Mrs. Clarke is Joe Clarke’s wife. She is a soft-looking, middle-aged
woman, whose bust and stomach are always holding a get-together.
She waits on the store sometimes and cries every time he yells at her
which he does every time she makes a mistake, which is quite often. She
calls her husband “Jody.” They say he used to beat her in the store
when he was a young man, but he is not so impatient now. He can wait
until he goes home.
She shouts in Church every Sunday and shakes the hand of fellowship
with everybody in the Church with her eyes closed, but somehow always
misses her husband.
X
Mrs. McDuffy goes to Church every Sunday and always shouts and tells
her “determination.” Her husband always sits in the back row and beats
her as soon as they get home. He says there’s no sense in her shouting,
as big a devil as she is. She just does it to slur him. Elijah Moseley
asked her why she didn’t stop shouting, seeing she always got a beating
about it. She says she can’t “squinch the sperrit.” Then Elijah asked
Mr. McDuffy to stop beating her, seeing that she was going to shout
anyway. He answered that she just did it for spite and that his fist
was just as hard as her head. He could last just as long as she. So the
village let the matter rest.
XI
+Double-Shuffle+
Back in the good old days before the World War, things were very simple
in Eatonville. People didn’t fox-trot. When the town wanted to put on
its Sunday clothes and wash behind the ears, it put on a “breakdown.”
The daring younger set would two-step and waltz, but the good church
members and the elders stuck to the grand march. By rural canons
dancing is wicked, but one is not held to have danced until the feet
have been crossed. Feet don’t get crossed when one grand marches.
At elaborate affairs the organ from the Methodist church was moved
up to the hall and Lizzimore, the blind man presided. When informal
gatherings were held, he merely played his guitar assisted by any
volunteer with mouth organs or accordions.
Among white people the march is as mild as if it had been passed on
by Volstead. But it still has a kick in Eatonville. Everybody happy,
shining eyes, gleaming teeth. Feet dragged ’shhlap, shhlap! to beat
out the time. No orchestra needed. Round and round! Back again,
parse-me-la! shlap! shlap! Strut! Strut! Seaboard! Shlap! Shlap! Tiddy
bumm! Mr. Clarke in the lead with Mrs. Mosely.
It’s too much for some of the young folks. Double shuffling commences.
Buck and wing. Lizzimore about to break his guitar. Accordion doing
contortions. People fall back against the walls, and let the soloist
have it, shouting as they clap the old, old double shuffle songs.
’Me an’ mah honey got two mo’ days
Two mo’ days tuh do de buck’
Sweating bodies, laughing mouths, grotesque faces, feet drumming
fiercely. Deacons clapping as hard as the rest.
“Great big nigger, black as tar
Trying tuh git tuh hebben on uh ’lectric car.”
“Some love cabbage, some love kale
But I love a gal wid a short skirt tail.”
Long tall angel--steppin’ down,
Long white robe an’ starry crown.
’Ah would not marry uh black gal (bumm bumm!)
Tell yuh de reason why
Every time she comb her hair
She make de goo-goo eye.
Would not marry a yaller gal (bumm bumm!)
Tell yuh de reason why
Her neck so long an’ stringy
Ahm ’fraid she’d never die.
Would not marry uh preacher
Tell yuh de reason why
Every time he comes tuh town
He makes de chicken fly.
When the buck dance was over, the boys would give the floor to the
girls and they would parse-me-la with a slye eye out of the corner
to see if anybody was looking who might “have them up in church”
on conference night. Then there would be more dancing. Then Mr.
Clarke would call for everybody’s best attention and announce that
_’freshments was served! Every gent’man would please take his lady by
the arm and scorch her right up to de table fur a treat!_
Then the men would stick their arms out with a flourish and ask their
ladies: “You lak chicken? Well, then, take a wing.” And the ladies
would take the proffered “wings” and parade up to the long table and be
served. Of course most of them had brought baskets in which were heaps
of jointed and fried chicken, two or three kinds of pies, cakes, potato
pone and chicken purlo. The hall would separate into happy groups about
the baskets until time for more dancing.
But the boys and girls got scattered about during the war, and now they
dance the fox-trot by a brand new piano. They do waltz and two-step
still, but no one now considers it good form to lock his chin over his
partner’s shoulder and stick out behind. One night just for fun and
to humor the old folks, they danced, that is, they grand marched, but
everyone picked up their feet. _Bah!!_
XII
+The Head of the Nail+
Daisy Taylor was the town vamp. Not that she was pretty. But sirens
were all but non-existent in the town. Perhaps she was forced to it by
circumstances. She was quite dark, with little brushy patches of hair
squatting over her head. These were held down by shingle-nails often.
No one knows whether she did this for artistic effect or for lack of
hair-pins, but there they were shining in the little patches of hair
when she got all dressed for the afternoon and came up to Clarke’s
store to see if there was any mail for her.
It was seldom that anyone wrote to Daisy, but she knew that the men of
the town would be assembled there by five o’clock, and some one could
usually be induced to buy her some soda water or peanuts.
Daisy flirted with married men. There were only two single men in town.
Lum Boger, who was engaged to the assistant school-teacher, and Hiram
Lester, who had been off to school at Tuskegee and wouldn’t look at a
person like Daisy. In addition to other drawbacks, she was pigeon-toed
and her petticoat was always showing so perhaps he was justified. There
was nothing else to do except flirt with married men.
This went on for a long time. First one wife then another complained of
her, or drove her from the preserves by threat.
But the affair with Crooms was the most prolonged and serious. He was
even known to have bought her a pair of shoes.
Mrs. Laura Crooms was a meek little woman who took all of her troubles
crying, and talked a great deal of leaving things in the hands of God.
The affair came to a head one night in orange picking time. Crooms was
over at Oneido picking oranges. Many fruit pickers move from one town
to the other during the season.
The _town_ was collected at the store-postoffice as is customary
on Saturday nights. The _town_ has had its bath and with its
week’s pay in pocket fares forth to be merry. The men tell stories and
treat the ladies to soda-water, peanuts and peppermint candy.
Daisy was trying to get treats, but the porch was cold to her that
night.
“Ah don’t keer if you don’t treat me. What’s a dirty lil nickel?” She
flung this at Walter Thomas. “The everloving Mister Crooms will gimme
anything atall Ah wants.”
“You better shet up yo’ mouf talking ’bout Albert Crooms. Heah his wife
comes right now.”
Daisy went akimbo. “Who? Me! Ah don’t keer whut Laura Crooms think. If
she ain’t a heavy hip-ted Mama enough to keep him, she don’t need to
come crying to me.”
She stood making goo-goo eyes as Mrs. Crooms walked upon the porch.
Daisy laughed loud, made several references to Albert Crooms, and when
she saw the mail-bag come in from Maitland she said, “Ah better go in
an’ see if Ah ain’t got a letter from Oneido.”
The more Daisy played the game of getting Mrs. Crooms’ goat, the
better she liked it. She ran in and out of the store laughing until
she could scarcely stand. Some of the people present began to talk to
Mrs. Crooms--to egg her on to halt Daisy’s boasting, but she was for
leaving it all in the hands of God. Walter Thomas kept on after Mrs.
Crooms until she stiffened and resolved to fight. Daisy was inside
when she came to this resolve and never dreamed anything of the kind
could happen. She had gotten hold of an envelope and came laughing and
shouting, “Oh, Ah can’t stand to see Oneido lose!”
There was a box of ax-handles on display on the porch, propped up
against the door jamb. As Daisy stepped upon the porch, Mrs. Crooms
leaned the heavy end of one of those handles heavily upon her head. She
staggered from the porch to the ground and the timid Laura, fearful of
a counter-attack, struck again and Daisy toppled into the town ditch.
There was not enough water in there to do more than muss her up. Every
time she tried to rise, down would come that ax-handle again. Laura
was fighting a scared fight. With Daisy thoroughly licked, she retired
to the store porch and left her fallen enemy in the ditch. None of the
men helped Daisy--even to get out of the ditch. But Elijah Moseley, who
was some distance down the street when the trouble began arrived as the
victor was withdrawing. He rushed up and picked Daisy out of the mud
and began feeling her head.
“Is she hurt much?” Joe Clarke asked from the doorway.
“I don’t know,” Elijah answered, “I was just looking to see if Laura had
been lucky enough to hit one of those nails on the head and drive it
in.”
Before a week was up, Daisy moved to Orlando. There in a wider sphere,
perhaps, her talents as a vamp were appreciated.
XIII
+Pants and Cal’line+
Sister Cal’line Potts was a silent woman. Did all of her laughing down
inside, but did the thing that kept the town in an uproar of laughter.
It was the general opinion of the village that Cal’line would do
anything she had a mind to. And she had a mind to do several things.
Mitchell Potts, her husband, had a weakness for women. No one ever
believed that she was jealous. She did things to the women, surely. But
most any townsman would have said that she did them because she liked
the novel situation and the queer things she could bring out of it.
Once he took up with Delphine--called Mis’ Pheeny by the town. She
lived on the outskirts on the edge of the piney woods. The town winked
and talked. People don’t make secrets of such things in villages.
Cal’line went about her business with her thin black lips pursed tight
as ever, and her shiny black eyes unchanged.
“Dat devil of a Cal’line’s got somethin’ up her sleeve!” The town
smiled in anticipation.
“Delphine is too big a cigar for her to smoke. She ain’t crazy,” said
some as the weeks went on and nothing happened. Even Pheeny herself
would give an extra flirt to her over-starched petticoats as she
rustled into church past her of Sundays.
Mitch Potts said furthermore, that he was tired of Cal’line’s
foolishness. She had to stay where he put her. His African soup-bone
(arm) was too strong to let a woman run over him. ’Nough was ’nough.
And he did some fancy cussing, and he was the fanciest cusser in the
county.
So the town waited and the longer it waited, the odds changed slowly
from the wife to the husband.
One Saturday, Mitch knocked off work at two o’clock and went over
to Maitland. He came back with a rectangular box under his arm and
kept straight on out to the barn and put it away. He ducked around
the corner of the house quickly, but even so, his wife glimpsed the
package. Very much like a shoe-box. So!
He put on the kettle and took a bath. She stood in her bare feet at
the ironing board and kept on ironing. He dressed. It was about five
o’clock but still very light. He fiddled around outside. She kept on
with her ironing. As soon as the sun got red, he sauntered out to the
barn, got the parcel and walked away down the road, past the store
and out into the piney woods. As soon as he left the house. Cal’line
slipped on her shoes without taking time to don stockings, put on one
of her husband’s old Stetsons, worn and floppy, slung the axe over her
shoulder and followed in his wake. He was hailed cheerily as he passed
the sitters on the store porch and answered smiling sheepishly and
passed on. Two minutes later passed his wife, silently, unsmilingly,
and set the porch to giggling and betting.
An hour passed perhaps. It was dark. Clarke had long ago lighted the
swinging kerosene lamp inside.