black-snake whip,” Gaitskill told him in a dangerously cool voice. “If
you don’t want some of it you’d better stay away, understand? And if
you ever put your foot in my cotton-field again I’ll break your dashed
neck! Hear me?”
Pap Curtain stepped back and his voice became a pleading whine. He
glanced behind him to assure himself that the road was clear for
flight, and began:
“Don’t do dat, Marse Tom. You know how niggers is. Eve’y day is restin’
time an’ Sunday fer a nigger; an’ when de trouts is bitin’ a nigger
jes’ nachelly cain’t wuck. It’s ag’in nature----”
“Aw, shut up!” Gaitskill snarled in a savage tone. “If a rain should
come it would beat every bit of my cotton off the stalks and bury it in
the mud, and you know it----”
“I tell you whut I’ll do, boss,” Pap interrupted. “You know I is always
done jes’ whut you tole me--because why? You is a powerful good white
man, an’ I ain’t nothin’ but a poor igernunt nigger. Yes, suh, dat’s
right.
“Now, ef you says de word, I’ll hike back to de Niggerheel an’ tell dem
niggers dat deir lives ain’t fitten to last no time onless dey draps
dem fish-poles an’ drags dem cotton-sacks down de row like de debbil
wus bossin’ de job. Dar’s fawty of ’em, Marse Tom--fawty, wuthless,
no-’count, good-fer-nothin’ coons done laid down deir wuck an’ gone
fishin’--dat’s whut dey done----”
Pap stopped. Keenly watching the tense lips and the white, angry face
of Gaitskill, he saw that no nigger talk would placate the owner of the
Niggerheel. He stood shuffling his feet in the dirt for a full minute
before Gaitskill spoke.
“Now, Pap, I want you to get this: I have trouble every year to get
hands to pick my cotton. The worthless niggers loaf on the banks of the
bayou until winter catches them with nothing to eat, nothing to wear,
and not a dollar. Then the white folks in Tickfall have to support
them.”
“Yes, suh, dat’s a shore, certain fack----”
“Shut up, you crazy buck!” Gaitskill snarled. “When I talk--you listen.
You are the worst idler and loafer in this town, and I tell you right
now that you had better leave this town. Hear me? Pack up your rags
right now and leave Tickfall, and don’t ever come back again. If you do
I’ll have you arrested for vagrancy. Hurry now! Get out before night!”
“Oh, Lawdy, Marse Tom, I been livin’ in dis here town fer sixty
year--I’s dug all de water-wells fer de livin’ an’ all de graves fer
de dead--you an’ me is always got along peaceable ’thout no hard
feelin’----”
“Go on off!” Gaitskill commanded in hoarse tones. “Hike!”
Gaitskill turned away, walked rapidly up the street, and stepped into
his automobile. There was an explosive sound, a cloud of white smoke
hid the rear wheels for a moment, then the big car swept into a side
street, going toward the Niggerheel plantation.
“Lawdymussy!” Pap Curtain sighed, as he walked slowly down the street
toward his cabin. “De kunnel done gimme my good-riddunce papers an’
axed me good-by!”
* * * * *
Pap sat down on the rickety porch of his cabin and gazed for a long
time with unseeing vision straight before him. Half an hour passed,
an hour, and still he looked into the thick branches of an umbrella
china-tree without seeing it.
No white man can equal the absolute absorption in thought, the intense
concentration of attention and interest which a negro displays when he
comes face to face with a crisis in his career. And no white man can
foretell a negro’s mental conclusions in that hour of stress and need.
Pap did not want to leave Tickfall, yet he knew he had to go. Marse
Tom’s word was law just as much so as if the big, red-brick court-house
had suddenly formed a mouth and had spoken.
Pap rose from his chair, gave his shoulders a vigorous shake, lit a
vile-smelling corn-cob pipe, changed the location of his chair from the
porch to the shade of the chinaberry tree, and began to talk aloud to
himself:
“Dat white man shore knifed me right under de fifteenth rib! Treated me
jes’ like I wus a houn’-dawg--‘git outen dis town!’ Mebbe it’s all a
play-like an’ he didn’t mean nothin’----”
But the more he thought about the manner and the speech of Colonel
Gaitskill, the more the facts compelled the conviction that it was his
move. Then the thought occurred to him:
“I wonder if dese here town niggers tipped Marse Tom off ’bout me? A
whole passel of ’em hates me--I beats ’em gamblin’, an’ I beats ’em
tradin’, an’ dey all knows dey ain’t vigorous in deir mind like me----”
Pap pondered for many minutes, his thick lips pouting, his protruding
eyes half closed, great drops of sweat rolling down his face. His pipe
went out, the bowl became loosened and fell from the stem, but he took
no notice.
“Mebbe dem niggers is wucked a buzzo on me, an’ mebbe dey ain’t,” he
declared at last. “I cain’t seem to make up my remembrance ’bout dat.
But I done decided on one fack: ef ole Pap Curtain is gotter leave dis
town, he’s gwine gib dese here nigger bad-wishers of his’n a whole lot
to remember him by!”
He rose and walked down the street to the Hen-Scratch saloon.
In the rear of the building he found Figger Bush. Walking up to him
with an air of great secrecy and importance, Pap inquired:
“Figger, is you de proud persesser of a silber dollar?”
“Sho’ is!” Figger grinned. “I gwine keep on persessin’ it, too!”
“I sells tips!” Pap announced, taking a chair beside Figger. “One
dollar per tip per each!”
“It muss be wuth somepin’ ef it comes dat high!” Figger exclaimed with
popping eyeballs.
“Yes, suh; Marse Tom Gaitskill gimme de word dis mawnin’, an’ tole me I
could pass it on to a choosen few--ef dey had a dollar!”
Figger Bush puffed nervously at his cigarette and waited anxiously.
Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s name was one to conjure with, and Figger knew
that Curtain had been working on the Niggerheel plantation.
“Whut’s de tip about, Pap?” Figger asked eagerly, fumbling with the
lonesome silver dollar in his pocket.
“Dat would be tellin’,” Pap grinned, as he leaned back and watched a
tiny tree-spider floating in the breeze on the end of its web.
Figger puffed unconsciously on his cigarette until it burned down
to his lips and scorched them; he snatched it out of his mouth and
blistered his fingers; he slapped his foot upon it as it lay on the
ground, then sprang up with an exclamation and nursed a bare spot on
the side of his sockless foot where the stub had burned him through a
hole in his shoe.
“Good gosh, set down!” Pap Curtain howled as he watched Figger’s
gyrations. “You gib me de fidgets cuttin’ up dat way!”
Figger sank back in his seat, and Pap again directed his attention to
the operations of the little spider, and waited.
“Cain’t you gimme no hint about de tip, Pap?” Figger asked at last.
“I wants to git in on somepin good, but I cain’t affode to waste no
money.”
“Cross yo’ heart an’ body dat you won’t tell nobody an’ gimme de
dollar. Den, when I tells you de secret, ef it ’tain’t wuth a dollar,
I’ll hand you de loose change back.”
“Dat sounds resomble,” Figger declared, and the silver dollar changed
hands.
“Now, Figger, you listen,” Pap began in a mysterious tone. “Don’t you
tell nobody, fer Marse Tom swore me dat he didn’t want nobody to know
but a choosen few. Marse Tom is gwine gib a great, big, cotton-pickin’
festerble out at de Niggerheel. He pays de best wages, an’ he wants de
bes’ pickers in de parish. De tickets is one dollar, whut I collecks
when I gibs de tip. All de niggers is to meet Marse Tom at de bank dis
atternoon at three o’clock.”
“Huh!” Figger grunted. “Dat shore sounds good to me. Plenty grub,
plenty wages, a barrel of cider at de eend of de cotton-row, an’ all de
coons on a cotton-pickin’ picnic! Keep de dollar, Pap. Me an’ Marse Tom
is done made a trade.”
Enthusiastic over the idea, Figger sprang to his feet and started away.
“You kin succulate de repote dat somepin’s doin’, Figger,” Pap grinned.
“But don’t you gib dat tip away. Marse Tom spoke me special ’bout dat,
an’ say he gwine bust de head open of de nigger whut told de secret!”
Pap Curtain stepped into the rear of the Hen-Scratch saloon, invested a
part of Figger’s dollar in a long, strong Perique stogy, and came out
again. He sat for half an hour humming to himself, chewing the end of
the stogy, smoking slowly, leisurely, and with profound meditation.
He was giving Figger time to circulate the report. He knew that the
grape-vine telephone was already at work, and that the news of a big
profitable deal would trickle and ooze into every negro cabin in all
the negro settlements of Tickfall.
Prince Total was the first darky to make his appearance.
“Whar’s yo’ silber dollar, Prince?” Pap exclaimed with a broad grin
before Prince had time to state his business. “No busted niggers
needn’t apply--tickets is one dollar--Marse Tom’s own price.”
“Whut is dis doin’s?” Prince inquired. “Is Marse Tom gittin’ up a
nigger excussion?”
“Dat’s de very game!” Pap snickered. “One dollar per each ticket. Marse
Tom leaves me to pick de winners. Plenty brass-band music, plenty
ice-water on de way; dancin’ on de deck eve’y night--all de real good
arrangements whut niggers likes. You-all knows how Marse Tom fixes
things up. Cross yo’ heart an’ body dat you won’t tell an’ gimme one
round silber dollar fer de tip!”
Prince crossed Pap’s palm with silver and listened to his instructions:
“Go see Marse Tom at de bank at three o’clock dis atternoon!”
“Excussion!” Prince panted. “My, dat’s a shore ’nough word to ketch
a nigger by de year. Gib ’em somewhar to trabbel an’ a crowd to go
wid--Lawd, dat’s real good luck! I’s gwine out an’ succulate dem
repote!”
By high noon Pap Curtain’s pockets were weighted with silver and he had
revealed the magical tip to over one hundred negroes.
“Dis here is suttinly a good joke,” he snickered; “but ef I keeps it
up too long I’s skeart I’ll laugh myself to death. I got a hunch dat I
better mosey along todes de depot. Marse Tom done advise me to leave
dis town.”
When the slow accommodation train pulled into the depot, Pap Curtain
boarded it from the side farthest from the station, took an obscure
seat in the negro coach, and did his best to attract no attention as
the train conveyed him away from Tickfall.
Only one negro saw him go.
* * * * *
At three o’clock one of the clerks closed the big glass doors of the
Tickfall National Bank and went back to his desk.
Ten minutes later there was a loud knock upon the glass door, and the
clerk looked up. What he saw caused him to spring from his stool,
overturning it with a loud clatter upon the marble floor, and go
running down the corridor to the president’s office.
“Come out here quick, Colonel!” the clerk exclaimed, his hair standing
on end and cold sweat dampening his forehead. “God only knows what
has got into the heads of our negro depositors! Every nigger buck in
Tickfall is lined up in front of the bank, and the leader is knocking
on the door, trying to get in!”
Gaitskill jerked open a drawer, slipped a heavy revolver in his side
coat pocket, and stepped toward the front.
Figger Bush’s shoe-brush mustache was pressed close to the glass, his
hands were cupped around his eyes, and he was peering in to catch the
first glimpse of Marse Tom as he came out of his office.
“Here he am, niggers!” he bawled as the colonel fumbled with the
fastening of the door.
“Howdy, Marse Tom!” the greeting ran down the line with every variation
of tone like a child playing a scale on the piano with one finger.
“Well?” Gaitskill demanded in a loud tone. “What in the name of mud is
the matter now?”
“Us is all come to git in on de picnic, Marse Tom,” Figger Bush
announced as spokesman. “We all paid our dollar an’ Pap tipped us off
to come to de bank at closin’ time!”
“Pap did what?” Gaitskill snapped.
“He sold us a ticket to de excussion, Marse Tom,” Figger informed him.
“Yes, suh, we is powerful glad you is gittin’ one up--peanuts an’
ice-water, an’ plenty brass-band music--all us niggers favors it fine!”
“What in the devil are you talking about?” Gaitskill bawled.
“Dunno, Marse Tom,” Prince Total spoke up. “Pap Curtain--he say you
would tell us--it’s a plum’ secret.”
“It certainly is!” Gaitskill howled, glaring at the negroes with eyes
blood-shot and apoplectic. “It’s a deep, dark, impenetrable secret!
Where is that fool, Pap Curtain?”
“He went away on de dinner-time train, Marse Tom,” a voice informed
him. “I seed him!”
Gaitskill stood in the door of the bank in absolute ignorance of the
whole business, wondering what to do. Finally he went back to Figger
Bush’s first statement:
“What did you say about a dollar?” he demanded.
“Us paid a dollar fer de tip, Marse Tom,” Figger replied.
Gaitskill’s eyes ran down the line as he counted the negroes.
“Did all you darkies give Pap Curtain a dollar?” he asked in a loud
voice.
“Yes, suh!” one hundred and eighteen voices answered in a mighty chorus.
“Good Lord!” Gaitskill snorted, as he gazed into their simple faces,
marveling at their credulity.
Every merchant in town had closed his store to see the fun. Nearly
every white male inhabitant of Tickfall was lined up across the street.
The crowd grinned its delight, and watched with breathless interest
while Gaitskill fumbled with his problem in confusion and perplexity,
and an ignorance which the negroes would not enlighten.
Nothing tickles a Southern white man more than to see another white man
all snarled up and in a jam of negro inanities. A fly in a barrel of
molasses has about as good a chance of getting out of the mess.
“What did Pap Curtain tell you bucks?” Gaitskill bellowed.
There was a mighty clash of voices:
“He specify excussion----”
“Dancin’ on de deck eve’y night----”
“Music an’ free vittles----”
“Festerbul an’ juberlo----”
“Picnic----”
Then a loud voice inquired in a wailing whine:
“Marse Tom, ef us don’t git all dem things Pap promised us, does us git
our dollars back?”
Gaitskill did not reply. Instead he took out his watch and studied it
carefully.
He was thinking: the old combination freight and passenger train had
left Tickfall at noon; it had traveled for three hours and twenty
minutes at a speed of fifteen miles an hour. The train was not yet out
of Tickfall parish. Then Gaitskill spoke:
“All you niggers listen to me: Go down to the old cotton-shed back of
my house and wait until I come. Hurry, now!”
He turned, entered the bank, locked the door behind him, and strode to
the telephone.
“Hello, Susie!” he said to the operator. “Gimme the station-agent at
Tonieville--quick!”
There was a nervous quiver in his strong voice, and as he waited he
drummed with his fingers on the table, tapped the toe of one foot
on the floor, then snatched up a paper-weight and began to grind it
savagely into the blotter on a desk.
The coons had exasperated him often enough, he thought; but Pap Curtain
had gone the limit. He would catch that nigger and wring his fool neck.
“Hey--hello!” he bawled through the speaking-tube. “Is that you, Bill?
This is Gaitskill--Say, has No. 2 passed through Tonieville yet? Coming
now? All right, listen: tell the constable to board the Jim-Crow coach
on that train and haul off a nigger--a yellow nigger with a baboon face
and shifty eyes and a mouth which sneers. Yes! his name is Pap Curtain.
He’s got a pocketful of money. Sure! Haul him off. Tell the constable
to bring him back on No. I! Good-bye!”
Gaitskill hung up the receiver, wiped the sweat from his face, and
walked out of the bank, pausing at the door long enough to inform the
clerk:
“I’m going down to the cotton-shed, Frank. Got to hold an executive
session with those coons!”
* * * * *
Pap Curtain had the negro-coach all to himself. He leaned back and
sighed with a vast content.
“Dem coons tried to knife me, but I beat ’em to it!” he snickered, as
the train puffed slowly along. “One hundred an’ eighteen dollars is
shore good wages fer a day’s wuck.”
He planned his expenditure of the money: first a visit to New Orleans,
and a happy time in the negro resorts of that city. After that a job on
a steamboat which traveled down the river. After a long time, a return
to Tickfall and a renewal of friendships with his negro neighbors.
“Niggers don’t hold spite long,” he grinned. “An’ money don’t bother
’em hardly at all, whedder he makes it or loses it!”
The train stopped at Tonieville and Pap stuck his head far out of the
window to see who he would know at the station.
He felt a sharp tap on his shoulder, pulled his head in, and looked
behind him.
A tall white man with tobacco-stained whiskers and a deputy-sheriff’s
badge pinned to a strap of his suspenders spoke:
“Climb off peaceable, Pap Curtain! Colonel Tom Gaitskill wants you back
at Tickfall on the next train!”
“Naw, suh, white folks,” Pap protested earnestly, his intense fright
making him stammer. “Marse Tom done run me outen Tickfall dis very
mawnin’. He tole me ef I didn’t leave town he would bust my haid open.
You done cotch de wrong coon!”
“Git off!” the deputy commanded shortly, waving his stick toward the
door.
The train went on and left Pap Curtain at the station in the care of
the constable.
“You is shore made a miscue dis time, Mr. Sheriff,” Pap declared.
“Marse Tom is always b’lieved in me an’ trusted me--Gawd bless his
heart! You cain’t make Marse Tom hear nothin’ bad ’bout me--naw, suh,
you couldn’t bawl it inter his year wid one of dese here Gabriel
trumpets. I’s a good nigger--a powerful good nigger!”
The grinning constable reached out with the end of his stick and
struck it sharply against one of Pap’s bulging pockets. There was a
pleasant clink of much silver in response.
“Colonel Gaitskill telephoned that your pockets were full of money,”
the constable told him. “I’ll let you pack it until we git back to
Tickfall--then you can tell your Marse Tom where you happened to get it
all.”
Pap Curtain’s legs suddenly grew weak, and he sank down upon a depot
truck and became silent.
He set himself to light a Perique stogy--one of the two which he had
bought from Skeeter Butts for five cents--bought with Figger Bush’s
money. He broke three or four matches before he got a light, and then
repeatedly forgot to draw upon his cigar.
It went out again and again, and he always had trouble in relighting
it. His hands trembled more and more with each successive attempt.
“Lawd!” he sighed to himself. “Dey shore got me now!”
The niggers had trusted him, and he had buncoed them all. The place
where his foot had slipped was when he told them to go the bank to see
Marse Tom.
“White folks always gits nigger bizzness in a jam,” he thought
tearfully. “Dem niggers wus suckers, but lawdymussy, I wus shore one
big whopper of a fool!”
The sweat stood in chill beads on his face. He knew what the
inside of the penitentiary looked like--he had served a brief
term in prison. He had tried to make friends with the
“nigger-dogs”--bloodhounds--but it could not be done. He had tried to
escape; that, also, was a failure.
[Illustration:
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.
“Colonel Gaitskill telephoned me that your pockets were full of money.”]
“Lawd!” he mourned. “Dey got me dis time!”
The north-bound express whistled for the station. The agent ran out,
flagged it, and the deputy helped Pap climb on. Pap had suddenly become
an old and feeble man, broken, hopeless, forsaken, shamed, dreading
above everything his return trip to Tickfall.
The deputy led him to a seat in the smoking car and offered him a
cigar. Pap gazed at him as if he did not understand, then took the
cigar and looked at it as if he did not know what it was. All the
light had gone out of his eyes, and his face looked like a scarred and
wrinkled shell.
Detraining at Tickfall, the deputy waited for Pap to get ahead of him.
Pap, noticing his gesture, muttered in a far-away voice, as in a dream:
“Comin’, white folks! I’s right at yo’ hip!”
When Gaitskill, in response to a knock, opened the door of the Tickfall
National Bank to admit them, he greeted the deputy in his strong,
cordial voice, conducted the two back to his private office, and seated
the sheriff and his prisoner in two comfortable chairs.
“You brought him safe back, Sheriff,” Gaitskill smiled cordially, as he
seated himself. “Take a cigar. Take two--here! Hold your pocket open!”
He grabbed a handful of the cigars, slipped them carefully into the
deputy’s pocket, and sat down again.
Pap Curtain watched them like a trapped wolf, breathing in deep,
audible gasps like a man choking.
Gaitskill’s face was genial and humorous, his fine eyes twinkled, and
he beamed upon Pap Curtain with a smile as cordial as sunshine.
That smile sent the cold shivers up Pap’s spine, and made the hair
bristle and crinkle with terror on the back of his neck. He had had
dealings with Marse Tom before, and he knew that Marse Tom had no
patience with a crooked, tricky nigger.
“My Gawd!” Pap sighed. “Dat white man is gwine hang me shore!”
Gaitskill pulled out a heavy purse, laid two yellow-backed bills on the
table in front of the constable, and said:
“There’s your pay, Bob. Much obliged for bringing my nigger back. I
guess you want to run around town a little before you go back.”
Bob grinned his appreciation, pocketed his money, and strode out.
Gaitskill looked at Pap Curtain and broke out in a loud laugh.
Great tears rolled down Pap Curtain’s face and splashed upon the hands
folded in his lap, but Gaitskill took no notice.
“Now, Pap,” Gaitskill grinned, “that was a great stunt you pulled off
on me. What do you think I ought to do to you for it?”
“Dunno, boss,” the negro quavered, leaning over and resting his teary
face upon his hands.
“How many of those niggers did you get?”
“I didn’t git any, Marse Tom,” Pap declared, hoping to build up some
sort of defense. “It wus dat fool Figger Bush an’ Prince Total whut
succulated de repote!”
There was a wild yell up the street and a rumble of wagon wheels.
Gaitskill sprang up and walked to the front of the bank, where he could
look through the window.
Pap Curtain, trembling, horrified, followed Gaitskill because he was
afraid to remain alone.
Ten wagons passed the bank, the teams going in a fast trot, each wagon
containing ten or twelve squalling blacks, who waved their hands at the
bank as far as they could see it.
Pap Curtain ducked behind the door and kept himself invisible--for each
wagon contained a load of his victims!
“That’s your work, Pap!” Gaitskill grinned, when the wagons had passed.
“Yes, suh,” Pap answered in a weak, tearful, hopeless voice.
“If I had known about it when I telephoned the constable, I would not
have had him bring you back, Pap. I thought you had robbed all those
niggers of a dollar each.”
“Yes, suh,” Pap sighed, praying for more light.
Gaitskill took a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket, felt its texture
with a banker’s expert fingers, then said in a voice which dripped
with the sweetness of appreciation and praise:
“That trick was the real stuff, Pap! How did you ever think it up?”
Every pore of Pap’s body was spouting cold sweat. His eyes burned, his
throat choked, his brain reeled, his limbs trembled--he was racked,
tortured with fear and anxiety--and yet this white man seemed to be
talking kind words.
“Oh, Lawd,” he prayed, “let a leetle sunshine in!”
“It certainly takes a coon to catch a coon!” Gaitskill laughed. “The
idea of making a negro pay a dollar for the privilege of working on a
cotton plantation when the white folks are begging for hands--think of
it, Pap!
“One hundred and eighteen niggers gone off on a cotton-picking picnic
to the Niggerheel plantation, paying a dollar each for the privilege
of gathering a thousand bales of cotton, and swearing that they will
stick to the job because they paid to get it! Say, nigger, you are the
greatest coon in Tickfall!”
Pap Curtain straightened up; his shoulders came back with a snap; he
drew a breath so deep that it seemed to suck in all the air in the bank.
“I’m certainly much obliged to you, Pap,” Gaitskill said earnestly. “I
take back what I said this morning. You’re a good nigger. Here’s ten
dollars for your trouble.”
Gaitskill opened the door.
Pap Curtain stepped out, holding the crinkling bill in his hand. He
reeled down the street like a drunken man, staggered across the village
to Dirty-Six, and sat down on the rickety porch of his cabin.
The Gulf breeze swept across his sweat-drenched face, cooling it like a
breath from the land where angels dwell.