back to a large hen-house on the other side of her home, and threw it
inside the door. Closing the door she waddled back, and waved a fat
hand at the three men. “Don’t fergit dat Ginny’s got a hoodoo face,
niggers!” she bawled.
“Huh!” Dinner Gaze grunted. “Listen to dat ole fat fool!”
“Come on, niggers,” Tucky Sugg said in a disgusted tone. “Less git away
from dis place.”
As the three men walked down the street, Skeeter said: “Dinner, is you
ever had any expe’unce ’tendin’ bar?”
“Yes, suh.”
“Would you wish to he’p Pap Curtain take keer of my saloom fer de nex’
ten days?” he asked next.
“It’ll suit me fine,” Dinner told him.
They discussed the business for a little while, then Skeeter left them
at the next corner.
“I leaves it wid you an’ Pap, Dinner,” Skeeter said. “I needs a leetle
rest an’ I’s gwine to trabbel some.”
XIV
SKEETER STARTS A BLAZE.
For the next four days Pap Curtain and Dinner Gaze tended bar in the
Hen-Scratch saloon for Skeeter Butts.
Vinegar Atts and Tucky Sugg started a protracted meeting in the old
Shoofly Church which was attended by throngs who listened with bated
breath to Vinegar’s bawling exhortations to righteousness based
upon the horrible example of Hitch Diamond, who found himself in a
predicament where there was “no hope.”
Meanwhile Skeeter went to New Orleans, and to Sawtown. He tracked Hitch
Diamond from the moment he left Tickfall to go to the prize-fight
until he returned to Tickfall, bareheaded, barefooted, with his hands
manacled behind him, and under the escort of the officers of the law.
In both places he dodged Sheriff John Flournoy, who was also conducting
an investigation. Both were on the same mission, and Skeeter saw
Flournoy a dozen times at different places.
Skeeter and Flournoy returned to Tickfall, crushed and hopeless,
appalled at the array of evidence which Hitch Diamond had to confront
at his coming trial. It was not a pretense, but a fact, that Hitch
Diamond had no hope.
It was almost dark when Skeeter climbed wearily off the train at
Tickfall and started up the street toward Dirty-Six. He overtook
Sheriff John Flournoy walking slowly up the street.
“Whut is Hitch’s chances now, Marse John?” he asked.
“He has none,” Flournoy replied. “There is no longer a shadow of doubt
in my mind that Hitch Diamond committed the crime with which he is
charged.”
“Yes, suh, dat’s de way it looks,” Skeeter agreed sadly. He dropped
behind, stopped, and let the sheriff go on alone. He stood leaning
against a fence for a while, wondering what to do next. Finally he said
to himself:
“I’s gwine to Ginny Babe Chew’s cabin an’ narrate her all I is found
out. Mebbe dat ole hoodoo face kin see mo’ hope dan I kin.”
He passed the Hen-Scratch saloon and peeped into the window, where he
saw Pap and Dinner Gaze playing cards at a small table. He passed the
Shoofly Church, where he heard the voice of Vinegar Atts bellowing like
a lost cow. On the edge of the settlement he entered the yard of Ginny
Babe Chew’s home, and found Dainty sitting alone upon the porch.
Ginny Babe was in the hen-house rendering profane ministrations to the
same old hen which was still of a mind to brood, whether there was
anything to hatch or not.
That hen had entertained Ginny Babe for a week. She had exhausted every
known method to break up the fowl’s desire to “set,” dousing it in
water, ducking it in ashes, tying a long red trailer of wool to its
feet, and other things of that general nature. Now she stood growling
profanity, wondering what else she could do to the obstinate old biddy.
Suddenly she thought of the suggestion made by Skeeter Butts: “Pour
coal-ile on her tail an’ sot her on fire!”
She picked up an old rag lying in the yard, wrapped it around the
squawking hen’s tail, carried the fowl to the back porch, where she
found an oil-can, and saturated the rag well with the petroleum.
Then she struck a match and set the rag afire.
The startled hen fluttered out of her arms, ran straight into the
hen-house, shed the oil-soaked, blazing rag with most of her tail
feathers, and ran out of the hen-house into the high weeds.
But the burning rag left in the hen-house got busy with the loose straw
and the other dry trash, and in a moment the whole house was in a blaze!
Ginny was famous for the noise she could make with her throat. Her very
name was a perversion of the word for that noisy hen the guinea, and
from her earliest childhood this word had been indicative of her chief
faculty. But on this occasion she broke all previous records for racket.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!” she began.
What she said after that and the noises she made cannot enter into this
narrative because they cannot be reproduced in print.
The dry grass, the straw, the inflammable trash, the dusty
accumulations of years, due to Ginny’s idea that the way to clean up
her yard was to sweep everything inside the hen-house--all was afire
and blazing merrily.
Skeeter and Dainty heard her wails and ran around the house. Then
Skeeter grabbed a tree with both hands, spread his alligator mouth to
its utmost limit, and laughed himself into hysterics.
The portion of Tickfall occupied by the whites had water-works, and
adequate fire protection. The negro settlement known as Dirty-Six had
no water, but was protected from fire by a chemical engine. There was
a fire-engine house, a pole beside it with a bell on top, and a rope
suspended from the bell within reach of the hand.
When the engine-house was first erected four years before, the negroes
had waited rather impatiently for some one’s house to catch on fire.
They wanted to see their new engine in operation. Nothing caught fire,
not even a chicken-coop. For four years the bell at the engine-house
had not been rung.
Then, on some occasion which called for a celebration on the part of
the negroes, they had asked and had been given permission to take the
chemical wagon out, attach the hose, and sprinkle the street, merely to
show that the hose would actually squirt water and the engine pump it.
After the celebration the apparatus was dragged back and placed in the
engine-house, and the inhabitants of Dirty-Six resumed their watchful
waiting.
Now the cry of “Fire!” echoed through the settlement.
It was caught up on every corner. Negroes seized their shotguns
and pistols and ran down the street, firing them into the air--the
fire-signal in all Southern villages.
Vinegar Atts, standing in the pulpit of the Shoofly Church, paused
in the midst of a fiery exhortation, listened to the cry of “Fire!”
ringing through the settlement.
“Fire!” Vinegar bellowed, and started in a lope for the street, leading
all the congregation in the race. They, with the other inhabitants of
Dirty-Six, gladly assembled, not at the scene of the fire, but at the
engine-house!
“Ring de bell!” a hundred voices bawled.
The bell-rope was gone. Some little piccaninny had needed a rope to tie
his dog and had helped himself.
Two or three boys tried to climb the post and ring the bell, but they
could not reach it.
“Open de door an’ fotch out de engyne!” the crowd whooped.
Forty men ran their hands into their pockets and brought them out
empty. They did not have the key to the door. They had never had the
key. The action was mechanical and unconscious.
Who had the key? No one knew. It had been two years since any one had
entered the building. The door was locked and the key was lost.
“Bust de door down!” was the next call from the crowd.
Strong shoulders were pressed against the fragile door, and the crash
of its timbers was answered by the shouts of the people and the onrush
of the crowd. They laid hold upon the rope and pulled the machine to
the scene of the fire.
Down the alley by the side of the house they ran, broke down the fence
and pulled the machine into the yard. With many shouts they unwound the
hose, attached it to the engine, turned the faucets and began to pump.
From the hose came a long whistling sound of air:
“Whee-ee-ee-e!”
Not a drop of chemical water. The celebration two years before had
exhausted the chemical, and the engine had never been recharged. The
hen-house burned without interruption.
Ginny Babe Chew turned toward that crowd of heroic negro firemen, and
the pumps of her profanity worked without a hitch as she poured out a
stream of sulphurous and vitriolic language upon their luckless heads.
Skeeter Butts still hung to the tree with both hands, laughing with
whoops like a yelling Comanche.
The firemen laid hold upon their chemical machine and dragged it out of
the yard.
Suddenly Skeeter’s laughter ended with a gurgle of choked surprise.
With his mouth still open wide, he gazed upward at a little dormer
window which looked out of the attic of Ginny Babe Chew’s home. Slowly
his hair rose up on his head, and cold chills ran down his spine.
The light reflected from the burning hen-house clearly revealed a male
human face at the dormer window!
The man was looking down into the yard, watching the crowd, watching
the fire, and at times grinning at something he saw. Skeeter watched
that face for two or three minutes; its clear outlines were stamped
indelibly upon his mind. He had never seen the negro before!
Then he sprang to the side of Vinegar Atts and squalled:
“Come on up-stairs wid me, Vinegar--quick!”
The two ran into the house. Skeeter took his automatic pistol from his
pocket, and leading the way, ran up the little, narrow stairs which led
to the attic. They pushed open the door of the room and entered.
The room was empty!
Skeeter ran to the window and looked out, just as he had seen the
strange negro do. Instantly the fat face of Ginny Babe Chew was raised
to the window, her green pig eyes glowed malevolently, and her fat
fists were clenched and raised in malediction.
“Come out of dat attic, you little yellow-faced debbil!” she whooped.
“I’ll bust yo’ neck!”
XV
COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENSE.
On the first Tuesday in September the open spaces in front and on
the sides of the Tickfall courthouse filled up early with a crowd of
negroes. It was the occasion of the opening of the criminal term of the
district court, and all witnesses and talesmen were called to court
for the trial of Hitch Diamond, charged with murder, against the peace
and dignity of the commonwealth of Louisiana and the statutes made and
provided.
The witnesses and talesmen already sat in the court-room, along with as
many other people, mostly colored, as could squeeze in there. Even now,
at nine o’clock in the morning, the heat of that ill-ventilated room
was stifling, the odor was overpowering. Men sat on the bench seats,
on the back of the benches, on the ledges of the windows; they stood in
the aisles, in the corridors, on the stairways, and were ranged in rows
along the soiled and dusty walls.
Inside the low railing which divided the room, and nearest to the
chairs which the jurors were to occupy, Hitch Diamond sat at a long
table with Goldie Curtain by his side. In that crowd of people, either
white or black, Goldie was the one splotch of vivid coloring--her face
and hands and neck a beautiful orange in color, and her half-caste
beauty most striking and attractive. Hitch sat beside the table as
stolid and indifferent as a wooden man, but Goldie trembled, her
nervous fingers plaited in and out of each other like squirming snakes;
she was scared and shrinking, pitiable and lonely.
Just outside the low railing sat Ginny Babe Chew and Dinner Gaze,
directly behind the broad back of Hitch Diamond. Ginny slowly slapped
at her fat face with a turkey-wing fan. Her big mouth was clamped
shut like a steel trap, and her little green, greedy, pig eyes glared
through the rolls of facial fat with baleful, condemning gaze upon
everything and everybody around her.
A little farther away from Hitch, but on the same front seat with Ginny
Chew and Dinner Gaze, sat the Reverend Vinegar Atts and Tucky Sugg.
There was a window behind the jury-box, so that the light falling
over the heads of the jurors would fall full upon the faces of the
witnesses as they sat in the chair, and would illumine every line in
the faces of the lawyers as they presented their sides to the jury.
On the opposite side of the room there was another window, and within
this window, sitting precariously on the ledge, was Pap Curtain. He had
asked and obtained permission from Sheriff Flournoy to sit within the
bar on the ground that it was his son-in-law who was being tried for
his life.
Across from Hitch Diamond the district attorney sat at another long
table to represent the cause of the State. Tall, urbane, white-haired,
with the reputation of being a pitiless prosecutor of criminals, Dan
Davazec was confident and jaunty. He fussed about busily, arranging and
rearranging the table in front of him, shoving aside the water-pitcher,
the ink-bottle, a pile of law-books with freckled-leather covers, as a
battleship strips her decks for action.
“It’s a cinch, Sam,” he chuckled to the editor of the Tickfall _Whoop_.
“Dead open-and-shut!”
Davazec had tried in vain to find a wife, or mother, or sisters of
the night-watchman for whose murder Hitch Diamond was to be tried. He
wanted somebody to lend force and eloquence to his plea by sitting
before the jury dressed in black and wearing a long, thick mourning
veil. But the murdered man apparently had no kinsmen, so Davazec lacked
these eloquent figures of desolation and sorrow.
But the two owners of the Sawtown mill sat at the table beside Davazec,
and the room in the rear of the judge’s bench was crowded with
witnesses. Davazec felt the importance of his place and the certain
triumph of his cause, and he swelled and expanded in his clothes at the
thought of how helpful this day’s proceedings would be to him when he
announced himself for reëlection.
From his office in the rear the judge entered the court-room, followed
by a clerk bearing a few law-books and some sheets of paper and a large
palm-leaf fan. Judge Haddan was a pale, sickly looking man with a weak
voice, trembling hands, and stooped shoulders. But his head was massive
and Websterian, and his eyes glowed like the eyes of some jungle beast.
No man within the borders of the State commanded more respect as a
lawyer and a jurist.
Hitch Diamond raised his massive head and eyed the judge with the
stolid gaze of a stupid horse. Goldie gasped, and laced and interlaced
her nervous fingers in her lap.
The opening ceremonies of the court were soon over. No one paid any
attention to the few formalities, for they were all hastening to get at
the thing of big interest.
The clerk called the case of the Commonwealth _versus_ Hitch Diamond.
“We are ready, your honor,” Dan Davazec said in his clear voice.
“Where is your counsel, Hitch Diamond?” Judge Haddan asked.
“I ain’t got none, boss,” Hitch answered.
“Do you wish me to assign you counsel?” Haddan inquired.
Hitch stood up and scratched his woolly head.
“Boss,” he said, in a sad tone, “one time when yo’ leetle gal got sick
an’ you lived out on yo’ plantation in de country, I done you a leetle
favor. Does you remember, boss?”
Haddan looked straight at Hitch Diamond while his nervous fingers
drummed upon the arms of his chair. He seemed not to have heard what
Hitch had said.
“Do you wish me to assign you counsel?” he asked again.
“Boss,” Hitch continued, “when yo’ little gal got sick, de water had
done riz up an’ de Dorfoche Bayou wus seben miles wide--an’ you axed me
to go atter de dorctor. I waded an’ swum dat bayou--I got acrost dat
seben mile of water--I fotch de dorctor--an’ yo’ little gal got well.
Boss, you tole me den, dat ef I ever needed any he’p, you would he’p me
at any cost--an’ boss, befo’ Gawd, now is yo time!”
Hitch Diamond sat down at the table.
Involuntarily Judge Haddan looked at the State’s attorney; their eyes
met, and Davazec murmured, “Don’t that nigger beat hell!”
“Do you wish me to assign counsel for you, Hitch?” Judge Haddan asked
for the third time.
“Naw, suh, boss!” Hitch said. “I think you an’ me had better law dis
case togedder!”
“Do you plead guilty or not guilty?” Haddan asked.
Hitch grinned.
“Ain’t dat jes’ whut we is come to try, boss?” he asked.
“The defendant pleads not guilty!” Judge Haddan announced with an
amused grimace at the State’s attorney.
Then the clerk called the name of a talesman.
In an hour the jury was complete. Hitch Diamond left that work entirely
in the hands of Dan Davazec and Judge Haddan. Whenever the judge
excused a talesman from service, Hitch smiled, and felt that the judge
was certainly winning the case for him!
Then for two hours the crowded court-room of people sat in breathless
silence, while District Attorney Davazec drove nail after nail into the
gallows which should hang Hitch Diamond. It was a savage and pitiless
prosecution, not because of the efforts of Davazec, but because of the
force of the testimony, developing a chain of evidence without a weak
or missing link. The jurors, grim, silent, attentive, fixed their eyes
upon each witness, and when the witness-chair was empty, they looked
down at the floor.
Not one of them glanced at Hitch Diamond. Jurymen don’t like to watch a
man whom they are making up their minds to condemn to death.
Hitch listened to the evidence without a word or question to a single
witness. If Judge Haddan asked a question, Hitch grinned. He seemed
never to comprehend the effect of the statements that were being made.
Dan Davazec arose and announced with dramatic emphasis:
“Your honor, the State closes!”
The crowd in the court-room drew a long breath; a humming murmur like a
breeze in the tree-tops swept over the heads of the people.
Hitch Diamond arose.
“Boss,” he announced to the judge, “Mister Danny Davazec is shore done
hisse’f proud, an’ all dem white men is tole de truth--as fur as dey
knows it. I closes up de State’s case, too!”
A snicker sounded from the rear benches, where an assortment of white
toughs and loafers had congregated for gratuitous entertainment.
The jury stared at the floor.
XVI
WITNESS FOR THE DEFENSE.
“Have you any witnesses, Hitch?” Judge Haddan inquired, nervously
mopping at his temples with a handkerchief.
“Yes, suh. I wants to ’terrogate Skeeter Butts, please, suh.”
There was a slight movement in the crowd in the rear of the court-room,
and Skeeter came forward and pushed open the little gate in the low
railing, which, like a river levee, held back an overflow of black
people.
He had moved slowly through the crowd, proud of being called as a
witness, ostentatiously speaking to every colored person he knew, and
bowing with fine courtesy to every white face.
Respectably dressed, and extremely respectful in his manner, Skeeter
came to the witness stand with the air of a man who knew exactly how to
act in the company of white folks.
The jurors straightened up in their seats, looking at Skeeter with
interest, wondering what light he could bring to brighten the black
cloud which hung over the defendant. Skeeter noted the movement and
bowed.
“Mawnin’, gen’lemens!” he murmured.
At the admonition of the judge, Skeeter held up his right hand, a clerk
rattled off a string of words which Skeeter could not understand, and
Skeeter dropped his hand.
“Thank ’e, suh!” he said.
Then, for the first time during the trial, Hitch Diamond came to life.
He rose to his feet, picked up the heavy table against which he had
been leaning, and set it entirely out of his way by placing it so close
to the witness stand that Skeeter Butts could have reached out his foot
from the chair and stepped on it.
A heavy iron cuspidor stood in the middle of the space which Hitch was
clearing for himself, so he set it out of his way. After that he moved
two heavy chairs.
Suddenly Sheriff John Flournoy woke up!
It looked to him like Hitch Diamond had cleared a space for himself
clear across the court-room in front of the judge to the open window
where Pap Curtain, Hitch’s father-in-law, was sitting. He noticed that
Pap Curtain had slipped off the window ledge and was standing with his
back to the window, one hand stretched out on either side.
Hitch was getting ready to run!
As quietly as possible, Sheriff Flournoy slipped across the platform
behind the judge’s seat and stationed himself near the window where Pap
Curtain stood.
Pap smiled and nodded knowingly.
“Dat’s right, Marse John,” he grinned, as he waved his hand toward
Hitch Diamond. “Git a good ready! Dat Tickfall Tiger is gwine scratch
somebody’s back!”
Having completed his preparations, Hitch Diamond turned to his star
witness.
“Whut am yo’ name, Skeeter Butts?” he bellowed.
Skeeter got mad and began to swell up.
“You done called me by my name!” he snapped.
“Tell de white folks whut is yo’ name, Skeeter!” Hitch growled. “Mebbe
dey is seed yo’ favor but disremember de name of yo’ face!”
“Skeeter Butts!” the witness replied grumpily.
“Does you know who kilt dat night-watchman down at Sawtown?” Hitch
asked.
“Suttinly.”
“Was you dar when it happened?” Hitch inquired.
“Naw, suh.”
“Was it me whut done it?” Hitch bellowed.
“Naw, suh,” Skeeter answered positively.
“Who done it?” Hitch Diamond howled.
Skeeter hitched himself forward until he sat upon the extreme edge of
the witness chair. He hung his brown derby hat upon the first finger of
his left hand and turned it round and round with the finger and thumb
of his right hand. He stared at the table which Hitch had lifted and
placed before him.
The members of the jury suddenly sat up and took notice.
They had known negroes all their lives; they had had negro playmates
when they were boys; and now they “read sign” on Skeeter. They knew
Skeeter was going to explode something. Their backbones stiffened in
their chairs as if the marrow had suddenly turned to rigid steel.
“Who--done--it?” Hitch Diamond bellowed.
Skeeter pushed himself back in his chair. His little brown derby hat
fell from his finger, rattled and bounced in a ridiculous fashion
across the table before him, fell to the floor and rocked to and fro on
the curved crown.
Skeeter stretched out his hand with two middle fingers and the thumb
flexed, and the first finger and the little finger extended in such
a way that he pointed at the same time with one gesture to two men
sitting in different parts of the court-room. Then he answered:
“Dinner Gaze and Tucky Sugg!”
Judge Haddan slumped forward in his chair, his delicate, fragile hands
gripping the edge of the desk before him. The district attorney, a man
who generally possessed perfect poise and self-possession, was jerked
to his feet by this announcement and stood in absolute silence waving
his hands to and fro like an embarrassed schoolboy who had suddenly
forgotten how to “speak his piece.” The jury sank back in their chairs
with a low sigh of gratification. They had tuned their ears for the
sound of an explosion, and the effect had produced a pleasant shock.
Silence in the court-room, a silence appalling.
Hitch Diamond, who had been standing like a statue carved from ebony,
slowly turned and faced the crowd of black men sitting behind him.
Then a voice cracked the silence like a starter’s pistol shot over the
backs of two men straining for a race; it was the voice of Ginny Babe
Chew:
“Dar--now!”
In the twenty seconds which had elapsed since Skeeter made his
astounding statement, Dinner Gaze and Tucky Sugg had both considered
the chances and the avenues of escape, as well as the possibility of
remaining in their places and protesting innocence of the charge. Ginny
Babe Chew’s triumphant exclamation decided the issue.
The low railing around the bar was directly before them. They sprang
forward to clear it, and lo! Vinegar Atts was swinging to Tucky Sugg’s
coat-tail, and Ginny Babe Chew was hanging to the coat-tail of Dinner
Gaze!
In an instant each man had slipped his arms out of his coat and was
free. They leaped the railing, standing in the open space which Hitch
Diamond had so ostentatiously cleared.
Under their coats, the two men carried pistol holsters, and now they
stood with their backs against the wall beside the judge’s bench, at
bay, each with a pistol in his hand.
There was confusion for about ten seconds while the court-room cleared
of its occupants. It took just that long for all to get out who wanted
to go. That was sufficient time for some eager ones to pass the
post-office two blocks away!
Suddenly Dinner Gaze’s dangerous, desperate voice rang out clearly,
with an intonation which pierced like a sword: