1.
"Lead me to de woods whah de luck trees grow,
Han' me de axe when it's time to chop.
Lead me kinda gentle,--git me started slow;
When I gits to goin', watch de luck trees drop."
While the Wildcat was doing his best to forget the cares that nominally
infested his official day as porter on the Blue Fezant special car,
sidetracked in San Francisco, Honey Tone Boone, the brunet uplifteh,
languished in the Memphis jail.
There were two sides to every jail. To the Wildcat, the loser in the
law's game generally occupied the inside. Honey Tone was different. The
inside of a jail for Honey Tone was often a place of sanctuary from
which the occupant might sneer serenely at the disappointed female
perils who gnashed their teeth outside the bars.
In San Francisco the days were warm, and Lily the mascot goat had
returned to her master's side.
The Wildcat was playing even in the matter of daily rations. Trailing
along in the wake of a pair of the golf-playing Nobles of the
Mysterious Mecca at the Lincoln Park Golf course provided a cash
surplus which enabled the Wildcat to discard his winter-weight Prince
Albert and to adorn his person with a retiring suit of clothes three
shades lighter than a sunburned pumpkin and embellished with six-inch
checks. Life wasn't so bad. Ol' railroad sleepin' car was probably
doin' all right. Reasonably sure that tomorrow would lug in new brands
of trouble to pester a boy with, the Wildcat steered his somnolent
mentality clear of the shoals of surmise and let tomorrow take care of
itself.
A boy never could tell about Lady Luck. Every time the Wildcat did
something that clearly entitled him to free board in some permanent
jail, like as not next day he would wake up all festooned with gold
watches. Take a preacher's advice and head down the straight and narrow
path, and the chances were that some deppity sherriff with a shotgun,
or else a bear, would be waiting in the path right where the heaviest
canebrakes discouraged detours.
2.
"One man's pizen is anotheh man's meat,--
Mah troubles neveh botheh you.
Hog needs wings like a snake needs feet:
De question ain't why, but who."
Honey Tone Boone's downfall had been accomplished in Memphis
immediately subsequent to a Konk'rin' Heroes' parade. There had been
some talk about the ownership of the mule which Honey Tone rode. The
line of march headed straight for Honey Tone's wife and his potential
soul mate and culminated in a ruckus from which Honey Tone emerged,
safe in the talons of a policeman. The two women, comparing notes, had
gummed up the leader's grand entry to a degree which left Honey Tone
thankful for the mule-stealing charge that had landed him safe in the
jail and out of the clutches of his wife and Cuspidora Lee. He enjoyed
sanctuary in jail for two months and then, threatened with an
embarrassing and abrupt release, he concentrated on a hurried mental
incubation. Hard pressed, he sought to hatch from the bad egg of
circumstance some new enterprise which would take him away, sudden and
safe, from where his memorizing wife awaited him.
His mind roamed wild through the fields of questionable enterprises
opened to him by a combination of easy conscience and the flashy part
of a "college" education. On the day of his release he half regretted
his education. Ignorance cursed the individual with work, but it left
him free of the higher responsibilities and the more acute penalties of
transgressions, and just then Honey Tone wished devoutly that he was a
field hand. He craved a black complexion instead of the halfway colour
that barred him from the unquestioning comradeship of white and black
alike.
On the night of his release from jail he beat the barrier, and by
morning he was well on his way to St. Louis, resolved to explore the
Pacific coast for fields wherein his peculiar abilities might enable
him to reap the harvest of cash without which life to him was naught.
En route West, Honey Tone managed to keep one state ahead of his
reputation. Thus he avoided the iron impedimenta which the laws of the
land drape around the ankles and feet that stray from the straight and
narrow trail--around wrists and hands whose idleness affords the devil
welcome opportunity to function as a labour agent.
Honey Tone's first week in Oakland found him preaching to a small
congregation. On the following Sunday he announced to his flock that
subscriptions for a church building fund would be accepted, beginning
forthwith.
"Temp'rary an' perm'nent." The announcement followed a long prayer
during which the uplifter's face wore the same holy expression as that
which adorns the first stages of a sneeze. "Rev'und" Honey Tone Boone
opened his eyes and tamed his vocabulary to the vernacular current
among his hearers. "Temp'rary an' perm'nent. Weekly refun's on all
temp'rary subscriptions, togetheh with int'res' at a hund'ed per cent.
You doubles yo' 'vestment, like de boy wid de ten talents."
The dangling bait was presently engulfed.
The subscription books were kept open throughout the week. Facilities
for subscribing were offered through agencies established in the
pastor's quarters, in two barber shops and three pool rooms.
On the following Sunday, after a service devoted largely to discussion
of temporal problems which afflict the flesh here in this vale of
tears, Honey Tone paid his subscribers their original contributions and
added an equal sum for interest at a hund'ed per cent.
The books were flooded with new subscriptions within the next fifteen
minutes. The six agencies did a rushing business all during the week.
On Friday Honey Tone counted his cash and decided that another week
could be managed. Then--exit.
After the next Sunday services, owing to an eight that looked like a
three, he was short five hundred dollars in the item of interest.
Explanations led to retreat, and Honey Tone retreated to a hotel in San
Francisco. His flight therefrom was interrupted by a delegation from a
mob which visited him on the following night. He beat the delegation
out of the lobby of the hotel because, in the emergency, his feet acted
more quickly than his head. He went away from there leading his flock.
Mentally he shipped his remains to his next of kin four times in the
next fifty yards. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the gleam of a
piece of light-coloured steel swung by a dark-coloured investor who
craved to collect his investment, plus interest, one way or another.
Honey Tone's racing legs, impelled by an acute ambition, functioned
successfully in their owner's single endeavour to lead the flying wedge
of razor-bearing blood hunters by at least two jumps more than a
slashin' reach. The fugitive turned into Mission Street; and here in
the long stretch the saddle-coloured financier saw a chance to do some
thinking. Galloping was his main business just then, but he carried a
side line of quick thoughts.
With members of his own race Honey Tone asked no greater odds in the
money game than those which served from the theory that mind was
superior to matter. But in this, too, time was the essence. Just then
he needed time. Ten minutes were worth a million dollars and lots of
other important things like health and strength and blood. Time was
that without which the best laid plans died in the egg.
For the next five blocks, running something less than a mile a minute,
the uplifter's brain functioned with the cunning which enables the
fragrant fox to overcome the handicap with which nature has equipped
him, when the hounds begin the cross country obesity cure. During this
time a plan had flowered in Honey Tone's brain whereby victory might be
snatched from what had looked like a total loss of all the blood that
would run out of where a razor had nestled.
In a shadowed area midway between two street lights Honey Tone stopped.
He stopped abruptly, like a golf ball hitting the north side of
Gibraltar. He bounced back, absorbing his momentum in a twisting motion
which left him squarely facing the oncoming pack. Now it was, or never!
When they were upon him he raised his arms.
He orated. "Hush! Git calm! Now us kin talk! Money! Cash! Rest easy!"
His voice lifted one notch higher than the undertone which welled about
him. The peak load of peril was confronted and passed, but still his
speech ranged over the bait words most potent as verbal sedatives.
"Easy money--lissen--gin--seven dice--fancy clothes--chicken an' gin
fo' one an' all soopreem members."
He discarded his college-bred dialect and adopted the vernacular of the
majority about him. "Lissen heavy! Git calm. Len' me yo' ears. Men an'
brethren, you knows me. Fo'gettin' de peril o' de tar bar'l an' de
p'cessions at night wid blazin' pitch knots an' de chokin' rope whut
folks uses when dey uprises, an' chosin' fo' ouah guide de lives ob de
ol'-time martyrs, safe an' serene in de circle ob fate cast 'roun' mah
fragile form by dis yere rabbit's foot--Ah tells you--lissen!"
The speaker waved his rabbit's foot. He beckoned at the loose fringe of
sceptics which milled on the margin of the group. "Gether together, dat
ye can hear de words ob wisdom. De prophet knowed whut he said when he
perdicted dat somebody was comin' to lead his chillun f'm darkness into
light. 'At's me! Somebody. I leads you out ob darkness into de promised
lan' whah flows de milk an' honey. In passin' lemme add dat milk is f'm
de ol' language used by de Sanskrits, meanin' gin. Honey f'm de ancient
Check-Slowfat word 'Honito.' Dat's de word fo' chicken--fried chicken,
to be mo' preciser.... Men, you is sons ob Kings f'm Africa. How come
you all redoosted to de state ob slaves? How come bird shot cain't
pester a cinnamon bear? Because yo' brains and yo' brawns is all spread
out, desiccated on triflin' things like cotton crops an' cawn, sweatin'
undeh heavy loads 'stid of rulin' at de seat of guv'ment an' dictatin'
whut's whut."
The orator dragged in another lungful of midnight fog and broke into
the stretch. "Heah's de answeh, graved on de gol' tablets an' dug up in
de midnight moon wid a luck spade. Gran' oaks f'm li'l acorns grow.
Heah in San F'mcisco wid de aid of you all we starts de new movement
towards de Canaan land. Fust off, us o'ganizes de Temple o' Luck. Den
de fust annex is de Swamick Chu'ch, based on de mystic teachin' of
Swami de Indian Budda. Nex' do' in de Temple de Soopreem Faith Healer
thrives an' collects money f'm folks whut only thinks dey's sick.
'Cross de hall is de Chief Palm Readin' Magi, predictin' pas', present,
an' future fo' a dollah. In de Temple Annex is de offices ob de
'Filiated Culled Union ob de worl'. Dis Union is mitigated into th'ee
gran' divisions--de Bullshevik, de P'litical, an' de Social. De Social
has de Ladies' Annex."
Honey Tone's eyes played steadily across his audience, horizontally,
and his voice shot straight at the ears of the assemblage, but his
imagination started up, and now it made its final flight. "Dat's all I
tells you, 'ceptin' my own humble efforts will be directed at
organizin' a New World Af'ican Colony in de free country of Barzil.
Dat's all. Fo' each an' ev'ry project us needs a Deppity Soopreem
Leadeh. Dese will be 'pointed f'm amongst you. Each Deppity Soopreem
Leadeh adorns hisself wid de gilt-edge robes ob de 'propriate
responsibility an' collects de cash. Deppity Collector fo' each Deppity
Leadeh likewise weahs de robes whut de ritual describes. Ritual
c'mmittee gits a percentage ob de receipts. Deppities gits one dollah
fo' ev'ry three whut's took in. Any income oveh twenty dollahs a day
goes to de Social an' Festive departments."
The orator pulled a little book out of his pocket. "Hopin' you elects
steady an' reliable frien's fo' de 'sponsible offices, us now opens de
'scription books fo' de Temple Fund, payin' int'rest a hund'ed per cent
ev'y week. Pussonally, I donates a hund'ed dollars to staht de ball
rollin'--"
Honey Tone knew his crowd.
"How much, brotheh? Sign yo' name. Cash. C'tificate in green an' yaller
wid de gol' seal will be conferred at de Fust Conclave ob de Soopreem
Leadehs of Departments an' de Gran' Deppities.... Gimme dat bill; I has
change, brotheh...."
Late that night, escorted by a committee a little more soopreem than
the body of the mob, Honey Tone walked back to his hotel room.
Everything was organized to a degree which had deprived the mob of
blood hunters of all of their ready cash.
On his way to the hotel the uplifter pondered the question of conduct
affecting his immediate future. "To blow or not to blow"--that was the
question. He reviewed the hills and valleys of the land of promise over
which his galloping vocal organs had hauled the hopes of his hearers.
He decided that the business of making good would involve considerable
work. The work part failed to attract him. He decided to bid the
committee a long farewell at the hotel, without their knowing it, but
his decision suffered a veto in the persistence with which the three
Soopreem Deppities stuck to their walking treasury department.
In his room Honey Tone made a final effort to side-step the escort. He
removed his coat and hung it on a chair. "Now wid de cares whut infests
de day relegated to de bosom ob de past, I lays me down an' sleeps.
Brothehs, I hopes you all enjoys de boon ob ol' lady nature's sweet
restorer, an' I sees you tomorr' at--"
"You sees us now." A heavy-set deppity grunted a verdict. "Gimme 'at
quilt, an' I makes down mah pallet on de flo'."
Without implying anything pussonal, another of the soopreem trio laid
himself down close against the door.
The uplifter knew a bear trap when he saw it. He pillowed his rangy jaw
on the comforting outlines of the lumpy treasure in the pocket of his
vest, folded beneath his head. "Talk sure is cheap," he reflected.
"Talk is cheap, but sometimes you can trade big words for big money."
A violent snore answered him, and again hope mounted to his heart, but
presently he realized that only one of his associates was sleeping.
With the sleepers changing shifts every hour or so, the long night
passed.
By dawn Honey Tone was resolved to give his schemes a run for their
money. You never could tell how a scheme might turn out; and the
colonization business sounded pretty good, even to its overstressed
inventor.