here in a bunch, because I wants to talk to all of you an’ fix up a
plan.”
Half an hour later Hitch re-entered the room, followed by Prince
Total, Mustard Prophet, and Figger Bush.
Out of Sugar’s hand-satchel Skeeter counted thirty dollars, arranged
them in piles of ten dollars each and pushed them across the bar to the
three negroes.
“Now, niggers,” Skeeter remarked, “I don’t owe nary one of you nothin’.”
“Dat’s right!” they exclaimed, pocketing the money.
“Now you listen to me: Sugar Sibley specify dat she’s gwine bet big
to-day. I’s her runner. Now you niggers git all de loose change you kin
borry an’ steal an’ be out dar. Ef Sugar wins I’ll tip you-all off whut
her bet is. Ef Sugar lose I’ll place all her bets wid you-alls, an’
atter de races is over us’ll ’vide up.”
“Dem kind of exhort sho’ edifies my mind, Skeeter,” Hitch Diamond
boomed, “an’ us is wid you!”
When the negroes had gone Skeeter counted the money remaining in the
hand-satchel. It was nearly two hundred dollars.
* * * * *
The last day of the Tickfall fair was always given over to the negroes.
Every darky who had a horse or mule was privileged to enter the animal
for any race without paying a fee.
Under such an arrangement the chief attraction was the races, and
the betting was wild and reckless. There was no betting-shed, no
bookmakers. The gamblers circulated among their friends and placed
private bets.
Skeeter Butts was perfectly happy. Whenever Sugar lost, he won; if
Sugar won, it was no loss to him.
“Five hosses runs in de nex’ race, niggers,” Skeeter informed his
fellow conspirators, in their operations to separate Sugar Sibley from
her money. “Sugar bets on Hooligan. Ef Hooligan wins, each of you-alls
is gotter gimme two dollars an’ fo’ bits; ef Hooligan lose, I splits
dis ten-bill fo’ ways.”
Hooligan lost.
“Which hoss we gwine bet on nex’, Skeeter?” Sugar laughed.
“I ain’t no good jedge,” Skeeter grinned. “I foun’ out yistiddy dat
sometimes dey runs bad an’ de nex’ time dey runs wuss.”
Three mules came loping down the track, and Sugar picked Hot-Dog for a
winner, instructing Skeeter to place five dollars on that mule.
Hot-Dog started around the track as if he were going to eat it up, grew
weary of the journey at the half-mile post, brayed, turned around, and
galloped back to the grand stand, meeting the other two mules as they
came under the wire.
Toward the close of the races Sugar Sibley began to complain.
“I sho’ is had bad luck, Skeeter,” she mourned. “Done bet my good money
on five different races an’ ain’t winned a dollar. How come?”
“Dunno,” Skeeter murmured. “Mebbe ef I go down by de stables an’ pick
up some tips----”
“Huh!” Sugar snorted. “I done tried dat game befo’. Down in Baton
Rouge I made love to eve’y nigger stable-boy, nigger rubber, nigger
jockey, nigger trainer, an’ nigger owner on de track.”
“Didn’t dey gib you no hot tips?”
“Shore! An’ eve’y time dey gimme a hot tip de hoss I bet on got cold
foots--but I got scorched good an’ plenty!”
“Dey’s shore makin’ cracklin’ outen yo’ hide here,” Skeeter snickered.
“Dese niggers will all die water-millyunaires ef yo’ pile holds out
long enough.”
“I don’t keer,” Sugar said finally. “Dis here money ain’t cost me
nothin’, an’ ’tain’t no loss ef I loses it.”
“Dat’s de right talk,” Skeeter exclaimed. “Less spend it all. I ain’t
never wasted money like dis befo’, an’ I likes de exoncise.”
“We’s got to waste it all on de nex’ race, den,” Sugar snickered. “Dar
ain’t but one mo’ race. Whut hoss we gwine lose on now, Skeeter?”
A red-headed boy climbed up a ladder in front of the starter’s stand to
write the names of the horses in the next race on a blackboard.
“De fust name he writes totes my money!” Sugar proclaimed.
Then she watched a white hand chalking a scrawly signature.
“My Gawd!” Sugar and Skeeter exclaimed in one breath. “He’s done writ
Doodle-Bug!”
With a tragic look on her face, Sugar Sibley stooped down, picked up
the brown hand-satchel lying between her feet, and handed it to Skeeter
Butts.
“I’ll expire game, Skeeter!” she said in a weak, shaky voice. “Bet it
all--dollar fer dollar! Dis am de finish!”
Skeeter looked at her a moment, started to say something, then walked
away in silence. Once out of her sight he ran with all speed in search
of Hitch Diamond, Prince Total, Mustard Prophet, and Figger Bush.
“Git busy, niggers!” he howled. “Sugar bets dollar fer dollar on
Doodle-Bug!”
“She’ll git accommodated up!” Prince Total guffawed. “Us niggers is
gwine borry all de money on dis fair ground.”
“Why don’t she jes’ hand us dat brown satchel?” Figger Bush giggled.
“She wants some fun fer her money,” Skeeter grinned. “She’s a real,
true spote.”
“Let me be de stake-toter?” Hitch Diamond giggled.
“Dat suits me,” Skeeter agreed. “Us’ll go up an’ stan’ by Sugar, an’
eve’y time dese yuther niggers fetches you a dollar I’ll put one on top
of it. Us’ll do dis las’ race up in real good style.”
As Mustard and Prince and Figger made successive trips through the
crowd of negroes, coming back each time with a little silver, Skeeter
Butts noted with uneasiness the absence of certain cheap watches,
brassy finger-rings, and gaudy, sparkling scarf-pins.
Finally Figger Bush placed a fifty-cent piece against Sugar’s choice
and sighed:
“Ef dat Doodle wins Gawd knows whut _dis_ dude’ll do! I’s done bet de
barlow-knife outen my pocket an’ borried money on dese very clothes I
wears. I’s plum busted, popped open, cleant out!”
Three horses loped up toward the starting pole.
Skeeter observed with satisfaction that Doodle-Bug balked right in
front of the grand stand, that half a dozen men tried to make him move
and failed, that the little jockey was bucked off, and that Doodle-Bug
finally turned a complete somersault, landing on his back.
“Doodle-Bug is actin’ in form,” Skeeter grinned.
“He’ll run like a skint rabbit!” Sugar Sibley exclaimed, licking out
her tongue, which was as dry as a shuck and felt as large as a doormat.
“I done seen him run!” Skeeter answered sarcastically.
The little negro jockey, mindful of the instructions received from Pap
Curtain the day before, stood in front of the ugly tempered Tuckapoo
mustang, slashing at the animal’s knees with his whip.
Reluctantly the horse moved backward step by step, and thus the jockey
finally worked him to the starting place.
There was a mighty roar from the crowd, which became a thunderous
clamor at the starter’s word:
“_Go!_”
Sugar Sibley, who had sat unmoved amid the losses of the entire
afternoon, suddenly sprang to her feet, ran down to the rail, shrieking
like a calliope, begging for Doodle-Bug to run, praying for Doodle-Bug
to win, her wailing cry, like the clear notes of a trumpet, heard above
the gigantic ululation of the crowd:
“_Go, Doodle, go!_”
And Doodle went!
At the quarter pole he was two lengths ahead; at the half he led by
five lengths; at the three-quarter pole the two other horses were
trailing one hundred yards behind. Doodle-Bug came under the wire so
far in advance that half the people had left the grand stand for their
homeward trip before the other horses arrived!
Faint, weak, giddy, Sugar Sibley staggered back to Skeeter Butts,
reeling like a drunkard, clutching at her throat for its hoarseness,
dripping with perspiration, her eyeballs burning like coals of fire.
“My Gawd!” Skeeter moaned. “Whut’s done gone an’ happened to dat
Doodle-Bug?”
“Nothin’!” Sugar Sibley panted. “Doodle’s all right. Doodle belongs
to me. He was riz an’ borned on my little farm an’ my chile Jimmy is
a ridin’ him. Us always makes a killin’ on Nigger Day at the parish
fairs.”
She took the empty brown hand-satchel out of Skeeter’s nerveless hands
and opened it.
“Pour dat money in dis bag, Hitch!” she commanded. Then she uttered a
wail, collapsed into a heap upon the seat, and her mouth dropped open
like an imbecile’s.
Hitch Diamond had mysteriously disappeared!
* * * * *
Dizzy, nauseated, sweating at every pore, Pap Curtain sat up in the
middle of his pallet in the rear room of the Hen-Scratch saloon, his
tongue as dry and thick as if his mouth were filled with cotton-seed
hulls. He moved his head and an iron wedge rolled off the apex of his
crown and bumped against the inside of his cranium like a rock rattles
in a tin can.
“He’p! Come here, eve’body!” he bawled, balancing his head and
steadying it with both hands to keep the wedge from bumping against a
new place.
“Little Bit--Lawdymussy! My head hurts inside and outside!” he howled
to the diminutive assistant barkeeper of the Hen-Scratch saloon.
Little Bit stood beside him, giggling, holding out a half-pint flask.
“Skeeter Butts say gib you dis as soon as you woked up!” he said.
Pap took the bottle, removed the cork; then his hand drooped limply,
his head dropped to one side, and the precious fluid was pouring out
upon the pallet.
“Hey, dar!” Little Bit shrieked, rescuing the liquid from total loss
and kicking Pap into consciousness. “Git up an’ drink dis med’cine!”
Pap swallowed the contents of the bottle, then asked:
“Whut time is it, Little Bit?”
“It’s mighty nigh night.”
“Whut day is dis?”
“It’s jes’ de same day whut it’s been since mawnin’,” Little Bit
informed him.
“Whut does you call it?” Pap howled impatiently.
“I calls it to-day,” Little Bit answered.
“Oh, lawdymussy!” Pap bawled. “Whut a fool!”
“Yes, suh, dat’s right!” Little Bit agreed innocently. “You shore is
been a whopper!”
Then the medicine which Skeeter prescribed began to take effect, and
Pap Curtain felt the revival of his faculties and his strength. He
staggered to his feet, stumbled out of the rear door, and disappeared.
He went straight to the home of Sugar Sibley, and found Sugar in the
wildest hysterics.
Weepingly she told him the tale of her gains and of her great loss. Pap
could sympathize with her, for on the day before he had experienced
both himself.
Finally Pap said:
“Shut up, Sugar. You done lamented a plenty. Dem niggers whut stole dat
money is gone out to de old fish-camp to ’vide it up. Ef you rides out
dar right now, you kin ketch ’em at it!”
Twenty minutes later Sugar Sibley stopped Doodle-Bug behind a thicket
at the old fishing camp on the Dorforche Bayou, and peered over the top
of the bushes where she could hear masculine voices in hot debate.
In fact, it had been a day of such frenzied finance for the five
negroes that an expert accountant could not have told what would be an
equitable division of their spoils. So the thieves had fallen out, and
their voices were raised to high pitch.
What Sugar saw filled her heart with hope and gladness.
Skeeter Butts, with a pile of money lying between his knees, was
sitting on the ground, four other negroes watching the count, stopping
at intervals to quarrel, but listening to the refrain of Skeeter as it
crooned to the musical accompaniment of falling coins:
“A dollar fer me, a dollar fer Hitch, a dollar fer Mustard, a dollar
fer Figger, an’ a dollar fer Prince!”
Their business was interrupted by a loud whoop.
A Tuckapoo mustang with a white face thrashed through the underbrush,
and Sugar Sibley swept down upon them like an avenging fury,
flourishing an immense pistol which cracked three times, the bullets
kicking the dirt into the faces of the stooping men.
The five men, leaving their money untouched, got up and went away from
the place with astonishing speed.
Sugar dismounted, crammed her money into her brown hand-satchel, jumped
on the back of Doodle-Bug, and rode away.
An hour later, as the five weary, disconsolate men trailed back to
town, they noticed in front of Pap Curtain’s cabin a Tuckapoo mustang
with a white face.
Pap sat upon the porch, his mouth filled with chewing-tobacco and his
heart filled with vast content.
Skeeter Butts spoke. “Pap is you saw anything of Sugar Sibley?”
“Suttinly,” Pap answered. “She’s layin’ in my cabin on de bed, takin’ a
little nap.”
“You ain’t married to her, is you?” Skeeter asked after a moment of
meditation.
“Who? Me?” Pap Curtain roared. “Naw! Sugar is my gal! _I’m her daddy!_
Don’t you remember my gal, Skeeter? Dey used to call her Sweet befo’
her maw lef’ me an’ went down to Baton Rouge.”
Skeeter did not answer, and the gloomy procession moved on. Finally
Skeeter Butts mumbled:
“Yes, I remembers dat gal when she warn’t more’n hawn-high to a
billy-goat. But I’s had expe’unce dis day dat eve’thing ain’t sweet
whut’s called Sugar!”
Every Pose a Picture
I
AN ALL-COON CAST
Mr. Shirley Rouke was one of the first-born sons of the silent drama.
The first moving picture ever thrown upon a screen in the city of New
Orleans was projected by the capable hand of this red-headed Irishman.
In the famous resort known as West End, on Lake Pontchartrain, half of
the inhabitants of the Crescent City assembled to watch the revelation
of a two-hundred foot film which showed a man walking down the street,
a dog trotting across the street and a horse and buggy going up the
street!
Thrilled by this vision, the people roared their applause until the
porpoises sporting far out in the lake dived for deep water.
In a short time the thrill and novelty of a plotless jumble of pictures
wore off, and Mr. Rouke was quick to inform the Gitagraft Company that
the people wanted stories--the pictures must have a punch and tell a
tale. Then came an era of real plays and real actors and dramatized
novels and scenarios written by authors whose names were famous across
the continent.
“Do the newest thing first!” was Rouke’s motto. His active brain
devised novelties like a liver secretes bile, and after each
sensational innovation the Gitagraft Company counted its receipts,
raised Rouke’s salary, and told him to go the extreme end of the limit.
Just as the theatrical managers delight to announce an all-star
aggregation of actors, so Shirley Rouke had been the first motion
picture director to feature an All-Native picture showing the native
haunts and the natural characteristics of one race or tribe of people
and using the natives and actors in the films.
At the foot of the Rocky Mountains he produced an All-Indian picture.
In the far north, where the midnight sun casts a shadow on the snow, he
got an All-Eskimo picture. At the entrance of the Shoguns’ temple in
Tokio he began an all-Japanese picture which moved in exquisite beauty
through the blossom-laden cherry groves, the wistaria-festooned tea
houses, across the sacred bridge at Nikko, and ended at last with the
happy lovers climbing the Jacob’s Ladder on the island of Enoshima.
He had just returned from China with an all-Chinese picture which began
in the Botanical Gardens of Hong-kong, concluded its first reel at the
Temple of Confucius in Canton--“One Minute Please!”--sailed down the
Canton River on a Chinese flower boat, and concluded its fifth reel
with a public execution on the northern frontier of the Mongolian
Empire under the shadow of the Great Wall.
He was now taking a two days’ rest in the office on Fifth Avenue and
looking around for more worlds to conquer when, lo!--
“Niggers!” he bawled, springing to his feet and slapping the back
of Peter Pellet, his camera artist. “An All-Coon Cast! Pack up your
night-shirt, Peter! Us for the slimy cypress sloughs of the Sunny
South!”
Peter Pellet’s participation in Rouke’s wild innovations had taught him
that life, like his name, was a pill. He swallowed it loyally, but he
reserved the inalienable right to petition and protest whenever Rouke
grabbed him by the nose, pried open his mouth, and offered him another
bitter dose.
“Aw ferget it!” he began. “A nigger can’t act. The nigger minstrels are
all white men.”
“Sure!” Rouke agreed. “But they imitate niggers. That’s what makes them
so funny. Nigger minstrels make a hit all over this country. Oh, sugar!
the latest line of laugh looseners! Be ready, Pete! We leave on the
night train.”
“May I ask what part of the South you expect to invade?” Peter inquired
in a sour tone.
“We’ll honor the Pelican State with our presence,” Rouke grinned. “I
know a man who knows niggers just like he had been a red corpuscle of
their blood and had gone all through ’em. His name is Gaitskill, and
he’s the loudest tick at Tickfall, Louisiana.”
Four days later Mr. Shirley Rouke sat beside the mahogany table in the
office of Colonel Tom Gaitskill, president of the Tickfall bank, and
told him of his plans.
“Do you know anything about negroes, Mr. Rouke?” Gaitskill inquired.
“Not a dang thing!” Rouke grinned. “Their faces and hands are black and
I presume they are also black under their clothes, but I don’t know.
All of them seem to answer promptly to the name of George. The Pullman
porters are accommodating everywhere except in Mississippi, which has
an anti-tipping law. I spent a month in New Orleans about twenty years
ago, but didn’t get chummy with any smokes.”
“Your education has been sadly neglected,” Gaitskill laughed. “But
you are now in a fair way to overcome its defects. Sir, you have my
sincerest sympathy.”
“If you mean you are sorry for me, I don’t see any cause for your
heart-break,” Rouke declared. “This is a simple business proposition.
I’ll look around a little, get my locations, write my scenario, employ
my actors, pay ’em a good salary, take my pictures and hike!”
“It sounds easy,” Gaitskill remarked gravely.
Then he laughed. Finally he asked: “Did you ever see a photograph of a
negro?”
“Sure! I’ve seen Booker T.’s mug!”
“He don’t count,” Gaitskill said. “It’s a long, long way to Tuskegee,
and these niggers around here could not pronounce that word if they
practiced for a week.”
The door opened and a squat-legged, pot-bellied negro entered,
removing his hat. His head was bald except for a tuft of moss-like hair
growing above each ear, making him look like a fat-faced mule wearing a
blind bridle. His thick lips pouted like the lips of a fretted child.
“What’s aching now, Vinegar?” Gaitskill asked.
“Marse Tom, ’bout dat left-handed screw driver dat you sont me out to
borrer dis mawnin’; de black-smif tole me dat he loant it to Sheriff
Flournoy, an’ de sheriff tole me dat Doc Moseley done borrered it, an’
Doc Moseley tole me dat he had Hitch Diamond wuckin’ wid it because
Hitch already had such a powerful lef’ hook, an’ I hunted up Hitch an’
Hitch tole me I wus a dam’ ole fool. Hitch specify dat dar ain’t no
sech thing as a left-handed screw driver!”
Gaitskill began to cough violently and ran to the window for fresh air,
where he could also conceal his face from Vinegar Atts by turning his
back.
To Mr. Rouke that cough sounded like a smothered laugh, but he had no
interest in a screw driver and concentrated his attention on the negro.
Gaitskill had almost recovered from his fake cough when he chanced to
turn his head and see Mr. Rouke. That brilliant New Yorker was gazing
at Vinegar Atts with a scrutiny so intense, so penetrating that it
seemed to go beneath the negro’s skin and pierce to the very marrow of
his bones; while Vinegar gazed back into the Irishman’s blue orbs with
the vacuous solemnity of a horse. That started Gaitskill in another fit
of coughing.
Finally Gaitskill said:
“I’m sorry I put you to so much trouble, Vinegar. Here’s a half dollar
to pay you for your work.”
“Wus you prankin’ wid me, Marse Tom?” Vinegar asked, as he pocketed the
silver.
“Oh, no,” Gaitskill grinned. “How could I know there was no such thing
as a left-handed screw driver?”
“Dat’s so,” Vinegar agreed. “Nobody cain’t find out nothin’ ’thout
axin’.”
“I’m glad you happened in just now, Vinegar,” Gaitskill said, changing
the subject. “This gentleman sitting here is Mr. Shirley Rouke of New
York City.”
“Glad to meet yo’ ’quaintance,” Vinegar mumbled.
Rouke rose and held out his hand.
Gaitskill watched Vinegar with a smile: a negro positively hates to
shake hands with any white man who is not his personal friend.
Vinegar looked down at Rouke’s hand, then reached out and caught hold
of it about as a man would handle the tail of a vicious rat.
“Glad to meet you,” Rouke murmured, to whom this comedy was hidden.
“Yes, suh, dat’s right, suh!” Vinegar responded.
“Vinegar Atts is a preacher, Mr. Rouke,” Gaitskill remarked. “He is the
leader of the negro race in Tickfall. I suggest that you talk over your
plans with him and engage him to help you.”
“Thanks, Colonel,” Rouke said. “And now, not to detain you longer from
your business, I’ll take a walk with Atts and we’ll have a talk.”
“My automobile is at your service,” Gaitskill said, as he shook hands.
“I’ll be glad to help you in any way. Make yourself at home in this
office.”
When the door closed behind this oddly assorted pair, Gaitskill broke
out in a loud laugh.
II
AN ART TO ART TALK
“Boss,” Vinegar inquired, the moment they stepped out of the bank, “is
you gwine converse me ’bout some kind of wuck?”
“Yes, I have a little proposition which----”
“Please, suh, less you an’ me go somewheres an’ set down,” Vinegar
pleaded in a tone which throbbed with fatigue. “Nothin’ don’t make me
as tired as talkin’ ’bout wuck.”
Vinegar led him through the narrow, winding streets of the negro
settlement known as Dirty-Six, and conducted him finally to the Shoofly
church. Opening the door, he brought out two rickety chairs, placed
them in the shade of a chinaberry tree, sighed audibly, and sat down.
Rouke placed his chair against the trunk of the tree and leaned back.
“Now, boss, beller dem sad news to me easy!” Vinegar admonished. “Don’t
fergit it offen yo’ mind dat my maw fetched me up meek an’ mild an’ de
good Lawd called me to preach. A real, stiddy job of reg’lar wuck would
shore bust my cornstitution down.”
Being totally unaccustomed to negro whimsicalities, Mr. Shirley Rouke
listened to this without a smile. His cool, steady eyes gazed at
Vinegar deliberately, appraisingly, captiously, and Vinegar felt the
fountains of fun turn dry as dust within him. This man would not take
any nigger foolishness.
Without knowing it, Rouke had made his task doubly hard by causing
Vinegar to feel ill at ease.
“I’m a motion picture director and producer for the Gitagraft Company,”
Rouke began in a voice which clicked like the keys of a typewriter. “I
want to produce an All-Negro picture, und’stand? I want you to help me
get the actors and extras, help me to find my locations, give me the
right steer on everything, and dope out everything I need to know about
the blacks, see?”
There was one minute of perfect silence. Vinegar broke out in a profuse
perspiration. He removed his hat, placed it on the ground, wiped the
sweat off the top of his bald head by the simple process of rubbing the
sleeve of his coat over it, and sighed like a bellows. Then he asked
timidly:
“Boss, would you mind pourin’ all dem buckshots back in de pouch? Dey
rattled an’ spluttered all aroun’ me, but dey didn’t hit nowhar.”
“How’s that? I don’t get you!” Rouke snapped.
The two gazed at each other like glass-eyed china dogs, both devoid of
comprehension. Then Vinegar wailed:
“Marse Tom hadn’t oughter shoved me inter dis jam. Mebbe ef he’d tole
me ’bout dis hisself, I might could ketch on!”
“I don’t get you!” Rouke barked.
“Yes, suh, dat’s right!” Vinegar assured him.
Rouke slapped the upper pocket of his fancy waistcoat, snatched out two
fat cigars, and held them out to Vinegar Atts. Without knowing it, he
had made an overwhelming hit!
Vinegar took a cigar, carefully removed the large purple and gold band,
placed it on his little finger, held up his gorilla-like hand and gazed
at the ornament as admiringly as a maiden views her engagement ring.
Then he leaned back and puffed the smoke in a cloud around his head.
“Dis shore is a good stogie, boss,” he remarked. “I’s powerful sorry
dar ain’t no women folks aroun’ to see me smoke it. It makes me feel a
whole heap better. Whut did you say you done fer a livin’?”
“I make moving pictures,” Rouke answered.
“Movin’--which?” Vinegar asked.
“Moving pictures,” Rouke repeated in a sharp tone. “Didn’t you ever see
any movies?”
“Yes, suh, mebbe so, suh, when I wus a little shaver, ’way back befo’
de war. But I ain’t seem to rickoleck nothin’ ’bout it.”
“Aw, gosh!” Rouke snapped. “Are you kidding me?”
“Naw, suh, dunno, suh, ’spose not, suh.”