“I’s gittin’ married real soon an’ de gal specify dat she don’t want no home whut floats aroun’ permiscus so dat de chickens don’t know whar to come to roost. She wants me to sell out an’ sottle down on dry land.” “Dat’s a powerful sensible notion,” Skeeter Butts proclaimed, as his appraising eyes searched the steamboat. “Is you foun’ a buyer yit?” “Naw!” Pipe Smash said disgustedly. “White folks won’t buy no nigger’s boat, an’ niggers ain’t got no money.” “How financial do a nigger got to be to pick up a good, cheap, han’-me-down boat?” Skeeter asked cautiously. “Well, suh, I figger it out dis way,” Pipe Smash said, boring the middle finger of his right hand into the palm of his left hand for emphasis. “I bought dat whole boat jes’ as she floats from a white man whut picked a fuss wid de cote-house an’ had to run in a direction whar de river didn’t go. It costed me two hundred dollars ten year ago, an’ is some wore out. One hundred dollars in cash spondulix gits her now.” Skeeter glanced at the faces of his three friends and each responded with a slight nod. Skeeter made a careful advance. “Ef I jes’ knowed somepin ’bout how to run a steamboat--” he began. “Don’t none of you niggers know nothin’ ’bout steam-engines?” Pipe asked, in a peculiar voice. “Naw!” they said in a chorus. A peculiar expression passed over Pipe’s face. Skeeter’s quick eyes caught the look, and he rightly concluded that Pipe was going to take advantage of their ignorance to cheat them. “’Tain’t no trouble to learn how to run ’em,” Pipe remarked. “All you got to do is to keep fire in de furnace an’ water in de b’iler, an’ hol’ to de steerin’-wheel an’ stay in de river.” “Dat sounds easy,” Skeeter said, as he rose to his feet. “Less paddle out an’ take a look at dat boat.” When they were all aboard and the engine was puffing laboriously up the river, Pipe Smash looked at the four grinning negroes with an air of triumph. He knew his steamboat was sold. * * * * * They were traveling about as fast as a lame man could walk, but there was an exhilarating throb to the engine, and a cheerful slap-slap to the paddle-wheel, and the river went past them instead of taking them with it, and by shutting their eyes for five minutes and then opening them they could see that they were actually gaining on the scenery. And the scenery would set an artist wild: a sky like a soap-bubble, and high in the dome a buzzard sailing like a speck of dust, a river like a broad, flowing ribbon of old gold, and close to the levees on each side the woods, dense, black, moss-hung and funereal, absorbing so little of the sun’s light that the negroes could hear the call of the night-owls and the voice of the whip-poor-will. Suddenly Skeeter’s high soprano voice ran out across the water, the other voices joined, and the woods echoed back the music: