“Dis is whar I disappears complete, Scootie,” Figger grinned, as he stepped off the porch. “I hope you won’t slight yo’ mournin’ fer me atter I’m gone.” Then Scootie prepared herself to meet the train--a black dress, black gloves, a long black veil over a purple and yellow hat with a poll-parrot on it, a palm-leaf fan, the edge appropriately encircled with black braid, and a white handkerchief with a broad border. She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled with satisfaction. “I’s gwine wear mournin’ all my life,” she announced to herself. “It makes my complexion mo’ fair.” When the train pulled into the station, Scootie was standing near the negro coach, looking for a man who resembled Figger’s description of Popsy Spout as he remembered his grandfather after twenty years. Only one negro passenger got off, and Scootie merely glanced at him and waited for some one else. When the train pulled out, Scootie turned, and the negro passenger was standing close beside her on the platform. “Is you lookin’ fer somebody?” Scootie asked. “I knows eve’ybody in dis town.” Then Scootie got a surprise. “Yes’m,” the man answered, in a weak, tired voice. “I wus expeckin’ Figger Bush.” Scootie reeled back and glared at the speaker with popping eyeballs. He stood before her, over six feet tall and as straight as an Indian. His face was as black as new tar and was seamed by a thousand tiny wrinkles, written all over with the literature of life and experience. His long hair was as white as milk, and his two wrinkled and withered hands rested upon a patriarchal staff nearly as tall as himself. On his head was a stove-pipe hat, bell-shaped, the nap long since thrown off like an outworn garment, and the top of the hat was as red as a brick from exposure to the weather. An old, faded, threadbare and patched Prince Albert coat swathed his emaciated form like a bath-robe. Instantly Scootie knew that this man belonged to that vanishing race of negroes who were the glory and the pride of the South in the ante-bellum days. They cling like vines around the old homesteads, cared for and protected by men who were once their white masters, and when they die, more white people attend their funerals than members of their own race. Only one thing denoted that age had left a blight upon the dignified form of Popsy Spout, and that mark was in his eyes: the vacant, age-dimmed stare of second childhood, indicating that reason no longer sat regnant upon the crystal throne of the intellect, looking out of the windows of the soul. “I’s powerful glad to meet a young gal like you, honey,” he said in the high falsetto of old age. “Figger is missed meetin’ me some way. He always wus a mos’ onreliable piccaninny. I’s had a long trip. My name is Popsy Spout.” This was Scootie’s cue to turn on the water-works. She brought out her black-bordered handkerchief and began to weep. “I wus lookin’ fer you, Popsy,” she sobbed. “Poor Figger Bush is dead an’ I’s his widder!”