“I reckon the robbers, if any, got away, fellows,” Flournoy announced as he came out on the front porch. “We cannot find anybody, and cannot see that anything has been disturbed.”
“Where are the niggers who raised the alarm?” a voice asked.
“I guess they hit the grit,” Flournoy smiled. “I can’t imagine Hopey and Dazzle staying to see what a burglar wanted, or returning to see what he got.”
“Here’s one nigger has showed up!” a voice responded.
“White folks!” Vinegar Atts bawled as he was pushed into the light through a crowd of men. “Whut done happened to Marse Tom’s house?”
“Jes’ got back from a chu’ch religious meetin’,” Vinegar explained. “Marse Tom lef’ me an’ Hopey in charge of dis house, an’ he ain’t gwine approve his lawn gittin’ trompled up wid white folks.”
“Somebody tried to rob this house while you were away,” Flournoy told him.
Vinegar’s eyes opened until they glowed in the light from the porch like two china door-knobs.
“Did you-all good white folks ketch de robber?”
“You’s prankin’ wid me, Marse John,” Vinegar howled. “Dar ain’t no one robber could kidnack Hopey. Dat wus a _band_ of robbers—I surmises about fawty in de gang.”
Vinegar fumbled with his hat, and his breath came and went in labored gasps.
“I’m glad de robbers never stole nothin’,” he sighed. “Dat house am plum’ full of pretty doodads, an’ ef Marse Tom wus to come home an’ find dem rooms empty, I’d hab to _esplain_ to him. An’ Marse Tom cain’t onderstand nothin’—when a nigger esplains.”
Vinegar shook his head in great perplexity over this particular white man’s mental fulness. One of the mysteries of his life was that he had never put anything across with Colonel Gaitskill. He knew the end from the beginning, and all the ramifications thereof, and with him, Vinegar’s explanations never explained. They merely caused complications.
“Whut is us gwine do now, Marse John?” he asked.
“I’m going to leave you to guard this house until daylight,” Flournoy told him. “Then I’ll come and examine it more carefully.”
“I ain’t got to guard it from de inside, is I, Marse John?” Vinegar asked in frightened tones.
“Yes—no, I think you had better stay outside,” Flournoy replied in a meditative tone. “If you go inside, you’ll go to sleep. If you stay out, the weather is ’most too cool to sleep comfortably, and you will have intervals of wakefulness.”