The Mule-Bone

peepin’ at them cards, Lige. To Frank. Did you say you was beggin’ or standin’? Frank I’m beggin’. Walter Get up off your knees. Go ahead and tell ’em I sent you. Frank Well, that makes us four. Walter I don’t care if you is. Pulls a quarter out of his pocket and lays it down on the box. Twenty-five cents says I know the best one. Let’s go. Everybody puts down a quarter. Frank What you want me to play for you partner? Lige Play me a club. The play goes around to dealer, Walter, who gets up and takes the card off the top of the deck and slams it down on the table. Walter Get up ol’ deuce of deamonds and gallop off with your load. To Lum. Partner, how many times you seen the deck? Lum Two times. Walter Well, then I’m gonna pull off, partner. Watch this ol’ queen. Everyone plays. Ha! Ha! Wash day and no soap. Takes the jack of diamonds and sticks him up on his forehead. Stands up on his feet. Partner, I’m dumping to you⁠ ⁠… play your king. When it comes to his play Lum, too, stands up. The others get up and they, too, excitedly slam their cards down. Now, come on in this kitchen and let me splice that cabbage! He slams down the ace of diamonds. Pats the jack on his forehead, sings: Hey, hey, back up, jenny, get your load. Talking. Dump to that jack, boys, dump to it. High, low, jack and the game and four. One to go. We’re four wid you, boys. Lige Yeah, but you-all playin’ catch-up. Frank Gimme them cards⁠ ⁠… lemme deal some. Lige Frank, now you really got responsibility on you. They’s got one game on us. Frank Aw, man, I’m gonna deal ’em up a mess. This deal’s in the White House. He shuffles and puts the cards down for Walter to cut. Cut ’em. Walter Nope, I never cut green timber. Frank deals and turns the card up. Frank Hearts, boys. He turns up an ace. Lum Aw, you snatched that ace, nigger. Walter Yeah, they done carried the cub to us, partner. Lige Oh, he didn’t do no such a thing. That ace was turned fair. We jus’ too hard for you⁠ ⁠… we eats our dinner out a the blacksmith shop. Walter Aw, you all cheatin’. You know it wasn’t fair. Frank Aw, shut up, you all jus’ whoopin’ and hollerin’ for nothin’. Tryin’ to bully the game. Frank and Lige rise and shake hands grandly. Lige Mr. Hoover, you sho is a noble president. We done stuck these niggers full of cobs. They done got scared to play us. Lige (?) Scared to play you? Get back down to this table, let me spread my mess. Lounger Yonder comes Elder Simms. You all better squat that rabbit. They’ll be having you all up in the church for playin’ cards. Frank grabs up the cards and puts them in his pocket quickly. Everybody picks up the money and looks unconcerned as the preacher enters. Enter Elder Simms with his two prim-looking little children by the hand. Elder Simms How do, children. Right warm for this time in November, ain’t it? Voice Yes sir, Reverend, sho is. How’s Sister Simms? Simms She’s feelin’ kinda po’ly today. Goes on in store with his children. Voice Whispering loudly. Don’t see how that great big ole powerful woman could be sick. Look like she could go bear huntin’ with her fist. Another Voice She look jus’ as good as you-all’s Baptist pastor’s wife. Pshaw, you ain’t seen no big woman, nohow, man. I seen one once so big she went to whip her little boy and he run up under her belly and hid six months ’fore she could find him. Another Voice Well, I knowed a woman so little that she had to get up on a soap box to look over a grain of sand. Rev. Simms comes out of store, each child behind him sucking a stick of candy. Simms To his children. Run on home to your mother and don’t get dirty on the way. The two children start primly off down the street but just out of sight one of them utters a loud cry. Simms’s Child Off stage. Papa, papa. Nunkie’s trying to lick my candy. Simms I told you to go on and leave them other children alone. Voice on Porch Kidding. Lum, whyn’t you tend to your business. Town Marshall rises and shoos the children off again. Lum You all varmints leave them nice chillun alone. Lige Continuing the lying on porch. Well, you all done seen so much, but I bet you ain’t never seen a snake as big as the one I saw when I was a boy up in middle Georgia. He was so big couldn’t hardly move his self. He laid in one spot so long he growed moss on him and everybody thought he was a log, till one day I set down on him and went to sleep, and when I woke up that snake done crawled to Florida. Loud laughter. Frank Seriously. Layin’ all jokes aside though now, you all remember that rattlesnake I killed last year was almost as big as that Georgia snake. Voice How big, you say it was, Frank? Frank Maybe not quite as big as that, but jus’ about fourteen feet. Voice Derisively. Gimme that lyin’ snake. That snake wasn’t but four foot long when you killed him last year and you done growed him ten feet in a year. Another Voice Well, I don’t know about that. Some of the snakes around here is powerful long. I went out in my front yard yesterday right after the rain and killed a great big ol’ cottonmouth. Simms This sho is a snake town. I certainly can’t raise no chickens for ’em. They kill my little biddies jus’ as fast as they hatch out. And yes⁠ ⁠… if