hands. Finally he spoke:

"Plaster, I have a cabin down on the Coolie Bayou which I have given to
three young married couples in succession on the condition that they
live there in peace and amity one year."

"Yes, suh."

"Every couple broke up and got a divorce within nine months."

"Too bad, Marse John, dat's mighty po' luck."

"You niggers think you love each other until you get hitched and then
you don't stay hitched."

"Some shorely don't--dey don't fer a fack."

"Now I make you and Pearline Flunder this offer. I will buy your
marriage license, pay Vinegar Atts to marry you, bear all the expense of
a church wedding, give you a job so you can support your wife, and I
will make you a present of that cabin down on the Coolie Bayou if you
and your wife will live together for three days without busting up in a
row."

"Three days, Marse John!" the negro howled. "Boss, I motions to make it
thurty years!"

"No!" Flournoy snapped. "Three days!"

"I's willin', Marse John," the negro laughed, cutting a caper on the
grass.

"All right!" the sheriff said as he stooped and picked up a pair of
handcuffs. "Now listen: I intend to cut the little chain on these two
manacles and attach each cuff to a ten-foot chain. When you and Pearline
are married, I am going to put one of these manacles around her wrist
and one around your wrist"--the negro showed the whites of his
eyes--"and bind you two honey-loves together with a ten-foot chain."
The negro looked behind him toward the gate and the public highway, took
a tighter grip upon his hat, and made a furtive step backward. "You are
to remain bound together for three days." The negro smiled and stepped
forward. "At the end of that time you are to come here and report, and
if you agree to spend the remainder of your life together, the cabin is
yours!"

"Make it a two-feets chain, Marse John, so us kin git clost to each
yuther," Plaster pleaded.

"What I have spoken I have spoken," Flournoy proclaimed autocratically.
"Now, go tell your sweetheart all about it."

II.

The Big Four of Tickfall sat around a much bewhittled pine table in the
Hen-Scratch saloon. The room was hazy with their tobacco smoke.
Conversation languished. The session was about to adjourn until
to-morrow at the same hour. Figger Bush laid his cigarette upon the edge
of the table, lifted his head like a dog baying the moon, and chanted:

"O you muss be a lover of de landlady's daughter
Or y