“Dat’s a _bad_ sign,” he exclaimed. “A nigger ain’t in luck whut sets his pants on fire!”
He got up and walked toward the rear exit of the saloon, traveling with jerky, nervous steps, and looking behind him twice with a frightened glance. He seated himself again in the shade of the chinaberry tree, and the book lay upon the chair which his friend had vacated.
Skeeter eyed the volume a long time with increasing uneasiness. The gaudy red-cover design represented a red woman, propped up on some red pillows, asleep, and holding a red fan in her hand. In the background was another red woman waving a wand, and a winged white boy, holding a black hat in one hand and a bag of money in the other. Scattered about on the red woman’s red couch were playing cards, envelopes, and one square piece of paper which contained the numbers, “4-11-44.”
“I onderstan’s dem numbers,” Skeeter mumbled to himself. “Whar is 7-11?”
Skeeter lighted another cigarette and puffed it furiously. Twice he reached out his hand to take the book, then drew back without touching it. He looked away several times, but the gaudy cover design attracted him each time with a sort of hypnotic fascination.
“I hadn’t oughter bought dis book,” he sighed. “A nigger ain’t in luck ef he knows too much about his innards.”
Finally he overcame his fear to the point where he ventured to turn the cover, and lo! on the other side was the picture of an aged negro, his black face framed in white hair and beard, his spectacles pushed up on his flat forehead, his mouth spread wide in a snaggle-toothed laugh.
“My Gawd!” Skeeter exclaimed, springing to his feet and gazing at the face with a fear which made his lips tremble, and his hands shake, and his knees knock together. “Dar’s a tintype of ol’ Swampo, dat wild Affican nigger whut used to live in a holler sycamo’ tree in de Little Moccasin Swamp!”
He sat down, resting his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. For five minutes he strove to recall all that he knew and had heard of Swampo.
He remembered the leering, leathery, wrinkled face of the old half-wit negro, who came to town on every Saturday afternoon, and smirked and bowed and scraped around the white folks, holding out a clawlike hand, begging for a few pennies. Once he had heard a fearful screaming among the blue jays in the swamp, and had crept through the high undergrowth to see what the trouble was; and lo! Swampo had caught a blue jay, had laid the bird on its back, and had pinioned its wings to the ground with forked sticks.