The Legend of Step-and-a-Half

Niggerheads, those peculiar columnar, closely spaced, grassy-topped swamp humps to be found here and there in the Northland, especially when you are not looking for them and are on foot and are in a hurry to get somewhere, besides being the worthy subject of more than one impeccably written scientific paper, are, beyond any doubt, the meanest, rottenest, sneakiest, most miserable, deplorable, reprehensible things to be found in all Alaska. (The Canadians can do their own complaining.) If you ever run out of four-letter words, take a lesson from the old Niggerhead Indians, sometimes disrespectfully called the Nastymouths: Go walk on niggerheads. You'll soon come up with some more—maybe even a best seller. Whew! I hate to think of it.

The trouble with niggerheads is you can never make up your mind as to the best way of walking on them. If you step on top of the hump—your first inclination, it looking so stable—the hump, like a soup-spined, jelly-bellied mushroom, usually just bends right over, dumping you, together with the load on your back, if you're carrying one, headlong, maybe breaking your neck. If you get fed up with broken necks and resolve simply to stay on the bottom, walking between the humps, you'll likely as not slip and break both legs, the bottom seldom consisting of anything but glare ice, turned greasy in summer by a little surface water, should the summer be a hot one.

Niggerheads* sound like nothing to you? It might surprise you to know that no more was needed than these cursed unique little swamp humps, which, like cases of the plague, seldom come singly, to cause the longtime division of one of the oldest, most noble tribes in the North. It is a melancholy story, but making it saddest of all is that "the great schism," as the tribal split was called, resulted, and not too indirectly, either, in the disappearance of a man called Step-and-a-half, said to be the only person in the history of the world ever to have mastered niggerhead travel.

This fellow Step, who was, curiously enough, a cripple, had the reputation of being the fastest man alive on niggerheads—at any distance. No one could touch him. The untimely loss of this greathearted champion, this valiant little Achilles of the swamp, a man of so much inspiration to the world, for those with a brown eye and a blue, surely must be counted as one of at least far-northern mankind's most lamentable.

Bringing on the strife within the ranks of the Niggerheads was the death of their beloved old chief, Omniwalker IV. From all accounts, Omniwalker, however inscrutable, was as good and kindly a man, as wise and tolerant a leader as you could find anywhere. While he lived, things went well enough for his people— as well as they can ever go for a people living round niggerheads whose leader, for reasons known only to heaven and himself, refuses to lead them out of the swamps to, if not greener, at least flatter pastures.

His apparent aversion to daydreaming notwithstanding, Chief Omniwalker IV was not blind. He was as aware as anybody what an inelegant sight his people presented trooping across their blessed clumpy heritage, walking every which way, even as he walked, some on top of the humps, some on the bottom, all slipping, sliding, falling, cursing, getting up, praying, weeping, shaking their fists at the heavens, some going dumb with rage and just standing there grinding their teeth; but he, good man, believed in his heart, just as all his royal fathers had before him, that every man had the inalienable right to get across his allotted vale of tears and curse as best he could, doing things in his own way, provided only that he didn't do it upon the backs of his brothers—unless, of course, he was old and maybe had rheumatism. Except for murder and cursing in a foreign tongue, their definition of treason, about the worst offense known to the Niggerheads, at least as long as old Chief Omniwalker was alive, was this riding, using the spur of "morality." How they punished the offender won't be gone into here. It is enough to say that it was from the old Niggerheads that the phrase came down to us: "Now the spur's on the other foot."

But once old Chief Omniwalker passed on, things lost no time in deteriorating.

Left to vie for the throne were Omniwalker's two sons—twins! Since birth, these two fops—neither of whom could walk 1000 niggerheads without his tongue hanging out and his starting to yelp about all the rare special ailments that overbred aristocrats were supposed to be heir to—had done nothing but bicker, tattle and try to outdo each other constantly. Now one of them was going to have to be chief, and each was determined that it was not going to be the other.

The one brother liked to walk, or strut, rather, on top of the niggerheads, way up high where every single inch of him could be seen and admired. Often he would stop, rock himself back on one foot, smite his chest and palm his mouth in an Alley Oop yell. On the basis of what turned out to be insufficient evidence, he was convinced that the great majority of Niggerhead people preferred walking his way, and it was for this reason that hardly before his old father was cold in the grave, he let it be known that he was now Prince Topwalker I.

Niggerhead royalty could take new names like this, though few ever did. "Better a new IV than the same old I all over again," as old Omniwalker had said, a lot of people claiming to have seen what he meant. "Progress without ambition or hatred" was a favorite motto of theirs, it hanging in needlepoint on many a wall.

Prince Topwalker's brother naturally had to prefer just the opposite—walking down low, between the humps, where, if not every single inch of him could be safe, at least that part of him he was able to conceal in this way would be. He, too, thought his royal body was something pretty special, but he was going to save his, if he could. Believing, on the basis of the same sterling conceit-furnished evidence that had been so boldly acted on by his brother, that most of the Niggerheads preferred walking his way, he—you guessed it—flew toward the title Prince Bottomwalker I.

Shortly after this shameless name scramble took place, the two brothers, having found no way of killing each other and getting by with it, got together on something, probably for the first time in their lives. They agreed to go before the tribal elders and subject themselves to a vote, each secretly believing that he, being walking arbiter already, would just automatically be declared chief and his superfluous brother be run off—or worse.

So the tribal elders were called together. Right away, Prince Topwalker got the jump on his brother. Leaping to his feet, he cried out in a loud ringing voice the line that was soon to become famous in the Niggerhead tribe, even little children going round repeating it as they romped on their careworn fathers' abomination—the niggerheads:

"Give me, ere I receive two broken legs, a broken neck, oh, I pray!"

This was a pretty hard act for Prince Bottomwalker to follow. Nevertheless, he now girded up his tongue and played it through.

"Not me, oh, not me," he rose and cried back. "I'll take legs any day!"

Tumultuous shouts of "Stay on the top, then," or "Stay on the bottom, for heaven's sake, who's stopping you?" filled the council chamber.

Besides the chief, his sons and the tribal elders, the only other people ever allowed in the council chamber during a meeting were the messengers, and the messengers' gallery was jam packed this night. Step-and-a-half, being messenger ne plus skookum, was right there in his seat of honor. Step just laughed and laughed at all this topbottom stuff. The other messengers looked daggers at him. "Yeah, he can afford to laugh, he gets all the business," they grumbled among themselves.

Next to being chief or prince or elder, being a messenger was about the best deal in the whole Niggerhead tribe. As far back as anyone could remember, it had been this way, and this was why messengers were not only allowed at the council meetings but were looked upon there as being honored guests. Everybody blew them kisses. A lot of the Niggerheads thought the tribe was overdoing this messenger bit; that they were being entirely too permissive with the lads involved and such, but you never saw anybody actually try to do anything about it. Just complain, that's all. Oh, it's true enough that some of the messengers were a little on the rowdy side, racing round the village at night, making a lot of noise and turning things over, but Step never did anything like this, which only proved that a man didn't have to be that way just because he was a pampered messenger. Step himself, when he wasn't working, remained pretty much a loner, doing little but study up on his messengering, polish his numerous medals, count his money, practice his tip-receiving suavity—things like that. You could see right away how serious he was.

As for the reform-minded, meaning those wet blankets who wanted to find a new place for the messengers and see them put in it, about all that can be said is this: The people they were opposing, champions of the past to a man, and believers in its being left strictly alone, rarely had to wait for more than a couple of weeks before being presented the golden opportunity of breaking out with a few of the old I-told-you-sos. The Niggerheads living all over the swamps, not just in the village, the sending of messages was a big thing with them. For instance, when it looked like a man wasn't going to be able to get out of visiting his relatives much longer, he would start dreading the trip days in advance. On the fateful morning, he would drink coffee for hours, thinking about all those hateful niggerheads to be crossed, his face getting longer all the time. Finally, right at the last moment, he would usually say, "I think I'll just send a message." This would be acceptable enough; his relatives were probably pulling the same thing on him. So a messenger would be summoned—Step, if he could be gotten—and the message dispatched. But if Step himself didn't bring the message, look out. This was always a bad sign. After the substitute messenger had come and gone, the relatives would just stand there with a hurt knowing look on their faces, saying, "He doesn't care for us anymore. You notice how he didn't send Step?"

While Step continued to rock with laughter at all the heated top-bottom admonitions being thrown around, Prince Topwalker rose to express a grave concern he felt for the welfare of his people—"his" already. He had had a dream. But first he looked over at Step, genuine fondness showing in his face, and uttered the following endearment: "Little laughing Step." (See what I mean?)

After smiling at Step and making from the distance like he was patting him on the head, Prince Topwalker turned back to addressing the elders.

"Gentlemen, as we know, the world is rapidly filling up. Everybody says that. Soon there won't be enough niggerheads to go around. My greatest fear is that one day soon some niggerhead-bereft stranger is going to happen by, take one look at our people crossing our blessed clumpy curse like a bunch of amateur anarchists, every man doing his thing, and say to himself that a people so without unity, without discipline, form, image, dignity, integrity, style are just a—can I bring myself to say it?—yes, are just a ... a pushover!

"And having said that, do you know what he would do then? Why, it can be no secret. In a sweet voice, he would say, 'Peace, brothers, peace, brothers,' then go away and come back in the night—with reinforcements. Gentlemen, this cannot, this must not be allowed to happen. I propose that we, this very night, set once and for all an official niggerhead-walking policy, and enforce it to the fullest extent of the law; and if we haven't got a law covering that, then, by heavens, let us make one—now!"

This brought every topwalker in the house to his feet, crying, "Hey, hey! Hear, hear!"

As though some doubt had been left in the matter, Prince Bottomwalker immediately jumped up to get things straight in his mind. But before seeking clarification, he, sucking the hind tit once again, looked over at Step, who was still laughing, and after loading twice as much fondness into his face, said, "Dear little laughing Step." Then he winked at him with both eyes.

Step, without checking his laughter, nodded his head gravely in acknowledgment. In spite of his humble birth, Step was every inch a gentleman; you had to say that for him.

Looking directly at his brother, Prince Bottomwalker now fumed, "And just where, pray, would the people walk, in accordance with this precious formal niggerhead-walking policy of yours, Prince Top walker?"

Now it was all the bottomwalkers' turn to leap to their feet. "Yes, yes, tell us, where, where?" they all clamored to know.

When things had quieted down enough, Prince Bottomwalker lost no time in owning to the very same nightmare allegedly being suffered by his brother, except that his own was far scarier. What made his own so bad was that if Prince Topwalker was able to ram through this sly unspoken motion of his, the Niggerheads were going to be no better off than a bunch of giddy quail. With them strutting round on top of the humps that way, like so many nosethumbing, stiff-fingered targets, what was going to prevent the enemy's picking them all right off? Here Prince Bottomwalker shook himself violently, to throw off the specter of so horrible an eventuality.

Prince Topwalker shouted his brother down, making light of his silly womanish fear, his bottom-hugging cowardice, his microcosm-loving soul, calling him a niggerhead worm, not a man, only to be shouted down in turn. On and on it went, for more than an hour, and Niggerhead hours were twice as long as anybody else's, as some people still know. Insults started flying back and forth all over the chamber, even among the messengers, for each of them had his walking preference, or prejudice, too. Fists were shaken under noses, men spat on the floor in front of one another and a lot of niggerhead-walking language was used, sometimes whole streams of it without a single pause. Ooh-hoo! The Niggerheads hadn't been nicknamed the Nastymouths for nothing.

Step-and-a-half, safe in the arms of his infirmity, just kept rocking back and forth on his seat, moaning, "Oh, my sides, my sides."

At last a vote was called for—on everything. One vote, a single little vote, and they could all go home. Next day they would have an official way of walking and, at the same time, a new chief—even a new way of picking their noses, if that was what everybody wanted. Just get it over with.

The vote taken ended in a tie. The princes' chins dropped, then, for the first time, real apprehension set into both their breasts.

Another vote was called for. It, too, ended in a tie, Vote, tie, vote, tie, they voting faster and faster—this was how it went, far into the night. The Niggerheads were split right down the middle and it looked like nobody was going to budge. Everybody was getting hotter and hotter and crosser and crosser, and awfully tired.

The oldest of the elders, a whitehaired old gentleman who had survived more broken legs and snapped necks in the swamps than everybody else combined, and who had loved old Chief Omniwalker very much, got up in disgust, saying, "This is about the twiniest tribe I ever saw!" and went out to take a leak and have a smoke.

When Old Pretzel, as the aged swamp veteran was affectionately called, came back, another vote was taken. It was the same old story.

Finally, Old Pretzel stood up to offer a solution to what had begun to look like a hopeless situation. Tempers were growing dangerously short, and something was going to have to be done.

"Gentlemen," he said, "this [bad word] can't go on forever. We're getting nowhere fast, and we're going to get there even faster unless you listen to me. Now hear a tired old man's idea.

"In the next valley are plenty of good0 niggerheads—good as any we've got around here—and, best of all, that valley is still unoccupied. Gentlemen, I ask you, in all due respect, why, in the name of [three bad words], can't we be a bitribe? We seem to be two-minded about everything else these days—and nights."

Here the bent old man, whose arthritis was acting up something fearful, sighed hoarsely and threw the two princes a peculiar glance, but it wasn't anything you could really put your finger on. Wise old men know how to glance at princes like that.

"Let the Princes Topwalker and Bottomwalker draw straws," he went on, "the loser to take his fellow walkers over to that next valley and there build a (continued on page 102)Step-And-A-Half(continued from page 96) new village and carry on with—whatever it is we do in the middle of these [six bad words and an understatement], recuperate, eat, sleep, make love, get drunk and cuss, cuss, cuss. We'd still be one in language, in heritage and in spirit, sworn to eternal friendship and all that, and with our marvelously fleet Step-and-a-half up there as official messenger, why, it would hardly be like we were separated at all. Should one of the camps be molested from outside, in a twinkling Step would be right there to inform the other, and in no time help would be on the way. Catch the enemy up the backside, if you'll forgive my flowery language. Getting old.

"This separation agreed on, gentlemen, amity might prevail between the opposed princes, each having become chief of his own subtribe, and, best of all, we could all go home."

Old Pretzel's proposal caused a storm of excitement. It was talked over for a long time, a number of the fine points being discussed—those little technicalities that always have to be worked out when tribes are in the process of breaking up.

The princes at last agreeing to the plan, straws were brought in and drawn. Prince Topwalker lost.

No one present had the strength left to shout for joy, or even rub it in. Step was helped home, not just because he was so weak from laughing, which, indeed, he was, but because, as was said before, he was a cripple, and even with the help of his crutch, he couldn't walk so well on flat ground, especially in the dark.

Step's left leg had been chewed off by a bear when he was a boy, and it was this resultant condition of his that gave him his terrific speed on niggerheads. Having no longer any choice in the matter and, consequently, never wasting any time wondering which was the best way, he walked on both the top and the bottom. He fairly got with it. His maimed condition was also what made him so acceptable to both the topwalkers and the bottomwalkers, he being considered kind of neutral in the matter. Both sides trusted Step.

From that day forward, Step's star was in the ascendant. Having been appointed official messenger, by both sides and for life, he was now busier than he had ever been, and not with carrying just little "Hi, folks" messages, either, but with important stuff. His little moosehide diplomatic pouch veritably bulged with state secrets and he had to watch out all the time.

"Here he comes, there he goes," people in both camps soon never tired of saying of Step in amazed delight, as he went back and forth, forth and back, and mothers of daughters of marriageable or near-marriageable age began regarding him with a fresh-lead eye. "Hmm, now that Step, you know," they started saying at the right times, in all the right places, when Step had shot up there far enough; to which the girls would reply, "Oh, Momma," then, in a small voice, "You think so?"

Probably it never has been easy for a superior man in this world. Let a superior man appear on the scene and be honored, and right away there are a lot of other men around who want to be superior men, too. But if they can't beat the superior man at his game, they know that they can always camp on his tail and snipe away at him, both act- and slanderwise, trying in this way to bring him down so they can get his place, or at least fight over it, and it is this they very often do, as messenger nulli secundus Step-and-a-half, as he was now officially called, to his grief presently began to find out.

Poor Step. The other messengers always had been jealous of him, never losing an opportunity of doing him dirt, but by virtue of much self-discipline and sacrifice, he had managed to come to terms with the tainted gift of his own superiority—a thing he hadn't exactly prayed for, you know. Don't forget that. He had learned the wisdom of staying out of sight as much as possible, thus robbing his enemies of their target— leaving them with the itch but with nothing to scratch, as it were. This had vexed them no end. "If only he would come out like a man and fight," they had said plaintively.

All that, however, had been in the old days. It was different now. Now, with his new exalted rank and all, carrying with it so many wonderfully impressive material perquisites, strewn all over the place, things only a blind envious man could resist staring longingly at, the other messengers' animosity toward him knew no bounds. Not one of them was ever brave enough to call him Nelly to his face, he having so many friends in high places, but that is what they all called him behind his back. Nulli secundus? Humph! "Nelly baboonpuss!"

"Nelly broke his own record today," one of the messengers would come running up to tell the rest, another exploding, "Again?" They would then all take deep anguished drags on their butts, grind them out underfoot and go off in different directions, their hands rammed deep into their pockets and with darkness in their hearts. That stinking little Nelly Step!

Their malevolence sometimes assumed peculiar forms. Just to give you an idea of how passing strange resentful men can be sometimes, the other messengers, with two whole, healthy limbseach, would go around abusing their right or left legs, knocking them against sharp objects, viciously punching them with a fist from out of the blue, with not a one of them having the frank courage to go looking for the bear that had fixed Step up in the first place. Some of them in this way were able to temporarily lame themselves, or at least come up with a passable limp, but that didn't help much. It only made it worse, in fact—and Step would get the blame for this, too. On their days off, some of the silly fellows, joined by messengers Step with his blazing speed had put out of work, thought that by going round with signs on their shoulders reading Hire The Handicapped, they were shaming Step, cutting him to the quick, but Step wasn't that easily cut. He just laughed. "Ha-ha!" he said.

But frankly—and it isn't a pleasant statement to have to make—Step changed a little. In spite of all his marvelous, godlike speed on niggerheads, he was still only human.

After the tribe separated and the joint kingdoms had been set up, Step began losing some of the old humility that had so become him. He had a little golden crutch now to replace the homely spruce root he had always depended on, when walking off the niggerheads, and he wielded it with a flourish. On state occasions, he rode in one of the two sedan chairs that had been placed at his disposal by the tribes, each thinking that it had outdone the other. He would wave at the people as the went by. He was never seen in his old clothes anymore but always had on his official uniform with the little folding wings in back. He even slept in it, so as to be ready at a moment's notice—though this isn't what the other messengers said. People started shaking their heads over Step, afraid that success might be getting to him.

Well, if it was, it certainly wasn't slowing him down any. He got even faster. He'd booze it up all night, then be right out there in the morning, making himself of yesterday look sick. Step had a powerful constitution.

A lot of explanations were offered for the changes taking place in Step, things having to do with his mother and his father, way back in the beginning, and though such speculations are always worth listening to, and do make a kind of sense in a way, probably closer to the truth would be that all this sudden notoriety and affluence was simply too much for him. He had a fine home in each capital now, gifts of the respective tribes, and both were furnished in the very latest style. Lying about, and not in the closet, either, were little signs of elegance and luxury unheard of—$20 ashtrays, imported crisscross throw rugs, flavored toothpicks, I don't know what else. He had servants galore, and everywhere he went were people bowing and scraping (continued on page 201)Step-And-A-Half(continued from page 102) before him, trying to kiss his hand, afterward seeking an autograph by the hand they had just kissed. It is, indeed, a puzzle. Before he lost his leg, Step had been awfully poor, poor and unknown, and they say that a man never gets over a thing like that.

Anyhow, you may as well read it here— all of it. Step presently started taking on airs when he drank tea, tapping the ash from his cigarette with his index finger and turning round impatiently when some nobody wanted to speak to him, saying down his nose, "Yaas, what is it?"

Step—our own little laughing Step!

If the nobody standing there, gripping his cap in both hands, wasn't used to being around great men, he would usually just turn and flee—and who can blame him? I know I would have.

All this was bad enough, but what finally drove Step's enemies over the edge, though it doesn't particularly bother the chronicler, was when Chief Topwalker's loveliest daughter fell head over heels in love with Step—the lucky fellow!

The Niggerheads were a passionate, fiery people when it came to love, and it was a pretty darn tempestuous courtship. Princess Topwalker was a wild thing and in some ways, though not in all, she had been liberated from birth. She had flaming black hair, like a raven, and she shook it with reckless abandon. A lot of people thought all the messengers were going around with their tongues hanging out just because they were so tired, but that wasn't the reason. They were all secretly thinking about Princess Topwalker, coveting her delicious body. Not a one of them except Step loved the pilgrim soul in her.

Step and the princess hugged and kissed all over the niggerheads, for that is where they usually met. If you think a deep dark forest, or a wind-swept seashore, or a scorching desert offers a lot of privacy, it's pretty obvious you've never made love in a field of niggerheads. That place makes those others look like Times Square on Saturday night.

Being so busy with his carrying of big important messages all day, Step could meet his lovely sweetheart only at night, but that was the best time, anyway. He would race to get to their rendezvous spot first, and when his sweetheart came forth to meet him, he, having found just the right niggerhead to prop himself up on, would be standing there straight and proud as any brave. They would embrace, Step calling her his little Sweetpotootie Mustang, and she, him her Peachy little Mercury.

They would then sit down on adjoining humps and hold hands for a long time. Princess Topwalker talked a lot about her dreams to Step. One of her favorites was of becoming a painter—that or at least a model. Once she threw open her blouse, showering buttons all over the swamp, to show Step what he was going to have free access to later on, asking him if he thought she could make it.

Brassieres weren't introduced into the Niggerhead tribe until after the missionaries came, in case you didn't know— those and linen thread, so buttons wouldn't pop off so easily. The last thing a Niggerhead maiden would hear from her mother before she left on a date was, "Either come home with your buttons or a husband—one of the two," but Princess Topwalker didn't care. Just like her father.

To make a better judgment, Step got up to look closer and fell over backward. Princess Topwalker bent down to help him up, but he pulled her down instead. They did a lot of laughing and rolling around, he going "Ruff, ruff," and she crying out over and over, "No, no, Step, honey, not until after we are lawfully wedded," trying to button her now-buttonless blouse back up at the same time. She had a hard time tearing herself out of Step's clutches, for he was a Niggerhead, too, you must remember. The old Niggerheads, at least the women, were a lot more moral and traditionminded than a person would imagine, what with the missionaries not having shown up yet to teach them things and all.

This was how it went on for some months. Every night for Step it was a fast wash, a quick bite, then a hop, skip and a jump off for some more loving. The evening sessions of hugging and kissing, kissing and hugging, and only upon Princess Topwalker's insistence, not his own, were broken up by long periods of cooling off. "Breathers," she called them. Sometimes Step, mopping his brow and trying nicely to make his collar larger without lapsing into pure informality altogether, which would have necessitated his throwing off everything, would moan and groan, complaining weakly that he didn't think he could stand it much longer; this in his attempt to break Princess Topwalker down. But she was not to be broken. When things had reached this stage, she, naughty girl, while struggling to contain her laughter, would only stand over him and fan him with the front of her skirt, and poor Step would sink into that despair too deep for sound.

But it was not in the stars for Step to wed his beloved princess. O cruel Fate, O fink Furies, O leather-hearted gods! The wedding date had long been set when the terrible thing happened.

The very night before the wedding, a dark and moonless night, the other messengers, some tops, some bottoms, fell upon Step, catching him on flat ground, where he was most helpless. They kicked his little golden crutch aspinning, the falling Step crying out to his most trusted servant for help. While some of the bastards held him down, the others snapped off his good leg at the knee, making him just like everybody else now, only shorter.

"Now you see how it feels, Mr. Loverboy Bigshot Monopolist!" they all jeered, dancing in a circle around him now.

Step lay for a long time without moving where they had left him. At last his most trusted servant came to help him home.

Step didn't show up for work the next day, or the next, but remained home in bed, hidden under the covers. It wasn't the physical pain he minded so much— Niggerheads, brave souls, were used to that—but the psychic. Oh, how it hurt. Having been unique and famous for so long, can you think it was easy for him, this being just like everybody else now?

Call it weakness, if you like, call it cowardice, call it pride. Call it anything you want. The grim point is, the second night after being waylaid, Step, without a word to anyone, without even saying goodbye to his beautiful princess sweetheart, disappeared, never to be seen again.

To this day, the natives, choosing to ignore the so-well-documented fact of Step-and-a-half's second maiming, say that on moonlight nights you can still see him racing across the boundless seas of niggerheads, that long leg of his working the bottom and his short the top, running smoothly as if he were on rails, carrying something in his hand, though no one has any idea what it is. Some message destined for the provinces, possibly, farmed out by Hermes, though Homer never mentions it. But much of this can be found in any ancient far-northern history book, so need be dwelt on here no longer.

*The word niggerhead used here has no racial or derogatory meaning. It has been used for 115 years as defined in Bartlett's "Dictionary of Americanisms": "The tussocks or knotted masses of the roots of sedges and ferns projecting above the wet surface of a swamp."