E. K. Means

“ To the end of their lives, those powerful, husky sawmill men told with awe-stricken voices of the fight of that giant black in the lumber yard. Hitch mixed with them. No man dared to use his pistol for fear of killing a friend. It was a hand-to-hand battle, one negro against forty mill-hands.
With a wild, insane bellow Hitch hurled himself upon that mob of cursing, shrieking, clambering, clutching men, and they set upon him like ravening wolves. ”

“ Bill stood like a rag doll, or anything else you can think of which is spineless and helpless and non-resistant.
Conko walked up and glared into Bill’s listless, humid eyes like a monstrous, bloodthirsty gorilla eying a wax dummy. Bill did not see the negro, for unknown to Conko, the tall form of Zodono stood just behind him, and the professor’s eyes held the hypnotic as a snake charms a bird.
“Now,” Zodono commanded in sharp tones to the darky, “make a stroking motion before his face—slow—slow—slow. Now bring your will to bear upon his subconscious mind—that’s it. Sleep—sleep—sleep—ah!” ”

“ Skeeter Butts clung desperately to the pilot-wheel, slapping around it like a dish-rag waving in the wind; Hitch and Vinegar, who had been lying flat on their backs on deck, began to roll and scratch and claw at the deck to keep from falling overboard into the river; Figger Bush fell into the coal-pile near the furnace, scrambled like a cat in an ash-barrel, and kicked lumps of coal all over the boat.
There is nothing which can roughhouse a little boat as shamefully as two big boats ”

“ It was too high up to be vitally effective, but powerful enough to bring a black veil of unconsciousness across Conko’s mind. All faces vanished for a second; even Hitch Diamond disappeared; then when Hitch reappeared, Conko pecked savagely at his stomach.
Hitch panted like a winded dog; they clinched, and Hitch, with his gorilla reach, pounded his enemy over the kidneys.
“Hey, dar! Break ’em! No fair hittin’ in clinches!” the crowd of Conko backers yelled.
Vinegar Atts grinned, yanked the pair out of the clinch, and a wolflike howl rose from the crowd. ”

“ Judge Haddan was a pale, sickly looking man with a weak voice, trembling hands, and stooped shoulders. But his head was massive and Websterian, and his eyes glowed like the eyes of some jungle beast. No man within the borders of the State commanded more respect as a lawyer and a jurist.
Hitch Diamond raised his massive head and eyed the judge with the stolid gaze of a stupid horse. Goldie gasped, and laced and interlaced her nervous fingers in her lap. ”

“ Pap Curtain sighed, as he walked slowly down the street toward his cabin. “De kunnel done gimme my good-riddunce papers an’ axed me good-by!”
Pap sat down on the rickety porch of his cabin and gazed for a long time with unseeing vision straight before him. Half an hour passed, an hour, and still he looked into the thick branches of an umbrella china-tree without seeing it.
No white man can equal the absolute absorption in thought, the intense concentration of attention and interest which a negro displays when he comes face to face with a crisis in his career. ”

“ When Hitch Diamond emerged from the plum-thicket 56 which had served for a dressing-room, his seconds behind him, and stalked through the crowd to the ring, a wild burst of greeting and applause went up from his waiting fellow townsmen, all of whom, except Skeeter Butts and Figger Bush, had backed him to the limit at any odds.
Hitch bowed right and left, waved his giant arms at the people on the edge of the crowd, and listened with hungry ears to their pleas:
“We’re bettin’ on you, Hitch; don’t make us lose our money!”
“Knock him out, Hitchey! Den us’ll all be rich!” ”

“ A man ran out of a by-path, and his head collided with Hitch’s fist like a punching-bag. As the negro ran another, another, and another came out of the little pathways, and each one went down like a bag of salt. Thus Hitch arrived at the main passageway.
Then he found every by-path pouring forth its quota of men, every thoroughfare contributed its number, and every man upon the lumber-piles ran toward one spot to illumine the passage with their dark lanterns. ”

“ But the blow had been too hastily delivered and missed the point of the jaw by an inch. In an instant Hitch was up and fighting like a panther.
The rest of the round was a nigger whirlwind finish. The darkies grappled like clumsy grizzlies, punching, biting, wrestling, growling ferociously. Around and around, they butted and pushed, bellowing and braying, striking any sort of blows, landing them everywhere they could, while the crowd cheered each man as he gained a slight advantage without partizanship. ”

“ The jurors, grim, silent, attentive, fixed their eyes upon each witness, and when the witness-chair was empty, they looked down at the floor.
Not one of them glanced at Hitch Diamond. Jurymen don’t like to watch a man whom they are making up their minds to condemn to death.
Hitch listened to the evidence without a word or question to a single witness. If Judge Haddan asked a question, Hitch grinned. ”

“ Hitch fell, and men stepped on him. All men slipped and slid in blood, crushed each other, dragged each other down, struck each other—and all heaved and cursed and shouted and hammered and tore at the shuddering tangle of human flesh and bone. ”

“ The afternoon was bright and fair and Pap Curtain was on the track early with a careful eye upon Doodlebug and upon all the other horses in Doodlebug’s race, the second. He made a special inspection of Nigger Blackie as the jockey, Little Bit, rode him up the track for a warming. The black was as clumsy as a cow, and the diminutive darky rode him awkwardly and fearfully.
None of the ordinary rules and regulations were in force upon this race-track. A jockey could ride with any sort of saddle, or without one. ”

“ At last Tella Tandy rose from the chair, felt her way toward the side of the stage as if she were blind, rubbed her hands over her dazed eyes, and exclaimed in a dramatic voice:
“De book of de recordin’ angel is closed, an’ de sperit land reveals no more!”
“Bless Gawd!” Hitch Diamond bellowed fervently. ”

“ And the scenery would set an artist wild: a sky like a soap-bubble, and high in the dome a buzzard sailing like a speck of dust, a river like a broad, flowing ribbon of old gold, and close to the levees on each side the woods, dense, black, moss-hung and funereal, absorbing so little of the sun’s light that the negroes could hear the call of the night-owls and the voice of the whip-poor-will. ”

“ Vinegar Atts nodded his head and waved his hand toward the stable.
When Shin Bone dismounted at the stall Whiffle Boone ran forward with the tears running down her laughing face.
She jerked Shin’s hat from his head, turned it upside down on the ground and filled it with money. Then she threw her arms around the graceful, throbbing, sweating neck of the big sorrel horse.
“We win!” she sobbed. “Bless Gawd! We win!”
All this happened three years ago, and there has never been another race at any Tickfall Negro Fair. ”

“ Up to the moment when their frightened screams had stirred afresh the mob’s lust to kill, Mustard and Pap Curtain had been totally ignorant of what was occurring outside the jail. Wandering idly to the window to look out, they had seen what every negro dreads, whatever the reason for his incarceration—a mob. 179
With the first frightened cry Sheriff Ulloa knew that it would be impossible to disperse the crowd before him. The scream of the quarry only stimulates the pursuit of the wolf-pack. ”

“ Standing on a chair close to the struggling men was a woman—a woman of wicked, half-caste beauty, her long Indian hair streaming down her back, her golden-colored hands weaving to and fro with clenched fists, her golden face blazing with hate and fury—fit mate for Hitch Diamond, whose wife she was. ”

“ Keenly watching the tense lips and the white, angry face of Gaitskill, he saw that no nigger talk would placate the owner of the Niggerheel. He stood shuffling his feet in the dirt for a full minute before Gaitskill spoke.
“Now, Pap, I want you to get this: I have trouble every year to get hands to pick my cotton. The worthless niggers loaf on the banks of the bayou until winter catches them with nothing to eat, nothing to wear, and not a dollar. Then the white folks in Tickfall have to support them.”
“Yes, suh, dat’s a shore, certain fack——”
“Shut up, you crazy buck!” Gaitskill snarled. ”

“ Every pore of Pap’s body was spouting cold sweat. His eyes burned, his throat choked, his brain reeled, his limbs trembled—he was racked, tortured with fear and anxiety—and yet this white man seemed to be talking kind words.
“Oh, Lawd,” he prayed, “let a leetle sunshine in!”
“It certainly takes a coon to catch a coon!” Gaitskill laughed. “The idea of making a negro pay a dollar for the privilege of working on a cotton plantation when the white folks are begging for hands—think of it, Pap! ”

“ Mustard Prophet, overseer of the Nigger-Heel plantation, sat on a box under a horse-shed in the rear of the Gaitskill store.
The gathering dusk of the October evening lent beauty to his sordid surroundings, and Mustard sweetened the scene by music. His thick lips caressed the silver mouthpiece of a cornet, and his bellows-like lungs sent forth strains which made all Tickfall listen:
“All de worl’ am sad an’ dreary, eb’rywhar I roam—”
Wherever music is there the negroes are gathered together. In a moment Pap Curtain entered the lot. ”

“ Flournoy continued quietly. “Hitch Diamond was born on my plantation, and ever since I have known him he has been a big, good-natured, bone-headed, peaceable, law-abiding negro. Robbery and murder are not in his line.”
“Dat’s right, Marse John—Hitch never done it.” 338
There was a little silence, after which Flournoy said:
“I think they’ve got Hitch, Skeeter. Some of the white people in this town have always been very fond of Hitch. They ought to come to his aid at once—he’s their nigger. But all the white folks have kept away.” ”

“ The town of Kerlerac was deserted except for the women and children. Practically every male inhabitant had joined the most exciting of all chases—the man-hunt.
The sheriff placed a cigar in his mouth, chewed it almost to the other end without lighting it, then spat it out.
“When that searching party finds their dead dogs and drinks up all their red liquor,” he reasoned to himself, “and come back to town and find those coons in jail, they’ll form a mob. My deputies will desert the crowd when the mob forms, but they won’t join me. It’s up to me to protect the coons.” ”

“ Skeeter Butts cackled like a nervous hen, fluttered well out of reach of that hand, and snickered:
“Lawd, Conko, you sho’ is one powerful funny man! Dat gits you a free-fer-nothin’ drink. You is better’n a show-actor.”
“You done kotch de lizard by de tail, son—kotch him de fust time,” Conko informed him in deep, rumbling bellow. “I is a holy show!” ”

“ Vinegar turned to Ginny Babe Chew a second time and said desperately:
“Now, sister Ginny, less hab anodder song—a lively toon whut eve’ybody knows!”
Ginny Babe Chew rose to her feet, her hand started the gestures of an old-fashioned singing-master, her body “weaved,” her voice arose in a 326 high, drawling falsetto, utterly unlike her natural tone:
“Blow—ye—de—trumpet—blow—”
If the human eye had power to slay, Ginny Babe would now be dead. ”

“ Wild rose vines with thorns like spear-points and barbed like a fishhook snag the garments and the skin, and, like Shylock, demand their pound of flesh. Hidden in every puddle of water, the hard, sharp cypress knees lie ambushed in the mud like bayonets to impale anything which falls upon them. ”

“ If he is a transient like Hitch Diamond, or his occupation is rather questionable, like the gambling-house of Dinner Gaze, he is sure to leave at the earliest opportunity and go where he has friends or where the white people who know him will defend him from harm. ”

“ All of this was perfectly familiar to the negroes for this reason: in the negro churches when a collection is taken up a table is placed, a secretary is appointed, and each donor marches to the front of the congregation, places his gift upon the table, announces the amount in a loud voice and retires.
In ten minutes the table contained a goodly amount of currency and silver, and Shin Bone swept the contribution from the top of the table into his hat.
“Two hundred an’ fo’ dollars is bet, niggers!” Shin announced. “Now, Prince Total, advance an’ produce de worm!” ”

“ They were traveling about as fast as a lame man could walk, but there was an exhilarating throb to the engine, and a cheerful slap-slap to the paddle-wheel, and the river went past them instead of taking them with it, and by shutting their eyes for five minutes and then opening them they could see that they were actually gaining on the scenery. ”