BOY WILLIE: Alright . . . I’m gonna tell you this, Doaker. I’m going out of here . . . I’m gonna get me some rope . . . find me a plank and some wheels . . . and I’m coming back. Then I’m gonna carry that piano out of here . . . sell it and give Berniece half the money. See . . . now that’s what I’m gonna do. And you . . . or nobody else is gonna stop me. Come on, Lymon . . . let’s go get some rope and stuff. I’ll be back, Doaker.

(BOY WILLIE and LYMON exit. The lights go down on the scene.)

SCENE 5

(The lights come up. BOY WILLIE sits on the sofa, screwing casters on a wooden plank. MARETHA is sitting on the piano stool. DOAKER sits at the table playing solitaire.)

BOY WILLIE: (To MARETHA.) Then after that them white folks down around there started falling down their wells. You ever seen a well? A well got a wall around it. It’s hard to fall down a well. You got to be leaning way over. Couldn’t nobody figure out too much what was making these fellows fall down their well . . . so everybody says the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog must have pushed them. That’s what everybody called them four men what got burned up in the boxcar.

MARETHA: Why they call them that?

BOY WILLIE: Cause the Yazoo Delta railroad got yellow boxcars. Sometime the way the whistle blow sound like an old dog howling so the people call it the Yellow Dog.

MARETHA: Anybody ever see the Ghosts?

BOY WILLIE: I told you they like the wind. Can you see the wind?

MARETHA: No.

BOY WILLIE: They like the wind you can’t see them. But sometimes you be in trouble they might be around to help you. They say if you go where the Southern cross the Yellow Dog . . . you go to where them two railroads cross each other . . . and call out their names . . . they say they talk back to you. I don’t know, I ain’t never done that. But Uncle Wining Boy he say he been down there and talked to them. You have to ask him about that part.

(BERNIECE has entered from the front door.)

BERNIECE: Maretha, you go on and get ready for me to do your hair.

(MARETHA crosses to the steps.)

Boy Willie, I done told you to leave my house.

(To MARETHA.)

Go on, Maretha.

(MARETHA is hesitant about going up the stairs.)

BOY WILLIE: Don’t be scared. Here, I’ll go up there with you. If we see Sutter’s ghost I’ll put a whupping on him. Come on, Uncle Boy Willie going with you.

(BOY WILLIE and MARETHA exit up the stairs.)

BERNIECE: Doaker—what is going on here?

DOAKER: I come home and him and Lymon was moving the piano. I told them to leave it over there till you got home. He went out and got that board and them wheels. He say he gonna take that piano out of here and ain’t nobody gonna stop him.