about four o’clock that afternoon somebody in the gaitskill home asked where orren randolph gaitskill was. he had not been seen since he left the house that morning to attend the sunday-school.
miss virginia gaitskill called captain kerley kerlerac on the telephone and asked if orren had been in his class that morning.
when a devilish boy happens to be the brother of an angelic girl, even a disillusioned war-veteran finds that lad possessed of qualities which he loves and admires for the boy’s sister’s sake.
kerlerac informed her that he had missed orren very much, that he was the brightest boy in his class, that all the others had made anxious inquiry about him, that he was about to call at the gaitskill home to inquire if orren was sick.
the answer which he heard to this panegyric was a giggle.
“hello! hello! what’s that?” he exclaimed.
the telephone clicked in his ear, indicating that she had hung up the receiver.
kerley stood at the telephone scratching his head, a wry smile on his lips.
“i believe that giggle meant that she called me a liar,” he announced to his immortal soul. a reminiscent light beamed in his eyes. “she hasn’t changed in the past fifteen years—little spitfire!”
for half an hour miss virginia found something else to think about besides her wandering brother, but as the evening wore on, and he did not appear, she began to get uneasy again.
“that dang boy has played hookey and gone out in the woods with that pickaninny,” colonel gaitskill announced.
“oh, maybe he’s lost in the swamp!” virginia gasped.
“no danger of that,” gaitskill said easily. “these little niggers around here can go across that swamp like a fox. they can’t get lost.”
but as the shadows lengthened across the gaitskill lawn the women of the household were thrown into a panic. they insisted that it was not a natural or ordinary thing for orren to miss his meals; that a hungry boy might be having a very good time at some amusement, but he would always be willing to postpone his play to eat, resuming his play after this meal.
“that’s so,” gaitskill admitted. “when i was a boy nothing was ever more attractive to me than the consumption of food, and i enjoy being regular at my meals now. but, maybe he ate his lunch somewhere else?”
by telephone they made inquiry of every place where they thought orren could have eaten. he had not been seen at any of those places.
gaitskill saw that he was going to have to get out and hunt that boy. the prospect did not appeal to him. that boy was a nuisance. if he was lost, it was good riddance. he wasn’t worth finding—let him find himself. he went to the telephone and called up captain kerley kerlerac.
“say, kerl, where’s that damn little pet nigger of yours?”
“haven’t seen him to-day, colonel.”
“he’s run off somewhere with orren, and orren hasn’t come home yet.”
“i’ll find him,” kerley said eagerly.
“oh, no! don’t trouble yourself,” gaitskill smiled. “i just wanted to know about little bit.”
gaitskill sat down with a sly grin. he was getting old, he reflected, and the strenuous life was no longer attractive. if a searching party should have to be organized, he had now laid its foundation. it was a certainty that kerlerac would organize the party and lead the search. good old kerl would see that virginia’s brother was not lost.
it does not take a rumor long to spread over a little village. in a brief time, it was known to the remotest parts of tickfall that little bit and orren gaitskill were lost.
little bit’s mother, in spite of the fact that she had fourteen others just like him in her cabin, aroused all the negro section of the town by her frantic wails. she announced in a voice like a calliope that she knew that her angel child had fallen into a well, had been eaten by an alligator, had been bitten by a snake, had been drowned in a bayou, had been stolen and carried away by white folks, had been lost in the swamp—and she howled like a banshee over each one of these possibilities, and others of the same general nature as she thought of them.
a great bellow of excitement went up from all the negroes, and a band of them hurried to the home of captain kerlerac to inquire the latest information about little bit. their excitement was contagious, and the captain caught it, the white citizens of the town were inoculated, and in an incredibly short time the town was seething with an intense desire to organize a search-party and explore the woods for the lost boys.
“we’ll wait until night, men,” kerlerac said. “if the boys don’t come in by dark, we will go out on the little moccasin road and build fires on the highway for ten miles. wherever they may be in the swamp, they will see that trail of fire and come to it.”
“that’s the way to do it,” several approving voices spoke.
“don’t bother colonel gaitskill with it,” kerley suggested. “he’s getting too old to be running around at night and exposing himself. if the boys don’t come in by dark, i will ring the court-house bell. meet me there.”
it had not been very long since kerlerac had been a boy himself. he knew every spot in that vicinity which was dear to boys, white and black. he listed each one in his mind and started on a lone search to each of these places.
his automobile carried him first to all the swimming-holes, then to the old picnic-grounds, then to the old tabernacle, where the negro camp-meetings were held, to the pool where the colored members of the shoofly church conducted their baptizings, to the old stables and sheds around the fair-grounds. finally, he left his machine beside the road and walked across the field to the old cotton-shed beside the sand pit.
the noise of shouting and laughter came to him before he arrived upon the scene. it was no trouble to locate the two boys as they splashed and paddled and fought with water and dived to the bottom to rise with a handful of sand to throw at each other.
time had ceased to move for those two youngsters. sunrise and sunset were just the same to them. a score of apple-cores strewn along the sandy shore indicated that they had lunched well and were not hungry.
“hey, you!” kerley called.
the two boys looked up with surprise.
“come out of that water!” kerley commanded. “don’t you know it is nearly night?”
the astonishment on their faces when informed of the passage of time indicated that they had been completely engrossed with their amusement.
they climbed out of the water near kerlerac and gave that gentleman a surprise.
“you’ve both got on your clothes!” he exclaimed. “are you too lazy to strip when you take a sunday swim?”
“naw, suh. but our fust swim wus a mistake, marse cap’n,” little bit chattered, chilled by the wind after his day of activity in the water. “us got on a raff an’ de raff wouldn’t hol’ us up.”
“don’t report to me,” kerley laughed. “march along home now! right face! forward!”
a little later kerlerac marched the two wet youngsters upon the lawn and made them stand at attention in the presence of a dozen hysterical women.
“here are your mud-cats, colonel,” he smiled. “i found them paddling in the pond in the old sand pit.”
“i didn’t intend to get wet, uncle tom,” org began, “but the raft was not large enough——”
“that’s enough for you,” gaitskill cut him off. “go around to the rear of the house.”
miss virginia gaitskill stood upon the steps smiling.
“i think i knew you once, miss gaitskill,” kerlerac said. “we were both younger then.”
“you were seven and i was five,” virginia smiled, as she extended her hand.
“i remember,” kerlerac answered. “you gave me a chocolate rat with a rubber tail. i could hold the tail and bounce the rat, or i could lay the rat down and watch it wiggle its tail very lifelike. i ate that rat, rubber-tail and all.”
“you gave me a rabbit-foot in a green-plush box,” virginia laughed. “i did not eat the foot or the box. i have them both yet.”
“i have something that you did not give me,” kerlerac said earnestly. “i stole it from you. i carried it through three battles across the sea. it is your picture as you were then.”
“have i changed since then?” the girl asked, because she did not know what else to say.
“yes. the photograph i have of you shows a little spitfire girl astride of a wabble-wheeled velocipede.”
“oh—” that young lady gasped.
