Page:The New Negro.pdf/88

62 Uggam leaned out of the room's one window and spat maliciously into the dinginess of the airshaft. "Damn glad you got him," he commented, as Gillis finished his story. “They's a thousand shines in Harlem would change places with you in a minute jess f' the honor of killin' a cracker."

“But I didn't go to do it. 'Twas a accident.”

“That's the only part to keep secret.”

“Know whut dey done? Dey killed five o' Mose Joplin's hawses 'fo he lef'. Put groun' glass in de feed-trough. Sam Cheevers come up on three of 'em one night pizenin' his well. Bleesom beat Crinshaw out of sixty acres o' lan' an' a year's crops. Dass jess how 'tis. Soon's a nigger make a li'l sump'n he better git to leavin'. An' 'fo long ev'ybody's goin' be lef'!”

“Hope to hell they don't all come here."

The doorbell of the apartment rang. A crescendo of footfalls in the hallway culminated in a sharp rap on Gillis's door. Gillis jumped. Nobody but a policeman would rap like that. Maybe the landlady had been listening and had called in the law. It came again, loud, quick, angry. King Solomon prayed that the policeman would be a Negro.

Uggam stepped over and opened the door. King Solomon's apprehensive eyes saw framed therein, instead of a gigantic officer, calling for him, a little blot of a creature, quite black against even the darkness of the hallway, except for a dirty, wide-striped silk shirt, collarless, with the sleeves rolled up. “Ah hahve bill fo' Mr. Gillis.” A high, strongly accented Jamaican voice, with its characteristic singsong intonation, interrupted King Solomon's sigh of relief.

“Bill? Bill fo' me? What kin' o' bill?”

“Wan bushel appels. T'ree seventy-fife.”

“Apples? I ain' bought no apples.”

He took the paper and read aloud, laboriously, “Antonio Gabrielli to K. S. Gillis, Debtor—”

"Mr. Gabrielli say, you not pays him, he send policemon."

“What I had to do wid 'is apples?”