Another thing. The Sheppertons had a cook named Pansy Harris. She was a comely negro wench, young, plump, black as the ace of spades, a good-hearted girl with a deep dimple in her cheeks and faultless teeth, bared in a most engaging smile. No one ever saw Dick speak to her. No one ever saw her glance at him, or him at her—and yet that dimpled, plump, and smilingly good-natured wench became as mournful-silent and as silent-sullen as midnight pitch. She sang no more. No more was seen the gleaming ivory of her smile. No more was heard the hearty and infectious exuberance of her warm, full-throated laugh. She went about her work as mournfully as if she were going to a funeral. The gloom deepened all about her. She answered sullenly now when spoken to.
One night towards Christmas she announced that she was leaving. In response to all entreaties, all efforts to find the reason for her sudden and unreasonable decision, she had no answer except a sullen repetition of the assertion that she had to leave, Repeated questionings did finally wring from her a statement that her husband wanted her to quit, that he needed her at home. More than this she would not say, and even this excuse was highly suspected, because her husband was a Pullman porter, home only two days a week, and well accustomed to do himself such housekeeping tasks as she might do for him.
The Sheppertons were fond of her. The girl had been with them for several years. They tried again to find the reason for her leaving. Was she dissatisfied? “No’m”—an implacable monosyllable, mournful, unrevealing as the night. Had she been offered a better job elsewhere? “No’m”—as untelling as before. If they offered her more wages, would she stay with them? “No’m”—again and again, sullen and unyielding; until finally the exasperated mistress threw her hands up in a gesture of defeat and said: “All right then, Pansy. Have it your own way, if that’s the way you feel. Only for heaven’s sake, don’t leave us in the lurch. Don’t leave us until we get another cook.”
This, at length, with obvious reluctance, the girl agreed to. Then, putting on her hat and coat, and taking the paper bag of “leavings” she was allowed to take home with her at night, she went out the kitchen door and made her sullen and morose departure.
This was on Saturday night, a little after eight o’clock.
THAT SAME AFTERNOON Randy and Monk had been fooling around the Shepperton basement, and, seeing that Dick’s door was slightly ajar, they stopped at the opening and looked in to see if he was there. The little room was empty, and swept and spotless as it had always been.
But they did not notice that! They saw it! At the same moment their breaths caught sharply in a gasp of startled wonderment. Randy was the first to speak.
“Look!” he whispered. “Do you see it?”
See it? Monk’s eyes were glued upon it. Had he found himself staring suddenly at the flat head of a rattlesnake his hypnotized surprise could have been no greater. Squarely across the bare boards of the table, blue-dull, deadly in its murderous efficiency, lay an automatic army rifle. They both knew the type. They had seen them all when Randy went to buy his little “twenty-two” at Uncle Morris Teitlebaum’s. Beside it was a box containing one hundred rounds of ammunition, and behind it, squarely in the center, face downward, open on the table, was the familiar cover of Dick’s old, worn Bible.
Then he was on them like a cat. He was there like a great, dark shadow before they know it. They turned, terrified. He was there above them, his thick lips bared above his gums, his eyes gone small and red as rodents’.
“Dick!” Randy gasped, and moistened his dry lips. “Dick!” he fairly cried now.
It was all over like a flash. Dick’s mouth closed. They could see the whites of his eyes again. He smiled and said softly, affably, “Yes suh, Cap’n Shepperton. Yes suh! You gent-mun lookin’ at my rifle?”—and he stepped across the sill into the room.
Monk gulped and nodded his head and couldn’t say a word, and Randy whispered, “Yes.” And both of them still stared at him with an expression of appalled and fascinated interest.
Dick shook his head and chuckled. “Can’t do without my rifle, white fokes. No suh!” He shook his head good-naturedly again, “Ole Dick, he’s—he’s—he’s an ole ahmy man, you know. He’s gotta have his rifle. If they take his rifle away from him, why that’s jest lak takin’ candy away from a little baby. Yes suh!” he chuckled again, and picked the weapon up affectionately. “Ole Dick felt Christmas comin’ on—he—he—I reckon he must have felt it in his bones,” he chuckled, “so I been savin’ up my money—I jest thought I’d hide this heah and keep it as a big surprise fo’ the young white fokes,” he said. “I was jest gonna put it away heah and keep it untwill Christmas morning. Then I was gonna take the young white fokes out and show ’em how to shoot.”