Doodle-Bug balked in front of the grand stand, and seven men tried to induce him to go. Four got kicked, one got bit, the jockey was bucked off, and finally Doodle-Bug laid down on his back, squealing like a pig, his four legs fanning the air like the legs of an overturned beetle.
The men backed away from those rapid-firing legs and waited until it pleased Doodle-Bug to get up.
Thereupon Pap Curtain walked down to the rail motioned the little jockey to him, and issued instructions:
“Turn dat Doodle-Bug aroun’, Jim, an’ back him up to de startin’-place. He balks because he figgers you is tryin’ to make him go aroun’ de track de wrong way. Face him right an’ back him up, an’ when he gits started, he’ll run like a rabbit!”
Skeeter and Sugar heard this advice, and it restored Skeeter’s hopes in the horse. Sugar, anticipating a share in Skeeter’s winnings, became extremely gracious.
“Come an’ set down by me, Skeeter,” she said. “You an’ Popper Curtain kin set on each side of me an’ I’ll set in de middle. ’Tain’t no use fer you to be jealousy of dat ole man. He’s ole enough to be my daddy, an’ I’s jes’ bein’ gentle to him. I’s dead stuck on you!”
Pap Curtain joined them, and the three sat down to watch the race.
Doodle-Bug got a flying start, and did well for a quarter; he was running second at the half; he took last place at the three-quarters’ post, and came in after all the shouting was over, jeered by a few children as he loped past the grand stand.
Skeeter Butts crumpled up beside Sugar Sibley, in the saddest of all the plights which a lover experiences--dead broke!
Sugar Sibley pretended not to notice when Skeeter Butts arose and slunk away.
The racing was over for the day, and Sugar Sibley rode back to Tickfall in Pap Curtain’s hired buggy.
“Pa Curtain is done played a buzzo on me, an’ I wants revengeance,” Skeeter Butts soliloquized bitterly, as he sat behind the bar of the Hen-Scratch saloon.
The swinging doors were thrust open, and Hitch Diamond, Mustard Prophet, Prince Total, and Figger Bush entered the room.
“We wants our money back, Skeeter,” they announced in a chorus.
“Yo’ credick is good fer ten dollars per each, niggers,” Butts said with a sickly grin. “I bet on Doodle-Bug an’ Doodle didn’t do.”