ALAS, THE POOR WHIFFLETIT!
Over Jefferson Poindexter's usually buoyant spirits a fabric of gloom,
black, thick, and heavy, was spread like a burying-pall. His thoughts
were the color of twelve o'clock at night at the bottom of a coal-mine
and it the dark of the moon. Moroseness crowned his brow; sorrow berode
his soul, and on his under lip the bull-bat, that eccentric bird which
has to sit lengthwise of the limb, might have perched with room to
spare. You couldn't see the ointment for the flies, and Gilead had gone
out of the balm business. There was a reason. The reason was Ophelia
Stubblefield.
On an upturned watering-piggin alongside Mittie May's stall in the
stable back of the house, Jeff sat and just naturally gloomed. To this
retreat he had been harried against his will. Out of her domain, which
was the kitchen, Aunt Dilsey had driven him with words barbed and
bitter.
"Tek yo'se'f on 'way f'um yere, black boy!" Such had been her command.
"Me, I's plum distracted an' wore out jes' f'um lookin' at you settin'
'round sullin' lak a' ole possum. Ef Satan fine some labor still fur
idle hands to do, same ez de Holy Word say he do, he suttinly must be
stedyin' 'bout openin' up a branch employmint agency fur cullid only,
'specially on yore account. You ain't de Grand President of de Order of
de Folded Laigs, tho' you shorely does ack lak it. You's s'posed to be
doin' somethin' fur yore keep an' wages. H'ist yo'se'f an' move."
"I ain't doin' nothin'!" Jeff protested spiritlessly.
"Dat you ain't!" agreed Aunt Dilsey. "An' whut you better do is better
do somethin'--tha's my edvices to you. S'posin' ole boss-man came back
yere to dis kitchen an' ketch you 'cumberin' de earth de way you is. You
knows, well ez I does, w'ite folks suttinly does hate to see a strappin'
nigger settin' 'round doin' nothin'."
"Boss-man ain't yere," said Jeff. "He's up at the cote-house. Mos'
doubtless jes' about right now he's sendin' some flippy cullid woman to
the big jail fur six months fur talkin' too much 'bout whut don't
concern her."
"Is tha' so?" she countered. "Well, ef he should come back home he'll
find one of de most fragrant cases of vagromcy he ever run acrost right
yere 'pon his own household premises. Boy, is you goin' move, lak I
patiently is warned you, or ain't you? Git on out yander to de stable
an' confide yo' sorrows to de Jedge's old mare. Mebbe she mout be able
to endure you, but you p'intedly gives me de fidgits. Git--befo' I
starts findin' out ef dat flat haid of yourn fits up smooth ag'inst de
back side of a skillit."
Nervously she fingered the handle of her largest frying-pan. Jeff knew
the danger-signals. Too deeply sunken in melancholy to venture any
further retorts, he withdrew himself, seeking sanctuary in the lee of
Mittie May. He squatted upon the capsized keeler, automatically
balancing himself as it wabbled under him on its one projecting handle,
and, with his eyes fixed on nothing, gave himself over unreservedly to a
consuming canker. For all that unhappiness calked his ears as with
pledgets of cotton wool, there presently percolated to his aloof
understanding the consciousness that somebody was speaking on the other
side of the high board fence which marked the dividing line between
Judge Priest's place and the Enders' place next door. Listlessly he
identified the voice as the property of the young gentleman from up
North who was staying with his kinsfolk, the Enders family. This was a
gentleman already deeply admired by Jeff at long distance for the
sprightliness of his wardrobe and for his gay and gallus ways. Against
his will--for he craved to be quite alone with his griefs and no
distracting influences creeping in--Jeff listened. Listening, he heard
language of such splendor as literally to force him to rise up and
approach the fence and apply his eye to a convenient cranny between two
whitewashed boards.
Under an Injun-cigar tree which grew in the Enders' back yard the
fascinating visitor out of Northern parts was stretched in a hammock,
between draws on a cigarette discoursing grandiloquently to a
half-incredulous but wholly delighted audience of three. His three small
nephews were hunkered on the earth beside him, their grinning faces
upturned to his the while he dealt first with this and then with that
variety of curious fauna which, he alleged, were to be encountered in
the wilds of a strange place called the State of Rhode Island, where, it
seemed, he had spent the greater part of an adventurous and crowded
youth.
"Well," he was saying now, beginning, as it were, a new chapter, "if you
think the sulfur-crested parabola is a funny bird you should hear about
the great flannel-throated golosh, or arctic bird of the polar seas,
which is a creature so rare that nobody ever saw one, although Dr. Cook,
the imminent ex-explorer, made an exhaustive study of its habits and
peculiarities and told the King of Denmark about them, afterward
amplifying his remarks on the subject in the lecture which he delivered
in this, his native land, under the auspices of the International
School of Poor Fish. By the way, I'm sure the Doctor must have visited
this town on his tour. Only yesterday, I think it was, I saw an
illuminated sign down on Franklin Street which surely was used
originally to advertise his lecture. It was a sign which said, 'Cook
With Gas!' But speaking of fish, I am reminded of the fur-bearing
whiffletit; only some authorities say the whiffletit is not a fish at
all, but a subspecies of the wampus family. Now, the wampus--"
"Say, tell us about the whiffletit next," begged one wriggling
youngster, plainly allured by the sound of the name.
"With pleasure," said the speaker. "The whiffletit is found only in
streams running in a south-northerly direction. This is because the
whiffletit, being a sensitive creature with poor vision, insists on
having the light falling over its left shoulder at all times. A creek,
river, inlet, or estuary which has a wide mouth and a narrow head, such
as a professional after-dinner speaker has, is a favorite haunt for the
whiffletit. To the naturalist it is a constant source of joy. It always
swims backward upstream, to keep the water out of its eyes, and it has
only one fin, which grows just under its chin, so that the whiffletit
can fan itself in warm weather, thus keeping cool, calm, and collected.
Most marvelous thing of all about this marvelous creature is its diet.
For the whiffletit, my dear young friends, lives exclusively on imported
Brie cheese.
"Did I say exclusively? Ah, there I fell into error. It has been known
to nibble at a chiropodist's finger, but it prefers imported Brie
cheese, aged in the wood. The mode employed in catching it is very
interesting, and I shall now describe it to you. Selecting a body of
water wherein the whiffletit resides, you enter a round-bottomed boat
and row out to the middle of it. Then you take a square timber, and,
driving it into the water, withdraw it very swiftly so as to leave a
square hole in the water. Care should be taken to use a perfectly square
timber because the whiffletit being, as I forgot to tell you, shaped
like a brick, cannot move up and down a round hole without barking its
shins, much to the discomfort of the pretty creature.
"Pray follow me closely now, for at this juncture we come to the most
important phase of the undertaking. You bait the edges of the hole with
the cheese cut in small cubes and quietly await results. Nor do you have
long to wait. Far down below in his watery retreat the whiffletit
catches the alluring aroma of the cheese. He swims to the surface and
devours it to the last crumb. But alas for the greedy whiffletit!
Instantly the cheese swells him up so that he cannot change gears nor
retreat back down the hole, and as he circles about, flapping
helplessly, you lean over the side of the boat and laugh him to death!
And such, my young friends, such is the fate of the whiffletit."
"'Scuse me, suh."
The amateur aspirant for the robe of Munchausen paused from lighting a
fresh cigarette and lifted his eyes, and was aware of an
anthracite-colored face risen, like some new kind of crayoned full moon,
above the white skyline of the side fence.
"'Scuse me, suh, fur interruptin'," repeated the voice belonging to the
apparition, "but I couldn't he'p frum overhearin' whut you wuz tellin'
the boys yere. An' I got sort of interested myse'f."
"It's Judge Priest's Jeff, Uncle Dwight," explained the oldest nephew.
"Jeff makes us fluttermills out of corn-stalks, and he learned
us--taught us, I mean--to call a brickbat an alley-apple, and he can
make his ears wiggle just like a rabbit and everything. Don't you,
Jeff?--I mean, can't you, Jeff?"
"Ah, I see," said the fabulist with a wink aside for Jeff's benefit. "I
am indeed delighted to make the acquaintance of one thus gifted, even
under the present informal circumstances. In what way, if any, may I be
of service to you, Judge Priest's Jeff?"
"That air thing you named the whiffletit--near ez I made out you said,
boss, that fust you tolled him up to whar you wanted him wid cheese an'
'en you jest natchelly laffed him to death?"
"Such are the correct facts accurately repeated, Judge Priest's Jeff,"
gravely assented this affable faunalist.
"Yas, suh," said Jeff. "D'ye s'pose now, boss, it would he'p any ef
they wuz a whole passel of folks to do the laffin' 'stid of jes' one?"
"Beyond the peradventure of a doubt. Concerted action on the part of
many, guffawing merrily in chorus, assuredly would hasten the death of
the ill-starred victim, if you get what I mean, Judge Priest's most
estimable Jeff?"
"Yas, suh," said Jeff. "Thanky, suh." He did not exactly smile his
thanks, but the mask of his melancholy crinkled round the edges and
raised slightly. One who knew Jeff, and more particularly one who had
been cognizant of his depressed state during the past fortnight, would
have said that a heartening thought suddenly had come to him, lightening
and lifting in ever so small a degree the funereal mantlings. He made as
though to withdraw from sight. A gesture from the visiting naturalist
detained him.
"One moment," said Uncle Dwight. "Might I, a comparative stranger, be
pardoned for inquiring into the motives underlying the interest you have
evinced in my perhaps poorly expressed but veracious narration?"
The wraith of Jeff's grin took on flesh visibly. It was a pleasure--even
to one beset by grievous perplexities--it was a pleasure to hear such
noble big words fall thus trippingly from human lips. His answer, tho,
was in a measure evasive, not to say cryptic.
"I wuz jes' stedyin', tha's all, suh," he fenced. He ducked from view,
then bobbed his head up again.
"'Scuse me, suh, but they is one mo' thing I craves to ast you."
"Proceed, I pray you. Our aim is to please and instruct."
"Well, suh, I jes' wanted to ast you ef you ever run acrost one of these
yere whiffletits w'ich played on the jazzin'-valve?"
"Prithee?"
"Naw, suh, not the prith--prith--whut you jes' said. I mentioned the
jazzin'-valve--whut some folks calls the saxophone. D'ye reckin they
mout' 'a' been a whiffletit onct 'at played on one?"
"Oh, the saxophone! Well, as to that I could not with certainty speak.
But, mark you, the whiffletit is a creature of infinite
resources--versatile, abounding in quaint conceits and whimsies, and,
having withal a wide repertoire. Sometimes its repertoire is twice as
wide as it is, thus producing a peculiar effect when the whiffletit is
viewed from behind. On second thought, I have no doubt that in the
privacy of its subterranean fireside the whiffletit wiles away the
tedium of the long winter evenings by playing on the saxophone."
"Come on over, Jeff, and Uncle Dwight will tell us some more," urged the
hospitable oldest nephew.
But Jeff had vanished. He wished to be alone for the working out of a
project as yet vague and formless, but having a most definite object to
be attained. Stimulated by hope new-born, he was now a sort of twelfth
carbon-copy of the regular Jeff--faint, perhaps, and blurry, but
recognizable. Through the clouds which encompassed him the faint promise
of a rift was apparent.
By rights one would have said that Jeff had no excuse for hiding in a
shadowed hinterland at all. The world might have been excused for its
failure to plumb the underlying causes which roiled the waters of his
soul. Seemingly the currents of life ran for him in agreeable channels.
He had an indulgent employer whose clothes fitted Jeff. Indeed,
anybody's clothes fitted Jeff. He had one of those figures which seem to
give and take. He was well nourished, gifted conversationally, of a
nimble wit, resourceful, apt. Moreover, home-grown watermelons were
ripe. The Eighth of August, celebrated in these parts by the race as
Emancipation Day, impended. The big revival--the biggest and most
tremendously successful revival in his people's local history--was in
full swing at the Twelfth Ward tabernacle, affording thrill and
entertainment every week-night and thrice on Sundays.
There never had been such a revival; probably there never would be
another such. Justifiably, the pastor of Emmanuel Chapel took credit to
himself that he had planted the seed which at this present time so
gloriously yielded harvest. Theretofore his chief claim to public
attention had rested upon the sound of the name he wore. He had been
born a Shine and christened a Rufus. But to him the name of Rufus Shine
had seemed lacking in impressiveness and euphony for use by one about
entering the ministry. Thanks to the ingenuity of a white friend who was
addicted to puns and plays upon words, the defect had been cured. As the
Rev. A. Risen Shine he bore a name which fitted its bearer and its
bearer's calling--at once it was a slogan and a testimony, a trade-mark
and a watch-cry.
Proudly now he walked the earth, broadcasting the favor of his smile on
every side. For it had been he who divined that the times were ripe for
the importation of that greatest of all exhorting evangelists of his
denomination, the famous Sin Killer Wickliffe, of Nashville, Tenn. His
had been the zeal which inspired the congregation to form committees on
ways and means, on place and time, on finance; his, mainly, the energy
behind the campaign for subscriptions which filled the war-chest. As
resident pastor, chief promotor, and general manager of the project, he
had headed the delegation which personally waited upon the great man at
his home and extended the invitation. Almost immediately, upon learning
that the amount of his customary guaranty already had been raised and
deposited in bank, the Rev. Wickliffe felt that he had a call to come
and labor, and he obeyed it. He brought with him his entire
organization--his private secretary, his treasurer, his musical
director. For, mind you, the Sin Killer had borrowed a page from the
book of certain distinguished revivalists of a paler skin-pigmentation
than his. As the saying goes among the sinful, he saw his Caucasian
brethren and went them one better. His musical director was not only an
instrumentalist but a composer as well. He adapted, he wrote, he
originated, he improvised, he interpolated, he orchestrated, he played.
As one inspired, this genius played the saxophone.
Now, in the world at large the saxophone has its friends and its foes.
Its detractors agree that the late Emperor Nero was a maligned man;
cruel, perhaps, in some of his aspects, but not so cruel as has been
made out in the case against him. It was a fiddle he played while Rome
burned--it might have been a saxophone. But to the melody-loving heart
of the black race in our land the mooing tones of this long-waisted,
dark-complected horn carry messages as of great joy. It had remained,
though, for the resourceful Rev. Wickliffe to prove that it might be
made to fill a nobler and a higher destiny than setting the feet of the
young men to dancing and the daughters to treading the syncopated
pathways of the ungodly. Discerning this by a sort of higher intuition,
he had thrown himself into the undertaking of luring the most expert
saxophone performer of his acquaintance away from the flaunting tents of
the transgressor and herding him into the fold of the safely regenerate.
He succeeded. He saved Cephus Fringe, plucking him up as a brand from
the burning, to remold him into a living torch fitted to light the way
for others.
Of Cephus it might be said, paraphrasing the lines about little dog
Rover, that when he was saved he was saved all over. Being redeemed, he
straightway disbanded his orchestra. He tore up his calling-card
reading,
+-----------------------------------------+
| PROFESSOR CEPHUS FRINGE ESQUIRE |
| THE ANGLO-SAXOPHONE KING |
| Address: Care Champey's Barber-Shop |
|SOLE PROPRIETOR FRINGE'S ALL-STAR TROUPE |
+-----------------------------------------+
He enlisted under the militant banners and on the personal staff of the
Sin Killer. Amply then was the prior design of his new commander
justified. For if it was the eloquence, the magnetism, the compelling
force of the revivalist which brought the penitents shouting down the
tan-bark trail to the mourner's bench, it was the harmonious croonings
of Prof. Fringe as he conducted the introductory program--now rendering
as a solo his celebrated original composition, "The Satan Blues," now
leading the special choir--which psychologically paved the way for the
greater scene to follow after. There was distress in the devil's
glebe-lands when this pair struck their proper stride--first the
Fringian outpourings harmoniously exalting the spirits of the assemblage
and then the exhorters tying his hands to the Gospel plow and driving
down into the populous valleys of sin, there to furrow and harrow, to
sow and tend, to garner and glean.
The team had struck its stride early at the protracted meeting so
competently fostered by the resident pastor of Emmanuel Chapel, the Rev.
A. Risen Shine. To himself, as already stated, the latter took prideful
credit for results achieved and results promised. Well he might. Already
hundreds of converts had come halleluiahing through; hundreds more
teetered and swayed, back and forth, between doubt and conviction, ready
at a touch to fall like the ripe and sickled grain in the lap of the
husbandman. Wavering brethren had been fortified and were made stalwart
again. Confirmed backsliders rubbed their wayward feet in the resin of
faith and were boosted up the treacherous skids of their temptation and
over the citadel walls to bask among the chosen in a Jericho City of
repentance. Proselytes from other and hostile creeds trooped over with
hosannas and loud outcries of rejoicing. Even the place where, each
evening, the triumph of the preceding evening was repeated and amplified
seemed appropriate for such scenes. For the Twelfth Ward tabernacle had
not always been a tabernacle; it had been a tobacco-warehouse--but it
was converted. And its present chief ornament, next only to the Sin
Killer himself--indeed, its chiefest ornament of all in the estimation
of impressionable younger unmarried female members--was Prof. Cephus
Fringe.
At thought of him and of this, Jeff Poindexter, reperched on his wabbly
piggin, wove his furrowed brow into a closer and more intricate pattern
of cordial dislike. For if the main reason of his unhappiness was
Ophelia Stubblefield, the secondary reason and principal contributory
cause was this same Cephus Fringe. Ophelia's favorite letter may not
have been F, but it should have been. She was fair, fickle, fawn-toned,
flirty, flighty, and frequently false. Jeff cast back in his mind. He
certainly had had his troubles since he became permanently engaged to
Ophelia. For instance, there had been her affair with that ferocious
razor-wielder Smooth Crumbaugh. In this matter the fortuitous return
from the dead of Red Hoss Shackleford, as skilfully engineered by Jeff,
had broken up Red Hoss's own memorial services, had also operated to
scare Smooth Crumbaugh clean out of Colored Odd Fellows' Hall and leave
the fainting Ophelia in the rescuing arms of Jeff. But there had been
half a dozen other affairs, each of such intensity as temporarily to
undermine Jeff's peace of mind. Between spells of infatuations for
attractive strangers, she accepted Jeff's devotions. The trouble was,
though, that life, with Ophelia, seemed to be just one infatuation after
another. And now, to cap all, she had suffered herself, nay, offered
herself, to fall thrall to the dashing personality and the varied
accomplishments of this Fringe person. It was this entanglement which
for two weeks past had made Jeff, her official 'tween-times fiance, a
prey to carking cares and dark forebodings.
Hourly and daily the situation, from Jeff's point of view, had grown
more desperate as Ophelia's passion for the fascinating sojourner grew.
He had even lost his relish for victuals which, with Jeff, was indeed a
serious sign. In long periods of self-imposed solitude he had devised
and discarded as hopeless various schemes for bringing discomfiture upon
his latest and most dangerous rival. For a while he had thought somehow,
somewhere, to rake up proofs of the interloper's former wild and
reckless life. But of what avail to do that?
By his own frank avowal the Professor had had a spangled past; had been
an adventurer and a wanton, a wandering minstrel bard; had even been in
jail. This background of admitted transgressions, now that he was so
completely reformed and reclaimed, merely made him an all-the-more
attractive figure in the eyes of those to whom he offered confession.
Again, Jeff had trifled with a vague design of taunting Fringe into a
quarrel and beating him up something scandalous. To this end he
tentatively had approached our leading exponent of the art of
self-defense and our most dependable sporting authority, one Mr. Jerry
Ditto.
Mr. Ditto had grown out of a clerkship at Gus Neihiem's cigar-store into
the realm of fistiana. As a shadow-boxer he excelled; as a bag-puncher
also. But in an incautious hour for himself and his backer, Flash Purdy,
owner of Purdy's Dixieland Bar, he had permitted himself to be entered
for a match before an athletic club at Louisville against one Max
Schorrer, a welter-weight appearing professionally under the _nom de
puge_ of Slugging Fogarty. It was to have been a match of twelve rounds,
but early in the second round Mr. Ditto suddenly lost all conscious
interest in the proceedings.
He retired from the ring after this with a permanent lump on the point
of his jaw and a profound conviction that the Lord had made a mistake
and drowned the wrong crowd that time at the Red Sea. He fitted up a
gymnasium in the old plow factory and gave instructions in sparring to
the youth of the town. Naturally, his patronage was all-white, but he
offered to take Jeff on for a few strictly private lessons at night
provided Jeff would promise not to tell anybody about it. But at last
the prospective client drew back. His ways were the ways of peace and
diplomacy. Why depart from them? And, anyhow, this Cephus Fringe was so
dog-goned sinewy-looking. Playing a saxophone ought to give a man wind
and endurance. If not knocked cold in the first onslaught he might
become seriously antagonized toward Jeff.
But now, in the sportive fablings of the young white gentleman from up
North who was visiting the Enders family, he had found a clue to what he
sought. The difficult point, though, was to evolve the plan for the plot
nebulously floating about in his brain; for while he envisaged the
delectable outcome, the scheme of procedure was as yet entirely without
form and substance. It was as though he looked through a tunnel under a
hill. At the far end he beheld the sunlight, but all this side of it was
utter darkness. Seeking to pluck inspiration out of the air, his roving
eye fell upon the dappled rump of Mittie May as she stood in her stall
placidly munching provender, and with that, _bang_! inspiration hit him
spang between the eyes.
To look on her, ruminative, ewe-like, fringed of fetlock and deliberate
in her customary amblings, you would never have reckoned Mittie May to
be a mare with a past. But such was the case. Her youth had been spent
in travel over the continent with a tented caravan; in short, a circus.
Her broad flat top-side, her dependable gait, her amiable disposition,
her color--white with darkish half-moons on shoulder and flank--all
these admirably had fitted her for the ring. When, long years before,
Hooper's wagon-shows came to grief in our town Mittie May had been
seized by Farrell Brothers to satisfy an unpaid hay-bill.
Through her sobering maturer years she had passed from one set of hands
to another, until finally, in her declining days, she found asylum in
the affectionate ownership of Judge Priest, with Jeff to curry her fat
sides and no more arduous labor to perform than occasionally to draw the
Judge about from place to place in his ancient shovel-topped buggy.
About her now there was naught to suggest the prancing rozin-back she
once had been; the very look of her eye conjured up images of simple
pastoral scenes--green meadows and purling brooks.
But let a certain signal be sounded and on top of that let a certain air
be played and Mittie May, instantly losing that air she had of a
venerable and dignified sheep, became a Mittie May transformed; a Mittie
May reverted to another and more feverish time; a Mittie May stirred by
olden memories to nightmarish performances. By chance once Jeff had
happened upon her secret, and now, all in one illuminating flash,
recalling the conditions governing this discovery, he gave vent to a low
anticipatory chuckle. It was the first chuckle he had uttered in a
fortnight, and this one was edged with a sinister portent. He had his
idea now. He had at hand the agency for bringing the scheme to fruition.
But yet there remained much of preliminary detail to be worked out. His
plan still was like a fine-toothed comb which has seen hard usage in a
wiry thatch--there were wide gaps between its prongs.
Jeff gave himself over to sustained thought. He made calculations
calendar-wise. This was the first day of August; the eighth, therefore,
was but seven short days removed. This plot of his seemed to resemble a
number of things. It was like a piece of pottery, too. First the plastic
clay must be assembled, then the vessel itself turned from it; finally
the completed product must be given time to harden before it would be
ready for use. He must move fast but warily.
To begin with, now, he must create a setting of plausibility for the
role he meant, in certain quarters, to essay; must dress the character,
as it were, in its correct housings and provide just the right touches
of local color. Ready at hand was Aunt Dilsey; he would make her,
unwittingly so far as she kenned, a supporting member of the cast. She
would never know it, but she would play an accessory part, small but
important, in his prologue.
Five minutes later she lifted her eyebrows in surprise. As he reinserted
himself halfway across the portals of the realm where she queened it his
recent moroseness was quite gone from him. About him now was the
suggestion, subtly conveyed, that here stood one who, after profound
cogitation, had found out what ailed him and, by the finding out, was
filled with a gentle, chastened satisfaction. He seated himself on the
kitchen door-step, facing outward so that comparative safety might be
attained with a single flying leap did her uncertain temper, flaring up
suddenly, lead her to acts of hostility before he succeeded in winning
her over. He uttered a long-drawn sigh, then sat a minute in silence. In
silence, too--a suspicious, menacing silence--she glared at him.
"Aunt Dilsey," he ventured, speaking over his shoulder, with his face
averted from her, "mebbe you been noticin' yere lately I seemed kind of
downcasted an' shiftless, lak ez ef I had a mood on me?"
"Has I noticed it?" she repeated--"huh!" The punctuating grunt was
non-committal. It might mean nothing; it might mean anything.
He cleared his throat and went on,
"An', mebbe--I ain't sayin' you actually is; I's sayin' it with a
mebbe--mebbe you been marvelin' in yore mind whut it wuz w'ich pestered
me an' made me ack so kind of no-'count?"
"I ain't needin' to marvel," she stated coldly. "I knows. Laziness! Jes'
pyure summer-time nigger laziness, wid a rich streak of meanness th'owed
in."
"Nome, you is wrong," he corrected her gently. "You is wrong there.
'Ca'se likewise an' furthermo' I also is been off my feed--ain't that a
sign to you?"
"Sign of a tapeworm, I 'spects."
"Don't say that, please, Ma'am," he humbly pleaded. "You speakin' in
sich a way meks me 'most discouraged to confide in you whut I aims to
confide in you. I'm tellin' it to you the fust one, too. 'Tain't nary
'nother soul heared it. Aunt Dilsey, I's grateful to you in my heart,
honest I is, fur runnin' me 'way frum yore presence yere jes' a little
w'ile ago. You never knowed it at the time--I didn't s'picion it also
neither--but you done me a favor. 'Ca'se settin' out yonder in the
stable all alone and ponderin' deep, all of a sudden somethin' jes' come
right over me an' I knowed whut's been the matter wid me lately. Aunt
Dilsey, I's felt the quickenin' tech."
"Better fur you ef somebody made you feel de quickenin' buggy-whup."
He disregarded the brutal suggestion.
"Yessum, I's felt the quickenin' tech. Ez you doubtless full well knows,
I ain't been 'tendin' much 'pon the big revival. But even so--even an'
evermo' so--the influence frum it done stretch fo'th its hand an' reach
me. I ain't sayin' I's plum won over yit, but 'way down deep insides of
me I's stirred--yessum, tha's the word--stirred. I ain't sayin' the
spirit of grace is actually th'owed me, but I feel prone to say I thinks
it's fixin' to rassle wid me. I ain't sayin' I stands convicted, but I
aims to be a searcher fur the truth; I aims to stop, look, an' lissen. I
ain't sayin'--" He broke off, the floods of his imagery dammed by the
skeptical eye which swept him; then made a lame conclusion, "Tha's whut
I sez, Ma'am, to you in strict confidences."
"Den lemme say somethin' to you. You figgers it's salvation you needs,
huh? I figgers it's vermifuge. Oh, I knows you, boy--I knows you f'um de
grass-roots up. Still an' wid all dat, ef you should crave to mend yo'
ways--an' de Heavens above knows dey kin stand a heap of mendin'!--I
ain't gwine be de one to hender you."
Against her better judgment her tone was softening. For she gave her
allegiance unrestrainedly to the doctrine preached at Emmanuel Chapel.
She was one of its stanch pillows. Indeed, it might be said of her that
she was one of its plumpest bolsters; and Jeff, although admittedly of
no religious persuasion, had grown up in the shadow of a differing
creed. The winning over of the black ram of another fold would be a
greater victory than the reclamation of any wandering sheep who had been
reared as a true believer.
"Well, boy," she went on, in this new mood, "let us hope an' pray dat in
yore case dey's yit hope. De ways of de Almighty is pas' findin' out.
Fur do not de Scriptures say dey's room fur both man an' beast?--de maid
servant an' de man servant, de ox an' de ass, dey all may enter in? So
dey mout be a skimsy, bare chanct fur sech even ez you is. One thing
shore--ef dey's ary grain of contritefulness in yore soul, trust de Sin
Killer to fetch it fo'th to de light of day. He's de ole fambly doctor
w'en it come to dat kind of sickness. You go to dat tabernickle to-night
an' you keep on goin' an' le's see whut come to pass.... Jeffy, dey's a
little mossil of cold peach cobbler lef over f'um dinner yistiddy
settin' up yonder amongst de shelfs of my cu'board!"
"Nome, thank you," said Jeff. "The emotions w'ich is in me seems lak
they ain't left me no room fur nothin' else. Seems lak I can't git my
mind on vittles yit. But I shore aims to be at the tabernickle to-night,
Aunt Dilsey--I means, Sist' Dilsey. You jes' watch me. Tha's all I asts
of you now--jes' watch me!"
Head down and shoulders hunched, in the manner of one harkening to inner
voices, Jeff betook himself around the corner of the back porch. Once
out of her sight, though, he flung from him his mien of absorption. The
overture had been rendered; there remained much to be done before the
curtain rose. The languorous shade invited one to tarry and rest, but
Jeff breasted the sunshine, going hither and yon upon his errands. Back
of a cabin on Plunket's Hill he had private conference with one Gumbo
Rollins, by profession a carnival concessionaire and purveyor of
amusements in a small way. No cash actually changed hands, but on Jeff's
part there was a promise of moneys to be paid in the event of certain
as-yet-problematical contingencies.
Next he sought for and, at the Bleeding Heart restaurant, found a limber
individual named Tecumseh Sherman Glass, called Cump for short. This
Tecumseh Sherman Glass was a person of two trades and one outstanding
trait. By day a short-order cook, by night he played in 'Gustus
Hillman's Colored String Band. It is to be marked down in the reader's
memory that the instrument he played was the saxophone; also that he was
heavily impregnated with that form of professional jealousy which lurks
in the souls of so many _artistes_; likewise that he was a member in
fair standing of the Rev. A. Risen Shine's congregation, and, finally,
that he was a born meddler in other folks' affairs. These facts all
should be borne in mind; they have their value.
With Tecumseh Sherman Glass, Jeff spent some time in a confidential
exchange of words. Here, again, the matter of a subsequent financial
reward, to be paid by the party of the first part, meaning Jeff, to the
party of the second part, meaning Cump, following the satisfactory
outcome of sundry developments, was arranged. Would there were space to
tell how cunningly, how craftily Jeff, in the subtleties marking this
interview, played upon three chords in the other's being--the chord of
vengeful envy, the chord of malice, the chord of avarice. There is not
space.
Four o'clock found the plotter entering the parlor of what once had
been the establishment of T. Marshall, undertaker, now the Elite Colored
Funeral Home, Marshall & Kivil, proprietors. These transformations had
dated from the time Percy C. Kivil (Tuskegee '18) entered the firm. Here
was no plain undertaker. Here was an expert and a graduate mortician,
with diploma to prove it; also one gifted of the pen. Two inscriptions
done in flowing type hung on the wall. One of these inscriptions read:
Oh, Death, where is thy sting
When we officiates?
Embalming done attentively
At standard pre-war rates.
And the other:
Blest be the tie that binds!
Tho death thy form may shake.
Call in a brother of thy race
And let him undertake!
At a desk between these two decorative objects and half shadowed by the
bright-green fronds of a large artificial palm, sat AEsop Loving,
son-in-law of the senior partner. From his parent-by-marriage AEsop had
borrowed desk-room for the carrying on of the multitudinous business
relating to the general management of one of the celebrations projected
in honor, and on account of, the Eighth of August. He might appear to be
absorbed in important details, as he now did. But inside of him he was
not happy and Jeff knew the reasons; the reasons were common rumor.
This year there was to be more than one celebration; there were to be
two; and the opposition, organizing secretly and stealing a march on
that usually wide-awake person, AEsop, had rented Belt Line Park, thus
forcing AEsop's crowd to make a poor second choice of the old
show-grounds, a treeless common away out near the end of Tennessee
Street. On top of this and in an unexpected quarter, even more
formidable competition was foreshadowed. A scant eighth of a mile
distant from the show-lot and on the same thoroughfare stood the Twelfth
Ward tabernacle, and here services would be held both afternoon and
evening of the Eighth. The Rev. Wickliffe had so announced, and the Rev.
Shine had backed him in the decision.
It was inevitable, with this surpassing magnet of popular interest so
near at hand, that for every truant convert who might halt to taste of
the pleasures provided by AEsop Loving and his associate promoters, half
a dozen possible patrons would pass on by and beyond, drawn away by the
compelling power of the Sin Killer's eloquence. Representations had been
made to the revivalist that, with propriety, he might suspend his
ministry for the great day. His answer was the declaration that on the
Eighth he would preach not merely once, but twice.
By him and his there would be no temporizing with the powers of evil,
however insidiously cloaked. Would not dancing be included in the
entertainments planned by these self-seeking laymen who now approached
him? Would not there be idle sports and vain pastimes calculated to
entice the hearts of the populace away from consideration of the welfare
of their own souls? Admittedly there would be drinking of soft drinks.
And into the advertised softness some hardness assuredly would slip. You
could not fool the Sin Killer. Having taken a firm stand, his rectitude
presently moved him to further steps. On his behalf it was stated that
he, personally, would lead the elect in triumphant procession out
Tennessee Street to the tabernacle between the afternoon preaching and
the evening. As an army with banners, the saved, the sober, and the
seeking would march past, thus attesting their fealty to the cause which
moved them. He defied all earthly forces to lure a single one from the
ranks.
And, after the preaching, under his auspices, there would be a mighty
cutting of watermelons for those deemed to be qualified to participate
therein. By the strict tenets of the Rev. Wickliffe's theology it seemed
that watermelons were almost the only luscious things of this carnal
world not held to be potentially or openly sinful. Small wonder then
that Jeff, jauntily entering the Elite Funeral Home, read traces of an
ill-concealed distress writ plain upon the face of AEsop Loving.
"Well, Brother Lovin', you shore does look lak you'd hung yore harp
'pon the willer-tree an' wuz fixin' to tek in sorrow fur a livin'," he
said in greeting. "Cheer yo'se'f up; 'tain't nothin' so worse but whut
it mout be worser."
"Easy fur you to say so, Brother Poindexter; harder fur me to do so,"
stated AEsop. "Gallivantin' 'round the way you is, you ain't got no idea
of the aggervations w'ich keeps comin' up in connection wid an occasion
sech ez this one, an' mo' 'specially the aggervations w'ich pussonally
afflicts the director-general of the same, w'ich I is him."
"I been hearin' somethings myse'f," said Jeff. "Word is come to me, fur
one thing, that this yere smart-ellicky gang out at the Belt Line Park
is aimin' to try to cut some of the groun' frum under yore feet. I
regrets to hear it."
"'Tain't them so much," said AEsop. "We couldn't 'spect to go 'long
havin' a nomopoly furever. Sooner or late they wuz bound to be
opposition arisin' up. 'Tain't them so much, although I will say it wuz
a low-flung trick to tek an' rent that park right out frum under our
noses 'thout givin' us no warnin' so's we mout go an' rent it fu'st. No,
hit's the action of that Emmanuel Chapel bunch w'ich gives me the mos'
deepest concern. Seems lak ev'ry time that Rev'n' Sin Killer open his
mouth I kin feel cold cash crawlin' right out of my pocket. Mind you,
Brother Poindexter, I ain't got a word to say ag'in religion. I's strong
fur it on Sundays, ez you well knows, but dog-gone religion w'en it
come interferin' wid a pusson's chanct to pick up a little spare change
fur hisse'f on a week-day!"
"Spoke lak a true business man, Brother Lovin'," said Jeff. "Still, I
reckin you's mebbe countin' the spoilt eggs 'fore they's all laid. The
way I sees it, you'll do fairly well, nevertheless an' to the contrary
notwithstandin'. Le's see. Ain't you goin' to have the dancin'-pavilion
goin' all day?"
"Yas, but--"
"Ain't you goin' to have money rollin' in frum all the snack-stands an'
frum the fried-fish privilege an' frum the cane rackits an' frum the
knock-the-babies-down an' all?"
"Tubby shore, but--"
"Ain't you due to pick up a right smart frum the kitty of the private
crap game an' the chuck-a-luck layout?"
"Natchelly. But--"
"Hole on; I ain't th'ough yit. Seems lak to me you ain't properly
counted up yore blessin's a-tall. Ain't the near-beer--" he sank his
voice discreetly, although there was no one to overhear "ain't the
near-beer an' the _still nearer_ beer goin' fetch you in a right peart
lil' income? I'll say they is. An' ain't you goin' do mighty well on
yore own account out of yore share of the commission frum Gumbo
Rollinses' Flyin' Jinny?"
"Hole on, hole on! How come Gumbo Rollins?"
"W'y tha's all fixed," stated Jeff. "Gumbo he'll be out there 'fore
sunup on the 'p'inted day wid his ole Flyin' Jinny an' his ole
grind-organ an'--"
"Tain't nothin' fixed," demurred the astonished and indignant AEsop.
"'Tain't nothin' fixed 'thout I fixes it. Ain't I had pestermints 'nuff
las' yeah settlin' up, or tryin' to, wid that Rollins? Ain't I told him
then that never ag'in would I--"
"Oh, tha's settled," announced Jeff soothingly.
"Who settled it?"
"Me."
"You?"
"Yas, me--out of pyure frien'ship fur you. Lissen, Brother Lovin', an'
give due heed. I comes to you d'rect frum Gumbo Rollins. He's done seen
the error of the way he acked tow'ds you that time. He's cravin' that
all the grudges of the bygone past shall be disremembered. Here's whut
he's goin' to do: He's goin' give yore organization the reg'lar cut, an'
'pon top of that he's goin' hand you, pussonally an' private, a special
extra five pur cent, on all he teks in; that comes ez a free-will
offerin' to you. He's goin' 'bandon his plan to run ez a independint
attraction on the Eighth down back of the market-house. He's goin' be
wid you heart an' soul an' Flyin' Jinny. All he asts, through me, is
that he kin have the right to set her up on the purtic'lar spot w'ich
he's got in mind out there on them show-ground lots. An' finally an'
furthermo' he's done commission me to hand you ten dollars, unbeknownst
to anybody, jes' to prove to you that his heart's in the right place an'
that he's wishful fur to do the square thing." He felt in his pockets,
producing a crumpled bill. "An' here 'tis!"
AEsop pouched the currency on the flank where he carried his personal
funds before his commercial instinct inspired him to seek out the
motives actuating the volunteer peacemaker. Experience had taught him to
beware of Greeks bearing gifts--not of the gifts particularly, but of
the Greeks.
"Well," he said, "ef Gumbo Rollins aims to be honest an' open an'
abovebode wid us, w'y that puts a diff'unt face on it. But so fur ez I
heared tell, you an' Gumbo Rollins ain't been so thick ez all this up
till now. I's wonderin' whut does you 'spect to git out of the little
transaction fur yo'se'f? 'Ca'se I gives you warnin' right yere an' now
that ef you's hopin' to git a split out of me you mout jes' ez well stop
dreamin' ary sech a delusion an' become undelirious ag'in."
"Stop, Brother Lovin'," broke in Jeff in the tone of one aggrieved at
being unjustly accused. "Has I asted you fur anything? Then wait till I
does so."
"All right," agreed AEsop. "I'll wait till you does so an' w'en you does
so I'll say no, same ez I's already sayin' it to you in advance. Say,
boy, you must have yore reasons fur the int'rust you is displayin' in
dis matter."
"Whutever 'tis 'taint got nothin' to do wid lurin' no money out of yore
possession," said Jeff. His voice changed to one of deep gravity.
"Brother Lovin', look yere at me."
He glanced about him, making doubly sure they were alone. He advanced
one step and came to a halt; he made his figure rigid and gave first the
grand hailing-sign of the Afro-American Society of Supreme Kings of the
Universe, then the private signal of distress which invokes succor and
support, and he wound up by uttering the cabalistic words which bind a
fellow Supreme King in the vows of eternal secrecy on pain of having his
heart cut out of his bosom and burned and the ashes scattered to the
four winds. For his part, AEsop Loving arose and, obeying the ritual,
made the proper responses. In a solemn silence they exchanged the
symbolic grip which is reserved only for occasions of emergency and
stress and which unites brother to brother in bonds stronger than steel.
A moment later AEsop Loving was alone.
It was not Jeff, the intriguer, who had colleagued with Gumbo Rollins
and conspired with Cump Glass, who came in the evening to the Twelfth
Ward tabernacle and sought a seat on a bench well up toward the front
where he could be fairly conspicuous and yet not too conspicuous;
neither was it the persuasive person who had dangled the bait of
private profit before the beguiled eyes of AEsop Loving. Rather was it
the serious, self-searching, introspective Jeff, who earlier that day
had besought counsel and comfort of Aunt Dilsey Turner. He came alone,
walking with head bowed as walks one who is wrapped in his own thoughts.
He arrived betimes; he remained silent and apart, inwardly communing,
one would have said, while the audience rustled in.
So engrossed was he that he seemed to have no eyes even for Ophelia, who
perched high aloft, the brightest flower in the hanging garden of color
that banked the tiers of the choir division terracing up behind the
platform. She, in turn, had no eyes for any there save Prof. Cephus
Fringe, who, it should be added, had one eye for Ophelia and the other
for his own person. Even by those prejudiced in his favor it was not to
be denied that the Professor was, as one might say, passionately
addicted to himself. When, with Cephus Fringe accompanying and
directing, the opening hymn was offered, Ophelia, lifting high her
soprano voice, sang directly at, to, and for him. From the front this
plainly was to be observed; in fact was the subject of whispered comment
among some of Jeff's neighbors.
As though he heard them not nor saw the byplay, he gave no sign which
might be interpreted as denoting annoyance or chagrin. There was only a
friendly and whole-souled approval in his look when, following the
song, Prof. Fringe rendered--I believe this is the customary
phrase--rendered as a solo on his saxophone one of the compositions
bearing his name as author. There was rapt attention and naught else in
his pose and on his face the while the Rev. Wickliffe, swinging his
scythe of righteousness, mowed for a solid hour in Satan's weedy back
yard, so that the penitents fell in a broad swath.
From her place hard by, Aunt Dilsey vigilantly watched Jeff and was, in
spite of herself, convinced of his sincerity. She marked how, at the
close of the meeting, he passed slowly, almost reluctantly out, stopping
more than once and looking rearward as though half inclined to turn back
and join the ranks of those who clustered still at the foot of the
pulpit, completely and utterly won over. She was moved to direct the
notice of certain of the sistren and brethren to his behavior as
conspicuous proof of the compelling fervor of the Sin Killer. Swiftly
the word spread that Jeff Poindexter magically had ceased to be a
horrible example and was betraying evidences that he might yet become
what insurance agents call a prospect.
As though to justify this hope Jeff attended Tuesday night; his presence
attesting him a well-wisher, his deportment an added testimony that he
deeply had been stirred by the outpoured words of the revivalist. Before
the service got under way he seized upon an opportunity to be
introduced to the Rev. Wickliffe. Many were spectators to the meeting
between them, and speculation ran higher upon the possibility that
before the week ended he would be enrolled among the avowedly convicted.
Again on Wednesday night he was on hand, an attentive and earnest
listener.
Prior to the preliminary exercise of song on this night, the Rev.
Wickliffe outlined the amplified plans for the great moral jubilation on
the evening of the Eighth and invited suggestions from the assemblage to
the end that naught be overlooked which might add to its splendors. At
this invitation, almost as though he had been awaiting some such
favorable opening, there stood up promptly Tecumseh Sherman Glass, and
Tecumseh made a certain motion which on being put to the vote of the
house carried unanimously amid sounds of a general approval. Some
applauded, no doubt, because of the popularity of the idea embodied in
the motion and some perhaps because the brother, in offering it, was
deemed to have displayed a most generous, a most becoming, and a totally
unexpected spirit of magnanimity toward a fellow professional occupying
a place which Cump Glass or any other saxophonist might well envy him.
If at this Jeff's heart gave a joyous jump inside of him, his face
remained a mask to hide his real feelings. If, privily, by day he
labored to gather up all the loose ends of his shaping design, publicly
by night he patronized the tabernacle. He was present on Thursday night
and on Friday and on Saturday, and three times on Sunday he was present,
maintaining still his outward bearing of interest and sympathy. He was
like a tree which bends before the compelling blast yet refuses for a
little while longer to topple headlong. This brings us up to Monday, the
Glorious Eighth.
With the morning of that day or with its nooning or with its
afternooning we need have no concern, replete though they were in
variety of entertainment and abounding in pleasurable incident. For us
the interest chiefly centers in the early evening and especially in that
part of the evening falling between seven o'clock and forty minutes past
seven. At seven, prompt on the clock's stroke and as guaranteed in the
announcements, the parade fathered by the Rev. Wickliffe, started from
the corner of Tennessee and Front Streets, down by the river, and
wended, as the saying goes, its way due westward into the sunset's
painted afterglow.
This was a parade! A great man had sired it; a tried organizer had
fostered it; proved executives had worked out the problems of its
divisions and its groupings. At its head, suitably mounted upon a white
steed, rode a grand marshal who was more than a grand marshal. For in
his one person this dignitary combined two parts: not only was he the
grand marshal with a broad sash draped diagonally across his torso to
prove it, but likewise he was the official trumpeter. At intervals he
raised his horn to his lips and sounded forth inspiring notes. That his
horn was neither a trumpet nor yet a bugle but a long, goose-necked
thing might be regarded as merely a detail. Only one who was overly
technical would have noted the circumstance at all. Behind him, sixteen
abreast, appeared the special tabernacle choristers with large
fluttering badges of royal purple. They came on magnificently, filling
the street from curb-line to curb-line, and the sound of their singing
was as a great wind gathering. The second one on the left, counting from
the end, in the front row, was Ophelia Stubblefield, tawny and splendid
as a lithesome tiger-lily. She wore white with long white kid gloves and
a beflowered hat which represented the hoarded total of six weeks'
wages. You would have said it was worth the money. Anybody would.
In the second section rode the Rev. Wickliffe and the Rev. Shine; they
were in a touring-car with its top flattened back. You might say they
composed the second section. Carriages and automobiles rolling along
immediately behind them bore the members of the official board of
Emmanuel Chapel in sets of fours, and the chief financial contributors
to the revival which this night would reach its climax. Flanking the
carriages and following after them marched the living garnerings of the
campaign--the converts to date, a veritable Gideon's Band of them, in
number amounting to a host, and all afoot as befitting the palmer and
the pilgrim. Established members of the congregation, in hired hacks, in
jitneys, in rented and privately owned equipages, and also afoot came
next.
Voluntarily aligned representatives of the colored population at large
formed the tail of the column. Of these last there surely were hundreds.
Hundreds more, in holiday dress now somewhat rumpled after a day of
pleasure-seeking and pleasure-finding, lined the sidewalks to see this
spectacle. Nowhere along the straightaway of the line of march did the
pavements lack for onlookers, but nearing the end of the route, and
especially where the wide vacant spaces of the Tennessee Street common
had been preempted by the festal enterprises of Director General AEsop
Loving and his confreres, the press became thicker and ever thicker.
Here the crowds overflowed upon the gravel roadway, narrowing the
thoroughfare to a lane through which the paraders barely might pass.
They did pass, though at a lessened pace, until their front ranks had
reached the approximate middle breadth of the old show-grounds, with the
tabernacle looming against the sunset's dying fires an eighth of a mile
on beyond.
It is necessary here and now that, taking our eyes from this scene, we
hark back to the Wednesday evening preceding. It will be recalled that
on this evening a certain motion was made and by acclamation adopted.
The maker of the motion, as we know, was Tecumseh Sherman Glass; its
beneficiary, as the reader shrewdly may have divined, was Cephus Fringe.
Beforehand perhaps the Professor had had vague misgivings as to the part
he was to play in the pageantry on the Eighth; perhaps in his mind he
had forecast the probability that he might suffer eclipse--a temporary
eclipse--but to an _artiste_ none the less distasteful--in the shadow of
the Sin Killer, for since the Sin Killer had originally promulgated the
idea of the procession it was only natural and only human that the Sin
Killer should devise to himself the outstanding place of honor in it.
Be these conjectures as they may be, it is not to be gainsaid that the
suggestion embodied in Cump Glass's motion was to Prof. Fringe highly
agreeable, insuring, as it did, a fair measure of prominence for him
without infringing upon his chief's distinctions. He showed his
approbation. I believe I already have intimated that Prof. Fringe was
not exactly prejudiced against himself. Any lingering aversions he may
have entertained in this quarter had long since been overcome.
Nevertheless a fresh doubt, arising from fresh causes, assailed him as
the first flush of satisfaction abated within him.
This new-born uneasiness betrayed itself in his voice and his manner
when, at the conclusion of the night's services, he encountered Cump
Glass in the middle aisle. The meeting was not entirely by chance; if
the truth is to be known, Cump had maneuvered to bring it about. The act
was his; a greater mind than his, though, had sponsored the act. And
Cump Glass, rightly interpreting the look upon Prof. Fringe's large,
plump face, guilefully set himself to play upon the emotional nature of
the other. With a gracious wave of his hand he checked the Professor's
expression of thanks.
"Don't mention it," he said generously, "don't mention it. It teks a
purformer to understand another purformer's feelin's. So I therefo'
teken it 'pon myse'f to nomernate you fur the gran' marshal and also ez
the proper one to sound the buglin' blasts endurin' of the turnout.
Seems lak somebody else would 'a' had the sense to do so, but w'en they
wuzn't nobody w'ich did so, I steps in. But right soon afterwards I gits
to stedyin' 'bout the hoss you'll be ridin', an' it's been worryin' me
quite some little--the question of the hoss."
"I been thinkin' concernin' of 'at very same thing," confessed Cephus
Fringe.
"Is that possible?" exclaimed Cump Glass with well-simulated surprise.
"Well, suh, smart minds shorely runs in the same grooves, ez the sayin'
goes. Yas, suh, settin' yonder after I made that motion, I sez to
myse'f, I sez, 'Glass, you done started this thing an' you must see it
th'ough. 'Twon't never do in this world fur the gran' marshal to be
stuck up 'pon the top side of a skittish, skeery liver'-stable hoss
that'll mebbe start cuttin' up right in the smack middle of things and
distrac' the gran' marshal's mind frum his business.' I seen that happen
mo' times 'en onct, wid painful results. I s'pose, tho, you kin ride
mighty nigh ary hoss they is, can't you, Purfessor?"
"Well, I could do so onct," stated Cephus in the manner of one who
formerly had followed rough-riding for a calling, "but leadin' a public
life fur so long, lak I has, I ain't had much time fur private
pleasures. 'Sides w'ich, ef I'm goin' sound the notes I'll be needin'
both hands free fur my instermint."
"Puzzactly the same thought w'ich came to me, jes' lak I'm tellin' it to
you," agreed Cump. "It teks a musician to think of things w'ich an
ordinary pusson wouldn't never dream of. So, fur the las' hour or so I
been castin' about in my mind an' jes' a minute ago the idee come to me.
I feels shore I kin arrange wid a frien' of mine to he'p us out. I
s'pose you is acquainted with this yere Jeffy Poindexter?"
"I has met him," said Cephus with chill creeping into his tones. "An' I
has observed him present yere the last two-three nights. But I ain't
aimin' to ax no favors frum him."
"You ain't needin' to," said Cump. "I'll 'tend to that myse'f. Besides,
Purfessor, you is sizin' up Jeffy Poindexter wrong. He's went an'
'sperienced a change of heart in his feelin's tow'ds whut's goin' on
yere. Furthermo'"--and here he favored his flattered listener with a
confidential and a meaning wink--"he got sense 'nuff, Jeffy has, to know
w'en he's crowded plum out of the runnin' by somebody w'ich is mo'
swiftly gaited 'en whut he is, an' natchelly he crave to stand in well
wid a winner. Naw, suh, that Jeffy, he'd be most highly overjoyed to
haul off an' lend a helpin' hand, ef by so doin' he mout put you onder a
favor to him."
Cephus sniffed, half disarmed but wavering.
"Wharin' could he he'p out? He ain't ownin' no private string of
ridin'-hosses so fur ez I've took note of."
"The w'ite man he wuks fur is got one an' Jeffy gits the borrowin' use
of her--it's a mare--w'enever he want to, ez I knows frum whut he tells
me an' frum whut I seen. Purfessor, that mare is jes' natchelly ordained
an' cut out fur peradin'--broad ez a feather-tick, gentle ez the onborn
lamb, an' mouty nigh pyure white--perzactly the right color fur a gran'
marshal's hoss. Crowds ain't goin' pester that lady-mare none. Music
ain't goin' disturb her none whutsoever, neither."
"Whut's her reg'lar gait?"
"Her reg'lar gait is standin' still. But w'en she's travelin' at her
bestest speed she uses the cemetery walk. See that mare goin' pas' you
w'en she's in a hurry an' you say to yo'se'f, you say, 'Yere you is,
bound fur de buryin'-groun', but how come you got separated frum the
hearse?' Purfessor, that mare's entitled Christian name is Mittie May.
Did you ever hear of ary thing on fo' laigs, ur two, w'ich answered to
the name of Mittie May that wuz tricky?"
"Better be mouty sure," said the cautious Cephus, concerned for the
safety and dignity of the creature which he held most dear of all on
this earth. "'Member, I'll be needin' both hands free--'twon't be no
time fur me to go jerkin' on the reins w'en my saxophone is requirin' to
be played."
"You's right there," agreed Cump. "Twouldn't never do, neither, fur you
to slip off an' mebbe git yo'se'f crippled up. Whar would this yere
pertracted meetin' be then? Lemme think. Ah, hah! I got it--the notion
jes' come to me. Purfessor, listen yere." He placed his lips close to
the other's ear and spoke perhaps fifty words in a confidential whisper.
In token of approval and acquiescence the Professor warmly clasped the
right hand of this forethoughted Glass.
After such a manner was Cephus Fringe, all unwittingly, thrust into the
pit which had been digged for him.
At the point where the narrative was broken into for the interpolation
of the episode now set forth, the head of the parade, as will be
remembered, was just coming abreast of the old show-grounds. Now, the
head of the parade was Cephus Fringe, and none other. One glance at him,
upon a white steed, all glorious in high hat and frock coat and with
that wide crimson sash dividing his torso in two parts, would have
proved that to the most ignorant. As for his palfrey, she ambled along
as though Eighth of August celebrations and a saxophone blaring between
her drooping ears, and jubilating crowds and all that singing behind
her, and all these carnival barkers shouting alongside her, had been her
daily portion since first she was foaled into the world. The compound
word lady-like would be the word fittest to describe her.
Not twenty feet from her, close up to where the abutting common met the
straggling brick pavement, stood the battered Flyin' Jinny of Gumbo
Rollins. It was nearermost to the street-line of all the attractions
provided by AEsop Loving and his associates. Here, on the site which he
had chosen, was Gumbo Rollins himself, competently in charge. At the
precise moment when Mittie May and her proud rider had reached a point
just opposite him, Gumbo Rollins elected to set his device in motion and
with it the steam-organ which was part and parcel of the thing's
organism. Really he might have waited a bit.
Lured by the prospect of beholding something for nothing, most of his
consistent patrons temporarily had deserted him to flock out into the
roadway and witness the passing by of the Sin Killer's cohorts. Two
infatuated lovers, country darkies, sat with arms entwined in a rickety
wooden chariot. Here and there a piccaninny clung to the back of a
spotted wooden pony or a striped wooden zebra. These, for the moment,
were his only customers; nevertheless Gumbo Jones Rollins swung a lever
and started the machinery. The merry-go-round moved with a shriek of
steam; the wheezy organ began spouting forth the introductory bars of a
rollicking _galop_, a tune so old that its very name had been forgotten,
although the air of it lived anonymously.
As though she had been bee-stung, Mittie May flung up her head. She
arched her neck and pranced with all four of her feet. She spun about,
scattering those of the pedestrian classes who hemmed her so closely in.
Unmindful of a sudden anxious command from her rider, she swung her
foreparts this way and that. She was looking for it. It must be directly
hereabouts somewhere. In those ancient days of her youthful vagabondage
it had always been close at hand when that tune--her own tune--was
played.
Then above the heads of the crowd she saw it--a scuffed circlet of earth
measuring exactly fifty-two feet across and marking the location where
the middle ring had been builded when Runyon & Bulger's Mighty United
Railroad Shows pitched their tents on the occasion of their annual
Spring engagement. That had been in early May and this was summer's
third month; the attrition of the weather had worn down the sharp edges
of that low turfen parapet; by rights, too, there should have been much
sawdust and much smell of the same and a center pole rising like one
lone blasted tree from the exact middle of a circular island of this
sawdust; there should have been a ringmaster and at least two clowns and
an orderly clutter of paraphernalia. Nevertheless there before her was
the middle ring. And the music had started. And Mittie May answered the
cue which had lived in her brain for fifteen long years and more, just
as always she answered it, or sought to, when that tune smote her
eardrums.
The startled spectators gave backward and to either side in scrambling
retreat as she lunged forward, cleaving a passage for herself to the
proper spot of entrance. She whisked in. Around the ring she sped, her
hoofs drumming against the flanks of the ring-back, her barrel slanting
far over in obedience to the laws of centripetal force, her tail
rippling out behind her like a homebound pennon in a fair breeze--around
and around and yet again and then some more.
To be sure there were irregularities in the procedure. Upon her back,
springily erect, there should have been a jaunty equestrian swinging a
gay pink leg in air and anon uttering the traditional _Hoop-la_. Instead
there was a heavy bulk which embraced her neck with two strong arms,
which wallowed about on her spinal column, which continually cried out
entreaties, threats, commands, even profanities. Yet with Mittie May,
as with most of us, habit was stronger than all else. She knew her duty
as of old. She did it. Accommodating her gait to the quickening measures
of the music, she stretched her legs, passing out of a rolling gallop
into a hard run. Yet one more thing, or rather the lack of it, perplexed
her. Attendants should be bringing forth knockdown fence-panels for her
to leap over and hoops of paper for her rider to leap through. Never
mind; out of her imagination she would supply these missing details when
the proper moment came. She'd hurdle the hurdles which weren't there.
Meanwhile she knew what to do--around and around and around, right
willingly, right blithely went Mittie May.
And, with her, around and around went also Prof. Cephus Fringe, but not
willingly and by no means blithely. He shed his high hat and with it all
lingering essences of his dignity. One of Mittie May's feet squashed
down on the high hat and it folded up like a condensed time-card. He
lost the last vestige of his vanishing authority when he lost his
saxophone. The Professor did not understate the case when he had
intimated that he was somewhat out of practice at equestrian exercises.
Stark terror convulsed his frame; instinct of self-preservation made him
careless of the language he used. Indeed, a good deal of the language he
used was bounced right out of him.
Haply perhaps for him--and surely nothing else that happened was for
him haply circumstanced--most of the naughty words reached no ears save
those of Mittie May. There were sounds which drowned them--sounds which
began with a fluttered outcry of alarm, which progressed to a great gasp
of astonishment, which swelled and rippled into a titter, which grew
into a vast rocking roar of unrestrained joyousness. Children shrieked,
old women cackled, old men wheezed, adults guffawed, strong men rolled
upon the earth in uncontrollable outbursts of thunderous mirth. As
though stricken in all his members, Gumbo Rollins fell alongside his
whirling Flyin' Jinny, but failed not, even in that excess of his
mounting hysteria, to see to it that the steam-driven organ continued to
grind out the one tune of its repertoire. The members of the choir
forgot that their mission was to sing. They were too busy laughing to
sing. And high and clear above the chorus of their glad outcry rose the
soprano gurglings of Ophelia Stubblefield as she leaned for support up
against somebody.
You ask, Why did not Prof. Cephus Fringe fall off of Mittie May? He
tried to. At first he sought only to stay on; then after a bit he sought
to get off; he couldn't. The cause for his staying on was revealed when
Mittie May took the first of those mental hazards of hers. As she rose
grandly into space to clear the imagined top-rail of the imagined panel
and with hind heels drawn well in under her, descended and continued on
her circling way, a keen-eyed spectator, all bent double though he was,
alongside the ring, and beating himself in the short ribs, caught a
flashing glimpse of a strong but narrow strap which bound the rider's
ankles to the saddle-girth and which, through the ordered march of the
parade, had been safely hidden from view behind the ornament housings of
the broad Spanish stirrups. Cump Glass had done his fiendish work well;
those straps strained, but they held.
"Name of Glory!" shouted out the observer. "He done tie hisse'f on! He
done tie hisse'f--" Overcome he choked.
With a great sweeping, swooping heave Mittie May made the last leap. And
then at the precise second when the music stopped, the leathern thongs
parted, and as the burden on her tumbled off and lay struggling in the
dust, Mittie May swerved from the ring and, magically and
instantaneously becoming once more Judge Priest's staidly respectable
old buggy-mare, stood waiting for Jeff Poindexter to come and lead her
out of all this shrieking, whooping jam of folks back to her stable. And
Jeff came. He had been there all the time. It was against his supporting
frame that Ophelia had slanted limply the while she laughed.
Here the curtain is lowered for two seconds to denote the passage of two
days. At its rise Jeff Poindexter and Gumbo Rollins are discovered
sitting side by side on the back step of a cabin in the Plunket's Hill
neighborhood.
"An' so they ain't nobody seen him sence?" It is Jeff who is speaking.
"So they tells me," answers Gumbo. "Ain't nary soul seen hair nur hide
of him frum the moment he riz out 'en that ring an' tuk his foot in his
hand an' marviled further. Yas, suh, the pertracted meetin' will have to
worry 'long the best way it kin 'thout its champion purty man. Well,
sometimes it seems lak these things turns out fur the bes'. It suttin'ly
would damage his lacinated feelin's still mo' ef he wus yere an' heared
folks all over town callin' him the Jazzed-up Circus Rider."
"I got a better name fur him 'en that," says Jeff, "Whiffletit."
"W'ich?" asks Gumbo.
Seemingly Jeff has not heard his friend's question. In an undertone, and
as though seeking to recall the words of a given formula, he communes
with himself, "Fust you baits him wid the cheese. An' 'en w'en he nibble
the cheese, he git all swelled up an' 'en whilst he's flappin' helpless
you leans over the side of the boat an jes' natchelly laffs him to
death."
"Whut-all is you mumblin'?" demands Gumbo Rollins, puzzled by these
seemingly unrelated and irrelevant mouthings. "Is you crazy?"
"Yas," concurs Jeff, "crazy lak the king of the weazels."