the plantations and the swamp.
“Whut you coons doin’ here?” Vinegar Atts demanded of a bunch of them.
“Us come in whar de dorctors kin git to us easy,” one of them answered
nervously. “Word wus sont dat all de niggers is about to die!”
“Dat’s right!” Vinegar bellowed. “But whut sort of sight will you
coons be when you is dead--mud all over yo’ britches an’ no socks on?
Git busy and clean up! Go down to de bayou an’ take a wash--buy you a
clean shu’t an’ some socks--git ready to die!”
Skeeter Butts sat alone in the Hen-Scratch saloon. He was the only
idler in Tickfall, a compulsory idler, for the reform had put him out
of business. The sound of the fiddle and the banjo was heard no more.
Laughter and shouting had ceased. Not a negro entered his barroom, and
most of his regular customers passed on the other side of the street.
Skeeter sat in front of his saloon all day in mournful and fearful
loneliness.
Then, just at dark, he had the surprise of his life.
Three men came up the street and stopped, talked for a moment in low
tones, then entered the saloon on tiptoe and came to where Skeeter was
sitting behind the bar.
“Us is a cormittee to wait on you, Skeeter,” Vinegar Atts said in
funereal tones.
“Whut is I done?” Skeeter asked in a frightened voice.
“’Tain’t whut you done; it’s whut you ain’t done,” Vinegar informed
him. “You done showed yo’se’f de one sinner in Tickfall.”
“How come?” Skeeter asked.
Vinegar Atts produced the paper on which he had written the “Rules
of Reform” in that very room the day before. He handed the paper to
Skeeter.
“Whut do de fust rule say, Skeeter?” he demanded.
“‘No lofen,’” Skeeter read tremblingly.
Vinegar Atts placed a heavy hand upon the shoulder of the barkeeper and
bawled:
“What is you done fer a livin’ to-day, nigger?”
“Nothin’,” Skeeter stammered. “I--it ’pears like you-all is done put me
outside of a job. I ain’t had no customers to-day.”
“You been loafin’,” Hitch Diamond proclaimed in a pugnacious voice.
“How does you especk to git to heaven when you die? Don’t you know de
ancestors will get you befo’ mawnin’?”
“Less don’t gib de ancestors no show at him,” Figger Bush squealed.
Figger was covered with whitewash, had done his first day’s work for
years, and was feeling righteous. “Less hang him to a tree an’ larn him
a lesson!”
“Hol’ on, fellers!” Skeeter begged earnestly. “I didn’t ketch on ’bout
dis rule. I figgered dat a nigger whut had a job oughter stay on it.
De Tickfall niggers all j’ined de refawm, but I thought I oughter
stay on my job so I could sell booze to de coons from de swamp an’ de
plantations. But none of ’em didn’t buy!”
“You git outen dis sinful saloon an’ go to wuck,” Hitch howled, shaking
his hamlike fist under Skeeter’s nose, “or I’ll bust yo’ fool neck!”
“Yo’ intentions is good, Hitch,” Vinegar Atts said reprovingly; “but
you is done busted rule two whut says ‘no quorlin’,’ an’ you mighty
nigh fractioned rule number three whut specifies ‘no fightin’!”
“I--er--uh--Skeeter knows I ain’t mean no harm,” Hitch murmured
painfully. “I jes’ said dat because I loves him. I’d druther bust his
neck dan not hab him foller along atter us when us goes to heaben.”
“I’ll git good,” Skeeter said meekly. “I’ll see Marse John Flournoy as
soon as it’s good daylight to-morrer.”
“Better not pesticate Marse John, Skeeter,” Figger Bush advised him.
“He tole me dat de nex’ nigger whut axed him fer a job wus flirtin’ wid
a hearse!”
“Whut kin I do?” Skeeter lamented. “Dar uster be mo’ free jobs dan
willin’ niggers; now dar’s mo’ niggers dan jobs.”
“Ef you cain’t wuck fer somebody else, wuck, for yo’se’f,” Vinegar
Atts advised him. “Git a scrub-brush an’ slop-bucket an’ scour out dis
here saloom. Git a sack of lime an’ whitewash it! Dis house belongs
to Sheriff Flournoy, an’ he’ll remember you kind when you is goned
hencefo’th an’ ain’t never no mo’!”
“I’ll shore do it!” Skeeter assured them.
Having accomplished their mission, the committee then sat down and
became sociable over Skeeter’s cigarettes. When they had smoked for a
while Skeeter suddenly asked:
“Revun Atts, whut is de lates’ news from de epizootic?”
“I ain’t heerd nothin’,” Atts replied. “Of co’se, I ain’t gwine aroun’
beggin’ fer de pest-wagon by axin’ de white folks no fool questions!”
“Whut do de papers say?” Skeeter persisted.
“Dunno.”
“I bet you some of dem papers is got a heap mo’ in ’em ’bout de disease
dan de papers us niggers got to read,” Figger Bush proclaimed.
“Huh!” Vinegar Atts exclaimed. “I never thunk of dat! Of co’se, de
white folks ain’t gwine print all de news fer a nigger.”
“Dey don’t divide up nothin’ else even,” Hitch Diamond said. “I motions
dat Skeeter Butts be ’p’inted a cormittee to visit all de white folks’
houses an’ colleck up deir old Tickfall _Whoopses_ so us kin git de
lates’ news.”
“I’ll do it,” Skeeter said uneasily; “but I ain’t gwine tell ’em whut I
wants wid de papers. I’ll specify dat I wants ’em to cover some shelves
in de Hen-Scratch.”
“Start soon in de mawnin’, Skeeter,” Atts admonished him. “We’ll
meet you here at dinner-time an’ read up--mebbe all de niggers on de
plantations is dead an’ us don’t know it. I’s seed a whole passel of
buzzards sailin’ aroun’ to-day!”
The committee moved on, visiting from house to house, admonishing each
occupant who had not observed all the rules of reform, just as the
white men had done years before during the fever epidemic.
Then a totally unexpected thing happened.
The next day being Christmas Eve, every negro in Tickfall lost his job
at noon. All business places were closed, and every man went home to
get a good start for the Christmas celebration. Several hundred negroes
found themselves with a half-day of idleness confronting them. They cut
all the weeds on the streets in all the negro settlements, burned all
the trash, put four coats of whitewash on the Shoofly church, mended
all the fences, tore down several unsightly shacks which had been
decaying in the sun for half a century, dug ditches to drain their
communities, and ceased their work at dark to get supper and assemble
in their church, where Vinegar Atts later confronted more work-weary
parishioners then he had ever seen before.
In the midst of their evening service Skeeter Butts arrived, carrying
a bundle of papers almost as large as himself, which he placed upon a
table in front of the pulpit desk.
This incident was sensational in itself, promising all sorts of fearful
possibilities; but the congregation received its greatest jolt when
it beheld the Rev. Dr. Sentelle crippling slowly up the aisle behind
Skeeter, leaning heavily upon his eleven-pound walking stick.
Dr. Sentelle was the lion of Tickfall, beloved and magnified by whites
and blacks. He was a man of influence and power for miles around.
Intense courage glowed in his eyes, which held smoldering flames like
the eyes of a jungle beast; tenderness, gentleness, sweetness, and
love, love, love were etched in the map of his pain-wrinkled face like
an illuminated missal by Bellini; and his beautiful voice was as sweet
as music, every spoken word caressing like a woman’s hand.
“Bless Gawd!” Vinegar Atts bellowed at sight of the white clergyman. “I
capsizes right now in favor of de Revun Dr. Sentelle. He’s gwine fotch
us a Chris’mus message!”
The entire congregation rose to their feet. Vinegar Atts trotted
half-way down the aisle and met the cripple. With a murmur of thanks,
the white man placed his delicate, blue-veined hand in the crotch of
Vinegar’s powerful arm and stumbled slowly, feebly forward to the
pulpit platform. When he had seated himself the negroes sank quietly
back upon the benches.
* * * * *
In the meantime all the business men in Tickfall were holding a meeting
in the rear of the Tickfall bank.
“I propose a basket of grub for every nigger cabin in town!” Gaitskill
proclaimed as he sat at the head of the table. “We have no poor whites
in this village, but the negroes are always hungry.”
There was a unanimous murmur of assent.
Then Gaitskill laughed.
“By the way, what has happened to set all the coons to cleaning up?
I’ve been too dang liberal with my benefactions--I’m short sixty-two
barrels of lime!”
“Christmas is coming!” several voices murmured, and there were many
nodding heads, and a broad grin passed around the table.
“Say, fellers,” Sheriff Flournoy grinned, rising to his feet and taking
a newspaper from his pocket, “er--ah--I beg pardon, are we through with
business?”
“Sure!” Gaitskill smiled. “We’re agreed that the niggers get the grub.”
“I started a little joke in town the other day,” Flournoy went on.
Then he explained about the article he had written, and read it aloud
to them.
There was a whoop of laughter, after which one asked:
“Did you get results?”
“No,” Flournoy said disgustedly. “I ought not to have started it with
old Isaiah Gaitskill--he’s about half-witted.”
“By George!” Gaitskill exclaimed, springing to his feet. “That accounts
for all this cleaning up and whitewash--the niggers are expecting an
epidemic of disease and are getting ready to die!”
Perfect silence greeted this announcement as its full significance
dawned upon each man. Then Dr. Moseley, the parish health officer,
spoke earnestly:
“Gentlemen, let us not say one word to the contrary. Let the darkies
clean up and keep clean!”
“I have done good by stealth and blush to find it fame!” Flournoy
interrupted mockingly.
“It means health, gentlemen,” Dr. Moseley declared. “Health and long
life to us all--er--by the way, I propose that as a toast right now!”
For nearly forty years Gaitskill had held this meeting in the rear of
his bank on every Christmas Eve. The men were familiar with his custom,
and the physician’s suggestion met with instant response.
Gaitskill rose, unlocked his desk, pushed back the top, and the men
gazed with lively anticipation upon the glasses and decanters there
concealed.
“Hitch!” Gaitskill called. “Oh, Hitch Diamond! Come here!”
There was no answer. Hitch had long before deserted the colonel and
gone to the Shoofly church.
“I bet that coon answers promptly to-morrow morning,” Gaitskill laughed
as he grumblingly filled the glasses.
“Christmas is coming!” a laughing chorus murmured.
Suddenly there was a shout which rolled like thunder over Tickfall, the
sound permeating even the thick walls of the Tickfall bank.
“Listen to the niggers!” Flournoy grinned.
There was a moment’s silence; then the mighty ululations of a negro
song floated to them on the wings of the wind. The men arose.
“Health and long life to us all!” Dr. Moseley repeated.
“To us all!” the men murmured with nodding heads. Then they drank.
* * * * *
Time inevitably weakens all reforms. It robs the greatest and most
imminent danger of its terror. And time completely overthrew the reform
in Tickfall and so endowed the negroes with courage that any timid
darky would have tickled the whiskers of a bearcat with the end of his
flat nose.
The time required to accomplish this relapse was one day--the day which
comes but once a year--Christmas!
The day found every negro in Tickfall in a receptive mood. As a result,
every white man in the town had the privilege of a few moments’
conversation with all the blacks in the town some time during the day.
The sun-slashed streets of Tickfall were filled with them, moving to
and fro, like ants in a hill, all feverish in their activity, and all
so shoutingly happy that the town was as noisy as a parrot’s cage.
Their order of advance was something like this:
a The servants of the household.
b Those who had been servants during the year.
c Servants of former years.
d Those who had done odd jobs.
e Those whose names the white man knew.
f Those who knew the white man’s name.
g All the other niggers in town.
And each white man had supplied himself with about half a barrel of
cheap candy, three or four bunches of bananas, a barrel of apples, a
hatful of small change, and a supply of tobacco, cigars, plugs, and
snuff, bestowing these gifts according to his inclination.
The first ceremony of the day was the formal distribution of the eggnog
to the servants of the household.
Of course, after Hitch Diamond, Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, and the rest
of our colored friends had spent three days in a frightful ride upon
the water-wagon, their repeated visits to the homes of their Tickfall
white friends where the eggnog foamed like the surf of the sea had a
most demoralizing effect.
In fact, Hitch Diamond and Vinegar Atts called upon Marse Tom Gaitskill
and made themselves such nuisances that Gaitskill locked them both up
in an empty corn-crib and turned the water-hose on them.
Death had no terrors for these people on Christmas Day.
“Huh!” Hitch Diamond bellowed. “I wouldn’t be skeart to-day even ef de
Revun Dr. Sentelle hadn’t made us such a purty speech. I done separated
my idears from my habits!”
“I ain’t skeart, neider!” Vinegar Atts whooped. “Nobody ain’t gwine pat
me in de face wid a spadeful of dirt!”
Christmas baskets came to every cabin; pickaninnies ran the streets,
their pockets filled with pennies, and their hats laden with oranges,
bananas, and cheap candy; children, white and black, cluttered up the
few asphalt pavements with every sort of Christmas toys, until the
careless pedestrian was in danger of tripping over some contraption and
breaking every leg he had; and negro women gadded the streets dressed
in finery which was very suggestive to the white folks of dresses they
had seen earlier in the year in the drawing-rooms of their women.
By nightfall the Hen-Scratch saloon was filled with negro men, all
perfectly sober, and all laughing, and all happy beyond the dreams of
angels.
Figger Bush thrummed a banjo; Pap Curtain had a fiddle; Mustard Prophet
blew a cornet; while every man exhausted the vocal treasury of his
throat for sounds to add to the volume of music:
I’s as crazy as a loon,
Fer I gib a silber spoon
To a yeller she-coon,
On dis here Chris’mus day.
But a white woman owned it,
An’ said she never loaned it,
An’ de cotehouse kotch me right away!
Vinegar Atts pushed through the crowd, shaking hands cordially, smiling
like a big, fat baby, and bellowing his congratulations:
“Merry Chris’mus, niggers! Us is done fell from amazin’ grace to a
floatin’ opportunity!”
“Bless Gawd!” Skeeter Butts squealed. “I’s shore glad us ain’t refawmed
no more! Less all j’ine hands in a circuous-ring an’ sing dat good ole
favoryte toon, ‘De Star-Spangled Banana’!”
“Naw!” Vinegar Atts bawled. “We is done loss all our good sense! Less
go an’ pay our manners to de white folks!”
“Lead de way! Lead de way!” a chorus of voices answered. “Us follers
right at yo’ hip!”
Weep and howl, ye dwellers in the East and West and North, because ye
were not in Tickfall on that Christmas night! Your negroes have cast
aside the supreme gifts which make us love them in the South--humor,
pathos, laughter, and music!
You listen to your phonographs and try to imagine what real music is
like; you go to grand opera and think you hear it; but reserve your
judgment until you hear a marching column of negro men, each of their
throats having the range and capacity of a pipe-organ, and all of their
songs set to a sweet minor, which is characteristic of the music of
all enslaved people since that far distant day when the whip-driven
Israelites “hung their harps on the willows.”
On the Christmas following the close of the Civil War, the impoverished
white people of Tickfall sent Christmas baskets to their ex-slaves, who
were as poor and hungry as themselves. That night those ex-slaves, as
an expression of their gratitude to their old masters, formed in a body
and walked from house to house, singing the songs of the old plantation
days. White women came out upon the porticoes, leaned their quivering
shoulders against the big columns, and wept uncontrollably in memory of
other and happier days.
White men stumped out upon those same porches with crutches and canes,
or with wooden legs, and listening, visualized the smoke-fogged
battlefields, the blood-drenched ground, the clash and onsets of the
great war, and beyond the acrid smoke of that holocaust they beheld a
magnificent civilization which rose in beauty like a dream, and then
vanished forever more. For over half a century this custom had been
observed every Christmas. It survived the horrors of the Reconstruction
Era when Northern carpet-baggers sought to lead the black race astray
and turn them against their former masters.
And now that marching column had formed again, two hundred strong, two
abreast, with Vinegar Atts and Hitch Diamond in the lead.
All over Tickfall the white people were waiting for this, the day’s
supreme event. The negroes knew the favorite songs of all the older
citizens. Rev. Dr. Sentelle listened to “Dixie,” and “Jesus Lover of my
Soul.” Bowing his acknowledgments, Dr. Sentelle said:
“Boys, when I die, I want you to sing both of those songs at my
funeral!”
And a few years later they did it!
Marse Tom Gaitskill, being a Kentuckian, listened to “My Old Kentucky
Home,” and to “Darling Nellie Gray”----
Oh, my eyes are getting blinded, and I cannot see my way;
Hark! There’s somebody knocking at the door.
I hear the angels calling, and I see my Nellie Gray,
Farewell to my old Kentucky shore!
Leaving one house to go to another, the negroes always broke into some
rollicking plantation melody, singing it on the way, so that their
pilgrimage was a pilgrimage of song. At the end of the town, remote
from all the negro settlements, was the home of the sheriff, Mr. John
Flournoy, so that the negroes came to his residence last.
They marched melodiously into his yard, spread out over the lawn,
taking care to trample down none of the flowers and shrubs, and their
mighty voices reverberated through the valleys and from the hilltops,
and could literally be heard for miles.
Mr. John Flournoy and his gracious wife stood upon the portico,
sometimes smiling, sometimes with serious faces and moist eyes, as they
listened to the old melodies which had colored the very fiber of their
souls.
Finally a hush fell upon the crowd, and Mr. Flournoy thought the time
for his speech had come. But not so.
Vinegar Atts stepped forward within a few feet of the porch steps,
removed his battered slouch hat, and began:
“Marse John, all us niggers is been singing to youall white folks ever
sense we warn’t more’n hawn-high to a billy-goat. We remembers all dem
happy Chris’mus times of yuther years, an’ we wish we could keep up dis
music eve’y Chris’mus till ole Gabriel blows his hawn. But de time is
done come when us muss tell you good-by, an’ you won’t never hear our
singin’ no more!”
“Lawd hab mussy!” a chorus of men’s voices sounded like a prayer.
“You is done been a good frien’ to all us po’ niggers, Marse John,”
Vinegar went on earnestly. “We hates to go away an’ leave you----”
The negroes had begun to “weave,” and a moaning sound issued from every
throat like a great organ tone, and the light of the full moon casting
the shadows of the trees upon the upturned faces of the men, made an
effect funereal and impressive indeed.
“What the devil are you talking about?” Flournoy demanded in a voice
which was almost a scream.
“Us is gittin’ ready to die, Marse John,” Vinegar told him. “De paper
is done printed de word about all de niggers havin’ dat new kind of
epizootic, an’ you rickoleck when de yeller fever kotch us niggers all
of us fell right down in de middle of de big road an’ died!”
Vinegar took a worn and ragged newspaper out of his pocket, unfolded
it carefully, and handed it to Sheriff Flournoy. It was one of the
copies of the Tickfall _Whoop_ which Flournoy had given to old Isaiah
Gaitskill several days before.
“You kin read whut de paper says yo’se’f, Marse John,” Vinegar said.
That was one time in Mr. John Flournoy’s life when he wished himself to
be somewhere else immediately. He was an inveterate practical joker,
but he was as tender-hearted as a woman, and it appalled him that he
had administered this wound to his negro friends on this happiest day
of the year.
“Boys,” he said painfully, “this article is not true--it is a joke!
Somebody has been trying to scare you!”
“Who played dat joke on us, Marse John?” Vinegar Atts asked.
Flournoy took thirty seconds to consider his answer to that question,
realizing as never before how very much the truth hurts, when you have
to tell it!
“I did it!” he answered, and the words strangled in his throat.
There was one minute of perfect silence.
Then Vinegar Atts replied with just two words: “Ye-es, suh!”
Slowly he turned and started toward the street, Hitch Diamond walking
beside him. Two and two, the crowd of negroes silently fell into line
and marched out.
Skeeter Butts was the last to leave.
As Skeeter started through the gate he felt Flournoy’s heavy hand upon
his shoulder and winced.
“Tell me the truth, you little yeller devil!” Flournoy drawled. “Didn’t
you niggers know all the time that that was a joke?”
Skeeter chuckled evasively. He had no intention of revealing a secret
of the most secretive race in the world; least of all did he intend
to make trouble between the white folks by revealing the fact that
Dr. Sentelle, pitying the fright and ignorance of the negroes, had
investigated, learned the facts, and informed them.
But the sheriff’s hand upon his shoulder was suggestive of the majesty
and might of the law, and Skeeter had a mortal fear of getting, as he
would have expressed it, “into a lawsuit wid de cotehouse.”
“Yes, suh,” Skeeter chuckled. “We did learn a leetle about dat befo’
Chris’mus. We borrowed a lot of papers from de white folks an’ didn’t
see nothin’ about it in deir papers, so us soupspicioned dat you had
done got up a buzzo on us. But us is all Christians, Marse John--we
don’t bear you no grudge!”
Then he slipped from the hand of the law and ran laughing down the
street.
A Mascot Jinx
“Dis here cullud lady is gwine be my wife. I make you ’quainted wid
Coco Ferret!”
Love had flushed the saddle-colored face of Skeeter Butts to a
brownish-crimson, and the gorgeous splendor of his clothes reflected
the sunburst of affection in his heart.
Hitch Diamond held out his hand to a fat, dumpy, simple-faced country
negro girl, and grinned.
“Huh,” he chuckled, as Coco Ferret shook hands, “dis here gal is all
soft and puffed-up an’ squeezy like a big balloom.”
“Dat’s right,” Skeeter grinned, eying the girl with a prideful gaze. “I
likes ’em dat way. Edgecated niggers is too slim an’ active. Dey gits
biggity an’ bumptious. Dey axes ’terrogations an’ is bawn to trouble.”
“Dis lady oughter make a good-pervidin’ cook an’ housekeeper,” Hitch
suggested, looking her over as if she were a horse which Skeeter had
bought.
“I shore is bofe dem things,” the girl responded. “Skeeter ain’t
gittin’ no set-easy gal.”
“I hopes you’ll bofe be as happy as married niggers ever is,” Hitch
remarked politely.
“Happy is our name, Hitch,” Skeeter declared confidently. “Dis here
gal is already fotch me luck, an’ I’s gwine use her fer our mascop in
de ball game to-day.”
“Whut is de word about de game, Skeeter?” Hitch grunted. “Is us gwine
win?”
“Suttinly,” Skeeter declared. “I done bet fawty dollars. Coco is bet
ten dollars. I b’lieves in bettin’ all I kin git.”
“Dem Sawtown niggers is powerful pert players, Skeeter,” Hitch
warned him. “Dey wucks reg’lar in de big sawmill, an’ dey got plenty
muscle an’ wind. Dey plays baseball all day on eve’y Sunday, an’ dey
keeps in fine practice. Dey all ’pears like new-issue niggers to
me--slick-heads, plum’ full of tricks, an’ dangersome.”
Skeeter turned and looked over the picnic grounds where a number of
husky blacks were prancing around with the women. They all wore their
baseball suits, and these uniforms drew the women like a barrel of
sugar attracts flies.
“Yes, suh, I admits dem facks,” Skeeter said. “But look at de baseball
team us is got--Figger Bush is de best pitcher in Loozanny; Prince
Total ketches; Mustard Prophet straddles fust base--us is been playin’
all summer, an’ we is winned eve’y game up to now!”
“Dat’s so,” Hitch remarked, with less uneasiness in his voice. “I
reckin I’ll bet eve’y dollar dat I’m got.”