Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/108

 nobody was within, but on the sunny side, without, he discovered a young darky asleep, on his back, with a bandanna handkerchief over his face to keep off the flies.

The darky was dressed in a torn whitish cotton shirt, a pair of old army trousers, sky-blue, tied about his waist with a rope, and gaping shoes from which his toes peeped out.

He was snoring. But Jerry had to get something to eat, according to orders.

"Hello," he said, gazing down.

The bandanna rose and fell; the snores continued. Shot and shell and big guns made no difference to this darky.

Jerry considered. He broke a twig from a scrap of bush and tickled the toes. They twitched, the snores changed to grunts, the bandanna wriggled, and on a sudden with a prodigious "Oof! G'way from dar!" the darky blew off his bandanna and sort of burst into sitting up, staring wildly, his eyes rolling.

"Who you?" he accused. "Wha' fo' you do dat, ticklin' me like one o' dem t'ousand-leggers? I'se gwine to lambast you fo' dat, you white limb o' Satan!"

"Lieutenant Grant said you'd find me something to eat," Jerry explained. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"Scyare me? Oof! I shuah felt one o' dem t'ousand-legger centipeders crawlin' right inside my shoes. Huh! I don't give house room to no t'ousand-leggers. What you say you want? Who-all sent you?"