"
"How he goin' to clam' up, Lina," asked Billy, "with a rope
ladder in one hand and his guitar in the other?"
"I don't know," was the dignified answer. "That is the way it is
told in my fairy-tale book."
CHAPTER IX
CHANGING THE ETHIOPIAN
Billy and Jimmy were sitting in the swing.
"What makes your hair curl just like a girl's?" asked the latter.
"It's 'bout the curliest hair they is."
"Yes, it do," was Billy's mournful response. "It done worry me
'mos' to death. Ever sence me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln's born we
done try ev'ything fer to get the curl out. They was a Yankee
man came 'long las' fall a-sellin' some stuff in a bottle what he
call `No-To-Kink' what he say would take the kink outer any nigger's
head. An' Aunt Cindy bought a bottle fer to take the kink outer
her hair an' me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln put some on us heads an'
it jes' make mine curlier 'n what it was already. I's 'shame' to
go roun' folks with my cap off, a-lookin' like a frizzly chicken.
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