J. Poindexter, Colored Part 9

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, suh," I says, "I wuz aimin' to pick up a few p'inters yere an'

thar fur future use. An' ef the wust comes to the wust," I says, "I kin get me a pair of these yere tall yaller leather leggin's an' a megaphome an' ack influential an' mebbe I could thar'by git 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."

"Thanky, suh, mos' kindly," I says. "'At wuz mainly whut I wuz hopin'

fur."

"Do you need any funds to help you out in financing your undertaking?"

he says.

"Naw suh, I thinks not," I says. "I got some ready cash on hand an' my partner he's goin' put in a amount ekel to whut I risks. Ef I needs any more on top of 'at, I aims to ast Mr. Dallas Pulliam fur 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 up-town 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 lessen two months from that time Old Miss 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 takes my pen in hand.

CHAPTER XIII

_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 the Thirteenth is starting, which, as everybody knows full well already, thirteen is the unluckiest number there is in the whole alphabet.

When you projects with old Lady Thirteen you flirts with sudden disaster. With Mr. Dallas, though, his troubles don't come on all at once, like a stroke; they comes 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 j.a.panee boy cooking up fancy mixtures, and me serving drinks by the drove. Thanksgiving time we has a special blow-out with twelve setting down to the table at once.

But Christmas is when we cuts loose and just naturally out-todos all previous todos. All day long folks is dropping in to sample the available refreshments and most of 'em likes the sample so well they camps right there till far into the night. I mingles up a big gla.s.s reservoir full of egg-nog, 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 sh.o.r.e. As he ladles out the first batch Mr. Dallas states that this here egg-nog 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...b..ien, who's got a mighty peart way about her of saying things, allows that it sh.o.r.e 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 p.r.o.ne 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 s.p.a.ce 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.w.a.ter 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 hears Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d 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's somewheres around the middle of Christmas week--that I first takes notice of a sort of a change coming over Mr. Dallas' feelings. When there's n.o.body else round but just me and him he acts plumb bothered. His appet.i.te is more picky-and-choosy than it used to be; and by these signs I can tell something is on his mind a-preying. 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 calls appetizers and whilst they is gathered together it comes out that him and Miss Bill-Lee 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 Bill-Lee 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 'em 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 De Witt, 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 'em.

I reckon it's having them ideas floating round in my head which makes me study Mr. Dallas 'specially 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 resignated. Also and furthermore, likewise, he's got a kind of a puzzled-up befl.u.s.terated 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 bewildedment and it ain't exactly distressfulness; but it's something that's distant kinsfolks to both of 'em.

CHAPTER XIV

_Oiled Skids_

Anyway, that's that, as we says up here. I will now pa.s.s along to what comes to pa.s.s about two weeks later on. All along through them two weeks Mr. Dallas don't impress me like a young man should which he is starting out in the New Year full of good cheer and bright prospects. As the catch-word goes, he ain't at himself. At the breakfast table when I'm pa.s.sing things to him he's often looking hard at nothing at all. It's plain his thoughts is far away and not so very happy in the place where they've strayed off to, neither.

Well, on this particular day, which it is along toward the middle of the present month of January, he don't get home from down-town until long after dinner-time and when he does get in he don't scarcely touch a morsel to eat; he just pecks at the vittles. After dinner is over and the dishes washed up I pa.s.ses through the hall on the way out, being bound for the Pastime Club to consultate with 'Lisses Petty touching on our own private affairs. Mr. Dallas had told me at dinner that I could have the evening off and there was not no reason why I should linger on.

But as I pa.s.ses the setting-room door I looks in and he's setting there, sort of haunched down in his chair, with his elbows resting on a little table and his face in his hands, seemingly mighty lonesome. Something seems to come over me and I steps in and I says to him, I says:

"'Scuse me, Mr. Dallas, fur interruptin' yore ponderin's, but is they anythin' I kin do fur you befo' I goes on out?"

He sort of starts and looks up at me, and if ever I sees miserableness staring forth from a person's eyes I sees it now. He speaks to me then and what he says. .h.i.ts me with a jolt. Because this is what he says:

"Jeff, why is it that white people are forever committing suicide on account of their private worries but you never hear of a darky killing himself for the same reason?"

I studies for a minute and then I says:

"Well, Mr. Dallas, I reckin it's 'is yere way: A w'ite man gits hisse'f in trouble an' he can't seem to see no way to git shet of it. An' so he sets down an' he thinks an' he thinks an' he thinks, and after 'w'ile he shoots hisse'f. A n.i.g.g.e.r-man gits in trouble an' he sets down an' he thinks an' he thinks an' he thinks--an' after 'w'ile he goes to sleep!"

He smiles the least little bit at that. But it is not no regulation smile--it's more like the ha'nting ghost of one.

"But suppose you're brooding so hard you can't sleep?" he says.

"I ain't never seen no n.i.g.g.e.r yit," I says, "but whut he could sleep ef the baid wuz soft 'nuff. They may not be many 'vantages in bein' black, the way the country is organized," I says, "but this is sh.o.r.e one place whar my culler has it the best."

He don't say anything back at me. So after lingering a little bit I starts to move on out. And then another one of them inmost promptings leads me to speak again:

"Mr. Dallas," I says, "sometimes we kin lif' the load of our pestermints ef only we talks 'bout 'em to somebody else. Sometimes," I says, "it's keepin' 'em all corked up tight on the insides of us w'ich meks the burden bear down so heavy.... Wuz they anything else, suh, 'at you wished fur to ast me?"

It seems like my words must have put a fresh notion in his head.

"Jeff," he says, "you're right. I've got to confide in somebody--or else explode. Besides," he says, "I figure that if there is one person in all the five or six million people in this town who's likely to be a real friend to me, it's you. And while my talking to you probably can't do any good, it certainly can't do any harm."

"Mr. Dallas," I says, "I is yore frien' an' yore desperit well-wisher, besides. Sence I been wukkin' fur you you sh.o.r.e is used me mouty kind. I ain't never had nary speck nur grain of complaint to find wid yore way of treatin' me. You's w'ite an' I is black," I says, "an' sometimes, seems lak to me, the two races is driftin' fu'ther apart day by day; but all that ain't henderin' me frum havin' yore bes' intrusts at heart.

"An' so, suh, ef you feels lak givin' me yore confidences I'm yere to heed an' to hearken an' do my humble but level bes' fur to aid you, ef so be ez I kin."

"I believe you," he says, "and I'm grateful to you.... Well, Jeff, to put it plainly, I've gone and got myself tangled up in a bad mess."

"Whut way, suh?" I says.