Shin Bone stopped, watched the colonel until he turned the corner, then he returned to the gaudy lithographs and resumed his former position on the curb, dropping down in an attitude of dejection and deep meditation.
“Marse Tom oughter had sold me dat hoss,” he sighed. “My credick wid him oughter be good. He knows I had plenty money in his bank las’ mont’ an’ drawed it all out to buy dat eatin’-house. Of co’se, I couldn’t win nothin’ wid dat cripple hoss, but I might could swap him off fer somepin dat I _could_ win wid.”
Shin Bone refilled his pipe, dug his heels deeper in the soft loam of the gutter, rubbed his chin reflectively, and gazed across the street with troubled, brooding eyes.
“Dat little gal got me in dis jam,” he announced finally.
After meeting her, Shin Bone bought a new suit of clothes, a cake of sweet-scented soap, three white shirts, and a bankrupt restaurant, fondly hoping that personal cleanliness, personal adornment, and the ownership of property would help him persuade the girl to make up her mind to live with him. But alas, the four hundred dollars which he had in the bank were spent before he got started, and now the fair was on with a chance to make big winnings, and Shin Bone was broke!
“Jes’ when I wus gittin’ ready to ax her, I went bust,” Shin groaned. “Jes’ when she done got her mind encouraged up to take me, my little dab of money gib out.”
He began to search his clothes for money, feeling in every pocket. He brought forth one silver dollar and one copper cent.
“I didn’t make no new discovery,” he lamented, as he surveyed his earthly fortune. “I knowed I had dis money already.”
He placed the dollar on the curb beside him and laid the copper cent on top of the silver coin, surveying them disconsolately. Glancing down at his feet, he observed a tiny red earthworm crawling in the loam of the gutter. He picked this up and laid it on top of the copper coin, thus making a pyramid of his fortune.
“Huh,” he grunted, “I’d rather be a fishin’ worm dan a nigger wid one dollar an’ one cent.”
Suddenly he looked at the fishing worm with a new interest. It was twisting and turning upon the copper coin evidently wishing to get off, but every time it touched the silver dollar it retreated to the copper coin again.