:
"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 theprofits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, and none tocarry, 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 swappedaround and lit into _me_ again. He give me down the banks for notcoming and _telling_ him I see the niggers come out of his room actingthat way--said any fool would 'a' _knowed_ something was up. And thenwaltzed in and cussed _himself_ awhile, and said it all come of himnot laying late and taking his natural rest that morning, and he'd beblamed if he'd ever do it again. So they went off a-jawing; and I feltdreadful glad I'd worked it all off onto the niggers, and yet hadn'tdone the niggers no harm by it.