Baby Doll & Tiger Tail Read Online Free PDF

in town to the Kotton King Hotel for a chicken dinner. Sign my name! It’s only when bad luck hits you, Mr. Vacarro, that you find out who your friends are. I mean to prove it. All right. Let’s get GOING! Baby, knock me a kiss!
    BABY DOLL : What’s the matter with you? Have you got drunk before breakfast?
    ARCHIE : Hahaha.
    BABY DOLL : Somebody say something funny?
    ARCHIE : Offer this young fellow here to a cup of coffee. I got to get busy ginning that cotton.
    [
He extends his great sweaty hand to Vacarro
.]
    Glad to be able to help you out of this bad situation. It’s the good neighbor policy.
    SILVA : What is?
    ARCHIE : You do me a good turn and I’ll do you a good turn sometime in the future.
    SILVA : I see.
    ARCHIE : Tit for tat, tat for tit, as they say. Hahaha! Well, make yourself at home here. Baby Doll, I want you to make this gentleman comfortable in the house.
    BABY DOLL : You can’t make anyone comfortable in this house. Lucky if you can find a chair to sit in.
    [
But Meighan is gone, calling out: “Move those wagons,” etc., etc
.]
    BABY DOLL [
after a slight pause
]: Want some coffee?
    SILVA : No. Just a cool drink of water, thank you ma’am.
    BABY DOLL : The kitchen water runs warm, but if you got the energy to handle an old-fashioned pump, you can get you a real cool drink from that there cistern at the side of the house. . . .
    SILVA : I got energy to burn.
    [
Vacarro strides through the tall seeding grass to an old cistern with a hand pump, deep in the side yard. Rock follows. Old Fussy goes “Squawk, Squawk,” and Aunt Rose Comfort is singing “Rock of Ages” in the kitchen
.]
    SILVA [
looking about contemptuously as he crosses to the cistern
]: Dump their garbage in the yard, phew!
Ignorance
and
indulgence
and
stink!
    ROCK : I thought that young Mizz Meighan smelt pretty good.
    SILVA : You keep your nose with the cotton. And hold that dipper, I’ll pump.
    AUNT ROSE : Sometimes water comes and sometimes it don’t.
    [
The water comes pouring from the rusty spout
.]
    SILVA : This time it did. . . .
    BABY DOLL : Bring me a dipper of that nice cool well water, please.
    [
Rock crosses immediately with the filled dipper
.]
    SILVA : Hey!
    OLD FUSSY : Squawk, squawk!!
    AUNT ROSE : I don’t have the strength anymore in my arm that I used to, to draw water out of that pump.
    [
She approaches, smoothing her ancient apron. Vacarro is touched by her aged grace
.]
    SILVA : Would you care for a drink?
    AUNT ROSE : How do you do? I’m Aunt Rose Comfort McCorkle. My brother was Baby Doll’s daddy, Mr. T. C. McCorkle. I’ve been visiting here since. . . since. . . .
    [
She knits her ancient brow
,
unable to recall precisely when the long visit started
.]
    SILVA : I hope you don’t mind drinking out of a gourd.
    [
He hands her the gourd of well water. Rock returns
,
saying aloud
. . .]
    ROCK : I could think of worse ways to spend a hot afternoon than delivering cool well water to Mrs. Meighan.
    AUNT ROSE : SCUSE ME PLEASE! That ole hen, Fussy, has just gone back in my kitchen!
    [
She runs crazily to the house. Baby Doll has wandered back to the cistern as if unconsciously drawn by the magnetism of the two young males
.]
    BABY DOLL : They’s such a difference in water! You wouldn’t think so, but there certainly is.
    SILVA [
to Rock
]: Hold the dipper, I’ll pump!
    [
He brings up more water; then strips off his shirt and empties the brimming dipper over his head and at the same time he says to Rock
. . .]
    SILVA : Go stay with the cotton. Go on! Stay with the cotton.
    [
Rock goes
.]
    BABY DOLL : I wouldn’t dare to expose myself like that. I take such terrible sunburn.
    SILVA : I like the feel of a hot sun on my body.
    BABY DOLL : That’s not sunburn though. You’re natcherally dark.
    SILVA : Yes. Don’t you have garbage collectors on Tiger Tail Road?
    BABY DOLL : It cost a little bit extra to get them to come out here and Archie Lee Meighan claimed it was highway robbery! Refused to