Mule Bone

by Zora Neale Hurston

  MRS. CLARKE: (Drawlingly) Columbus!

  LUM: (Wearily) Ma’am?

  MRS. CLARKE:. De Mayor say for you to go round in de back yard and tie up old lady Jackson’s mule what’s trampin’ sup all de tomatoes in my garden.

  LUM: All right. (Leaving card game.) Wait till I come back, folkses.

  LIGE: Oh, hum! (Yawning and putting down the deck of cards) Lum’s sho a busy marshall. Say, ain’t Dave and Jim been round here yet? I feel kinder like hearin’ a little music ’bout now.

  BOY: Naw, they ain’t been here today. You-all know they ain’t so thick nohow as they was since Daisy Bailey come back and they started runnin’ after her.

  WOMAN: YOU mean since she started runnin’ after them, the young hussy.

  MRS. CLARKE: (In doorway) She don’t mean ’em no good.

  WALTER: That’s a shame, ain’t it now? (Enter LUM from around back of store. He jumps on the porch and takes his place at the card box.)

  LUM: (To the waiting players) All right, boys! Turn it on and let the bad luck happen.

  LIGE: My deal. (He begins shuffling the cards with an elaborate fan-shape movement.)

  VOICE AT TABLE: Look out there, Lige, you shuffling mighty lot. Don’t carry the cub to us.

  LIGE: Aw, we ain’t gonna beat you…we gonna beat you. (He slams down the cards for LUM BOGER to cut.) Wanta cut ’em?

  LUM: No, ain’t no need of cutting a rabbit out when you can twist him out. Deal ’em. (LIGE deals out the cards.)

  CLARKE’S VOICE: (Inside the store) You, Mattie! (MRS. CLARKE, who has been standing in the door, quickly turns and goes inside.)

  LIGE: Y-e-e-e! Spades! (The game is started.)

  LUM: Didn’t snatch that jack, did you?

  LIGE: Aw, no, ain’t snatched no jack. Play.

  WALTER: (LUM’s partner) Well, here it is, partner. What you want me to play for you?

  LUM: Play jus’ like I’m in New York, partner. But we gotta try to catch that jack.

  LIGE: (Threateningly) Stick out your hand and draw back a nub. (WALTER THOMAS plays.)

  WALTER: I’m playin’ a diamond for you, partner.

  LUM: I done tole you you ain’t got no partner.

  LIGE: Heh, Heh! Partner, we got ’em. Pull off wid your king. Dey got to play ’em. (When that trick is turned, triumphantly:) Didn’t I tell you, partner? (Stands on his feet and slams down with his ace violently) Now, come up under this ace. Aw, hah, look at ol’ low, partner. I knew I was gonna catch ’em. (When LUM plays) Ho, ho, there goes the queen…Now, the jack’s a gentlemen….Now, I’m playin’ my knots. (Everybody plays and the hand is ended.) Partner, high, low, jack and the game and four.

  WALTER: Give me them cards. I believe you-all done give me the cub that time. Look at me…this is Booker T Washington dealing these cards. (Shuffles cards grandly and gives them to LIGE to cut.) Wanta cut ’em?

  LIGE: Yeah, cut ’em and shoot ’em. I’d cut behind my ma. (He cuts the cards.)

  WALTER: (Turning to player at left, FRANK, LIGE’s partner) What you saying, Frank?

  FRANK: I’m beggin’. (LIGE is trying to peep at cards.)

  WALTER: (Turning to LIGE,) Stop peepin’ at them cards, Lige. (To FRANK) Did you say you was beggin’ or standin’?

  FRANK: I’m beggin’.

  WALTER: Get up off your knees. Go ahead and tell ’em I sent you.

  FRANK: Well, that makes us four.

  WALTER: I don’t care if you is. (Pulls a quarter out of his pocket and lays it down on the box.) Twenty-five cents says I know the best one. Let’s go. (Everybody puts down a quarter.)

  FRANK: What you want me to play for you partner?

  LIGE: Play me a club. (The play goes around to dealer, WALTER, who gets up and takes the card off the top of the deck and slams it down on the table.)

  WALTER: Get up ol’ deuce of deamonds and gallop off with your load. (To LUM) Partner, how many times you seen the deck?

  LUM: Two times.

  WALTER: Well, then I’m gonna pull off, partner. Watch this ol’ queen. (Everyone plays) Ha! Ha! Wash day and no soap. (Takes the jack of diamonds and sticks him up on his forehead. Stands up on his feet.) Partner, I’m dumping to you…play your king. (When it comes to his play LUM, too, stands up. The others get up and they, too, excitedly slam their cards down.) Now, come on in this kitchen and let me splice that cabbage! (He slams down the ace of diamonds. Pats the jack on his forehead, sings:) Hey, hey, back up, jenny, get your load. (Talking) Dump to that jack, boys, dump to it. High, low, jack and the game and four. One to go. We’re four wid you, boys.

  LIGE: Yeah, but you-all playin’ catch-up.

  FRANK: Gimme them cards…lemme deal some.

  LIGE: Frank, now you really got responsibility on you. They’s got one game on us.

  FRANK: AW, man, I’m gonna deal ’em up a mess. This deal’s in the White House. (He shuffles and puts the cards down for WALTER to cut.) Cut ’em.

  WALTER: Nope, I never cut green timber. (FRANK deals and turns the card up.)

  FRANK: Hearts, boys. (He turns up an ace.)

  LUM: Aw, you snatched that ace, nigger.

  WALTER: Yeah, they done carried the cub to us, partner.

  LIGE: Oh, he didn’t do no such a thing. That ace was turned fair. We jus’ too hard for you…we eats our dinner out a the blacksmith shop.

  WALTER: AW, you all cheatin’. You know it wasn’t fair.

  FRANK: AW, shut up, you all jus’ whoopin’ and hollerin’ for nothin’. Tryin’ to bully the game. (FRANK and LIGE rise and shake hands grandly.)

  LIGE: Mr. Hoover, you sho is a noble president. We done stuck these niggers full of cobs. They done got scared to play us.

  LUM: Scared to play you? Get back down to this table, let me spread my mess.

  LOUNGER: Yonder comes Elder Simms. You all better squat that rabbit. They’ll be having you all up in the church for playin’ cards.

  (FRANK grabs up the cards and puts them in his pocket quickly. Everybody picks up the money and looks unconcerned as the preacher enters. Enter ELDER SIMMS with his two prim-looking little children by the hand.)

  ELDER SIMMS: HOW do, children. Right warm for this time in November, ain’t it?

  VOICE: Yes sir, Reverend, sho is. How’s Sister Simms?

  SIMMS: She’s feelin’ kinda po’ly today. (Goes on in store with his children)

  VOICE: (Whispering loudly) Don’t see how that great big ole powerful woman could be sick. Look like she could go bear huntin’ with her fist.

  ANOTHER VOICE: She look jus’ as good as you-all’s Baptist pastor’s wife. Pshaw, you ain’t seen no big woman, nohow, man. I seen one once so big she went to whip her little boy and he run up under her belly and hid six months ’fore she could find him.

  ANOTHER VOICE: Well, I knowed a woman so little that she had to get up on a soap box to look over a grain of sand.

  (REV. SIMMS comes out of store, each child behind him sucking a stick of candy.)

  SIMMS: (To his children) Run on home to your mother and don’t get dirty on the way. (The two children start primly off down the street but just out of sight one of them utters a loud cry.)

  SIMMS’S CHILD: (Off stage) Papa, papa. Nunkie’s trying to lick my candy.

  SIMMS: I told you to go on and leave them other children alone.

  VOICE ON PORCH: (Kidding) Lum, whyn’t you tend to your business.

  (TOWN MARSHALL rises and shoos the children off again.)

  LUM: You all varmints leave them nice chillun alone.

  LIGE: (Continuing the lying on porch) Well, you all done seen so much, but I bet you ain’t never seen a snake as big as the one I saw when I was a boy up in middle Georgia. He was so big couldn’t hardly move his self. He laid in one spot so long he growed moss on him and everybody thought he was a log, till one day I set down on him and went to sleep, and when I woke up that snake done c
rawled to Florida. (Loud laughter.)

  FRANK: (Seriously) Layin’ all jokes aside though now, you all remember that rattlesnake I killed last year was almost as big as that Georgia snake.

  VOICE: HOW big, you say it was, Frank?

  FRANK: Maybe not quite as big as that, but jus’ about fourteen feet.

  VOICE: (Derisively) Gimme that lyin’ snake. That snake wasn’t but four foot long when you killed him last year and you done growed him ten feet in a year.

  ANOTHER VOICE: Well, I don’t know about that. Some of the snakes around here is powerful long. I went out in my front yard yesterday right after the rain and killed a great big ol’ cottonmouth.

  SIMMS: This sho is a snake town. I certainly can’t raise no chickens for em. They kill my little biddies jus’ as fast as they hatch out. And yes…if I hadn’t cut them weeds out of the street in front of my parsonage, me or some of my folks woulda been snake-bit right at our front door. (To whole crowd) Whyn’t you all cut down these weeds and clean up these streets?

  HAMBO: Well, the Mayor ain’t said nothin’ ’bout it.

  SIMMS: When the folks misbehaves in this town I think they oughta lock em up in a jail and make ’em work their fine out on the streets, then these weeds would be cut down.

  VOICE: HOW we gonna do that when we ain’t got no jail?

  SIMMS: Well, you sho needs a jail…you-all needs a whole lot of improvements round this town. I ain’t never pastored no town so way-back as this one here.

  CLARKE: (Who has lately emerged from the store, fanning himself overhears this last remark and bristles up) What’s that you say ’bout this town?

  SIMMS: I say we needs some improvements here in this town…that’s what.

  CLARKE: (In a powerful voice) And what improvements you figgers we needs?

  SIMMS: A whole heap. Now, for one thing we really does need a jail, Mayor. We oughta stop runnin’ these people out of town that misbehaves, and lock ’em up. Others towns has jails, everytown I ever pastored had a jail. Don’t see how come we can’t have one.

  CLARKE: (Towering angrily above the preacher) Now, wait a minute, Simms. Don’t you reckon the man who knows how to start a town knows how to run it? I paid two hundred dollars out of this right hand for this land and walked out here and started this town befo’ you was born. I ain’t like some of you new niggers, come here when grapes’ ripe. I was here to cut new ground, and I been Mayor ever since.

  SIMMS: Well, there ain’t no sense in no one man stayin’ Mayor all the time.

  CLARKE: Well, it’s my town and I can be mayor jus’ as long as I want to. It was me that put this town on the map.

  SIMMS: What map you put it on, Joe Clarke? I ain’t seen it on no map.

  CLARKE: (Indignant) I God! Listen here, Elder Simms. If you don’t like the way I run this town, just’ take your flat feets right on out and git yonder crost the woods. You ain’t been here long enough to say nothin’ nohow.

  HAMBO: (From a nail keg) Yeah, you Methodist niggers always telling people how to run things.

  TAYLOR: (Practically unheard by the others) We do so know how to run things, don’t we? Ain’t Brother Mayor a Methodist, and ain’t the schoolteacher a…? (His remarks are drowned out by the others.)

  SIMMS: No, we don’t like the way you’re runnin’ things. Now looka here, (Pointing at the Marshall) You got that lazy Lum Boger here for marshall and he ain’t old enough to be dry behind his ears yet…and all these able-bodied mens in this town! You won’t ’low nobody else to run a store ’ceptin’ you. And looka yonder (happening to notice the street light) only street lamp in town, you got in front of your place. (Indignantly) We pay the taxes and you got the lamp.

  VILLAGER: Don’t you-all fuss now. How come you two always yam-yamming at each other?

  CLARKE: How come this fly-by-night Methodist preacher over here…ain’t been here three months…tries to stand up on my store porch and tries to tell me how to run my town? (MATTIE CLARKE, the Mayor’s wife, comes timidly to the door, wiping her hands on her apron.) Ain’t no man gonna tell me how to run my town. I God, I ’lected myself in and I’m gonna run it. (Turns and sees wife standing in door. Commandingly.) I God, Mattie, git on back in there and wait on that store!

  MATTIE: (Timidly) Jody, somebody else wantin’ stamps.

  CLARKE: I God, woman, what good is you? Gwan, git in. Look like between women and preachers a man can’t have no peace. (Exit CLARKE.)

  SIMMS: (Continuing his argument) Now, when I pastored in Jacksonville you oughta see what kinda jails they got there…

  LOUNGER: White folks needs jails. We colored folks don’t need no jail.

  ANOTHER VILLAGER: Yes, we do, too. Elder Simms is right…

  (The argument becomes a hubbub of voices.)

  TAYLOR: (Putting down his basket) Now, I tell you a jail…

  MRS. TAYLOR: (Emerging from the store door, arms full of groceries, looking at her husband) Yeah, and if you don’t shut up and git these rations home I’m gonna be worse on you than a jail and six judges. Pickup that basket let’s go. (TONY meekly picks up the basket and he and his wife exit as the sound of an approaching guitar is heard off stage.)

  (Two carelessly dressed, happy-go-lucky fellows enter together. One is fingering a guitar without playing any particular tune, and the other has his hat cocked over his eyes in a burlesque, dude-like manner. There are casual greetings.)

  WALTER: Hey, there, bums, how’s tricks?

  LIGE: What yo’ sayin’, boys?

  HAMBO: Good evenin’, sons.

  LIGE: How did you-all make out this evening’, boys?

  JIM: Oh, them white folks at the party shelled out right well. Kept Dave busy pickin’ it up. How much did we make today, Dave?

  DAVE: (Striking his pocket) I don’t know, boy, but feels right heavy here. Kept me pickin’ up money just like this…(As JIM picks a few dance chords, DAVE gives a dance imitation of how he picked up the coins from the ground as the white folks threw them.) We count it after while. Woulda divided up with you already if you hadn’t left me when you seen Daisy comin’ by. Let’s sit down on the porch and rest now.

  LIGE: She sho is lookin’ stylish and pretty since she come back with her white folks from up North. Wearin’ the swellest clothes. And that coal-black hair of hers jus’ won’t quit.

  MATTIE CLARKE: (In doorway) I don’t see what the mens always hanging after Daisy Taylor for.

  CLARKE: (Turning around on the porch) I God, you back here again. Who’s tendin’ that store? (MATTIE disappears inside.)

  DAVE: Well, she always did look like new money to me when she was here before.

  JIM: Well, that’s all you ever did get was a look.

  DAVE: That’s all you know! I bet I get more than that now.

  JIM: You might git it but I’m the man to use it. I’m a bottom fish.

  DAVE: AW, man. You musta been walking round here fast asleep when Daisy was in this county last. You ain’t seen de go I had with her.

  JIM: No, I ain’t seen it. Bet you didn’t have no letter from her while she been away.

  DAVE: Bet you didn’t neither.

  JIM: Well, it’s just cause she can’t write. If she knew how to scratch with a pencil I’d had a ton of ’em.

  DAVE: Shaw, man! I’d had a post office full of ’em.

  OLD WOMAN: You-all ought to be shame, carrying on over a brazen heifer like Daisy Taylor. Jus’ cause she’s been up North and come back, I reckon you cutting de fool sho ’nough now. She ain’t studying none of you-all nohow. All she wants is what you got in your pocket.

  JIM: I likes her but she won’t git nothin’ outa me. She never did. I wouldn’t give a poor consumpted cripple crab a crutch to cross the River Jurdon.

  DAVE: I know I ain’t gonna give no woman nothin’. I wouldn’t give a dog a doughnut if he treed a terrapin.

  LIGE: Youse a cottontail dispute…both of yo
u. You’d give her anything you got. You’d give her Georgia with a fence ’round it.

  OLD MAN: Yeah, and she’d take it, too.

  LINDSAY: Don’t distriminate the woman like that. That ain’t nothing but hogism. Ain’t nothin’ the matter with Daisy, she’s all right. (Enter TEETS and BOOTSIE tittering coyly and switching themselves.)

  BOOTSIE: Is you seen my mama?

  OLD WOMAN: YOU know you ain’t lookin’ for no mama. Jus’ come back down here to show your shape and fan around awhile, (BOOTSIE and TEETS going into the store.)

  BOOTSIE & TEETS: NO, we ain’t. We’se come to get our mail.

  OLD WOMAN: (After girls enter store) Why don’t you all keep up some attention to these nice girls here, Bootsie and Teets. They wants to marry.

  DAVE: AW, who thinkin’ ’bout marryin’ now? They better stay home and eat their own pa’s rations. I gotta buy myself some shoes.

  JIM: The woman I’m gonna marry ain’t born yet and her maw is dead. (GIRLS come out giggling and exit.) (JIM begins to strum his guitar lightly at first as the talk goes on.)

  CLARKE: (To DAVE and JIM) Two of the finest gals that ever lived and friendly jus’ like you-all is. You two boys better take ’em back and stop them shiftless ways.

  HAMBO: Yeah, hurry up and do somethin’! I wants to taste a piece yo’ weddin’ cake.

  JIM: (Embarrassed but trying to be jocular) Whut you trying to rush me up so fast?…Look at Will Cody here (Pointing to little man on porch) he been promising to bring his already wife down for two months…and nair one of us ain’t seen her yet.

  DAVE: Yeah, how you speck me to haul in a brand new wife when he can’t lead a wagon-broke wife eighteen miles? Me, I’m going git one soon’s Cody show me his’n. (General sly laughter at CODY’s expense.)

  WALTER: (Snaps his fingers and pretends to remember something) Thass right, Cody. I been intending to tell you…I know where you kin buy a ready-built house for you and yo’ wife. (Calls into the store.) Hey, Clarke, come on out here and tell Cody ’bout dat Bradley house. (To CODY) I know you wants to git a place of yo’ own so you kin settle down.