Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 96: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 the Saws Jim Golly had watched Hitch with acute attention, and he was con- Se winced that if Hitch could read at all, it = was with difficulty. So with more confi- __ dence than he had felt before, he wrote a «heck payable to the “Lodge Regalia Tail- -. @ring Co.” Everything was legible about the check except the name signed to it. _- Not even Jim could tell what that was, for he did not know. Handing the check to Hitch, he pre- —- tended to be busy inserting the papers in the envelope, while he watched Hitch from -__him in his life. He couldn’t read it. But he inspected it carefully and handed it ____ back to Jim: —* “Dat’s c’rect,” he said easily. ____ Jim slipped it into the stamped envelope, = licked the flap and sealed it, and handed the — letter to Hitch. “You put dis in de post orfice an’ dat ‘Il end our bizzness,” Jim said. “ Vs powerful glad because I don’t favor bein’ follered round by black Affikin head choppers. -_ Dis is de fust lodge whut has treated me so bad as dat, an’ I gits jim-jams thinkin’ -__ @bout it.” Se oA ain’t good comp’ny even to myse 1, 2 = = “Does I eit free now?” Jim inquired. “J now releases you from custody,” es - Hitch said laboriously trying to recall the - - werds of the ritual. “You is now free = to come an’ go of yo’ own sweet will ’thout -. de guidunce an’ super-sup-supervision of yo’ ___ lodge-app’inted gyardeen. May yo’ paths =e _ be straight an’ conshunce be yo’ guide.” oe -. The two separated at the door of the ~_ bank, going in different directions. Jim Golly slipped into a near-by alley to laugh. He sat down and took off his hat and SS slapped his bulging thigh with his headgear. _ The affair had worked out admirably for = him. = = “T now > sets aroun’ Tickfall, waitin’ fer = dem page clothes whut ain’t never arriv- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, “jn’,” he chuckled, as he beat the ground the corner of his eye. Hitch Diamond’s -_knowledge of the bank up to that hour had -___ consisted of certain menial tasks, emptying ‘waste paper baskets, cleaning cuspidors,_ Sweeping floors and wiping windows. This was his first experience as a patron of the at his feet with his hat. “ Dat letter will git gwine, but *twon’t never find nowhar fer to git, because why, dar ain’t no place hike I sont it to!” He took a little round mirror out of his vest pocket and glanced at his reflection with unconeealed admiration. “Dat head chopper ain’t never fiddled wid no slick head like me. I don’t aim to ketch it in de neck wid no ax.” — IV. Cotonet Tom GAITSKILL, president of the Tickfall bank, sat upon his porch in gloomy contemplation of a diminutive and defunct holly tree, his latest failure in a fifteen-year effort to root upon his lawn one of these beautiful but obstinate and disappointing shrubs. “‘She’s dead, Marse Tom,” Hitch Dia- mond remarked unsympathetically, as he contemplated the little dry switch. “ ’Tain’t de fust one us is made a miscue wid. I been plantin’ holly trees fer you gwine on a long time—dey’s kinder disencouraging.” “Tl try again,” Gaitskill sighed, as if the little tree was of utmost importance and its failure to grow a tragic event in his career. “ Life is not worth living unless I can make a holly tree grow before I die.” “Ef you ain’t prankin’, Marse Tom, I’m promisin’ you dat you'll die tryin’,” Hitch chuckled. “ Dem trees is hard to grow. But, Marse Tom, I done come to ax you a *terrogation: Ts our lodge clothes come yit?” ““Your—which?” Gaitskill asked. “ De lodge clothes whut de bank ordered fer us,” Hitch explained. ‘‘ Me an’ a nig- ger named Jim Golly gib you de money *bout a week ago an’ I been kinder watchin’ de bank to see wus de clothes piled up in a corner somewhar. It’s a hundred suits an’ dey’ll make a big bundle.” “1 don’t know what you are talking: about,” Gaitskill said. ‘“ The bank didn’t - order any clothes for anybody.” “Naw, suh, de order wus._sont by Jim Golly,” Hitch said. ““ Well, I guess they have come.” Gaits-_ kill suddenly recalled an incident of the day LI)