In the evening Skeeter Butts followed Figger out to the old tabernacle
grounds and was amazed at the transformation of the place.
Wash Jones had moved many of the benches out of the building and had
placed them under trees and in the groves. He had made sawdust trails
from the tabernacle to the edge of the lake, to the Shin Bone
eating-house, and to all other places where a little money could be
coaxed from the pocket of the pleasure-seeker.
He had made a dancing-floor in a part of the tabernacle, arranging seats
around it for the sightseers. He had erected refreshment-booths in other
portions of the building, and also a band-stand, where the sweating,
hard-worked black Tickfall brass band was having the most hilarious time
of their lives.
Negroes had come in from the plantations for miles around. Horses were
tied to all the trees, wagons and buggies were sheltered in the woods,
and a great mob of folks moved up and down the sawdust avenues or
tramped the woods, shouting, laughing, cutting monkey-shines, and eating
popcorn balls, hot dogs, and sandwiches made of fried catfish.
It was a noisy, boisterous, rollicking place which Skeeter entered.
Ordinarily Skeeter would have been the center of the whole thing. But
this affair had slipped up on him and had suddenly developed business
complications and his mind was too occupied with his troubles to enjoy
the fun going on around him.
Soon after entering the grounds he found Pap Curtain. Pap was
entertaining himself by paying five cents for three baseballs. He would
then try to throw each ball so it would stay in a bucket about twenty
feet away. Whenever he placed one to stay, the proprietor of the
amusement feature would give Pap a cigar. The cigars sold three for a
nickel in Tickfall and as Pap never succeeded in placing more than two
balls in the bucket, the proprietor of the place always made a fair
profit in the transaction. Pap had his pocket stuffed full of cheap
cigars and promptly offered a handful to Skeeter.
“I don’t smoke garbage,” Skeeter said impatiently, waving aside the
offer.
“I figger I done acquired enough of dese cabbage-leaves. Less move on
an’ git some fun somewhere else.”
A short distance down the sawdust trail they ran into something new. The
diminutive darky named Little Bit was standing on a frail platform
erected over a hogshead full of water. There was a trigger shaped like a
skiff-paddle about fifty feet away, and men were throwing baseballs at
this paddle. If someone hit the trigger, the platform, on which Little
Bit was standing, fell and ducked the diminutive darky in the hogshead
of water. Little Bit was well known in Tickfall and this particular
attraction was a riot. Sometimes thirty baseballs would be flying toward
that paddle-shaped trigger at one time, and the hapless Little Bit spent
more time in the hogshead of water than he did on the platform.
“Lawd, Skeeter!” Pap exclaimed when he had laughed himself nearly to
exhaustion. “I’d druther be de owner of dis Coon Island dan de’
pres’dunt of de Europe war. I feels like I’s jes’ nachelly cut out fer a
job like dis. I been huntin’ fer somepin I been fitten fer all my life
an’ dis am it.”
“I wish you had dis job, Pap,” Skeeter replied. “I stopped by to ax you
a question.”
“I’ll answer yes or no, like de gram jury always tells me to do,” Pap
grinned.
“Word is done been sont to me dat you is fixin’ to start a saloon. Is
dat so?”
“Yep.”
“Whar you gwine git de money at?”
“A fat widder woman’s husbunt is kicked de bucket an’ lef’ her a wad of
dough,” Pap chuckled. “I’s gwine marrify de widder, mix dat dough wid my
brains an’ start me a place of bizzness.”
“I thought you wus done through wid marrin’ womens,” Skeeter wailed.
“You done been kotched fo’ times already.”
“Yas, suh, but in all dem fo’ times I never married no widder. My
edgycation is been neglected. Dey wus all young an’ foolish gals. Dis
here is a sottled woman—so dang fat dat when she sottles down it takes a
block an’ tackle to h’ist her agin.”
“Aw, shuckins!” Skeeter exclaimed. “Whut you marryin’ dat kind of gal
fer?”
“Fer five hundred dollars!” Pap said.
Skeeter turned away with a troubled face. Pap looked after him a moment,
then purchased three more baseballs to throw at the trigger-paddle.
At the far end of the grounds, Skeeter found Wash Jones.
“Wash,” he said after a little conversation, “I understands dat you is
got a prize widder in dis show.”
The big black eyed Skeeter for a moment with suspicion. He took the time
to help himself to a big chew of tobacco before he answered, watching
Skeeter covertly all the time. At last he said:
“I ain’t heerd tell about dat. But I ain’t supprized none. I got all de
attrackshuns on dis Coon Island whut is.”
“Dey tells me dis widder is got a dead husbunt an’ five hundred
dollars,” Skeeter continued.
Wash dropped his plug of tobacco and stooped to pick it up. That Skeeter
had this information was not a surprise to him; it was a shock.
“Who mought dat widder be?” Wash asked.
“Sister Solly Skaggs,” Skeeter informed him.
“I knows her,” Wash groaned. “Fat—O Lawd! Ef dat gal wuster drap dead,
dey’d hab to git a mud-scow outen de river fer a coffin, an’ de only
hole in de groun’ big enough to put her in is Marse Tom’s sand pit. Dat
five hundred dollars don’t int’rust my mind, naw, suh, not at all, not
at all!”
“Don’t waste no time thinkin’ about it,” Skeeter sighed. “Pap Curtain is
done spoke fer it—de fat’s in de fire.”
“Which?” Wash Jones exclaimed in a tone that popped like a gun. “Pap
Curtain?”
“Pap done pulled de curtain down on de widder,” Skeeter assured him.
“Nobody else needn’t look at her charms.”
Wash Jones turned around three times, as if looking for some place to go
and practically undecided about what direction to choose.
Skeeter wandered on disconsolately and finally found himself beside the
old tabernacle. An aged man approached him. Skeeter looked for a place
to escape, but found no avenue of exit and stood his ground. The
venerable man was Popsy Spout.
“I don’t ketch on ’bout dis, Skeeter,” he said in the high, shrill
complaining voice of senility. “Dis here ain’t de place whut I thought
it wus. ’Tain’t de same place whut it uster be befo’ an’ endurin’ of de
war. When do de religium exoncises begin?”
“I dunno,” Skeeter answered. “Ax Wash Jones.”
“I axed him. Wash said ef de people wanted religium doin’s dey could
start ’em deyselfs,” Popsy whined. “Wash said he wus jes’ de servunt of
de people fer so much money per each people.”
“Dat’s right,” Skeeter laughed.
“I thought dey wus gwine hab preachin’ in dat ole tabernacle to-night,”
Pap complained. “Instid of dat, dey’s gwine had a dance fer a prize!
Yas, suh—whut do Gawd think of dat? A dance fer a prize?”
“I hopes dat Pap Curtain slips up an’ breaks bofe behime legs,” Skeeter
remarked bitterly.
“’Tain’t no use hopin’,” the old man chuckled. “Pap is like me—spry on
his legs fer a ole man. But Pap an’ me don’t favor dancin’. We been
talkin’ it over. I deespise a nigger dat dances. Ef any of my kin-folks
cuts a shuffle on dat flo’ dis night, dey ain’t no kinnery of mine no
more.”
“I ’speck I better go gib Figger a warnin’ right now,” Skeeter exclaimed
eagerly, glad to find a reason for departure.
“Dat’s right!” Popsy exclaimed, in his high, cracked falsetto. “You warn
him good!”
Skeeter wandered down to the shore of the little lake and sat down alone
to think out some method of defeating Pap’s designs. After an hour
Figger Bush found him by the glow of his cigarette, and came and sat
beside him.
“De only way to bust Pap’s plans, Figger, is to marry dat fat Solly
Skaggs to somebody else.”
“Who’ll take her?” Figger inquired.
“It’ll hab to be somebody dat ain’t married already,” Skeeter said.
“You’s de only onmarried man I knows, excusin’ Pap,” Figger giggled. “I
guess you’ll hab to make de riffle.”
Skeeter considered this a moment in silence. Then he asked:
“Is she so awful fat as people says she is?”
“Ain’t you never seed her?” Figger exclaimed. “Honey, de half ain’t
never yit been told! She’s been reg’lar to her meals ever since she wus
borned, an’ her meals is been frequent an’ copious, an’ her vittles is
agreed wid her too well! Come on, Skeeter, lemme interjuice you to yo’
future wife!”
Figger rose to his feet with eagerness. Skeeter shook his head and
sighed.
“I wouldn’t choose any, Figger. I’d druther Pap Curtain would rival me
out of bizzness.”
“Mebbe we could wish her onto somebody else,” Figger proposed.
“I been tryin’ to think up some onmarried man,” Skeeter told him, “but I
don’t see none in sight.”
They smoked for an hour longer without producing a spark of an idea. At
last Skeeter said:
“All I kin do jes’ now, Figger, is to keep Pap away from dat gal ontil I
finds a fitten secont husbunt fer her. Dar’s gwine be a prize-dance
to-night an’ I nominates you to dance wid Sister Solly Skaggs.”
“Ef she trods on me I’ll be a squashed worm of de dust,” Figger wailed.
“Don’t talk back,” Skeeter replied sharply. “I’ll fix it so you an’
Sister Solly win de prize.”