The Mule-Bone Part 4

HAWK: Chickie!

HEN: My chicken's sleep.

(HAWK darts quickly around the hen and grabs a chicken and leads him off and places his captive on his knees at the store porch. After a brief bit of dancing he catches another, then a third, etc.)

HAMBO: (At the checker board, his voice rising above the noise of the playing children, slapping his sides jubilantly) Ha! Ha! I got you now. Go ahead on and move, Joe Clark ... jus' go ahead on and move.

LOUNGERS: (Standing around two checker players) Ol' Deacon's got you now.

ANOTHER VOICE: Don't see how he can beat the Mayor like that.

ANOTHER VOICE: Got him in the Louisville loop. (These remarks are drowned by the laughter of the playing children directly in front of the porch. MAYOR JOE CLARK disturbed in his concentration on the checkers and peeved at being beaten suddenly turns toward the children, throwing up his hands.)

CLARK: Get on 'way from here, you limbs of Satan, making all that racket so a man can't hear his ears. Go on, go on!

(THE MAYOR looks about excitedly for the town marshall. Seeing him playing cards on the other side of porch, he bellows:)

Lum Boger, whyn't you git these kids away from here! What kind of a marshall is you? All this pa.s.sle of young'uns around here under grown people's feet, creatin' disorder in front of my store.

(LUM BOGER puts his cards down lazily, comes down stage and scatters the children away. One saucy little girl refuses to move.)

LUM BOGER: Why'nt you go on away from here, Matilda? Didn't you hear me tell you-all to move?

LITTLE MATILDA: (Defiantly) I ain't goin' nowhere. You ain't none of my mama. (Jerking herself free from him as LUM touches her.) My mama in the store and she told me to wait out here. So take that, ol' Lum.

LUM BOGER: You impudent little huzzy, you! You must smell yourself ...

youse so fresh.

MATILDA: The wind musta changed and you smell your own top lip.

LUM BOGER: Don't make me have to grab you and take you down a b.u.t.tonhole lower.

MATILDA: (Switching her little head) Go ahead on and grab me. You sho can't kill me, and if you kill me, you sho can't eat me. (She marches into the store.)

SENATOR: (Derisively from behind stump) Ol' dumb Lum! Hey! Hey!

(LITTLE BOY at edge of stage thumbs his nose at the marshall.)

(LUM lumbers after the small boy. Both exit.)

HAMBO: (To CLARK who has been thinking all this while what move to make) You ain't got but one move ... go ahead on and make it. What's de matter, Mayor?

CLARK: (Moving his checker) Aw, here.

HAMBO: (Triumphant) Now! Look at him, boys. I'm gonna laugh in notes.

(Laughing to the scale and jumping a checker each time) Do, sol, fa, me, lo ... one! (Jumping another checker) La, sol, fa, me, do ... two!

(Another jump.) Do sol, re, me, lo ... three! (Jumping a third.) Lo sol, fa, me, re ... four! (The crowd begins to roar with laughter. LUM BOGER returns, looking on. Children come drifting back again playing chick-me-chick-me-cranie crow.)

VOICE: Oh, ha! Done got the ol' tush hog.

ANOTHER VOICE: Thought you couldn't be beat, Brother Mayor?

CLARK: (Peeved, gets up and goes into the store mumbling) Oh, I coulda beat you if I didn't have this store on my mind. Sat.u.r.day afternoon and I got work to do. Lum, ain't I told you to keep them kids from playin' right in front of this store?

(LUM makes a pa.s.s at the nearest half-grown boy. The kids dart around him teasingly.)

ANOTHER VOICE: Eh, heh.... Hambo done run him on his store ... done run the ol' c.o.o.n in his hole.

ANOTHER VOICE: That ain't good politics, Hambo, beatin' the Mayor.

ANOTHER VOICE: Well, Hambo, you don't got to be so hard at checkers, come on let's see what you can do with de cards. Lum Boger there got his hands full nursin' the chilluns.

ANOTHER VOICE: (At the table) We ain't playin' for money, nohow, Deacon. We just playin' a little Florida Flip.

HAMBO: Ya all can't play no Florida Flip. When I was a sinner there wasn't a man in this state could beat me playin' that game. But I'm a deacon in Macedonia Baptist now and I don't bother with the cards no more.

VOICE AT CARD TABLE: All right, then, come on here Tony (To man with basket on steps.) let me catch your jack.

TAYLOR: (Looking toward door) I don't reckon I got time. I guess my wife gonna get through buying out that store some time or other and want to go home.

OLD MAN: (On opposite side of porch from card game) I bet my wife would know better than expect me to sit around and wait for her with a basket. Whyn't you tell her to tote it on home herself?

TAYLOR: (Sighing and shaking his head.) Eh, Lawd!

VOICE AT CARD TABLE: Look like we can't get n.o.body to come into this game. Seem like everybody's scared a us. Come on back here, Lum, and take your hand. (LUM makes a final futile gesture at the children.)

LUM: Ain't I tole you little haitians to stay away from here?

(CHILDREN scatter teasingly only to return to their play in front of the store later on. LUM comes up on the porch and re-joins the card game. Just as he gets seated, MRS. CLARK comes to the door of the store and calls him.)

MRS. CLARK: (Drawlingly) Columbus!

LUM: (Wearily) Ma'am?

MRS. CLARK: De Mayor say for you to go round in de back yard and tie up old lady Jackson's mule what's trampin' aup all de tomatoes in my garden.

LUM: All right. (Leaving card game.) Wait till I come back, folkses.

LIGE: Oh, hum! (Yawning and putting down the deck of cards) Lum's sho a busy marshall. Say, ain't Dave and Jim been round here yet? I feel kinder like hearin' a little music 'bout now.

BOY: Naw, they ain't been here today. You-all know they ain't so thick nohow as they was since Daisy Bailey come back and they started runnin' after her.

WOMAN: You mean since she started runnin' after them, the young hussy.

MRS. CLARK: (In doorway) She don't mean 'em no good.

WALTER: That's a shame, ain't it now? (Enter LUM from around back of store. He jumps on the porch and takes his place at the card box.)

LUM: (To the waiting players) All right, boys! Turn it on and let the bad luck happen.