Georgia Boy by Erskine Caldwell Page B

him. Presently Handsome got up, staggering just a little, and stuck his head through the round hole once more.
    “That’s one cigar for you, mister,” the man said. “You must be an old baseball pitcher, judging by your aim.”
    “I’ve pitched a little in my time,” my old man said, “but my control ain’t what it used to be.”
    “Well, let’s see what you can do this time. That first one might have been just pure luck.”
    “Stand back and give me room,” Pa told him.
    He gripped the ball, leaned over and spat on his fingers, and began winding up. All at once he turned loose a spit-ball that went so fast I couldn’t even see it. Handsome couldn’t have seen it either, because he didn’t budge an inch. The spit-ball hit him on the left side of the head with a sound like a board striking a bale of cotton. Handsome sank down to the ground with a low moan.
    “Look here, mister,” the man in the silk shirt said, running back to where Handsome was stretched out on the ground, “I think you’d better quit chunking at this darkey. He’ll be killed if this keeps up much longer.”
    “You sold me six balls,” Pa said, “and I’ve got a right to chunk them. Tell Handsome Brown to stand up there like he’s getting paid to do.”
    The man shook Handsome a little and got him on his feet. Handsome swayed from one side to the other, and then finally he leaned forward and clutched the canvas. His head was squarely in the middle of the hole.
    “Stand back!” my old man yelled at the fellow in the red silk shirt.
    He wound up and let the ball go so fast that it had hit Handsome again before anybody knew what had happened. Handsome pitched over backward.
    “That’s enough! the fellow shouted at us. “You’ll kill this darkey! I don’t want no dead darkey on my hands!”
    “Then let him come on back home where he belongs,” Pa said, “and I’ll quit chunking at him.”
    The fellow ran to a water bucket, picked it up, and splashed the whole bucketful in Handsome’s face. Handsome twitched and opened his eyes. He looked at all three of us in a queer sort of way.
    “Where am I at?” he said.
    Nobody said anything right away. We all waited and watched him. Handsome raised himself on one elbow and looked around. Then he put his hand against his head and began feeling the big round bumps the baseballs had made. The bumps were swelling up like pullet eggs. “I reckon I done the wrong thing, after all, Mr. Morris,” he said, looking up at my old man. “I’d rather go back and work for you and Mis’ Martha, like I’ve always done, than stay here and get beaned with them baseballs all the time like that.”
    “My old man nodded and made a motion for Handsome to get up. The man in the red silk shirt picked up the balls from the ground and went on back to where he kept them piled up on the bench.
    All three of us started home, taking a short cutout through the lot behind all the tents. Handsome trotted along just behind my old man, not saying a word, and trying to keep as close to Pa’s heels as he could. He raised his hand to his head and felt one of the big round bumps ever so often.
    Just before we got to our house, we stopped and Pa looked real hard at Handsome.
    “I’m willing to let bygones be bygones, Handsome,” he said. “Now, I don’t want you to be pestering me about getting that old banjo back.”
    “But, Mr. Morris,” Handsome said, “I just can’t get along without a banjo—”
    “Quit arguing about one of the bygones, Handsome.”
    “But, Mr. Morris, if I could only—”
    “Bygones is bygones, and that banjo was one of them,” my old man said, turning and walking through the gate into our backyard.

IX. My Old Man and Pretty Sooky
    M Y OLD MAN picked up one morning long before daylight and went off fishing without saying a word to Ma or me about it. He always liked to go off like that early in the morning before Ma was up and about, because he knew she would put her foot down if