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[Illustration:
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.
Diada picked up the gun, holding it like a club, and striking her
tireless trot, followed in his tracks.
_Diada, Daughter of Discord._]
MORE
E. K. MEANS
_Is this a title? It is not. It is
the name of a writer of negro stories,
who has made himself so completely
the writer of negro stories that this
second book, like the first, needs no title._
ILLUSTRATED BY
KEMBLE
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919
BY
E. K. MEANS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
Foreword.
The stories in this volume were written simply because of my interest
in the stories themselves and because of a whimsical fondness for the
people of that Race to whom God has given two supreme gifts,--Music and
Laughter.
For the benefit of the curious, I may say that many of the incidents in
these tales are true and many of the characters and places mentioned
actually exist.
The Hen-Scratch saloon derived its name from the fact that many of its
colored habitués played “craps” on the ground under the chinaberry
trees until the soil was marked by their scratching finger-nails like
a chicken-yard. The name Tickfall is fictitious, but the locality
will be easily recognized by the true names of the negro settlements,
Dirty-Six, Hell’s-Half-Acre, Shiny, Tin-row,--lying in the sand around
that rich and aristocratic little town like pigs around their dam and
drawing their sustenance therefrom.
Skeeter Butts’s real name is Perique. Perique is also the name of
Louisiana’s famous homegrown tobacco, and as Skeeter is too diminutive
to be named after a whole cigar, his white friends have always called
him Butts. Vinegar Atts is a well-known colored preacher of north
Louisiana, whose “swing-tail prancin’-albert coat” has been seen in
many pulpits, and whose “stove-pipe, preachin’ hat” has been the target
of many a stone thrown from a mischievous white boy’s hand. Hitch
Diamond is known at every landing place on the Mississippi River as
“Big Sandy.”
When these tales were first published in the _All Story Weekly_, many
readers declared that they were humorous. Nevertheless, I hold that
a story containing dialect must necessarily have many depressing
and melancholy features. But dialect does not consist of perverted
pronunciations and phonetic orthography. True dialect is a picture in
cold type of the manifold peculiarities of the mind and temperament.
In its form, I have attempted to give merely a _flavor_ of the negro
dialect; but I have made a sincere attempt to preserve the essence of
dialect by making these stories contain a true idea of the negro’s
shrewd observations, curious retorts, quaint comments, humorous
philosophy, and his unique point of view on everything that comes to
his attention.
The Folk Tales of Joel Chandler Harris are imperishable pictures of
plantation life in the South before the Civil War and of the negro
slave who echoed all his master’s prejudice of caste and pride of
family in the old times that are no more.
The negroes of this volume are the sons of the old slaves. Millions of
them live to-day in the small Southern villages, and as these stories
indicate, many changes of character, mind, and temperament have taken
place in the last half-century through the modifications of freedom and
education.
This type also is passing. In a brief time, the negro who lives in
these pages will be a memory, like Uncle Remus. “Ethiopia is stretching
out her hands” after art, science, literature, and wealth, and when the
sable sons of laughter and song grasp these treasures, all that remains
of the Southern village negro of to-day will be a few faint sketches in
Fiction’s beautiful temple of dreams.
E. K. MEANS.
CONTENTS
PAGE
DIADA, DAUGHTER OF DISCORD 1
GETTING READY TO DIE 70
A MASCOT JINX 104
MESSING WITH MATRIMONY 126
A CORNER IN PICKANINNIES 194
IDLE DREAMS 230
THE GIFT OF POWER 255
OWNER OF DOODLE-BUG 276
EVERY POSE A PICTURE 300
D.D. 346
[Illustration]
Diada, Daughter of Discord
I
A BRAND FROM THE BURNING
Diada was a sight.
She stood on the Gaitskill lawn motionless as a brown wooden statue,
gazing like a homesick child toward the purple haze which hung over
the Little Moccasin Swamp. Her hips bulged out behind like a bustle;
her stomach protruded in front like the chest-protector of a fat
baseball-catcher; her back curved above her hips and bent at her
shoulders, giving her the appearance of a hunchback; and as for her
face--well, the children of Tickfall took one look at that mug and
hiked for home, howling at every step; the pious took a look and
crossed themselves; the ungodly “cussed”; and it is rumored that some
negroes turned white.
Every feature of that face was a horror.
Her head was covered with a mat of coarse hair growing down on a
sloping forehead almost to her eyebrows; her eyes were immensely large
and protruding, and had the wolf’s vicious glint and surly shifting
glance; her nose was no longer adorned, according to the custom of her
native land, by having long thorns and splinters of bone thrust through
it, but it had suffered grievously from this devotion to fashion,
and was now a battered daub of a snout which looked as though it had
been run through a sausage-grinder before it was smeared on her face;
her ears had been so deformed by carrying heavy iron rings that the
lobes hung down nearly to her shoulders and flapped at every motion
of her head like the loose-hung ears of the hound; and her mouth was
a cavernous monstrosity--great, horrid, horselike teeth protruding
outward, and covered with thick, repulsive lips which curled back
when she spoke or grinned until the blue gums of the upper teeth were
revealed.
Colonel Tom Gaitskill was among the ungodly who gazed upon this
horrific vision with profane utterance. He turned to the tall,
weather-tanned man who sat beside him on the porch and spoke:
“Lem, I have known you and loved you for thirty years. I have applauded
most of the things you have done. But it is now my solemn duty to
inform you that you are a d---- fool!”
Captain Lemuel Manse broke into a loud laugh. He looked at Diada and
laughed again; then he looked at Gaitskill’s horrified countenance and
laughed louder.
“I’m afraid you have none of the spirit of the Christian missionary,
Tom,” Manse finally managed to say.
“If the Christian missionaries in the Pacific Islands are engaged
in saving the immortal souls of she-baboons like that,” Gaitskill
snorted, pointing to Diada, “I’ll never give ’em another cent--not a
dang cent!”
“Diada was made in the image of God, Tom,” Manse snickered.
“She may have been--_once_!” Gaitskill snapped. “But a hooliboogoo ran
over her and mussed up that image considerably. When are you going
home?”
“Why do you ask?” Captain Manse inquired.
“My eyes are getting sore looking at that heathen cannibal--that’s why
I ask,” Gaitskill replied. “When are you going to take her away from
here?”
“Tom,” Manse said in a voice of mock sadness and reproof, “I’m
surprised at you. It’s been five years since I was a guest in your
hospitable home, and in less than two hours after my arrival you
inquire the time of my departure! Shame!”
“Keep your eye on that nigger!” Gaitskill said with a chuckle as he
pointed to a giant black who came through a side gate into the lawn.
With the free stride of the athlete, Hitch Diamond, the immense,
coal-black prize-fighter, came across the grass, his eyes following the
winding galleries of the house, apparently in search of Mr. Gaitskill.
He came face to face with Diada before he noticed her; he gazed with
popping eyeballs; his pugilistic courage and his giant strength oozed
out at his bootheels, and his iron jaw dropped down and wigwagged like
the loose under lip of a plug horse sleeping in the sun.
“My Gawd!” he exclaimed.
He slunk slowly backward until he got some thorny shrubbery between
himself and Diada, and then his ponderous feet beat a wild tattoo of
panicky retreat upon the sodded turf.
“There, now!” Gaitskill exclaimed. “Hitch Diamond has given an outward
and visible manifestation of my inward and spiritual emotions. Look at
the wench! She hasn’t moved a muscle of her body for twenty minutes!
Can’t you get her to do something?”
“Sure!” Captain Manse answered, feeling in his pocket and bringing
forth a ten-cent piece. “Have you got a dime in your pocket?”
Gaitskill produced the silver piece and held it out.
“No,” Manse said, “I don’t want to touch it. Throw your money out there
in the grass!”
The two men tossed their coins out into the thick Bermuda grass, and
Manse gave a sharp whistle.
Diada turned and trotted toward him like a dog.
“Hunt, Diada!” Manse exclaimed, pointing to the grass. “Hunt!”
Diada wheeled and made a wide circle around that part of the lawn;
then traveling in a steady trot, she made ever narrowing circles, eyes
searching the ground. Suddenly she stopped, picked up a silver dime,
placed it to her nose, gave a snort of disgust, and tossed the coin
aside.
“That was your money,” Manse explained. “She’ll find mine in a minute.”
Even as he spoke, Diada pounced upon the silver piece and came trotting
up to the porch and placed it in her master’s hand.
“Ah, I see!” Gaitskill exclaimed comprehendingly. “I have spent my life
hunting for my collar-buttons, shirt-studs, hat, and socks. So have
you. So has every man. And you’ve brought this cannibal belle to this
country with you to help you find yours!”
“No, Tom,” Captain Manse laughed. “I bought Diada to save her life. My
yacht stopped at one of those little islands in the Pacific Ocean which
has about a thousand inhabitants--there’s no end of such islands out
there. The cannibal chief came on board with Diada and offered to sell
her to me.”
“He explained that he had captured her from a neighboring tribe and had
intended to eat her. I bought her for about eleven dollars, paying for
her in red calico, brass beads, and some tinware. The cannibal chief
put one of the tin buckets on his head for a hat and rowed away as
happy as an angel with a crown upon his forehead and a harp within his
hand.”
Manse broke off and emitted a sharp whistle. Diada came to him on a
trot.
Manse caught her left hand, pushed back the loose sleeve of her white
dress, and bared her arm.
Gaitskill shuddered.
Just below her elbow was the slowly healing scar of a most horrible
wound.
“My stars!” Gaitskill exclaimed. “That wound looks like it had been
made by teeth!”
“That’s where the old chief bit her to see if she was good to eat,”
Manse explained. “He said she was too tough.”
Gaitskill glanced at Diada’s face. The vicious, surly glint was gone
from her eyes, and she gazed with a mild, pleading look upon the man
who had saved her--the look of the dumb animal which has suffered and
shows gratitude for relief. Gaitskill underwent a change of heart. He
rose to his feet and stood facing them both.
“Lem,” he said, “if that cannibal chief had showed me that wound I
would have bought Diada if she had cost me a thousand dollars.”
“Certainly, Tom,” Manse replied quietly. “There was nothing else for me
to do.”
Diada turned and walked back to the lawn, taking the same motionless
posture, gazing out toward the purple haze of the Little Moccasin Swamp.
Gaitskill sat down, lit a cigar, and gave himself up to deep thought.
Then he asked:
“Now that you’ve got her, Lem, what are you going to do with her?”
“I’m going to give her to you!” Lem said quietly.
“Wha-what?” Gaitskill barked, springing to his feet again. “Good gosh!”
“I’ll have to do that, Tom,” Manse said defensively. “This is the first
time she has been on land since I bought her. Now, I’d like to leave
her here with you all the time, but if you won’t keep her----”
“I won’t,” Gaitskill snapped. “You can bet on it, I won’t!”
“Well, keep her here for me for two weeks,” Manse pleaded. “I’ve got to
run up to St. Louis on some business, and when I come back, I’ll take
her away with me.”
“That sounds easy,” Gaitskill remarked. “Do you think Diada will stay
with me?”
“Yes, if I tell her to.”
“All right,” Gaitskill assented. “I’ll keep her. I’ll turn her over to
the care of the niggers and forget her--if I can. But I want you to
give her all the instructions necessary for the next two weeks. I don’t
speak cannibal.”
II
HITCH HAS VAGUE MISGIVINGS
When Captain Lemuel Manse and his wife had been whirled away in the
Gaitskill automobile to the Tickfall landing where their yacht awaited
them in the Mississippi River, Gaitskill sat down on the porch to think
over his troubles.
Diada stood before him on the lawn, motionless and ugly as a heathen
idol, her eyes still watching the purple haze above the swamp.
“Something over in that swamp has got to be hypnotized,” Gaitskill
muttered to himself as he watched her. “When she gets a little tame
I’ll take her for a trip to the hog-camp. I suppose she never saw
anything but a cocoanut palm.”
He leaned over the porch railing; looked back toward the rear of the
house; cupped his hands around his mouth like a trumpet, and bellowed:
“Oh, Hitch! Come here! Hear me!”
“Yes, suh, white folks! Comin’! Comin’ wid a looseness; comin’ right
now!”
Hitch came, but he chose a very unusual route--through the house.
Arriving at the door which admitted him to the porch where Gaitskill
sat, he stopped, peeped at Gaitskill, then peeped at Diada, and ducked
back into the room.
“Come here, Hitch!” Gaitskill commanded.
“Excuse me, Marse Tom,” Hitch muttered. “I’s axin’ you whut you wants?”
“Come out here! What in the name of mud is the matter with you?”
Gaitskill bawled.
Hitch came out, his ponderous feet paddling along the floor like a lame
duck, while his eyes never strayed from the broad, hunched back of
Diada.
“’Scuse me, Marse Tom,” Hitch pleaded. “Dat new she-queen you’s hired
to dec’rate dat lawn is done deprive me of my goat!”
“Don’t be a fool, Hitch!” Gaitskill snapped, smothering a desire to
laugh. “That nigger woman is Captain Lemuel Manse’s house-servant.
She’ll be here with us two weeks. I want you and Hopey to treat her
kindly and make her feel at home.”
“Boss, is she gentle?” Hitch asked as if he were alluding to a newly
purchased horse.
“Certainly,” Gaitskill assured him. “What’s the matter with you? Diada
is just a nigger woman like Hopey.”
“Mebbe so suh,” Hitch mumbled. “But she shore don’t look like Hopey in
looks.”
“Take her around to the kitchen and give her something to eat,”
Gaitskill commanded.
“Yes, suh,” Hitch answered obediently, but his tone expressed the exact
denial of his words, and he stood right where he was. “Yes, suh; I’ll
fetch her aroun’ to de kitchen--er, uh--atter while--soon’s I kin git
aroun’ to it. Ole miss tole me to go down to de sto’house right now----”
“She told you nothing of the sort!” Gaitskill snapped. “Take Diada to
the kitchen. Tell Hopey I said feed her. Hear me?”
Hitch’s whole body moved in the general direction of Diada, with the
exception of his feet. He swayed toward her like a pendulum, and then
swung back. He took a big breath, looked at Gaitskill, and muttered:
“Lawdamussy, Marse Tom, dat woman is _wild_; dat’s a plum’ hawg-wild
nigger, fer shore! An’, boss, I tells you honest--ef any cullud pusson
in de worl’ is wilder dan whut I is, I don’t wanter had nothin’ to do
wid ’em.”
“Thunderation!” Gaitskill roared. “Come down here in the yard with me!”
“Yes, suh; I’s right on yo’ hip. I’ll foller as fur as you leads de
way.”
Gaitskill laid his hand upon Diada’s arm, and she turned and looked at
him with a suspicious glance, like the expression in the eyes of a dog
when petted by a stranger. Hitch backed away.
“Look out, Marse Tom!” Hitch howled. “She’s gittin’ ready to kick!”
In a moment Diada’s eyes changed to a milder expression, and Gaitskill
patted her on the shoulder about as he would caress the side of a
horse. Seeing this, Hitch crept up nearer, put out his hand and touched
Diada’s wrist.
“She feels like a shore-’nuff, nachel-bawn nigger, Marse Tom,” he
exclaimed. “Kin she talk?”
“Yes,” Gaitskill told him. “But she can’t talk our language, Hitch. She
hasn’t been in this country long. You’ll have to make signs to her and
talk to her that way.”
“Ax her to say somepin’, Marse Tom!” Hitch begged. “Lemme hear how she
sounds!”
Gaitskill had not the remotest idea how to make her talk; in fact, he
had never heard the sound of her voice. But he did not intend to reveal
his ignorance to Hitch Diamond.
“No,” he said. “She can talk in the kitchen. Take her around to Hopey.”
Hitch walked up, crooked his forefinger, hung it lightly in the sleeve
of Diada’s dress, and murmured:
“Come along with me, Sister Diada--foller along atter brudder Hitchie
Diamond--us’ll go git some hot vittles!”
Diada took one step forward; Hitch winced as if anticipating a kick and
stopped.
“Fer de Lawd’s sake, Marse Tom!” he howled. “I don’t _want_ dis strange
cullud pusson walking behine me! You lead her to de kitchen an’ lemme
fetch up de rearwards!”
Gaitskill laughed, caught Diada by the sleeve, and led her to the
kitchen.
Hopey, the cook, had just taken a pan of hot biscuit out of the oven
when the door opened and Diada came in, filling the doorway like a
picture in a frame and concealing Mr. Gaitskill, who walked behind her.
Hopey’s biscuit-pan hit the floor with a bang, the biscuit rolled
around the kitchen, and Hopey sank down in a heap on the nearest chair,
covering her head with her flour-sprinkled apron.
“Oh, my Lawd,” she said, rocking herself from side to side and
whimpering like a puppy. “De ole debbil is done come to git me at last!”
“Shut up, Hopey!” Gaitskill commanded. “Get up from there!”
“Oh, Marse Tom!” Hopey whooped. “Is de Ole Scratch gone?”
“Look up, Hopey, an’ trus’ de Lawd!” Hitch Diamond boomed, walking over
and snatching the apron off of Hopey’s head. “Marse Tom is done hired a
new fancy cook. He tole me she wus jes’ like you. Take a look, Hopey!”
Thus encouraged, Hopey raised her head. Then her wide, easy-smiling
mouth widened into a laugh which shook the rafters of the house.
“Marse Tom,” she giggled, “you shore is one smart white man. You been
blimblammin’ me fer twenty year because I feeds eve’y nigger whut pokes
his head in my kitchen do’. You ain’t gotter feed dem mens no mo’,
Marse Tom! Des new cook ain’t gwine be attracksome to nobody!”
“Hitch is lying to you, Hopey,” Gaitskill laughed, glad to find that
Hopey was not afraid of Diada. “Diada is here for just a short visit. I
want you and Hitch to take care of her for the next two weeks. Feed her
something right now!”
Gaitskill walked through the house, seized his hat and hurried
down-town. He had enough of Diada and the negroes, and if anything
happened he wanted to be absent.
In the kitchen, Hopey promptly assumed the rôle of hostess and boss.
“Pick up dem biscuits, Diader!” she commanded, pointing to the floor.
“You made me drap ’em, now pick ’em up! You got to he’p me eat ’em,
too!”
Diada, getting more information from Hopey’s gestures than from her
speech, stooped down, picked up a hot biscuit, passed it under her
nose, snorted with intense disgust, and hurled the biscuit from her
with such force that it flattened against the wall and stuck there.
“Hey, dar! Whut you mean, nigger?” Hopey whooped. “Stop flinging dat
biscuit aroun’ like it wus a gob of mud!”
Diada glanced around and pounced upon the only thing in the kitchen
with which she was familiar--a carving knife with a long steel blade.
She thrust it into the folds of her dress.
“Hol’ on, dar, sister!” Hopey admonished her. “Marse Tom don’t allow no
stealin’ niggers aroun’ him. Fetch out dat butcher-knife! Excusin’ dat,
I gotter slice some ham fer dinner.”
Understanding the gestures, Diada returned the knife and Hopey
proceeded to slice a large ham. She laid four large cuts upon a plate,
then turned her back for a moment. When she looked again Diada had
devoured every slice and was hacking at the big ham with the carving
knife!
“Whoop-ee!” Hopey howled, rushing at Diada. “Stop chawin’ on dat raw
ham! Dat’ll gib you _worms_, nigger!”
But Diada did not heed this warning. She cut off a large hunk of the
ham, then sat down and devoured it like a dog.
“Hitch,” Hopey demanded, watching Diada with popping eyeballs, “whut
kind of nigger is dis?”
“I dunno,” Hitch murmured. “She muss be some new kind of nigger. She
come from furin parts.”
“I can’t cook no vittles as long as I’s got to look at dis circus
coon,” Hopey declared. “I’s gwine up-stairs an’ tell ole Mis’ Mildred!”
“Don’t leave her here wid me all by myse’f, Hopey,” Hitch begged. “Take
her wid you!”
Hopey walked over and laid her hand on Diada’s arm.
“Come on here, you ole fool,” she said. “Why don’t you ack like nobody
else?”
III
ON THE RAMPAGE
Mrs. Mildred Gaitskill was intensely interested in social reforms,
uplift movements, purity clubs, and foreign missions. Colonel Tom
Gaitskill had often heard her remark that she had “felt a call” to be a
missionary to the heathen when she was young; and Mr. Gaitskill, having
a better recollection of the characteristics of the superb girl he had
taken into his home thirty years before than she had of herself, was
often tempted to tell her that she was nothing but a civilized heathen
when he married her.
She had just finished writing the last of twenty invitations to the
members of the Dunlap Missionary Society. She began a note addressed
to Dr. Sentelle, the pastor of her church. After a few words of
explanation she wrote:
I believe that Diada will be helpful in inspiring the missionary ladies
of our church with a greater love for the dear heathen.
I have invited all the members of the society to my home to-morrow
evening at eight o’clock to see Diada and have her reveal something
of the customs of her native land. Will you not honor us with your
presence--
The letter writing was interrupted by the entrance of Hopey and
Diada--Hopey in the lead, puffing like a tugboat towing an ocean liner.
“Mis’ Mildred,” she began, “I’s jes’ ’bleeged to fotch dis here
Whut-is-it up to yo’ room.”
“You refer to Diada?” Mrs. Gaitskill inquired sweetly, her love for the
dear heathen enveloping her like a garment.
“Yes’m. Dis here Diader ain’t right in her haid. Down in de kitchen
she hauled off and throwed one of my biscuit ag’in’ de wall an’ it
_stuck_! She et a whole half a ham _raw_! She swiped de butcher knife
right under my own _eyes_! She done ack powerful scandalous, an’ ef she
potters aroun’ my kitchen I ain’t gwine _cook_!”
“She doesn’t know any better, Hopey,” Mrs. Gaitskill told her.
“Yes’m. An’ you cain’t tell her nothin’ because she’s plum’ deef ’n’
dum!”
“Oh, no!” Mrs. Gaitskill smiled. “She can talk! Can’t you, Diada?”
Diada leaned over the writing desk, picked up a long, keen,
pearl-handled paper knife and thrust it into the folds of her dress;
but she did not utter a word.
“Gimme dat knife, Dummy!” Hopey yelled indignantly. “Whut you mean
swipin’ ole mis’s pretties? You keep up dat gait an’ de white folks ’ll
tie you to a tree an’ you won’t git nothin’ to eat fer a week, unless
de woodpeckers feeds yer!”
Diada handed back the paper-cutter, but she kept her eyes upon it
covetously.
“Whut’s de matter wid dis coon, Mis’ Mildred?” Hopey wanted to know.
“She’s a stranger from a strange land, Hopey,” Mrs. Gaitskill replied.
“She doesn’t understand our ways.”
“She sho’ is strange,” Hopey affirmed with deep conviction. “Look at
her eyes an’ years an’ toofs an’ nose! Look at her _stomick_--it don’t
sag down correck an’ it don’t stick out at de right place----”
“That will do, Hopey!” Mrs. Gaitskill said sharply. “You must not
comment on the personal appearance of your guest----”
“She sho’ is a guess--Mis’ Mildred. She’s got me guessin’!”
“Place a chair by the window, Hopey,” Mrs. Gaitskill said. “I’ll keep
Diada with me.”
“_Which?_” Hopey howled. “You gwine let dat coon set in yo’ boodwar in
one dese gold cheers?”
Hopey placed a rocking-chair by the window and motioned Diada to sit
down.
“Set easy, Diader!” she commanded sharply. “Yo’ whole hide couldn’t
hold as much money as dat cheer costed. An’ do yo’ manners, nigger!
You is de onlies’ coon whutever set down in ole Mis’ Mildred’s
settin’-room!”
She turned and walked down-stairs, informing Hitch Diamond in tragic
tones that Mrs. Gaitskill had “done gone cripple under de hat.”
Peering through the branches of a large pecan-tree which stood beside
the window, Diada could see the purple haze which hung above the Little
Moccasin Swamp. Charmed by this vision she settled back in her chair
and remained perfectly quiet.
Mrs. Gaitskill sealed all her envelopes; then finding that she lacked
a sufficient number of stamps walked down-stairs to the library. The
instant she left the room Diada stepped out on the window-sill, poised
for a moment, and leaped with the agility of a monkey from the window
to a heavy branch of the pecan-tree. Slipping quickly to the ground she
started for the Little Moccasin Swamp.
Avoiding the streets of Tickfall by a detour, she struck into a long,
swinging, tireless trot, as rapid as the gallop of a mustang, and
in twenty minutes swung off into the bridle-path which led to the
Gaitskill hog-camp. Her long skirts hindered her by catching upon the
briers and underbrush. She stopped, rolled her skirts up above the
knees, knotted them into place by a deft twist, then trotted on.
Standing under the shadow of a live-oak-tree on the Little Moccasin
ridge, holding a double-barreled, muzzle-loading shotgun, was a
diminutive darky named Little Bit. His eager eyes were searching the
branches of a hickory tree for an elusive gray squirrel. Little Bit was
afraid of snakes, varmints, his own shadow, and “ha’nts.”
“Dis shore is a lonesome place,” he chattered to himself. “I’s got
snake-dust in my shoes, an’ a buckeye in my pocket, an’ a buzzard’s
feather in my hat--but I ain’t feel like nothin’ cain’t happen----”
Twenty yards away Diada stood in the shadow of another tree watching
him. She was very much interested in the little negro, who had his
back to her. With absolutely noiseless tread she approached him--her
intentions most friendly and peaceable. When she was ten feet away
Little Bit turned around and saw her.
The features of Little Bit’s face first expanded, then contracted,
then resolved into a heterogeneous mass expressive of more conflicting
emotions than he had ever before experienced. The gun fell from his
hands and dropped with the barrel resting across his toes. Even in his
agony of fright he was conscious of Diada’s shortened skirt, and beheld
her big, brown knees, knotted and gnarled like the trunk of a black
gum-tree. With a trembling hand he reached upward for his hat--a sure
sign he was getting ready to go away from there at his best speed.
Like a flash he wheeled and raced bareheaded down the ridge, slapping
his hat against his thigh at every step like a jockey lashing his
mount. In a moment he merged himself like a brown, fleeting shadow
among the shadows of the overarching trees. Diada picked up the gun,
holding it like a club, and striking her tireless trot, followed in his
tracks.
Old Isaiah, the venerable negro superintendent of the Gaitskill
hog-camp, sat upon the porch of the cabin sunning his rheumatic legs
when Little Bit came racing across the clearing at breakneck speed.
“Save my life, Isaiah!” Little Bit shrieked. “She’s a comin’!”
“Sot down, Little Bit,” Isaiah remarked in a sleepy tone. “You gits at
least one good skeer eve’y day. Now set yo’ triggers an’ take good aim,
an’ git at de right eend of de gun befo’ you shoots her off! Who’s a
comin’?”
“Gawd knows!” Little Bit moaned.
“Whut do she look like?” Isaiah demanded.
“She don’t favor nothin’ or nobody!” Little Bit sighed. “_Oo-ee!_ Her’s
got on shoes an’ socks, but her dress is cut bobtail----”
He stopped with a shriek. Diada, carrying his gun, came walking
sedately across the clearing toward the cabin.
Isaiah gazed upon her for a second, then slowly raised himself to his
feet, and with the explosive force of a steam-whistle, he bellowed:
“My--good--gosh!”
He ran to the side of the house where an ax reposed upon the wood-pile.
Seizing this, he flourished it in a threatening manner and bawled:
“Hey, dar! Stop! Hol’ up! Quit yo’ foolin’!”
Diada paid no heed to these admonitions, but continued her advance,
holding Little Bit’s gun by the end of the barrel and swinging it like
a club.
“Throw a chunk at her, Little Bit!” Isaiah howled. “Skeer her away!”
The boy snatched up a pebble, hurled it at Diada, and ducked under the
house.
Diada stopped. Beholding Isaiah’s threatening gestures with the ax,
she whirled the gun around her head like a cowboy preparing to hurl a
lasso, and threw it, butt-foremost, at Isaiah. The weapon curved like
an arrow, missed Isaiah’s head by two feet, struck against the side
of the cabin, smashing the gun-butt to splinters and discharging both
barrels!
Thereupon Isaiah and Little Bit departed from the hog-camp and did not
come back for two days.
The sound of the explosion frightened Diada, and she leaped back into
the jungle like a deer, struck the Tickfall trail, and one hour later
sat down beneath the pecan-tree in Gaitskill’s yard.
* * * * *
Late that night Colonel Tom Gaitskill stuck his head into the door of
his wife’s bedroom and demanded in irascible tones:
“Mildred, where are those sky-muckle-dun-colored pajamas young Tom sent
me from Chicago?”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Gaitskill laughed. “Have you looked for them?”
“Yes, but I can’t find ’em. Come and help me hunt!”
Two minutes later Mrs. Gaitskill stuck her head into her husband’s room
and demanded:
“Where is my silk flowered kimono? Is it in your room?”
“No!”
“I can’t find that kimono anywhere!”
The two began a search, but the missing articles were not found. When
finally they abandoned the hunt, Gaitskill sighed in relief:
“I hope those pajamas are gone for good. Young Tom was a fool to send
me such a slosh of color as they were--made me look like a soused
rainbow!”
IV
A KIMONO-CLAD APPARITION
The next evening, promptly at eight o’clock, the members of the Dunlap
Missionary Society began to arrive. Then Colonel Tom Gaitskill became
uneasy and sought out his wife:
“Mildred, are you planning to bring that cannibal wench into the
drawing-room and show her off?”
“Certainly, Tom,” she replied. “That’s why I invited the ladies
here--to see Diada.”
“Have you talked to her about it?”
“No. How could I? I’ve dressed her nicely, and she’s--well--tolerably
presentable.”
“Have you ever heard her say a word?”
“No.”
“Does she appear to understand what you say?”
“No--I don’t know,” Mrs. Gaitskill answered.
Gaitskill rubbed his hand across his forehead, then swept it down his
long, white beard.
“All right, Mildred,” he grinned. “It’s your obsequies. But I hope that
dear heathen won’t perform any circus stunts.”
The conversation was brought to a close by the arrival of the Reverend
Dr. Sentelle, an aged, feeble, badly crippled man, who leaned heavily
upon his walking stick as he entered the door.
That walking stick was a curiosity. At the large end it was as big
around as an average man’s leg, tapering slightly toward the lower end,
and weighing eleven pounds! Thus spoke the owner about it:
“Sir, this stick came from the battlefield of Shiloh. I was wounded
in that battle, sir, and as you can observe, have been a cripple ever
since. I fell beneath a dogwood tree and lay there for nearly two days.
After the surrender, sir, I returned to the battlefield and cut down
that tree and have carried it ever since as a walking stick. The tree
was fertilized by my blood, sir, and it is only just that it should
bear my infirmities.”
While imparting this information, it was the invariable custom of the
venerable preacher to catch his stick by the little end and emphasize
his remarks by waving it above his auditor’s head. And as he could not
stand for any length of time without his cane, it was a common thing
to see him during his pulpit discourses reverse his stick and shake it
at the heads of his congregation, exactly as many an irate baseball
player has punctuated his remarks to the fans in the grand stand by
flourishing a bat.
As Dr. Sentelle entered the room upon the arm of Colonel Gaitskill, the
guests knew that all were present who had been invited. They stiffened
in their seats. They had heard much about Diada since her arrival in
Tickfall and they were awed to an electric silence of waiting, holding
themselves in smiling readiness for the entrance of the stranger from
the cannibal islands of the Pacific Ocean.
The minutes passed. The silence became oppressive. Colonel Gaitskill
jiggled his feet. Then through the open window came the voice of Mrs.
Gaitskill:
“Hopey, have you seen Diada?”
“No’m. I ain’t saw her. I ain’t pesterin’ my mind ’bout her. Dat nigger
ain’t my kind of black folks!”
“Go find Diada at once! Bring her into the drawing-room! Hear me!”
“Yes’m, I’ll fotch her in!”
Twenty minutes later Mrs. Gaitskill entered the drawing-room alone.
The situation was embarrassing, but Mrs. Gaitskill was not even
slightly flustered. She possessed an immense reserve of coolness which
contrasted sharply on this occasion with the painful distraction of her
husband.
The minutes passed--leaden minutes. Some of the guests made a pretense
of little conversational flurries.
“Our missionaries are so heroic--The lecture was so edifying--How they
must love their work--I have often felt a call--Their lives are very
lonely--Sacrifice and service--My daughter shows such a fine missionary
spirit--I tell Eula--The lovely cannibals--I always say--Of course----”
These hushed, tentative fragments of conversation were interrupted by
the triumphant, booming voice of Hopey:
“Hey, dar--you deef ’n’ dum’ nigger! Whut you mean by keepin’ Mis’
Mildred’s comp’ny waitin’? Ain’t you got no manners?”
Still the minutes passed.
Colonel Gaitskill became quite distraught, and excusing himself,
slipped up-stairs and helped himself to the contents of a private
decanter. He came back to face the same intense, expectant silence
which some of the guests attempted to relieve by exchanging seats with
other guests. Once more there were scattering efforts at normal talk:
“The Christmas ship to the Belgians--Splendid missionary spirit--I
haven’t much to give--I told her God loves the dear cannibals--Home and
foreign--All the chickens I took from under the setting hen----”
“Git on up dem front steps!” Hopey howled, as if she were driving a
pig. “Go on in dat front do’! Hurry!”
The front door opened and Diada entered, advanced to the center of the
drawing-room, and stopped.
It is impossible to describe the peculiar sound which was emitted from
the throats of the twenty women at their first sight of Diada.
Her physical ugliness was deplorable and appalling; but that which
produced the peculiar utterance from the missionary ladies was this:
Diada was clothed in Mrs. Gaitskill’s light-blue, pink-flowered
kimono, and beneath that she wore Colonel Gaitskill’s
sky-muckle-dun-colored pajamas!
Diada was six feet tall, and the kimono ended just below her knee and
flared wide open in front, for two garments of the same size could not
have enveloped her. The pajamas ended just above Diada’s black shoes
and revealed about four inches of her stocking--the shoes and stockings
being all that she now wore of the garments with which Mrs. Gaitskill
had originally clothed her for the reception.
Diada stared about her for a moment, then sat down upon the piano seat.
Her ponderous elbow struck the keys with a crashing discord, and Diada
gave forth a sound expressive of delight--it sounded like the snort
of an elephant. Then using her elbows instead of her hands, the dear
immortal heathen proceeded to make the most unheavenly noise that ever
vexed the ears of Christian missionaries, home or foreign.
In the midst of this horrifying situation, Hopey entered the
drawing-room, her hands resting upon her hips, her mouth bawling
voluble apologies:
“My Gawd, Mis’ Mildred! I ain’t to blame fer dis here turr’ble sight!
I foun’ Diader settin’ under de pecan tree in de dark, an’ I couldn’t
tell whut she had on till she done open dat front do’ an’ went in whar
de light wus shinin’. Lawdamussy! Diader favors a scrambled circus
band-waggin!”
The ladies of the missionary society covered their faces with their
flimsy, transparent handkerchiefs, and kept up that peculiar sound of
outraged modesty.
Then Diada broke out in a new place.
Still pounding on the piano with her naked elbows, she began to
sing--singing with a voice which caused the tiny threads in the
electric-light globes to quiver and grow dim, and wrought such havoc
in the ears of the missionary women that they followed Diada’s
heathen music with a Christian accompaniment of startling yelps,
like the frightened squeaks one hears at the county fair when the
unsophisticated village maidens loop the loop or dip the dip or hear
the wild man of Borneo roar.
Colonel Tom Gaitskill sprang to his feet, seized Dr. Sentelle’s walking
stick by the little end, and flourished it at Hopey.
“Hopey!” he whooped to be heard above the noise, “you take
that--infernal--female--wench out of this house. Do it now! I’ll----”
Diada turned around and looked at Colonel Gaitskill. She beheld an
immense club flourished threateningly above her head. On the day
before, she had seen old Isaiah at the hog-camp waving an ax at her
with the same menacing gesture.
With a loud whoop, Diada sprang across the drawing-room, dived
headfirst through a large plateglass window, ran across the yard, and
departed from Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s hospitable home forever.
V
HITCH ENLISTS THE PARSON’S AID
On the following morning, Mrs. Tom Gaitskill had a real cause for
worry: Diada could not be found and was last seen going toward the
Little Moccasin Swamp.
This swamp was twelve miles long and eight wide, traversed by winding
streams of slow-moving, oily, yellow water, abounding with quagmires,
full of poisonous vines and deadly serpents, the feeding range of wild
hogs as vicious as wolves. It was a man-trap, a dreadful place to
all except the most experienced woodsmen. Many a hunter had led his
squirrel-dog into that swamp, and only the dog found his way back home.
The man’s friends found him a few days later by watching the spiral
flight of the buzzards concentrating at one spot in the jungle.
“Tom,” Mrs. Gaitskill exclaimed in anxious tones, “you must send Hitch
Diamond after Diada at once!”
“Let her go!” Gaitskill replied indifferently. “I’m surfeited with her
society. Maybe she’ll come back after a while.”
“You know she will not, Tom,” Mrs. Gaitskill protested with glistening
eyes. “If she is not captured before she gets too deep in that swamp,
she is gone forever.”
“If she took my pajamas with her, I’m fully resigned to the will of the
Lord,” Gaitskill grinned. “They’re gone forever, too.”
“Oh, hush!” Mrs. Gaitskill begged, her fine face flushed with
mortification. “Oh, those garments in my reception-room--I can’t bear
to think of them! But we can’t let her wander off in that swamp and
die.”
“I’ll send Hitch after her--if he’ll go,” Gaitskill said, and walked
back toward the rear of the house, where he located Hitch, not by
sight, but by sound:
“My wife’s strong-minded,
She’s double-j’inded,
She ain’t tame,
Scan’lize my name----”
The negro ceased singing, jerked off his big hat, and sprang to his
feet.
“Hitch,” Gaitskill began, “Diada ran away last night. I want you to
find her.”
“Yes, suh; Hopey narrate me about dat.”
“Go out into the swamp and find her!” Gaitskill commanded.
Hitch sat down and scratched his head; he plowed up the dirt with the
toe of his ponderous boot; he slapped at the flies with his hat. He
was trying to think up a plausible lie as an excuse for declining the
proffered job.
“Naw, suh, Marse Tom,” he said slowly. “I’s powerful sorry, but I jes’
nachelly, can’t go--er--de lodge meets to-night----”
“You’ll be back before night,” Gaitskill assured him.
“Yes, suh, but I gotter hustle aroun’ an’ git some money to pay my
dues----”
“I’ll pay your dues.”
“Yes, suh, but--er--I gotter had my lodge clothes cleaned an’ pressed,
an’----”
“Get some nigger to do that for you. I’ll pay him.”
“Yes, suh----”
Hitch stopped. His resources were exhausted. He looked at Gaitskill
with a face as expressionless as a glass-eyed doll. “Marse Tom is sho’
a quick ketcher,” he thought. Then he spoke aloud:
“Marse Tom, I jes’ nachelly don’t wanter go atter dat coon! Why don’t
you an’ me jes’ let her ramble? Us kind of folks hadn’t oughter pay dat
nigger no pertick’ler mind--she ain’t----”
Gaitskill turned and walked away.
He was too much in sympathy with Hitch’s argument to discuss the
matter. He salved his conscience with the reflection that he had told
Hitch to go, although he was pretty sure that Hitch would slip off
down-town, stay hid all day, and return at night to report that he had
failed to find Diada.
But contrary to Gaitskill’s expectations, Hitch did some heavy
thinking, then sought out the Rev. Vinegar Atts, pastor of the Shoofly
church.
“Elder,” he began, “does you b’lieve in cornvertin’ de heathen?”
“Suttinly,” Atts replied, scenting a contribution for foreign missions.
“Well, suh,” Hitch declared, “now is de choosen time to get right nex’
to a shore-’nuff she-heathen. Marse Tom is got her out to his house on
a little visit, an’ las’ night de Revun Sentelle an’ all de miss’nary
ladies of Marse Tom’s chu’ch was makin’ ’miration over dat coon, an’ I
figgers dat us Mef’dis niggers oughter jub’late too.”
“Shorely, shorely!” Vinegar Atts boomed. “Whar is dis here she-heathen
at?”
“Her’s gone out fer a walk in de Little Moccasin Swamp,” Hitch
informed him. “Ef us walks out to’des de swamp, ’pears to me we mought
meet up wid her an’ git real good acquainted.”
“Dat’s good argufyin’,” Vinegar responded, reaching for his hat. “Whut
do she look like?”
“Her looks like us niggers--only ’bout fawty’leben times more!” Hitch
told him.
“Kin she talk?”
“Yes, suh, but a feller cain’t ketch on to nothin’ she specifies. It’s
a kind of jibber-jabber monkeytalk dat lubricates a whole lot, but it
don’t show whar at!” Hitch informed him, wondering at the same time how
she really did talk--for Hitch had never heard a sound from her throat.
“Ef she cain’t talk to us, an’ we cain’t talk to her, we shore ain’t
gwine fuss an’ fall out!” Vinegar declared.
The big, fat, squat-legged preacher trotted along beside the giant
prize-fighter toward the swamp, and by the time they turned off the
main road on to the bridle-path which led to the Gaitskill hog-camp,
Hitch had told the preacher as much about Diada as he thought Vinegar
ought to know. Needless to say, he did not mention her ugliness, her
size, her love for raw meat, nor his own overwhelming fear of her.
“Whut’s de matter wid dis swamp, Hitch?” Vinegar demanded, gazing at
the trees and wiping the copious sweat from his face.
The swamp had suddenly become as hot as an anteroom to hell.
The trees had lost their green sparkle, assuming the colors of
decay--corpseyellow and livid green, shining with an oily, sickening
glitter.
Hitch shuddered. It was easy for him to believe that Diada had conjured
the swamp and had caused it to assume this aspect of menace.
“Less hump along to’des de hog-camp, Revun!” he exclaimed. “I’s skeart
of dis place. I been talkin’ to hear my tongue rattle, but now I kin
shet my mouf an’ hear my jaws rattle.”
Something scared the birds in the jungle and they flew shriekingly from
tree to tree, all going in the same direction.
Submerged among the immense trees of the jungle the negroes could not
tell what was happening in the heavens, but they noticed that the sun
had changed, no longer spraying off of the tops of the trees like
falling water, and the path at their feet had become almost invisible
in the darkness.
A wind suddenly swept through the forest, cold as a breeze from the
arctic icebergs. Every tree and shrub leaned away from that icy blast,
and vines which trailed the ground for hundreds of feet slowly rose up
and whirled and writhed in the air like long, slim snakes. In twenty
seconds that one puff of wind had passed and there was no more, and the
scalding heat rose from the ground like steam from the boiling caldrons
of Tophet.
At any other time, Hitch Diamond would have known that a Southern
rain-storm was coming and would have paid no attention to it except to
seek a cleared spot in the forest, where the dead limbs falling from
the trees could not impale him to the ground.
But now his fear was superstitious, and it became infectious to Vinegar
Atts and the two raced before the storm like catboats on a wind-swept
lake.
Then the rain fell--fell exactly as if some great Titan’s hands had
lifted up the silver bowl of the Gulf of Mexico and emptied its
contents on their heads. The first big drop felt like a bucketful and
seemed to wet them all over.
From that moment they stumbled rather than ran, simply fell forward,
caught themselves, and fell forward again--who could run under
Niagara’s tumbling flood?
And thus they ran blindly into the august presence of Diada!
Just as another icy blast swept through the jungle, lasting for twenty
seconds and stopping the rain, the two men looked up and beheld Diada,
facing the breeze, standing in their path like a rooted tree. She still
wore Mrs. Gaitskill’s light-blue, pink-flowered kimono, and that gaudy
garment trailed out behind her and snapped in the breeze, resembling
the variegated tail of some enormous tropic bird.
To the astounded men Diada looked as big as a skinned mule.
With a shriek Hitch Diamond dodged around her, leading Vinegar Atts in
the flight by a nose, and the two men ran on toward the hog-camp--the
falling rain thundering around them like the sound of a troop of
cavalry crossing a wooden bridge.
As they plunged across the open clearing in front of the cabin Hitch
looked back.
Diada was forty steps behind him, trotting easily, covering incredible
space with each step, her horrible mouth twisted into a cannibal grin.
But it did not look like a grin to Hitch--those immense, protruding
teeth and the repulsively thick lips curled back above and beneath
them reminded him of nothing so much as the mouth of an angry, biting
jackass.
“Here she comes, Vinegar!” Hitch bawled. “Come in an’ shet de do’!”
But they were too late. Diada’s foot struck the bottom step of the
little porch just as Hitch reached the top step. Diada grasped Hitch
by the coattail and was towed into the house by that frightened giant
who promptly shucked off his coat as he passed through the door and let
Diada have it.
Vinegar Atts turned around and took a long look at Diada. He reeled
back against the wall, covered his eyes with his hands, and in
horror-stricken tones he bellowed:
“Come here, Hitch, an’ he’p me! Somepin’ is done happened to my
eyesight--I ain’t seein’ right!”
VI
PLACATING A DERVISH
Outside the wind and rain roared like a hurricane and great lumps of
hail struck upon the solid roof of the cabin like brickbats, rolled
off, and hit the ground with a loud click.
Large particles of hail, looking as if a number of lumps had met and
merged in mid-air, fell down the large open chimney, and rolled out
upon the floor. On any other occasion Hitch and Vinegar would have
pounced upon them, but now neither moved to pick them up.
The three rain-drenched people stood in the middle of the floor, each
in the center of a widening puddle; then they relieved the strain by
changing their location and began to drip in a new puddle.
At last Vinegar’s legs sank under him, and he dropped upon a chair.
“Oo-ee!” he sighed. “De good Lawd sho’ is made a mistake when He
fotch me into dis here tangle-up. He’s done got my tail caught in a
cuttin’-box.”
“Talk to her, Revun!” Hitch begged in an agonized whisper.
“You cornverse her, Hitch,” Vinegar Atts pleaded. “I’ll set right here
by you an’ pray constant.”
Diada walked to the fireplace, squatted down, picked up two splinters
of wood and rubbed them together. A tiny blue flame curled around the
fingers of the woman. Sheltering the flame with her hands, she added
more fuel, and in a moment stepped back from a roaring fire.