“Oooh, I just don’t see how you do it!” she said, simpering up at me. “Would you throw some balls for me, please, if I give you the money?”

“Well, I’d kind of rather not, ma’am,” I said. “If you don’t mind excusin’ me, I was just quitting myself.”

“Oh,” she said, kind of letting her face sag, which didn’t require much of an effort if you know what I mean. “I understand. Your wife is with you.”

“Naw, that ain’t it,” I said. “I ain’t married, ma’am; I just don’t want to throw at that colored fella, because it don’t seem right somehow. It ain’t rightly decent, you might say.”

“You’re just saying that,” she pouted and simpered. “It’s your way of rebuking me for being forward.”

I said, naw, that wasn’t it at all; I really felt like I said I did. “I guess it’s his job to get throwed at, but it ain’t mine to do the throwin’,” I said. “Anyways, a fella’d be better off without a job than one like this. If he’s got to get hit to live, he ain’t got nothing worth living for.”

Myra put on a solemn face, and said she could see I was a really deep thinker. I said, well, I didn’t know about that, but I was sure a thirsty one.

“Maybe I could offer you a lemonade, ma’am, seem’ as how I can’t favor you by throwing balls.”

“Well . . . “She twisted and twitched and twittered. “You won’t think I’m terribly forward if I say yes?”

“Why, you just said it, ma’am,” I said, leading her toward the pink lemonade stand. “You just said yes, and I don’t think nothing like that at all.”

And sure enough I didn’t.

What I was thinking was that she must have buggers in her bloomers or a chigger on her figger, or however you say it. It looked to me like something had better be done about it pretty quick, or her pants would start blazing and maybe they’d set the fairgrounds on fire and there’d be a panic with thousands of people getting stomped to death, not to mention the property damage. And I couldn’t think of but one way to prevent it.

Well, though, I didn’t want to rush into things. There just wasn’t any need to rush, as far as I was concerned, because I was getting married to Amy the next week and she’d taken good care to provide for me until then. So I stalled around, trying to decide whether I really ought to do the only thing I could think of to do. You might say it really wasn’t my problem if Myra did set the fairgrounds on fire, with thousands of innocent women and children getting killed. Because I was from out of town, and I’m a great believer in local rights—you know, like State rights— and Myra lived here in the city. Could be I might get into all kinds of trouble by interfering in a local problem, even if it was something that even a goddanged fool would be familiar with, and the local folks weren’t doing nothing about it.