DAISY: Both of you niggers can git yo’ hat an’ yo’ heads and git on down de road. Neither one of y’all don’t have to have me. I got a good job and plenty men beggin for yo’ chance.
JIM: Dat’s right, Daisy, you go git you one them mens whut don’t mind smelling mules…and beating de white folks to de barn every morning. I don’t wanta be bothered wid nothin’ but dis box.
DAVE: And I can’t strain wid nothin’ but my feets.
(DAISY walks slowly away in the direction from which she came. Both watch her a little wistfully for a minute. The sun is setting.)
DAVE: Guess I better be gittin’ on back…it’s most dark. Where you goin’, Jim?
JIM: I don’t know, Dave. Down de road, I reckon.
DAVE: Whyncher come on back to town. ’Tain’t no use you proguein’ up and down de railroad track when you got a home.
JIM: They done lawed me way from it for hittin’ you wid dat bone.
DAVE: Dat ain’t nothin’. It was my head you hit. An’ if I don’t keer whut dem old ugly-rump niggers got to do wid it?
JIM: They might not let me come in town.
DAVE: (Seizing JIM’s arm and facing him back toward the town) They better! Look here, Jim, if they try to keep you out dat town we’ll go out to dat swamp and git us a mule bone a piece and come into town and boil dat stew down to a low gravy.
JIM: You mean dat, Dave? (DAVE nods his head eagerly) Us wasn’t mad wid one ’nother nohow. (Beligerently) Come on, less go back to town. Dem mallet-heads better leave me be, too. (Picks up a heavy stick) I wish Lum would come tellin’ me ’bout de law when I got all dis law in my hands. And de rest o’ dem gator-faced jigs, if they ain’t got a whole sto’ o’ mule bones and a good determination, they better not bring no mess up. Come on, boy.
(THEY start back together toward town, JIM picking a dance tune on his guitar, and DAVE cutting steps on the ties beside him, singing, prancing and happily, they exit, right, as
THE CURTAIN FALLS.)
Mule Bone Page 10