E. K. Means

“ As the six negroes walked down the silent road, the darkness in the woods, increased by the interlocked branches of the trees, was intense and overwhelming. The green fringe of the swamp weeds took on fantastic shapes, and the negroes, through their disordered imaginations, beheld claws and wings, and leering eyes, and sneering mouths, and snarling teeth, and painted upon the black canvas of the dark were all the slimy, horrid forms which fear could conceive. ”

“ 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 92 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. ”

“ Skeeter screamed. “Ketch him—O my Lawd!”
His voice trailed off in demoniacal whoops of laughter like a wind-broken calliope, and Dazzle sat down with an astonishment which left her perfectly helpless.
In all her earthly career, she had never before found a man who bolted when she wanted to kiss him!
With a decisive gesture, she removed the five-dollar bill from the palm of her glove, and stood up, facing Tick Hush.
“Come here, Tick, an’ git dis money!” she commanded.
“No’m,” Tick chattered. “I wouldn’t come even fer five dollars!” ”

“ Sentelle laughed.
“Who knows?” Gaitskill grinned. “She certainly made an impression on me! An escaped heathen running at large in the vicinity of Tickfall might quicken all kinds of activities——”
Their attention was diverted by the sight of two negroes who stumbled down the middle of the street in the last stages of exhaustion, puffing like steamboats, covered with swamp-mud, their garments torn to shreds by their flight through the vines and underbrush. ”

“ Each baby was happily chewing a chicken bone. The two mothers rushed forward to embrace their children, but Skeeter’s commanding voice cracked like a bull-whip:
“Stan’ back, nigger womans! Don’t tech dem brats till I gib de word!”
There was a moment of intense silence while Skeeter gathered his wits to speak. No one in that crowd will ever know how frightened the little barkeeper was, nor how desperate. He had determined to risk his life and liberty upon the magic name of John Flournoy, Sheriff of Tickfall parish. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hitch Diamond, the Tickfall Tiger, howled. “Elder Atts teached me all I know ’bout fightin’!”
“Thirty years have passed since Vinegar became the pastor of the Shoofly church. In that time, negro preachers have come and gone through the other negro churches in this parish like a Mardi Gras procession, but Vinegar holds on to his job. It is my conviction that a man so endowed with the gift of continuance possesses the supreme art of pleasing all the people all the time, and should be qualified to teach that art to others.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Four hundred men sprang to the ground, spread out in a long line like a fish-seine and went plunging across the marsh in pursuit of the fleeing woman. The grass was waist high, dead and dry as dust, but it offered no places for concealment, and Diada’s tall form was easily kept in sight.
At intervals the woman turned and hurled a javelin at the posse, but they were careful to stay out of danger. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sentelle lost the six-shooter out of the tail of his Prince Albert coat, and the business men went haw-hawing to their stores, leaving Colonel Gaitskill and Dr. Sentelle to face the rabble of panic-stricken negroes.
Gaitskill’s mind revolved a number of plans before he found one to suit him. Finally he stood on the court house steps and made oration:
“Hey, you niggers! Listen to me: Go to the back door of my store and get your rations for the night. All you nigger men be at the old cotton-shed to-morrow morning by sunrise! Hear me!” ”

“ Yelping furiously they drove her from the main road across the prairie marsh which skirted Lake Basteneau, and penned her upon a narrow point which projected like a peninsula into the lake and was thickly overgrown with cypress saplings about as large around as a man’s wrist.
The marsh between the road and the lake was too soft for the men to venture on with their horses, and it was even dangerous for a man to walk upon because of the quicksands. But the men could look from the road, across a part of the lake, and easily see Diada and the dogs. ”

“ Sometimes there comes out of the swamp into Tickfall a negro so simple that his life has consisted of eating, sleeping, and working. Having lived far from civilization, his innocence and ignorance are amazing. He is a joy to the planter, for he works hard and does just as he is told to do. Coming into contact with the negro social life of Tickfall, he is also a joy to his colored friends—he contributes so largely to the funny side of life. ”

“ Every man and woman in the church professed religion that night. Never was a reform as instantaneous and as complete.
Along toward day the negroes began to rid themselves of their weapons of sin. Figger Bush came to the front of the congregation with the “jerks” and tremblingly laid upon the top of the table a cheap pistol, a pair of brass knucks, and a deck of greasy, soiled playing cards. His example was contagious, and in a few minutes the table was loaded with cards, whisky bottles, dice, brass knucks, daggers, razors, rabbit feet, and hoodoo-charms of all sorts. ”

“ The Hen-Scratch saloon derived its name from the fact that many of its colored habitués played “craps” on the ground under the chinaberry trees until the soil was marked by their scratching finger-nails like a chicken-yard. The name Tickfall is fictitious, but the locality will be easily recognized by the true names of the negro settlements, Dirty-Six, Hell’s-Half-Acre, Shiny, Tin-row,—lying in the sand around that rich and aristocratic little town like pigs around their dam and drawing their sustenance therefrom.
Skeeter Butts’s real name is Perique. ”

“ The posse galloped into this clearing, and Colonel Gaitskill dismounted from his horse.
“You darkies stay here!” he commanded. “I’ll see whether Diada is in the cabin.”
The cabin was empty. All of Isaiah’s smoked sausage and hams had disappeared. Little Bit’s mandolin, with the strings broken, lay in the corner of the room, and a part of Mrs. Gaitskill’s silk kimono hung from a splinter on the wall, showing how it had been torn off. From a nail on the wall hung a long lasso.
Taking down the rope Gaitskill walked out again to the negroes.
“She’s not here, men,” he announced. ”

“ Coco Ferret, lacking a woman’s best friend—a mirror—and having no idea of her horrific appearance, turned and grinned at the crowd of Tickfall negroes, delighted with her success as a hoodoo breaker.
“Oh—my—Lawd A’mighty!” Vinegar Atts bellowed, his eyes popping with fright, his mouth spread wide in horrified imbecility. “Whut is Gawd done gone an’ done to dat gal? Run, niggers, run!” ”

“ From the moment they entered the swamp the shouts and laughter of the negroes ceased.
They had all spent their lives within sight of that jungle and knew well its fearful menace and entertained toward it a most wholesome fear. They knew that three deep, broad bayous flowed into it, widened into an enormous mud-puddle and disappeared, swallowed up by rank, encroaching vegetation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Gaitskill laughed as he grumblingly filled the glasses. 95
“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. ”

“ Figger Bush wanted to know.
“It’s a tragedy,” Rouke informed him. “Not a funny play, but a show full of love and fighting, and brave men and women.”
“Don’t us be allowed to bust no jokes in dis here draymer?” Vinegar Atts wanted to know.
“No!” Rouke told him. “You won’t have to say a word. You don’t talk. You act!”
“Huh!” Skeeter Butts proclaimed. “You cain’t git up no lock-jaw play wid niggers. Ef a nigger cain’t whistle and sing and pat his foots, he’d druther be dead!”
“You don’t understand,” Rouke said sharply. “This is a motion picture play. Didn’t any of you folks ever see a movie show?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hitch Diamond growled. “You don’t need no ’lectric readin’ lamp to sot on yo’ pulpit. You kin read by de light over yo’ head.”
“You ain’t needin’ no fancy pulpit chair to sot on, either,” Skeeter Butts remarked.
“De springs is all busted outen de bottom of de one I’m got,” Vinegar complained. “When I sot down I feels like I’m settin’ in a bushel basket. My stomick is over on my knees an’ my foots is mighty nigh up to my chin. De price ain’t so powerful high—twenty dollars fer de settee an’ five fer de readin’ lamp. Dat don’t seem much to me.” ”

“ Skeeter lighted a cigarette and began to ponder.
Give Skeeter Butts the number two, and his active 150 brain could always make four or forty-four by the simple process of multiplying. From the little Tick Hush had said, Skeeter multiplied and got this result: Gaitskill and Lanark had selected Button Hook as a suitable wife for Tick Hush; the white folks would be greatly disappointed if Tick did not marry her; any man who helped Tick get married to the woman of their choice would be in good favor with those two influential white men. ”

“ Thus he hoped to break the hoodoo. But uneasiness filled his soul.
“My Gawd,” he sighed. “I shore feels powerful bad.”
At two o’clock that afternoon four hundred negroes stood around the baseball diamond and cheered the Tickfall team as they went to the field and the Sawtown visitors went to bat.
Figger Bush, the famous Tickfall pitcher, rubbed his hands with dirt, tightened his belt, took a chew of tobacco, waved one foot in the air, and pitched his first ball. Kerplunk! It landed in the stomach of the Sawtown batter, doubled him up, and dropped him in a heap on top of the plate. ”

“ Captain Manse said in a husky whisper, “you will all keep silent, please. You will notice that it looks impossible for any person to move this heavy table by merely placing the hands upon it. No strength can be put into the open palms, it is impracticable to pull or lift or push from the elbows. The legs or feet cannot be brought into use, for they are not allowed to touch the board. And yet the table will move! Silence, gentlemen! If a spirit is present, he will give us a message through the table!” ”