I paced up and down the dugout, cursing in my head. And I didn't notice that pretty soon I was cursing out loud, until Kelly looked up and said, "Shut up, Jack."

I spat back, "You make me shut up, sir."

Kelly's neck turned red but he just pretended not to notice, either sparing me or sparing himself, `cause I was feeling like I did that time twelve years before, when I clobbered him in the head with a log, because he wouldn't get off my rope-swing.

As I paced I grumbled about the automaton, who was just like a locomotive that run itself. I said someone aught to string him up. Some of the other Crawdads who saw him duck the shell before it fell agreed that he didn't do enough to warn the Major that the shell was going to blow.

"That Metal Man seems to know a little too much," I grumbled.

Lately, where ever Prince-President Franklin Stove went, he brought with him a thick swarm of blue-eyed flies. That, of course, didn't make any sense, because what does a fly want from a coal-fired clockwork automaton? He had a funny stink to him, but I'd only figured it was furnace fumes.

"How come he calls himself a Prince-President is what I want to know," I complained, pacing. "It's like he thinks he's better nor us just because he's made of metal..."

Well, I didn't realize that Sarah had come in from the Ladies' Dugout on her way to the Infirmary Dugout. Sarah called out, "Now Jack! You jest leave off the Perfessor. He ain't like us exactly but he's all right by me."

I saw that full moon midnight twinkle in her Apache eyes - that twinkle set aside for me. I stared at her with a bad smile. I said, "So you're sweet on him now, are you?"

Sarah laughed. "Listen to Jack firin' his blank cartridge!" and all the men started laughing. Sarah's eyes met mine for half a second - a half a second full of eyebeams crossing and crashing, clashing and slashing like sabers. Her skirts flashed, and she was gone to hold the hand of a dying man.

So I paced some more, but without so much gall and gumption now. It was like she had thrown a bucket of water into my furnace fire. I sought a measure of solitude, so I let my southern vector outpace my northern. I noticed a movement in the dark there.

Way back in the shadows, I saw somebody crouching. It was Captain Mile's Socrates. He crouched there, hiding among the boxes and barrels, spinning and worrying an old chicken-bone, and rubbing it now and again with a feather. "Old Sock," I whispered. "You know you ain't allowed to hide here. You'll get us in big trouble."

"Now Boss Jack, don't trow me out. Don't do dat. My marster an' Mrs. are crazy, dat's what dey are, dey're makin' me crazy. Don't trow me out, an I'll let on why dat Perfessor's a Prince-Prezdent. I'll tell you all about him!" The old man pressed my arm as he whispered. That touch filled me with such a complicity of fellow- wickedness, I could not say no.

"Well," I whispered, sitting so to hide him better, "all right, until I hear the Captain calling for you, at least."

"You won't hear nuttin, " said Old Sock confidently. "MY marster is boss of de fort now. He don't got time to look for me. He got to stay upstairs, he do, an' fight `em Moonmen. An' Mrs., she's prayin' an' cryin' for de Major. - My hoodoo bone's done real good, spinnin' on dem webs o' Forget-Me."

"Come on, Old Sock, that ole witchcraft is just superstition."

"Says you. Superstitchen's jest anudder word for `How do dat work?' Well do you un'erstand a telegrasp? A steam train? a big-ole balloon? - How come hot air goes up when folks who got de fever go down?"

"Well, I trust machines to work cause they're inventions of Science."

"Jack, you got superstitchen dat a telegrasp can talk a hundred miles an' more. You got superstitchen dat a steam train can roll up a hill - and land sakes! - it do dat. Den I got dat same superstitchen dat dis mighty ole bone can spin webs a'forget-me. And it do dat. Only ding diff'rent is, I call it Hoodoo, an' you call it Seance."

"Not seance - SCIENCE...!"

"Oh, well. `Sci-ence' is jest white-folk talk for `Say-ance' Same ding. Den I got science here in dis seance-bone, `cause when I ask it right, an' say de right charms `n'all, it works Forget-Me's an' Lady B. True's an' No Whuppin's an' Go `Way Ghost an' udder dings like Hook-a- Fish, Feel All Better, an' Tell me - Tell me.

"Now `bout dat Franklin Stove. Prince-Prezdent. He got plenty seance in his head. You wanted to know `bout what Prince-Prezdent means. Fine. Lemme jest ask de ole bone to Tell Me - Tell Me..."

Then the old man proceeded to tap his feather on the bone, telegraph-style, with his eyes closed and his brow furrowed. Then he nodded slowly, opened his eyes, licked his lips and told me:

"All right...de bone tell me dat - lemme see now - de Prince part a'dat Prince-Prezdent is de princ'ple of de machine. De prezdent part means de e-lection of de principle, or, in udder words, de freedom of it. Now I'm gonna ask de ole bone what all dat mean..." Old Sock applied the feather to the bone as before. "Tell-me - Tell-me, old bone!" he mumbled. He opened his eyes. "De bone say dat dere Metal Man is nuttin but a Two-Head."

"What's a Two-Head?"

"A Two-Head's a Golliwogg."

"What's a Golliwogg?"

"A Two-Head Golliwogg is a big ole - well, I'll tell you, Jack. Dere is an ole, ole tale among us folks that learns our babies the godawful sin of readin' an' writin'. Ole tale, now, he's so ole an' nearly forgotten, now, `cept for dem ole wise-witches of the swamp shacks. Goes like dis:"

It was in the piedmont of Virginia that a slave preacher, name of Alfred Bitt, taught himself to read and write by studying the bible as his Mistress read it to all de plantation slaves. By the light of the moon, Alfred Bitt snuck out and counted all the letters of the holy testament, and put numbers on the letters. He called it the Magic Spell Wheel.

(As he spoke, Old Sock traced out A, B, C, &tc in a circle, and numbered the letters 1, 2, 3, &tc along the outside of the circle, so that it did, indeed, look mysterious like an army cipher, and magical, like an incantation.)

Scratching in the dirt, the old man showed me how, with the help of the Magic Spell Wheel, Alfred Bitt learnt the code of a holy power, "7 + 15 + 4", and figured the sum of a magic word, "26". With that sum he figured out the proportions and stuffing of a perfect form, which he then built in a broken old barn. He made a giant thing made of clay in the shape of a man. It was a mighty fine and fearsome statue, but that's all it was.

But bad old Alfred Bitt, he wasn't happy with the natural way it was. So on one foot he wrote "W". He did that because he figured 19 - 9 - 14 = -4, which was the number of SIN, S-I-N; and then he went backward on the Wheel to get "W", which, by the way, is "M" for Man turned upside down, falling to hell. For the other foot he figured the number of PRIDE, P-R-I-D-E, 16 + 18 + 9 + 4 + 5 and got 52, so went around the wheel exactly twice and got "Z", and wrote that "Z", which, Old Sock explained, looks like a sneaky 2, which is "B" which stands for "Beelzebub".

Trembling with fear, Alfred Bitt dared to used the forbidden power of the magic words and numbers. He wrote that most terrible and powerful word of all on the forehead of that clay man. What do you think that word was? That word was not man, M-A-N, no sir! That word was G-O-D!

Wow! The giant shook all over, like with fever. A look of pain most terrible and awful passed over his features. That pain twisted on his nose like a crank, twisting him to ugliness, terrible, my gosh! And nightmare-like, and mean as the devil.

"It was de Golliwogg, Jack. Dat Golliwogg sneaks an' lives in all us folk's nightmares."

The Golliwogg, terrible as it was, now alive as you or me, knew it just shouldn't be alive. It knew it. It knew it was the sin of pride. It knew it was the product of an evil rebellion against the Creator's plan. So it got meaner. It scowled and frowned. It got {all dark in the face. And it accused its master, Alfred Bitt, of cruelty, yes, and crime against Nature.

Alfred Bitt just laughed and laughed. Then the Golliwogg fell on its big stone knees and begged for death, since it suffered every second of its wrongful existence, not having the divine liberty of a soul inside, for it is only the soul inside that can find freedom.

But that old wizard, Alfred, he had neither shame nor mercy. Nope. No sir. He thought he was just as good as the white folks. Yes, he did. So then Alfred Bitt bid the Golliwogg:

"Rise up, boy! You better do zactly what I say! I want you to rise up in bloody re-bellion! Get up an' bust the heads of all the slave marsters `cause now dat I knows my Magic Spell Wheel, I'm your marster, bad old Golliwogg!"

The Golliwogg rose up most high and terrible. With a cruel grin, it said, "Oh yes! I obey you, my marster!"

And it put out its terrible hands, big as barrels, smack around Alfred Bitt's poor neck.

Well, crushed against the barn wall, Alfred Bitt was choking and a- coughing for his very life. He was so scared of dying a sinner that he grabbed around the wall for something to fight back with. He found an pitchfork, and used it, but the fork bent against the stone hide of the Golliwogg, and the handle just broke into splinters. He found a ax, and chopped with it, but the ax broke apart too. He might as well as hit at a freight train! The only thing left on the wall to grab was something very small, flat, and round, hanging on a nail. Alfred Bitt was dying so he grabbed that too. When he saw it was just a looking glass, he just about gave up the ghost.

But then with his last breath, he got an idea. He choked out, "Wait, Marster Golliwogg, don't you want to look at you' handsome di-vine face in de refrection of dis lookin' glass?"

The Golliwogg, it got curious. It let go of Alfred Bitt like he was nothing at all. It snatched the glass and stared into it. There it spied on its unnatural face with all its strength and power. And the Golliwogg filled with pride. It thought itself a mighty fine and handsome looking Golliwogg, a beau of a Golliwogg for all the lady Golliwoggs around. Worse than that, it thought itself a new god, master of everything.

And right then, before it could tear its mean old eyes away, it saw the word on its forehead.

But it saw it reflected. It read it out, but backwards.

"It made the word out to be D-O-G, which spells, dog," the old man whispered, scratching it in the dirt. "An' Alfred Bitt yelled out laughin', 'You dumb ole Golliwogg! You ain't nuttin but a dog, an' I am a- gonna kick you to hell!'

"Alfred kicked an' kicked at de Golliwogg. Right then an' dere, dat most terrible an' mean, dat most big an' ugly lookin' Golliwogg fell all apart, into a heap a'dust an' dirt, wit jest a mangy ole kick-dog down dere in all dat dirty dust of nuttin. I tell you, Jack, dat dog ran, a- howlin' for mercy!"

"Well if you wants to hear de rest...Alfred Bitt, he felt so sorry an' ashamed, he run an' woke an' confessed to his marster. His marster head it all, yes, an' understood it all, yes, an' forgave it all. Wit a fatherly hand on Alfred Bitt's ole head, de marster big him an' his babies never read nor write again. For it only brings us slaves to ruin an' unhappiness, an' unnatural pride beyond our britches...So, Boss Jack, I t'ink dat Prince-Prezdent a kind a'Golliwogg, too, only he's tin."

" - You wait a minute, Old Sock," I whispered. "I see the trick in the story. You old liar! (I got to admit you got gumption, old man!) It's just a sneaky way to teach slaves how to read and write and how to count, even ain't it? Ain't it?"

Old Sock looked at me, his face a block of wood. Suddenly he crouched up and cupped his ear to the Hoodoo Bone. "What's dat, old bone? Tell me - tell me!"

"Hey!" Sergeant Mallory yelled. "Get the heck out of here, you black devil!"

"O! O! O!" the old man exclaimed, too foolishly. "Yes sir!"

He sprang away, twisting his bare feet over the Magic Spell Wheel, and ran off before any Crawdads could catch at him.

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