Hitch has been at, he comed away so fast dat he runned out of all his
clothes!”
VIII
THE HOODOO GIRL.
It was Sunday morning in Tickfall. A crowd of men were standing in
front of the Shoofly Church, idly waiting and chewing tobacco. A row of
men sat like buzzards upon the top of the rickety fence, also chewing
tobacco. Half a dozen saddle-horses stood hitched to the trees and
two-score dilapidated buggies stood in a row with their horses hitched
to the fence.
Now and then some young negro girl wandered aimlessly toward one
of these buggies, then hastened her footsteps as if she had just
remembered leaving something under the seat.
Some young negro man quickly ceased his low-toned conversation and
watched her out of the corner of his eye. Presently the girl climbed
into the buggy and sat down. Promptly the young man left his companions
and went and sat beside her. That was the end of their interest in the
services to be conducted in the church that morning.
The young man had found the saint of his deepest devotion.
The Rev. Vinegar Atts came stalking across the churchyard like a turkey
walking through mud and dressed in all his Sunday finery. None of
the men seemed to be aware of his presence. Vinegar reflected on the
strangeness of this, and began to ponder uneasily on his chance of
retaining his job as the preacher at the Shoofly Church.
He bowed and spoke to all the men, and hardly one of them gave him a
nod of recognition in return.
Vinegar determined to find out the cause of this indifference, and he
chose for his informant a man named Pap Curtain--a tall, slim negro
with a yellow monkey face and an habitual sneer upon his lips.
“Whut ails you niggers to-day?” Vinegar demanded in a trembling voice.
“How come dis here awful silence aroun’ dis church?”
“Hoodoo gal!” Pap Curtain answered laconically, pointing across the
churchyard.
“Huh!” Vinegar grunted with popping eyes.
On the other side of the yard old Ginny Babe Chew, a woman of immense
size, was walking beside a slim young negress dressed in white and very
handsome.
“Huh,” Vinegar grunted again, unable to comprehend.
“How much will you gib me fer a piece of real news, Revun?” Pap
inquired.
“Ef you got any tales to tell, bawl out!” Vinegar snapped, for the
men’s actions were getting on his nerves.
“You remember hearin’ ’bout dat Dude Blackum whut got into trouble wid
de white folks at Sawtown las’ Monday night?” Pap asked. “Well, suh,
dat little gal wid Ginny Babe Chew is Dainty Blackum, Dude’s cote-house
wife!”
“My Lawd!” Vinegar growled as he sat down upon the ground under a tree
like a man suddenly overcome by weakness. He pulled out his corn-cob
pipe and gave himself up to troubled meditation as he filled and
lighted it. After a few moments he said:
“Pap, de niggers never will git over deir skeer ’bout dat little
entertainment wid Dude Blackum. I don’t b’lieve he done whut de white
folks said he done.”
“Hush!” Pap cautioned. Then he asked: “Whut diffunce do dat make now?
He’s done dead!”
There was a long silence while the two men watched the handsome,
graceful girl walking beside the elephantine form of Ginny Babe Chew.
Finally Pap Curtain said aloud as if to himself:
“She’s tall an’ wavy like a stalk of sugar-cane, an’ sweet plum down to
de groun’.”
“She ain’t mournin’ so powerful deep fer dat Dude Blackum,” Vinegar
remarked. “She’s dolled up in a white dress!”
“Dat Dude Blackum shore did lose somepin beside his life when he parted
wid dat female woman,” Pap said. “Ef I could hab a gal like dat keepin’
house fer me, I’d shore cut out all meanness ferever.”
Vinegar Atts shuddered and rose to his feet.
“I ain’t waste no time talkin’ ’bout dead niggers,” he said uneasily.
“I done seed de ghost of dat Dude Blackum ’bout fo’teen times.”
“You ain’t by yo’se’f in dat, Revun,” Pap sighed. “Eve’y time I thinks
of dat nigger I gits de jiggety-jams.”
“I knowed Dude Blackum a little bit--I seed him on de train once,”
Vinegar said. “But ’pears like his ha’nt ain’t gwine let me alone
a-tall!”
Dainty and Ginny Babe walked up the steps and entered the Shoofly
Church, followed by the curious eyes of all the men in the yard.
“Dar now!” Vinegar mourned. “’Tain’t no use to try to hab preachin’
dis mawnin’--dat hoodoo gal is done got dis meetin’-house in a mess. I
feels like somebody is done criss-crossed my head wid a rabbit-foot.”
He knocked the tobacco from his pipe and thrust it into his pocket, his
eyes set upon the door through which the girl had passed.
“When did Dainty Blackum come to Tickfall?” Vinegar asked.
“Yistiddy. Ginny Babe Chew met her at de deppo. Some yuther
niggers come up from Sawtown, too. You know how niggers is--dar’s a
scatteration when somepin like dat happens.”
“Yes, suh. De guilty niggers scatterates as fur as dey kin git an’ as
quick as dey kin go,” Vinegar agreed. “De not guilty niggers hikes out
of de place to de near-by towns an’ waits till de clouds rolls by.”
“I’s jes’ whisperin’ to you ’bout dat Dainty Blackum, Vinegar,” Pap
said suddenly. “I ain’t gwine ’round braggin’ no brags ’bout knowin’
dis Blackum gal. White folks gits awful rambunctious when a nigger
kills a white man like Dude done.”
“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” Vinegar murmured. “I done j’ined de lodge of
silunce.”
The two men separated, Vinegar enterin’ the large, cool, dilapidated
church. The band of men standing in the yard followed, as a drove of
mules follow a gray mare upon the dusty highroad. The buzzard-like men
climbed from their perches on the fence, dusted the seats of their
trousers by quick, sliding motions of each hand, and entered the
building. In the intense silence their heavily shod feet made ugly
noises upon the uncarpeted floor.
Vinegar sensed tragedy everywhere. He looked around him uneasily,
spotting certain unfamiliar faces in the congregation.
Ginny Babe Chew sat on the front seat with Dainty Blackum, the two
occupying the middle row of pews. On Vinegar’s right, on the front
seat, sat a man who had a knife-scar in his neck, a bullet-scar on his
cheek, and the top of his left ear was missing. On Vinegar’s left was a
tall, ladder-headed negro, dressed like a preacher, sitting on a front
bench.
There was no organ or other musical instrument in the church. Vinegar
Atts, who had a voice like a pipe-organ, always raised his own tunes
and depended upon Skeeter Butts, Figger Bush, and Hitch Diamond to
carry the music in the congregation.
Vinegar looked in vain for his three friends to-day. Hitch Diamond had
been gone for three Sundays; Skeeter Butts was organizing a baseball
nine, and Figger Bush had gone away with a fishing-party of white
people.
Suddenly the voice of Dinner Gaze, sitting on Vinegar’s right, rose
loud and clear in the silence:
“On de yuther side of Jordon,
In de sweet fields of Eden,
Whar de Tree of Life is bloomin’,
Dar is rest fer you!”
No one in the congregation knew the song, and the solo-voice floated
out like the song of a bird. The people sat with bowed heads and
listened. When the song ended Vinegar walked out of the pulpit and
extended his hand cordially to Dinner Gaze.
“Glad to meet yo’ ’quaintance, my brudder!” he rumbled. “Will you h’ist
de toons fer us?”
IX
DINNER GAZE SINGS.
Dinner Gaze rose from his seat and, stooping as if he were trying to
catch a rat, walked to the front of the congregation. Pausing a moment,
his body began to weave to and fro as if in conformity to the words
of Scripture: “All my bones shall praise thee.” Then to the surprise
of the congregation, after all this orthodox preparation for starting
a tune, Dinner Gaze suddenly walked back to his former place and sat
down! In the meantime Vinegar Atts was getting acquainted with the
other stranger on the opposite side of the house.
“Yes, suh, my name is Tucky Sugg,” the stranger told him. “I ain’t no
reg’lar preacher, but I exhausts a little befo’ de people sometimes.”
“I hopes you’ll take up yo’ stayin’-place wid us,” Vinegar said
cordially. “Us needs good mens.”
He turned to motion to Dinner Gaze to start the song, and found that
Dinner had gone back to his seat.
“Whut ails you, brudder?” he asked.
“I’s skeart I don’t know enough toons to lead de singin’,” Gaze said
with a grin. “I retires.”
Vinegar’s eyes fell upon Ginny Babe Chew.
“H’ist a toon, sister!” he commanded. In a hoarse bellow Ginny Babe
began:
“Blow--ye--de--trumpet--blow----”
One line was enough.
The words were not inspiring, the tune and tone and manner of the fat
leader was a call to penitence, anguish, and tears.
Vinegar sprang to his feet.
“Dat’s won’t do, sister!” he interrupted. “Less sing _dis_ toon!”
He began a song in a bellow which shook the rafters of the house
and rattled the windows and threatened to crumble the foundations
of the building. The song was a jay-bird affair, waltz-music to the
stanza and jig-time to the chorus. The song might as well have been
totally unfamiliar to the congregation. It was really one of their
favorites--but, in spite of that, they let Vinegar sing it through as a
solo.
Verily, the hoodoo was working.
Vinegar was appalled at the unresponsiveness of his congregation, and
when the crowd had listened without objection or commendation to a solo
prayer and to a reading from the old, worn Bible upon the desk, the
preacher was almost in hysterics. He had never seen anything like that
before.
Vinegar turned to Ginny Babe Chew a second time and said desperately:
“Now, sister Ginny, less hab anodder song--a lively toon whut eve’ybody
knows!”
Ginny Babe Chew rose to her feet, her hand started the gestures of an
old-fashioned singing-master, her body “weaved,” her voice arose in a
high, drawling falsetto, utterly unlike her natural tone:
“Blow--ye--de--trumpet--blow--”
If the human eye had power to slay, Ginny Babe would now be dead.
Vinegar Atts glared at her with such a murderous look that the
congregation forgot to sing and watched him. Ginny Babe turned and
gazed at the preacher with the air of a hurt child, and quietly took
her seat.
There was continued silence in the congregation.
Vinegar raised another tune:
“I muss tell de good Lawd all of my trials,
I cannot bear dese here burdens alone!”
There was continued silence on the part of every one except the
preacher. The congregation knew the song and loved it, but they
acted like they had never heard either the song or the tune. They
were certainly lacking in that Christian coöperation which the song
recommended, and Vinegar had to tell his troubles and trials without
their assistance.
Then in utter desperation, Vinegar turned again to Dinner Gaze and said
pleadingly.
“Fer Gawd’s sake, brudder, come out here an’ sing us a sweet toon--it
don’t make difference even ef we don’t know it.”
Long after Dinner Gaze had ended his brief sojourn in Tickfall, the
congregation of the Shoofly Church remembered him as he stood before
them with his scarred face and sang the song of the shining shore:
“My days are gliding swiftly by,
An’ I, a pilgrim stranger,
Would not detain ’em as dey fly
Dem hours of toil an’ danger;
Fer, Oh! We stand on Jordon’s strand
Our frien’s are passin’ over;
An’ jest befo’, de shinin’ sho’
We may almost discover.”
After this Vinegar arose, announced his text, and began his sermon.
Thereupon Aunt Biddy Chivill, an old negress, deaf as an adder, arose
from one of the pews and seated herself in a chair inside the altar
railing. Unrolling a trumpet hose she had inherited at the death of a
wealthy white woman in Tickfall, she screwed the parts together with
great pride and ostentation, and settled herself to listen.
Vinegar spoke about four sentences to which Biddy Chivill listened
attentively. Then with an air of final decision, Biddy removed the
trumpet from her ear, unscrewed each part with great care and stowed
the instrument away in a bag which she carried in her lap, taking great
pains to lock the bag. Folding her hands across her lap she fell into
peaceful slumber while Vinegar Atts bellowed on.
Sister Ginny Babe Chew, having attempted two abortive toots upon her
trumpet, also fell asleep.
But while Aunt Biddy Chivill slept, her little four-year-old
granddaughter became immediately active and very much awake. She crept
out into the aisle and began to walk around aimlessly, her bare feet
making no noise upon the uncarpeted floor.
For a while she amused herself by staring into the faces of the men
and peeping under the sun-bonnets of the women. The hands which were
stretched out to arrest her were carefully avoided, and she rewarded
each person making the attempt with a childish scowl.
Then she sat down upon the floor and crawled under the benches. She lay
on the floor and rolled under the benches, bobbing up at unexpected
places with an angelic smile.
After this she found a large box in the rear of the church.
In spite of the town stock laws, the hogs ran wild in that portion of
Tickfall known as Dirty-Six, where the Shoofly Church was located. Many
of these animals had their sleeping place under the church, and the
building was infested with fleas.
It was a custom when a church meeting was to be held, to sprinkle the
floor with lime and sweep it out, thus ridding the house temporarily of
the insects. For that purpose a large box of lime was kept in the rear
of the church.
It was this box that the little black baby girl discovered. She stood
on tiptoe, stretched herself up, and looked in. It was white, very
white, inside. She reached over the edge and touched the whiteness.
She brought the hand out and looked at it. It also was white.
[Illustration:
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.
The “Revun” Vinegar Atts began his sermon.]
Then the child reached into the box with both hands, filled them with
lime, and rubbed them on her face. By the mercy of heaven, she did not
get any of the stuff into her mouth and eyes. Then she sat down and
rubbed her feet with lime. The effect was gratifying and she smiled.
By this time the sermon was ended. Vinegar had not done much, but he
had done the best he could.
“Brudder Tucky Sugg will pray for us!” Vinegar bawled.
The congregation reverently bowed.
Then a little black girl with lime-whitened face and hands and legs,
trotted silently up the aisle and stood beside brother Tucky Sugg,
listening earnestly to his bawling voice.
She stretched out a tiny, lime-whitened hand and touched Tucky Sugg
timidly on the top of his step-ladder head.
“Who you tryin’ to talk to, Revun?” she asked in a bird-like voice.
Tucky Sugg opened his eyes and saw something he had never seen before.
With a loud bellow like a frightened cow, he rolled backward on the
floor, and got up with an intense desire to run.
“My Gawd!”
The voice was like an explosion of dynamite, and expressed the
consternation of the congregation as they rose to their feet prepared
for flight.
Ginny Babe Chew awoke from her slumber. She stared at the little child
a moment, then reached out a fat, motherly hand.
“Come here, honey!” she bawled. “Yo’ mammy oughter had washed yo’ face
an’ hands befo’ she sont you to de meetin’-house.”
She wiped the lime off the child with the end of her apron, and took
the child in her lap.
Then, while the congregation was still standing, Dinner Gaze from his
place at one side of the house began to sing, while all stood and
listened:
“At de feast of Bill Shasser an’ a thousan’ of his lords,
While dey drunk from golden vessels as de Book of Truth records,
In de night as dey reveled in de royal palace hall,
Dey wus seized wid cornsternation--’twas de Hand upon de wall!
So our deeds is recorded--dar’s a Hand dat’s writin’ now.
Sinner, gib yo’ sins de go-by an’ to de Marster bow!
Fer de day am approachin’--it must come to one an’ all
When de sinner’s corndamnation will git written on de wall!”
On the instant that the song ended, a long, wailing cry, that was at
once full of anguish and heart-break, ran through the building!
Old Isaiah Gaitskill, superintendent of the Gaitskill hog-camp, ran
down the aisle, clawing at the white wool which fitted his head like a
rubber cap. His face was ashy with the dust of the high-way, and tears
had streaked it where they had ran downward through the dust.
“My Gawd, cullud folks!” he wailed. “De white folks is done kotched
Hitch Diamond--dey are fotchin’ him to jail right now! Here dey come
down de big road. Oh, my Gawd!”
The old negro turned and fell with his hands clasping the altar,
sobbing like a child.
X
HOME AGAIN.
The entire congregation ran out of the building into the churchyard and
looked up the street. To the end of their lives they never forgot what
they saw.
Hitch Diamond, bareheaded, barefooted, dressed in a red undershirt and
a pair of blue overalls, was walking down the middle of the street, his
hands manacled behind him, his head hanging in shame.
Dust covered him from head to feet, and perspiration streamed down his
face. He had tried to wipe the perspiration away by rubbing his head
upon his broad shoulders, and this had smeared his face with mud until
he was a horrible creature to behold.
Hitch looked old, he looked sick. All of the pride and jauntiness which
had characterized him when he left Tickfall for the prize-fight had
dropped away, and he was merely the shell of the man who had gone away
from home to certain pugilistic victory.
On either side of Hitch Diamond rode a strange white man--New Orleans
detectives employed by the mill owners of Sawtown to track the fugitive
down. Behind the three rode the sheriff of Tickfall Parish, Mr. John
Flournoy.
Dainty Blackum ran back into the church and brought from the pulpit
a glass pitcher with a broken spout. She met Hitch and the officers
right in front of the church, and the officers called a halt as she
held the pitcher up to Hitch Diamond’s thirsty lips. Then, dipping
a handkerchief into the water, she wiped the mud and sweat from the
tortured man’s face.
Wail after wail arose from the crowd of negroes in front of the Shoofly
Church, and Hitch turned and looked at them as if he did not realize
where he was.
Vinegar Atts ran out and placed his trembling hand upon Sheriff
Flournoy’s dusty stirrup.
“Whut dey got Hitch fer, Marse John?” he sobbed.
“Murder!” Flournoy growled through jaws which were shut together like a
bear-trap. “He killed the night watchman at the Sawtown mill!”
The party started again, and Vinegar stood in his tracks as if turned
to stone.
It seemed to take a few minutes for the Shoofly congregation to
comprehend what Flournoy had said, or else the shock was so great that
even their emotions could find no expression, voluble as they are as
a race. Then a moan of sorrow swept like a deep-toned note from some
mighty musical instrument; it was rich, melodious, heart-breaking--an
expression of the deepest and most acute grief of their humble lives.
For Hitch was the hero of the colored population of Tickfall. They had
shared his glory as victor in many a hard-fought fistic battle. They
had won many dollars on his prowess as a boxer. They had helped to
train him and perfect his wonderful physical organization for every
contest he had ever participated in, and they loved him!
And Hitch deserved their affection. According to his lights he was a
good man, a clean liver, one who took the best care he knew how of his
superb body. There was nothing vicious or ugly about his disposition.
He was merely a great, strong, bone-headed pugilist, who had made the
most of himself by developing and using the best talent he possessed,
namely, his giant strength.
Still moaning like the sea as the tide flows out, the Shoofly
congregation flowed out into the road and fell in behind, forming a
long procession of sorrowing friends.
Suddenly, above the low moan, in a tone which ripped and roared and
snarled like the angry water breaking through a levee, came the mighty
voice of Ginny Babe Chew:
“Murder! Murder! Murder! Whut do Gawd Awmighty think about dat?”
She pranced down the street, thrusting the people aside with her
ponderous body as a steamboat cuts through the mushy ice upon a river.
Her voice howled like a wolf’s call, with a taunting, bark-like,
malicious, nerve-searing gratification:
“Murder!”
She managed to reach the head of the procession and walked just behind
Sheriff Flournoy’s horse.
She whirled round and round like a Dervish, stooped and threw dust in
the air, tore her clothes, and waving her fists at the sky shrieked
like a maniac:
“Murder! Murder! Murder!”
John Flournoy stopped his horse, and turned and looked at her with a
queer expression upon his face. Once he opened his mouth to speak, then
shut his jaws tight, turned his eyes forward and rode on.
“Murder!” Ginny Babe Chew screamed.
Vinegar Atts could endure the horror no longer. He ran forward, and
caught Ginny Babe by her fat shoulder and whirled her around. Vinegar
had had years of experience as a pugilist and was Hitch’s boxing
partner to this day. He knew exactly where to place his blow.
His open palm with all his strength behind it flattened upon Ginny
Babe’s squalling lips. She uttered a low grunt, and fell in the street.
John Flournoy looked back and nodded his approval.
The crowd coming behind split in two halves, and walked around Ginny’s
prostrate body, noting without pity that a stream of blood was flowing
from her thick lips. The crowd behind had been augmented by hundreds
before they reached the Hen-Scratch saloon.
Skeeter Butts had just come to town in his automobile, and was standing
in front of his place of business. His face turned the color of ashes,
and his lips stiffened with horror as he realized what was coming down
the street to meet him.
“Oh, Hitch!” he wailed. “Shorely dey ain’t got you right, is dey,
Hitch? Tell me dat dey done missed it!”
But Hitch was too tortured to reply. He cast one lingering look upon
his friend, and turned away with blood-shot, agonized eyes. Skeeter
Butts reeled back from the middle of the street and covered his eyes
with his trembling hands.
For a while after that the procession moved forward in silence. Then
a succession of piercing screams shattered the atmosphere. A handsome
girl, whose hands and face were the color of old gold, came running
down the street, and threw her arms around Hitch Diamond’s neck.
“Oh, Hitchie! Hitchie! Hitchie!” she screamed.
It was Goldie Curtain, Hitch’s wife.
For a moment Hitch’s giant body wavered, his knees bent under him, and
he staggered as if about to fall. He stopped and leaned heavily upon
the sobbing girl whose arms clasped his neck.
“Move on!” a sharp-voiced officer spoke.
Goldie Curtain fell in the dust of the street like one dead. Sheriff
Flournoy, whose face was turned to look behind him, did not see her
lying there. His nervous horse leaped over her prostrate body.
Vinegar Atts, sobbing aloud, picked the girl up in his powerful arms,
carried her into her own house and placed her upon a bed. Then he came
out and joined again with the crowd which followed Hitch until the
doors of the jail closed behind him.
When Hitch had passed out of sight behind those doors, Ginny Babe
Chew came staggering down the street, wiping the blood from her lips
and the front of her dress. She stood in the middle of the street in
front of the jail, shrieking like a maniac. She stooped and gathered
handfuls of sand and tossed them into the air above her head, while her
calliope-like voice shrieked again and again:
“Good-by, Hitch! Good-by, Hitch! Good-by, Hitch!”
XI
UP AGAINST IT.
A whole week passed during which Skeeter Butts sat in the Hen-Scratch
saloon, nervously smoking cigarettes and listening to the whispered
tales which came to him from his negro friends.
Skeeter had made no attempt to see Hitch Diamond, and had not talked
about him to any of the white people. He knew it was not wise to show
too much interest in the case of a negro criminal. He did not care
to get himself under suspicion. All of Hitch’s friends felt the same
way, and since their first dramatic display of emotion as Hitch was
led captive before the Shoofly Church, they had assumed an attitude of
indifference toward Hitch and his pitiable plight.
It was the Sunday following Hitch’s return to Tickfall when Skeeter
determined to interview Sheriff John Flournoy. Skeeter timed his call
with the sheriff’s custom of sitting on a little side porch of his home
and smoking an after-dinner cigar.