Chickee. (During all this the hawk is feinting and darting in
his efforts to catch a chicken, and the chickens are dancing
defensively, the hen trying to protect them.)

HEN: My chicken's sleep.

HAWK: I shall have a chick.

HEN: You shan't have a chick.

HAWK: I'm goin' home. (Flies off)

HEN: Dere's de road.

HAWK: My pot's a boilin'.

HEN: Let it boil.

HAWK: My guts a growlin'.

HEN: Let 'em growl.

HAWK: I must have a chick.

HEN: You shan't have n'airn.

HAWK: My mama's sick.

HEN: Let her die.

HAWK: Chickie!

HEN: My chicken's sleep.

(HAWK darts quickly around the hen and grabs a chicken and leads him
off and places his captive on his knees at the store porch. After a
brief bit of dancing he catches another, then a third, etc.)

HAMBO: (At the checker board, his voice rising above the noise of the
playing children, slapping his sides jubilantly) Ha! Ha! I got you
now. Go ahead on and move, Joe Clark ... jus' go ahead on and move.

LOUNGERS: (Standing around two checker players) Ol' Deacon's got you
now.

ANOTHER VOICE: Don't see how he can beat the Mayor like that.

ANOTHER VOICE: Got him in the Louisville loop. (These remarks are
drowned by the laughter of the playing children directly in front of
the porch. MAYOR JOE CLARK disturbed in his concentration on the
checkers and peeved at being beaten suddenly turns toward the
children, throwing up his hands.)

CLARK: Get on 'way from here, you limbs of Satan, making all that
racket so a man can't hear his ears. Go on, go on!

(THE MAYOR looks about excitedly for the town marshall. Seeing him
playing cards on the other side of porch, he bellows:)

Lum Boger, whyn't you git these kids away from here! What kind of a
marshall is you? All this passle of young'uns around here under grown
people's feet, creatin' disorder in front of my store.

(LUM BOGER puts his cards down lazily, comes down stage and scatters
the children away. One saucy little girl refuses to move.)

LUM BOGER: Why'nt you go on away from here, Matilda? Didn't you hear
me tell you-all to move?

LITTLE MATILDA: (Defiantly) I ain't goin' nowhere. You ain't none of
my mama. (Jerking herself free from him as LUM touches her.) My mama
in the store and she told me to wait out here. So take that, ol' Lum.

LUM BOGER: You impudent little huzzy, you! You must smell yourself ...
youse so fresh.

MATILDA: The wind musta changed and you smell your own top lip.

LUM BOGER: D