stomed to
move languidly. By reason of this common sharing of an antipathy against
undue haste, it was late afternoon before the herder and the herded
reached the latter's future place of residence; and it was almost dusk
when Red Hoss, returning alone, came along past Lone Oak Cemetery. Just
ahead of him, from out of the weed tangle hedging a gap in the cemetery
fence, a half-grown rabbit hopped abroad. The cottontail rambled a few
yards down the road, then erected itself on its rear quarters and with
adolescent foolhardiness contemplated the scenery. In his hand Red Hoss
still carried the long hickory stick with which he had guided the steps
of Mr. Bell's new cow. He flung his staff at the inviting mark now
presented to him. Whirling in its flight, it caught its target squarely
across the neck, and the rabbit died so quickly it did not have time to
squeak, and barely time to kick.

Now it is known of all men that luck of two widely different kinds
resides in the left hind foot of a graveyard rabbit. There is bad luck
in it for the rabbit itself, seeing that the circumstance of its having
a left hind foot, to begin with, renders life for that rabbit more
perilous even than is the life of a commonplace rabbit. But there is
abiding good luck in it for the human who falls heir to the foot after
the original possessor has passed away. To insure the maximum of fair
fortune for the legatee, the rabbit while in the act of jumping over a
sunken grave in the dark of the moon should be killed with a crooked
stick which a dead man has carried; but since there is no known record
of a colored person hanging round sunken graves in the dark of the moon,
the left hind foot of an authentic graveyard rabbit slain under any
circumstances is a charm of rare preciousness.

With murky twilight impending, it was not for Red Hoss Shackleford to
linger for long in the vicinity of a burying ground. Already, in the
gloaming, the white fence palings gleamed spectrally and the shadows
were thickening in the honeysuckle jungles beyond them. Nor was it for
him to think of eating the flesh of a graveyard rabbit, even though it
be plump and youthful, as this one was.

Graveyard rabbits, when indubitably known to be such, decorate no
Afro-American skillet. Destiny has called them higher than frying pans.

Almost before the victim of his aim had twitched its valedictory twitch
he was upon it. In his hand, ready for use, was his razor; not his
shavin