“Now, Figger,” Skeeter Butts announced the next morning, “I got such a
idjut fer a partner in dis here saloon dat I had to go git myse’f
candidated fer pol’tics.”
“Is you runnin’ fer presidunt?” Figger asked. “I thought you said you
squealed too much when you talked.”
“I’s runnin’ fer vice-presidunt,” Skeeter said solemnly. “I’s runnin’
wid Mustard Prophet an’ us is shore gwine gib you an’ Pap Curtain a
happy time gittin’ elected.”
“Dat looks bad to me, Skeeter—pardners in bizzness runnin’ ag’in’ each
yuther.”
“Dat’s de best bizzness trick I’s done yit,” Skeeter said confidently.
“Bofe sides uses dis house fer headquarters. I sells drinks to de
Mustard Prophets an’ you sells drinks to de Pap Curtains, an’ we ketch
’em comin’ an’ gwine.”
“I sees,” Figger exclaimed in a voice which throbbed with admiration.
“Dat’s de best nigger idear in Tickfall. We’ll git rich an’ one of us
will git elected.”
“Look out fer Ginny Babe Chew!” the voice of Little Bit proclaimed from
the other end of the room, where the little darky wrestled with a broom.
“She’s de one whut’ll ketch you-alls comin’ an’ gwine!”
“Us don’t care nothin’ fer dat ole squawkin’ fat hen,” Skeeter replied
contemptuously.
“You better not git too close,” Little Bit warned. “Dat ole hen’ll peck
you!”
“Shut up! You git dis saloon cleant up. Us is expect plenty comp’ny
to-day.”
“It wus a narrer squeak fer us, Figger,” Skeeter said earnestly. “When
you didn’t stay neuter dis bizzness wus ’bout to go bust ontil I made
dem new arrangements.”
During the day Pap Curtain came in and held sundry whispered conferences
with Figger Bush. Mustard Prophet drove to town and was closeted for two
hours with Skeeter Butts. Both men were arranging for a conference at
the Hen-Scratch saloon that night with their henchmen, and both
barkeepers were feeling elated at the prospect of a prosperous evening.
Then Vinegar Atts entered and spoiled it all. He left his little red
runabout snorting and spitting outside the door while he entered with
haste carrying some of the paraphernalia of a fisherman.
“Gimme a little snake-bite med’cine, Skeeter,” he yelled. “I’s in a
hurry. I’s gwine fishin’ an’ I’s heard tell dat snakes in plenty in de
swamp.”
“Is fish bitin’?” Figger inquired.
“Dunno,” Vinegar replied. “I done selected dis occupation to keep from
stayin’ in town. Dat Uplift election is done deprived me of my goat. I’s
skeart to stay here an’ git on either side. It’ll bust up my Shoofly
chu’ch.”
“Ef us wus twins an’ could git on bofe sides, dat wouldn’t be so bad,
would it?”
“Whar you been at dat you don’t know nothin’?” demanded Vinegar in
disgusted tones. “Some of dem niggers whut represent bofe sides come to
my chu’ch to prayer-meetin’ last night, an’ dey got in a fight at de
door of de meetin’-house!”
“Dey oughter be churched!” Skeeter exclaimed.
“Dey would hab been churched, only I agonized wid ’em an’ got ’em to
bury de hatchet. But I ain’t runnin’ no risks. Dey buried de hatchet,
but dey left de handle stickin’ out!”
“Dat’s bad news, Rev’un,” Skeeter sighed. “Dis here am de official
headquarters of bofe sides.”
“Bad luck, Skeeter!” Vinegar bellowed as he started toward the door.
“You better hang a piece of black crape on de Hen-Scratch door and go
fishin’ wid me. Dem niggers will shore rough-house you when dey git
started, an’ you’ll be same as dead.”
Vinegar departed, leaving uneasiness and anxiety where confidence had
been.
In the evening, the saloon rapidly filled with negroes who came in from
the country. They were all hardy men, with muscles of oak and
iron—one-shirt, one-gallus fellows of the baser sort, who despised the
colored man who lived in town, wore a derby hat, sported a high collar,
and was stuck up. These were all sullen and devoted adherents of Pap
Curtain, and after listening for a while to their bitter anarchistic
talk, Figger Bush became frightened of his own supporters and wished
there was some easy and unostentatious way to resign.
“Dem fellers is rambunctious,” he whispered fearfully to his partner.
“Dey comes at eve’ything butt-end fust an’ hits it wid a jolt. I wish I
hadn’t never et outen de same spoon wid ’em.”
“Don’t stir ’em up too much, Figger,” Skeeter urged him. “Mebbe when
some of my gang comes in dey’ll calm down a little.”
But Skeeter found that when a bull is mad the sight of another bull does
not calm his spirit; it rouses him to battle.
A number of town negroes drifted in, took a look at the situation, and
drifted quietly out. They had counted the number of Pap’s adherents and
had gone for reënforcements, for the saloon was soon filled with men who
were loud in their praise of Mustard Prophet, and they outnumbered Pap’s
followers three to one.
Pap’s crowd, dusty, ragged, trampish-looking, drew off at one end of the
saloon and composed a little, sour, ugly bunch; over against the more
dressy Tickfall bunch, they were a sad contrast, and they felt it.
Then Pap Curtain entered the scene, and his followers took heart.
Pap was practicing the political trick of looking like he belonged to
the great common people, and had come up from the commonest of them all.
He was a grave-digger and well-digger by profession, and he looked
to-night like he had just finished the job of digging all the graves and
wells that would be needed in Tickfall Parish for many years to come.
There was fresh clay on his clothes and hat and shoes; clay streaked his
yellow baboon face, and was plastered thick upon his horny hands. He
joined his bunch with many noisy greetings and much hand-shakings, and
glared over at the town crowd with every manifestation of contempt that
he could devise.
Mustard Prophet came in and joined the town crowd. He was a
good-natured, easy-smiling, hard-working negro who had the confidence
and esteem of all the people in the town, white and black. Yet he was a
real country negro, who had never lived in Tickfall in his life, while
Pap had spent many years in Tickfall and owned his cabin there.
Smilingly, Mustard turned to Skeeter, and said, loud enough for everyone
to hear:
“Less git dese here obsequies started, Skeeter. What am de plogram?”
“I ain’t fixed up no special diagram,” Skeeter muttered. “Mebbe we
mought start somepin off ef bofe de leadin’ candidates made a speech.”
“Let ’em speech!” a number of voices exclaimed.
“Brudders, I introduces Pap Curtain,” Skeeter announced. “He’s runnin’
fer presidunt of de Uplift. We axes him to say de fust words.”
“I ain’t used to speakin’ ’thout I kin cuss,” Pap Curtain began, in his
snarly voice, gazing at the Prophet aggregation with contemptuous eyes
and sneering lips. “When I sees a lot of dude niggers tryin’ to ack like
Gawd made a mistake when He didn’t make ’em white, I don’t cuss, because
I ain’t able to do the subjeck jestice. I thanks de good Lawd dat I
ain’t nothin’ but a corn-fiel’ nigger, brudder of de cotton-fiel’ mule,
an’ I makes my livin’ diggin’ wells, ditches, an’ graves. I done dug de
graves of all de dead, an’ now I’s gittin’ ready to dig de graves of
some dat’s livin’. We corn-fiel’ niggers will bury Mustard Prophet an’
his Tickfall dudes when de day of votin’ comes!”
A sullen note of applause came from Pap’s ugly-looking crowd, but there
was no enthusiasm, no good-will. In a word, Pap’s crowd were not good
sportsmen. One man took a big red apple out of his pocket, wiped it off
on the leg of his trousers and began to eat it.
“I now introduces Mustard Prophet,” Skeeter announced uneasily.
There was handclapping, several shouts of applause. Mustard’s crowd had
been trained in the lodges and the various clubs and knew a little
better how to act under the circumstances.
“I don’t see no reason fer gittin’ sour an’ ugly, brudders,” Mustard
began. “Nobody ain’t gwine lose much ef he don’t git elected presidunt
of de league. In de last year I ain’t got nothin’ fer my presidunt job
but a cuss-word eve’y time I do somepin dat don’t please nobody. Of
co’se I wants to keep on wid dis job an’ hopes you won’t fergit to vote
fer me. Pap Curtain says he’s a corn-fiel’, cotton-fiel’ nigger, but dar
ain’t no man, white ner black, dat ever seed him wuckin’ in no kind of
fiel’ as a country nigger oughter do. He lives in dis town, an’ he owns
his house in dis town. As you-all knows, I’s a real country nigger,
never did live in town, an’ I been de overseer of Marse Tom’s plantation
fer twenty year. I tries to stand by de high notions of de Uplift. I
preaches dat a feller ought to dress up in work clothes when he wucks,
an’ put on his compan’y clothes when he goes out in sawciety, an’ wear
his Sunday clothes at de lodge an’ de fun’ral an’ de meetin’-house——”
At this point the apple-eating adherent of Pap Curtain had consumed his
apple to the core. He balanced it on his thumb as a child prepares to
shoot a marble, and flicked it across the room, where it landed on the
top of Mustard Prophet’s bald head.
Mustard Prophet stepped down from the chair on which he was standing,
walked quietly across the room, laid hold of the collar of the offender,
kicked his shins, punched his jaw, then turned him around and booted him
across the room.
It was no more than the offender deserved, but he offered all the
resistance and counter-offensive in his power, and while this was going
on someone slipped behind Mustard and administered a lusty and
soul-satisfying kick to him.
The notion became contagious. The two forces joined in combat, but,
strange to say, they did not fight with fists, but with feet.
“Look at dat!” Little Bit exclaimed, as he scrambled to a safe place on
the top of the bar, where he danced up and down in his high-heeled
pumps. “Eve’ybody is tryin’ to kick eve’ybody else!”
In a moment the crowd was so cramped for room that they had to abandon
that mode of combat and began to fight with their fists. They milled
around and around, pounding, scrouging, punching with elbows, while
their voices rose in a mighty diaphony of imprecation and abuse.
“Lawd! Lawd!” Little Bit exclaimed in a prayerful voice from his place
of safety on the bar. “Eve’ybody is tryin’ to hit eve’ybody else!”
In the fury of battle the men sought other weapons and found the
numerous chairs most convenient. In the jam they found it impossible to
swing the chairs and hit with them, so they held the chairs before them,
as a lion-tamer does, and charged their opponents, holding their heads
low to avoid being clubbed. The resemblance to a lot of milling, horning
cattle struck Little Bit at once, and from his vantage-point upon the
bar he announced the procedure:
“Eve’y bully is tryin’ to hook eve’ybody else!”
Skeeter Butts had seen as much of the fray as he could stand, so he ran
behind the bar, seized his automatic pistol and fired it in the air,
holding the weapon out of the window. He knew how dangerous such a
performance was, for it might suggest to the angry negroes the use of
their own guns. But he took the chance with the hope that the town
watchman would hear the firing and come to the rescue.
The negroes took no notice of the pistol-firing, for some of them had
found new and mightier weapons. There were half a dozen tables in the
room, and when some of these were overturned, the men wrenched the legs
off, and with shouts of glee brought these mighty clubs into action.
“Gawdlemighty!” Little Bit screamed. “Eve’ybody is tryin’ to kill
eve’ybody else!”
Figger rushed to the electric-switch and turned off the lights.
“Bless Gawd!” Little Bit bawled. “Eve’ybody cain’t see eve’ybody else!”
Suddenly a voice cut through the sound and fury of that room.
“Hey, you niggers! Turn on the lights!”
Silence except for the tramping of many feet going toward doors and
windows.
“Halt!”
Silence, broken by the sound of running feet. The light flashed on and
Little Bit stood by the switch.
“Dey’s all went, cap’n,” he snickered. “Nobody here excusin’ me!”
The watchman pushed open the swinging door and passed out into the
night.
“I guess de meetin’ is over,” Little Bit giggled. “I’ll shet up an’ go
home to bed.”
He carefully examined his garments to see that they had not been hurt in
the scramble, smoothing his flowered shirt-waist shirt, and pulling up
his purple-silk stockings till they were trim and neat over his legs.
“I’m glad dem scufflers didn’t spile my ladylike clothes,” he said
proudly. “Ginny Babe Chew says I’s de sensation of de town!”
V
During the night there was an exodus from Tickfall on the part of
certain citizens.
Skeeter Butts and Figger Bush left for the fishing-camp, where Vinegar
Atts had taken refuge. They found Pap Curtain and Mustard Prophet
sitting in front of a camp-fire, telling the pastor of the Shoofly
church the story of their rival race for president of the Uplift League.
The place of assembly was known as the Buzzard’s Roost, a camp hidden
deep in the Little Moccasin Swamp on the banks of the Dorfoche Bayou.
During the next day, their company was augmented by various negroes who
nursed wounds and bruises acquired in the affray in the saloon. But they
were all fugitives—and friends now.
Followers of Pap Curtain and followers of Mustard Prophet dug bait and
cut poles and rigged up fishing-lines and entered into friendly
piscatorial rivalry and forgot all about the elevation of the poor,
oppressed colored race. Ten days passed in a happy vacation for the
whole care-free bunch.
Then Little Bit made his appearance at the Buzzard’s Roost with an
important announcement:
“You won’t git arrested ef you comes in now, brudders. De police is done
fergot all about you.”
“Whut’s de good news in Tickfall, Little Bit?” Skeeter inquired.
“De election is done winned,” Little Bit told him.
“Who am presidunt?” Mustard Prophet asked hopefully.
“Ginny Babe Chew.”
A low moan of sorrow came from the throats of the crowd.
“Yes, suh,” Little Bit continued. “De Uplift League met an’ called a
election immediate, an’ Ginny got all de votes.”
“Who else wus ’lected?” Figger asked.
“Me!” Little Bit grinned proudly. “I was ’lected fust high janitor at
four dollars per mont’ pay. I’m de only man whut got a job. De lady
folks took a look at dese here ladylike clothes an’ dey ’lected me
unanermous.”
There was silence for quite a while. Then Skeeter asked:
“Is de Hen-Scratch pretty much busted up, Little Bit?”
“Naw. ’Tain’t hurt any. I nailed de legs on de tables an’ patched up de
broke chairs an’ us is jes’ as good off as ever.”
Skeeter glanced toward his automobile and rose to his feet.
“I’s gwine back to town, niggers!” he announced. “You-all kin foller. De
fust drink in de Hen-Scratch is a free-fer-all on me!”
A shout of applause greeted this.
“But listen, fellers,” Skeeter said earnestly. “From dis time on, as fer
as I’m concerned, pol’tics is nix!”
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