THE COMING OF GREEF KING
It was Sunday afternoon, and under the hemlocks, Rickey Snyder had
gathered her minions--a dozen children from the near-by houses with the
usual sprinkling of little blacks from the kitchens. There were parents,
of course, to whom this mingling of color and degree was a matter of
conventional prohibition, but since the advent of Rickey, in whose soul
lay a Napoleonic instinct of leadership, this was more honored in the
breach than in the observance.
"My! Ain't it scrumptious here now!" said Cozy Cabell, hanging yellow
lady-slippers over her ears. "I wish we could play here always."
"Mr. Valiant will let us," said Rickey. "I asked him."
"Oh, _he_ will," responded Cozy gloomily, "but he'll probably go and
marry somebody who'll be mean about it."
"Everybody doesn't get married," said one of the Byloe twins, with
masculine assurance. "Maybe he won't."
"Much a boy knows about it!" retorted Cozy scornfully. "Women _have_ to,
and some one of them will make him. (Greenville Female Seminary Simms,
if you slap that little nigger again, I'll slap _you_!)"
Greenie rolled over on the grass and tittered. "Miss Mattie Sue didn',"
she said. "Ah heah huh say de yuddah day et wuz er moughty good feelin'
ter go ter baid Mistis en git up Marstah!"
"Well," said Cozy, tossing her head till the flower earrings danced,
"I'm going to get married if the man hasn't got anything but a character
and a red mustache. Married women don't have to prove they could have
got a husband if they had wanted to."
"Let's play something," proposed Rosebud Meredith, on whom the
discussion palled. "Let's play King, King Katiko."
"It's Sunday!"--this from her smaller and more righteous sister. "We're
forbidden to play anything but Bible games on Sunday, and if Rosebud
does, I'll tell."
"Jay-bird tattle-tale!" sang Rosebud derisively. "Don't care if you do!"
"Well," decreed Rickey. "We'll play Sunday-school then. It would take a
saint to object to that. I'm superintendent and this stump's my desk.
All you children sit down under that tree."
They ranged themselves in two rows, the white children, in clean
Sabbath pinafores and go-to-meeting knickerbockers, in front and the
colored ones, in ginghams and cotton-prints, in the rear--the habitual
expression of a differing social station. "Oh!" shrieked Miss Cabell,
"and I'll be Mrs. Merryweather Mason and teach the infants' class."
"There isn't any infant class," said Rickey. "How could there be when
there aren't any infants? The lesson is over and I've just rung the bell
for silence. Children, this is Missionary Sunday, and I'm glad to see so
many happy faces here to-day. Cozy," she said, relenting, "you can be
the organist if you want to."
"I won't," said Cozy sullenly. "If I can't be table-cloth I won't be
dish-rag."
"All right, you needn't," retorted Rickey freezingly. "Sit up, Greenie.
People don't lie on their backs in Sunday-school."
Greenie yawned dismally, and righted herself with injured slowness.
"Ah diffuses ter 'cep' yo' insult, Rickey Snydah," she said. "Ah'd
ruthah lose mah 'ligion dan mah laz'ness. En Ah 'spises yo' 'spisable
dissisition!"
"Let us all rise," continued Rickey, unmoved, "and sing _Kingdom
Coming_." And she struck up lustily, beating time on the stump with a
stick:
"From all the dark places of earth's heathen races,
O, see how the thick shadows flee!"
and the rows of children joined in with unction, the colored contingent
coming out strong on the chorus:
"De yerf shall be full ob de wunduhful story
As watahs dat covah de sea!"
The clear voices in the quiet air startled the fluttering birds and sent
a squirrel to the tip-top of an oak, from which he looked down, flirting
his brush. They roused a man, too, who had lain in a sodden sleep under
a bush at a little distance. He was ragged and soiled and his heavy
brutal face, covered with a dark stubble of some days' growth, had an
ugly scar slanting from cheek to hair. Without getting up, he rolled
over to command a better view, and set his eyes, blinking from their
slumber, on the children.
"We will now take up the collection," said Rickey. ("You can do it,
June. Use a flat piece of bark). Remember that what we give to-day is
for the poor heathen in--in Alabama."
"That's no heathen place," objected Cozy with spirit. "My cousin lives
in Alabama."
"Well, then," acquiesced Rickey, "anywhere you like. But I reckon your
cousin wouldn't be above taking the money. For the poor heathen who have
never heard of God, or Virginia, or anything. Think of them and give
cheerfully."
The bark-slab made its rounds, receiving leaves, acorns, and an
occasional pin. Midway, however, there arose a shrill shriek from the
bearer and the collection was scattered broadcast. "Rosebud Meredith,"
said Rickey witheringly, "it would serve you right for putting that
toad in the plate if your hand would get all over warts! I'm sure I
hope it will." She rescued the fallen piece of bark and announced: "The
collection this afternoon has amounted to a hundred dollars and seven
cents. And now, children, we will skip the catechism and I will tell you
a story."
Her auditors hunched themselves nearer, a double row of attentive white
and black faces, as Rickey with a preliminary bass cough, began in a
drawling tone whose mimicry called forth giggles of ecstasy.
"There were once two little sisters, who went to Sunday-school and loved
their teacher ve-e-ery much. They were always good and attentive--_not_
like that little nigger over _there_! The one with his thumb in his
mouth! One was little Mary and the other was little Susy. They had a
mighty rich uncle who lived in Richmond, and once he came to see them
and gave them each a dollar. And they were ve-e-ery glad. It wasn't a
mean old paper dollar, all dirt and creases; nor a battered whitey
silver dollar; but it was a bright round _gold_ dollar, right out of
the mint. Little Mary and little Susy could hardly sleep that night for
thinking of what they could buy with those gold dollars.
"Early next morning they went down-town, hand in hand, to the store, and
little Susy bought a bag of goober-peas, and sticks and sticks of
striped candy, and a limber jack, and a gold ring, and a wax doll with
a silk dress on that could open and shut its eyes--"
"Huh!" said the captious Cozy. "You can't buy a wax doll for a dollar.
My littlest, littlest one cost three, and she didn't have a stitch to
her back!"
"Shut up!" said Rickey briefly. "Dolls were cheaper then." She looked at
the row of little negroes, goggle-eyed at the vision of such largess.
"What do you think little Mary did with _her_ gold dollar? She loved
dolls and candy, too, but she had heard about the poo-oo-r heathen.
There was a tear in her eye, but she took the dollar home, and next day
when she went to Sunday-school, she dropped it in the missionary-box.
"Little children, what do you reckon became of that dollar? It bought a
big satchelful of tracts for a missionary. He had been a poor man with
six children and a wife with a bone-felon on her right hand--not a child
old enough to wash dishes and all of them young enough to fall in the
fire--so he had to go and be a missionary. He was going to Alabam--to a
cannibal island, and he took the tracts and sailed away in a ship that
landed him on the shore. And when the heathen cannibals saw him they
were ve-e-ery glad, for there hadn't been any shipwrecked sailors for a
long time, and they were ve-e-ery hungry. So they tied up the missionary
and gathered a lot of wood to make a fire and cook him.
"But it had rained and rained and rained for so long that the wood was
all wet, and it wouldn't burn, and they all cried because they were so
hungry. And then they happened to find the satchelful of tracts, and the
tracts were ve-e-ery _dry_. They took them and stuck them under the wet
wood, and the tracts burned and the wood caught fire and they _cooked_
the missionary and ATE him.
"Now, little children, which do you think did the most good with her
dollar--little Susy or little Mary?"
The front row sniggered, and a sigh came from the colored ranks. "Dem
ar' can'bals," gasped a dusky infant breathlessly, "--dey done eat up
all dat candy en dem goober-peas, too?"
The inquiry was drowned in a shriek from several children in unison.
They scrambled to their feet, casting fearful glances over their
shoulders. The man who had been lying behind the bush had risen and was
coming toward them at a slouching amble, one foot dragging slightly. His
appearance, indeed, was enough to cause panic. With his savage face,
set now in a grin, and his tramp-like costume, he looked fierce and
animal-like. White and black, the children fled like startled rabbits,
older ones dragging younger, without a backward look--all save Rickey,
who stood quite still, her widening eyes fixed on him in a kind of
blanched fascinated terror.
He came close to her, never taking his eyes from hers, then put his
heavy grimy hand under her chin and turned her twitching face upward,
chuckling.
"Ain't afeahd, damn me!" he said with admiration. "Wouldn't skedaddle
with th' fine folks' white-livered young 'uns! Know who I am, don't ye?"
"Greef King." Rickey's lips rather formed than spoke the name.
"Right. An' I know you, too. Got jes' th' same look ez when ye wuzn't no
higher'n my knee. So ye ain't at th' Dome no mo', eh? Purkle an' fine
linning an' a eddication. Ho-ho! Goin' ter make ye another ladyess like
the sweet ducky-dovey that rescooed ye from th' lovin' embrace o' yer
fond step-parient, eh?"
Rickey's small arm went suddenly out and her fingers tore at his
shirt-band. "Don't you," she burst in a paroxysm of passion; "don't you
even speak her name! If you do, I'll kill you!"
So fierce was her leap that he fell back a step in sheer surprise. Then
he laughed loudly. "Why, ye little spittin' wile-cat!" he grinned.
He leaned suddenly, gripped her wrist and covering her mouth tightly
with his palm, dragged her behind a clump of dogwood bushes. A heavy
step was coming along the wood-path. He held her motionless and
breathless in this cruel grip till the pedestrian passed. It was Major
Bristow, his spruce white hat on the back of his head, his unsullied
waistcoat dappled with the leaf-shadows. He stepped out briskly toward
Damory Court, swinging his stick, all unconscious of the fierce scrutiny
bent on him from behind the dogwoods.
Greef King did not withdraw his hand till the steps had died in the
distance. When he did, he clenched his fist and shook it in the air.
"There he goes!" he said with bitter hatred. "Yer noble friend that sent
me up for six years t' break my heart on th' rock-pile! Oh, he's a
top-notcher, he is! But he's got Greef King to reckon with yit!" He
looked at her balefully and shook her.
"Look-a-yere," he said in a hissing voice. "Ye remember _me_. I'm a bad
one ter fool with. Yer maw foun' that out, I reckon. Now ye'll promise
me ye'll tell nobody who ye've seen. I'm only a tramp; d'ye hear?" He
shook her roughly.
Rickey's fingers and teeth were clenched hard and she said no word. He
shook her again viciously, the blood pouring into his scarred face. "Ye
snivelin' brat, ye!" he snarled. "I'll show yer!" He began to drag her
after him through the bushes. A few yards and they were on the brink of
the headlong ugly chasm of Lovers' Leap. She cast one desperate look
about her and shut her eyes. Catching her about the waist he leaned over
and held her out in mid-air, as if she had been a kitten. "Ye ain't seen
me, hev yer? Promise, or over ye go. Ye won't look so pretty when yere
layin' down there on them rocks!"
The child's face was paper-white and she had begun to tremble like a
leaf, but her eyes remained closed.
"One--two--" he counted deliberately.
Her eyes opened. She turned one shuddering glance below, then
her resolution broke. She clutched his arm and broke into wild
supplications. "I promise, I promise!" she cried. "Oh, don't let go!
I promise!"
He set her on the solid ground and released her, looking at her
with a sneering laugh. "Now we'll see ef ye belong here or up ter
Hell's-Half-Acre," he said. "Fine folks keeps their promises, I've
heerd tell."
Rickey looked at him a moment shaking; then she burst into a passion
of sobs and with her face averted ran from him like a deer through the
bushes.