Georgia Boy by Erskine Caldwell Page A

one that we saw him.
    “Well, what in the world is Handsome doing there?” Pa said, stopping and looking at Handsome.
    Handsome was standing behind a big sheet of canvas with his head sticking through a round hold. He was about ten or fifteen yards from a bench that had a lot of baseballs piled on it. A man in a red silk shirt was standing beside the bench holding up both hands full of baseballs.
    “Three balls for a dime, and a fine smooth-burning cigar if you can hit the darkey!” he said. “Step right up, folks, and try your aim! If the darkey can’t dodge ’em, you get a cigar!”
    “How’d you get yourself in a jam like that, Handsome?” my old man shouted at him. “What in the world happened?”
    “Howdy, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “Hi there, Mr. William.”
    “Hi, Handsome,” I said.
    “You ain’t tied there, is you?” Pa said. “Can’t you get away from there?”
    “I don’t want to get away, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “I’m working here now.”
    “How come you picked up and ran off like you did this morning?”
    “You know good and well why I left, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “I just got good and tired of always working for nothing, and having my banjo taken away from me like it was. I just got tired of being treated that way, that’s all. But I ain’t got no hard feelings against you, Mr. Morris.”
    “You get yourself away from there and go on back home,” Pa said. “Things are piling up all over the place, and there ain’t a soul to do them. You just can’t run off and quit.”
    “I’ve done quit, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “You ask the white man who’s selling them baseballs if I ain’t.”
    We went over to where the man in the red silk shirt was standing. He handed out some baseballs, but my old man shook his head.
    “I came to take my darkey back back home where he belongs,” Pa spoke up. “That one back there with his head sticking through the hole.”
    The man laughed out loud.
    “Your darkey?” he said. “What do you mean, your darkey?”
    “That’s Handsome Brown,” Pa said. “He’s been with us ever since he was eleven years old. I’ve come to take him home.”
    The man turned around and shouted at Handsome.
    “Say, boy! Do you want to go back to work for this man?”
    “No, sir!” Handsome said, shaking his head. “I sure don’t! I got myself another job now, and I figure on collecting me some pay instead of never getting nothing at all except some old clothes and things like that.”
    “Shut your mouth, Handsome Brown!” Pa shouted. “What do you mean talking like that after I’ve treated you so well all this time? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
    “I can’t help that, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said. “I’m working for money-pay now, and I’m going to keep right on doing it.”
    “And you ain’t coming when I tell you?”
    “No, sir, I ain’t!”
    My old man took out the fifteen cents and laid it on the bench.
    “How many of them baseballs do I get to throw for fifteen cents?” he asked.
    “Being as it’s you,” the man said, “I’ll give you a special price. I’ll let you have six for fifteen. But, remember, you’ve got to hit the darkey before he can dodge out of the way. It won’t count if you just throw a ball through the hole. His head’s got to be in the hole before it counts.”
    “That don’t bother me none,” Pa said, getting a good grip on one of the balls. “Just stand back and give me plenty of room.”
    Handsome’s eyes got whiter and whiter while my old man was warming up by swinging his throwing arm around in a circle just like a pitcher getting ready to throw at a batter.
    Pa turned loose with a fast one that caught Handsome square in the forehead before he could dodge out of the way. Handsome was so surprised he didn’t know what had happened. He sat down on the ground and rubbed his head until the man in the red silk shirt ran back to find out if anything serious had happened to