I ran back home as fast as I could to let Ma know where Handsome was. When I got there, she and my old man were still standing on the back porch arguing. They stopped what they were saying to each other as soon as I opened the gate and ran up the steps.
“Handsome’s gone to the carnival!” I told Ma. “He’s up there right now!”
Ma thought a minute before she said anything. My old man moved away from her sideways until he was a good distance out of her reach.
“Morris,” she said finally, “I’m going to trust you this one time more. Go up to that carnival and bring Handsome home before anything dreadful happens to him. I’ll never be able to make my peace with the Good Lord and die with a clear conscience if anything should happen to that poor innocent darkey.”
My old man started down the steps.
“Can I go, too, Pa?” I asked him.
Before he could say anything, Ma spoke up.
“You go along with your father, William,” she told me. “I want somebody to keep an eye on him.”
“Come on, son,” he said, waving at me. “Let’s hurry!”
We hurried down the street, across the railroad tracks, and straight to the carnival lot where the weeds were still growing knee-high in some places.
There were dozens of tents strewn all over the lot, and people were already milling around in front of the shows. The tents had large colored pictures painted on big sheets of canvas stretched across the front of them, and every show had a stand where somebody was shouting and selling tickets at the same time. My old man stopped in front of one of the tents that had pictures of naked girls on it.
“Have you got a dime in your pocket to spare, son?” he whispered to me. “I’ll pay it back to you the first chance I get.”
I shook my head and told him all I had was the quarter I had been keeping to pay my way into the Wild West show with when the carnival came to town.
“You just lend me the quarter now, son,” he said, poking my pants pocket with his finger. “I’ll give it back to you in no time at all. You won’t even miss it, it’ll be that quick.”
“But I want to see the Wild West show, Pa!” I told him, putting my hand in my pocket and locking the quarter in my fist. “Can’t I keep it for that, Pa? Please let me keep it! I saved for more than two weeks to get this much.”
The man who was selling the tickets picked up a long yellow megaphone and shouted through it. My old man got real nervous and started prancing up and down and pulling at my pocket.
“Now, look here, son,” he said. “There ain’t a bit of sense in me and you arguing over a little thing like a quarter. By the time you want to spend it, I’ll have it back for you, and you won’t miss it none at all.”
“But Ma told us to find Handsome,” I said. “We’d better go look for him, anyway. You know Ma. She’ll be as mad as all get-out if we don’t find him and take him back home.”
“Looking for a pesky darkey can wait,” he said, getting a good grip on my arm and trying to pull my fists out of my pocket. “I know what I’m talking about, son, when I say you ought to lend me that quarter you’ve got in your pocket without a bit more argument. Ain’t I always lent you a dime, or whatever it was, from time to time, providing I had it, when you asked me for it? Now, it’s only fair that you lend me that quarter for a little while.”
Music started up inside the tent, and the man selling the tickets shouted again.
“Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” he said, looking straight at my old man. “The show’s about to begin! The unadorned-dancing-girls-of-all-nations are getting ready to perform! Don’t miss the show of your lifetime! Don’t live to regret it. Step right up and buy your ticket before it’s too late! The girls want to dance—don’t keep them waiting! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
“See there, son?” my old man said, getting a tight grip on my arm and pulling with all his might. “The show’s about to start and I’ll miss seeing it if I don’t get in there right away!”
He pulled my fist out of my pocket and pried open my fingers. He was a lot stronger than I was, and I couldn’t hold on to the quarter any longer. He got it and ran up to the man selling the tickets. As soon as he could get his hand on it he grabbed the ticket and dashed inside the tent. There wasn’t anything I could do then, so I just sat down beside one of the tent stakes and waited. The music began getting louder and louder, and I could hear somebody inside the tent beating on drums. After about five minutes, the music suddenly stopped, and somebody threw back the flaps on the tent. A crowd of men came piling outside, and right behind them, the next to the last one to leave, was my old man. He looked a lot calmer than he did when he went in, but he walked straight into an electric light pole before he knew what he was doing.
“Can I have the change from my quarter, Pa?” I asked him, running and catching up. “Can I, Pa?”
“Not now, son,” he said, rubbing the side of his face that had hit the pole. “It’s perfectly safe right here in my pocket. You might lose it if you carried it.”
We walked up between two rows of tents, looking all the time for Handsome. It wasn’t until we had got almost to the last one that we saw him.
“Well, what in the world is Handsome doing there?” Pa said, stopping and looking at Handsome.
Handsome was standing behind a big sheet of canvas with his head sticking through a round hold. He was about ten or fifteen yards from a bench that had a lot of baseballs piled on it. A man in a red silk shirt was standing beside the bench holding up both hands full of baseballs.
“Three balls for a dime, and a fine smooth-burning cigar if you can hit the darkey!” he said. “Step right up, folks, and try your aim! If the darkey can’t dodge ’em, you get a cigar!”
“How’d you get yourself in a jam like that, Handsome?” my old man shouted at him. “What in the world happened?”
“Howdy, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “Hi there, Mr. William.”
“Hi, Handsome,” I said.
“You ain’t tied there, is you?” Pa said. “Can’t you get away from there?”
“I don’t want to get away, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “I’m working here now.”
“How come you picked up and ran off like you did this morning?”
“You know good and well why I left, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “I just got good and tired of always working for nothing, and having my banjo taken away from me like it was. I just got tired of being treated that way, that’s all. But I ain’t got no hard feelings against you, Mr. Morris.”
“You get yourself away from there and go on back home,” Pa said. “Things are piling up all over the place, and there ain’t a soul to do them. You just can’t run off and quit.”
“I’ve done quit, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “You ask the white man who’s selling them baseballs if I ain’t.”
We went over to where the man in the red silk shirt was standing. He handed out some baseballs, but my old man shook his head.
“I came to take my darkey back back home where he belongs,” Pa spoke up. “That one back there with his head sticking through the hole.”
The man laughed out loud.
“Your darkey?” he said. “What do you mean, your darkey?”
“That’s Handsome Brown,” Pa said. “He’s been with us ever since he was eleven years old. I’ve come to take him home.”
The man turned around and shouted at Handsome.
“Say, boy! Do you want to go back to work for this man?”
“No, sir!” Handsome said, shaking his head. “I sure don’t! I got myself another job now, and I figure on collecting me some pay instead of never getting nothing at all except some old clothes and things like that.”
“Shut your mouth, Handsome Brown!” Pa shouted. “What do you mean talking like that after I’ve treated you so well all this time? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“I can’t help that, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “I’m working for money-pay now, and I’m going to keep righ
t on doing it.”
“And you ain’t coming when I tell you?”
“No, sir, I ain’t!”
My old man took out the fifteen cents and laid it on the bench.
“How many of them baseballs do I get to throw for fifteen cents?” he asked.
“Being as it’s you,” the man said, “I’ll give you a special price. I’ll let you have six for fifteen. But, remember, you’ve got to hit the darkey before he can dodge out of the way. It won’t count if you just throw a ball through the hole. His head’s got to be in the hole before it counts.”
“That don’t bother me none,” Pa said, getting a good grip on one of the balls. “Just stand back and give me plenty of room.”
Handsome’s eyes got whiter and whiter while my old man was warming up by swinging his throwing arm around in a circle just like a pitcher getting ready to throw at a batter.
Pa turned loose with a fast one that caught Handsome square in the forehead before he could dodge out of the way. Handsome was so surprised he didn’t know what had happened. He sat down on the ground and rubbed his head until the man in the red silk shirt ran back to find out if anything serious had happened to him. Presently Handsome got up, staggering just a little, and stuck his head through the round hole once more.
“That’s one cigar for you, mister,” the man said. “You must be an old baseball pitcher, judging by your aim.”
“I’ve pitched a little in my time,” my old man said, “but my control ain’t what it used to be.”
“Well, let’s see what you can do this time. That first one might have been just pure luck.”
“Stand back and give me room,” Pa told him.
He gripped the ball, leaned over and spat on his fingers, and began winding up. All at once he turned loose a spit-ball that went so fast I couldn’t even see it. Handsome couldn’t have seen it either, because he didn’t budge an inch. The spit-ball hit him on the left side of the head with a sound like a board striking a bale of cotton. Handsome sank down to the ground with a low moan.
“Look here, mister,” the man in the silk shirt said, running back to where Handsome was stretched out on the ground, “I think you’d better quit chunking at this darkey. He’ll be killed if this keeps up much longer.”
“You sold me six balls,” Pa said, “and I’ve got a right to chunk them. Tell Handsome Brown to stand up there like he’s getting paid to do.”
The man shook Handsome a little and got him on his feet. Handsome swayed from one side to the other, and then finally he leaned forward and clutched the canvas. His head was squarely in the middle of the hole.
“Stand back!” my old man yelled at the fellow in the red silk shirt.
He wound up and let the ball go so fast that it had hit Handsome again before anybody knew what had happened. Handsome pitched over backward.
“That’s enough! the fellow shouted at us. “You’ll kill this darkey! I don’t want no dead darkey on my hands!”
“Then let him come on back home where he belongs,” Pa said, “and I’ll quit chunking at him.”
The fellow ran to a water bucket, picked it up, and splashed the whole bucketful in Handsome’s face. Handsome twitched and opened his eyes. He looked at all three of us in a queer sort of way.
“Where am I at?” he said.
Nobody said anything right away. We all waited and watched him. Handsome raised himself on one elbow and looked around. Then he put his hand against his head and began feeling the big round bumps the baseballs had made. The bumps were swelling up like pullet eggs. “I reckon I done the wrong thing, after all, Mr. Morris,” he said, looking up at my old man. “I’d rather go back and work for you and Mis’ Martha, like I’ve always done, than stay here and get beaned with them baseballs all the time like that.”
“My old man nodded and made a motion for Handsome to get up. The man in the red silk shirt picked up the balls from the ground and went on back to where he kept them piled up on the bench.
All three of us started home, taking a short cutout through the lot behind all the tents. Handsome trotted along just behind my old man, not saying a word, and trying to keep as close to Pa’s heels as he could. He raised his hand to his head and felt one of the big round bumps ever so often.
Just before we got to our house, we stopped and Pa looked real hard at Handsome.
“I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, Handsome,” he said. “Now, I don’t want you to be pestering me about getting that old banjo back.”
“But, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said, “I just can’t get along without a banjo—”
“Quit arguing about one of the bygones, Handsome.”
“But, Mr. Morris, if I could only—”
“Bygones is bygones, and that banjo was one of them,” my old man said, turning and walking through the gate into our backyard.
IX. My Old Man and Pretty Sooky
MY OLD MAN picked up one morning long before daylight and went off fishing without saying a word to Ma or me about it. He always liked to go off like that early in the morning before Ma was up and about, because he knew she would put her foot down if she found out what he was up to and not let him go. Sometimes he went off and stayed three or four days at a time down on Briar Creek, and the better the fish were biting the longer he stayed. My old man was a fool about fishing.
He would catch a big mess of catfish and pout-mouthed perch and fry them over a litter fire on the creek bank as fast as he could hook them on his line. My old man said there was not a bit of sense in saving them up to bring home, because the womenfolk never had learned to roll a perch in enough cornmeal to suit his taste.
That morning Ma missed him at breakfast time, but she didn’t say a word to me about it and went on acting just as if she didn’t know he wasn’t there. After breakfast I went out behind the shed and helped Handsome Brown shuck the corn and pitch down some hay for Ida. We stayed out there all morning, splitting pine lighters and talking about all the money we could make if we sold all the scrap iron we could find.
When the twelve o’clock whistle blew at the lumber mill, Ma came out behind the shed where we were and asked Handsome if he knew where Pa had gone. I didn’t say a word, because I never did like to tell on my old man. I knew all about it just the same, because Handsome had told me about how Pa had tried to get him to go along that morning.
“Handsome Brown,” Ma said, “don’t you sit there and not answer me when I speak to you. Where is Mr. Morris, Handsome?”
Handsome looked across at me and then down at the pile of lighters he had been splitting off and on all morning.
“Ain’t he around and about, Mis’ Martha?” he said after a little while, cutting his eyes around and looking up at Ma until the whites looked like dinner plates.
“You know good and well he’s not here, Handsome,” Ma said, stamping her foot. “The idea of you trying to beat around the bush like that! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“Mis’ Martha,” Handsome said, looking straight at Ma, “I ain’t trying to beat no bushes at all.”
“Then tell me where Mr. Morris went this morning.”
“Maybe he went down to the barber shop, Mis’ Martha. I heard him say only a little while ago that he needed a haircut bad.”
“Handsome Brown,” Ma said, picking up a little twig like she always did when she was tired waiting for what she wanted to know. “I want you to tell me the truth.”
“I’m trying as hard as ever I can, Miss Martha,” he said. “Maybe Mr. Morris went to the sawmill. I heard him say a little while ago he wanted some boards to fix up the hen house with.”
Ma turned around and walked to the gate and looked towards our back porch. My old man always kept his fishing pole standing in the corner of the porch when he wasn’t using it, and Ma knew about it just as well as anybody else.
“Mis’ Martha,” Handsome said, “Mr. Morris said he was going off a piece to look at some calves in a pasture somewhere.”
Ma tur
ned around in a hurry.
“Why did he take that fishing pole with him then?” she said, looking hard at Handsome.
“Maybe Mr. Morris changed his mind and forgot to mention it to me,” he said. “Maybe he figured it wasn’t such a good day to look at the calves, after all.”
“It’s not such a good day to be telling fibs, either, Handsome Brown,” she said, going through the gate towards the house.
Handsome jumped up and ran after her as fast he could.
“Mis’ Martha, I was only telling you what Mr. Morris told me to tell you. You know I wouldn’t tell you a fib myself, don’t you, Miss Martha? I only said what I did because Mr. Morris told me to say it, and I always try to do what I’m told to do. Sometimes I get a little mixed up when I try to tell the truth in both directions at the same time.”
Ma went into the kitchen and shut the door. We could hear her in there rattling the pots and pans for a long time. After a while she opened the door and called me.
“Your dinner’s ready, William,” she said. “Your Pa’s dinner’s ready, too, but he doesn’t deserve another mouthful to eat as long as he lives.”
Just then I happened to look out across the yard, and I almost jumped out of my skin. There was my old man’s head sticking up over the backyard fence just enough for his eyes to show. He was standing behind the high board fence and listening for all he was worth. I nudged Handsome in the ribs so he would see my old man before he said something that might get him into trouble with Pa.
Ma caught on that somebody was hiding behind the fence, and she came to the steps and stood on her toes looking. My old man jerked his head down out of sight just then, but Ma had already seen him. Right away she tore out across the yard and pulled open the gate before Pa had a chance to duck around the shed. She grabbed him by his overall straps and dragged him to the porch steps.
“William,” she said to me, “go in the house right this instant and shut the doors and pull down all the window shades. And don’t you come out until I call you.”
I got up and crossed the porch as slow as I could. Handsome started backing off around the corner of the house, but Ma saw what he was doing and called him back.