§
Just before sunrise Porgy left his room and hitched up his goat. In the upper air over Catfish Row a single buzzard hung poised. Slowly it careened to a current of air, and its belly and under-wings lit to a ruddy glory from the sun, which was still below the horizon. Porgy saw it and winced. But as he went about his task there was no indecision in his face. He harnessed the goat with steady hands, drove out of the court and to the pier-head.
He experienced no difficulty in finding his man. Mingo accepted the mission and the handful of pennies and nickels; and Porgy, having closed the bargain, returned at once to the court.
Maria was opening her shop as he entered, and paused with a shutter in her hands. She could scarcely believe her eyes. The beggar’s face was bright, and he was humming a tune.
“Wut de news?” she asked. “Bess done git well?”
“Not jus’ yit,” he replied. “But I done had me a dream las’ night; an’ de dream say tuh sen’ tuh de conjer ’oman; an’ Bess goin’ break she feber tuhnight.”
“Da’s right, my Brudder,” Maria responded heartily. “Dat ’oman good as well now. You watch!”
All day, sitting by Archdale’s office, Porgy hummed his tune, and counted off the hours of the steamboat’s voyage. Now she would be passing Kittiwar, and, in only a few hours more, she would be coming to rest for the night at Ediwander.
The counting off continued after he went to bed, and he was strangely undisturbed by Bess’s mutterings. Now the boat had arrived, he finally told himself. Maria had said that the cabin was near the landing. Surely it would not take the woman long to brew the spell. His excitement increased to a mood of exaltation. He lay with his hand upon Bess’s forehead, waiting.
Far away St. Christopher struck the hour. The mellow bells threw the quarter hours out like a handful of small gold coins to ring down upon the drowsy streets. Then, very deliberately, they dropped ten round, heavy notes into the silence.
This should be the moment. Porgy pressed his hand harder, and sweat broke out upon his brow. For a moment it seemed to him that life hung suspended.
“Porgy,” said a weak, flat voice beside him. “Porgy, dat you dey, ain’t it? Why you ain’t talk tuh me?”
The cripple’s answer was a sudden high laugh that broke to a sob.
“T’ank Gawd!” he said; and again, “T’ank Gawd!”
On the evening following the day upon which Bess had taken her turn for the better, Maria was alone in her shop. The supper hour was over, and her patrons had departed. She was busy at her stove, and did not turn immediately when someone entered. When she finally looked over her shoulder, her customer had buried his face in his hands, and she failed to recognize him. Of one fact there could be little doubt: the man was drunk, for the close, little room was already heavy with the exhalations of vile corn whiskey.
She crossed the room, and touched the man on the shoulder. He lowered his hands and attempted to focus his eyes on her face.
“Oh, it’s you, Mingo?” she said, and even then she did not grasp the significance of his presence in the city at that time.
“Gimme some supper,” he growled; and, with an uncertain movement, drew some change from his pocket and spilled it in a small pile on the table.
Maria looked at the money. There was about half a dollar in all, but there were only two nickels, and the remainder was in pennies. It looked suspiciously like the currency in which Porgy paid his debts. Then, as she stood looking down at the little heap of copper, the full import of the man’s presence dawned upon her.
“Wut yuh doin’ here now?” she demanded of him in a tense whisper; “when de ribber boat ain’t due back fuh annoder day?”
The question stirred her customer’s consciousness to a faint gleam of life; but it did not vitalize it sufficiently for adroit prevarication.
“I miss de boat dis trip,” he managed to articulate. “I take er drink wid er frien’, and when I git tuh de wharf, de boat done gone.”
Two powerful hands gripped his shoulders and flung him back against the wall. He opened his eyes wide and looked into a face of such cold ferocity that his loose lips emitted a sudden “Oh, Jedus!” and he became immediately sober, and very much afraid.
Then Maria poured into his ears words that had the heat and dead weight of molten lead.
“Now I goin’ lock yuh up in dat closet till de ribber boat is back at de wharf,” she concluded. “Den I goin’ let yuh loose. But I all de time goin’ be where I kin git my hand on yuh again. Ef yuh ebber tells Porgy, or any libbin’ soul, dat yuh ain’t deliber dat message tuh Lody, I goin’ tuh hab nigger blood on my soul w’en I stan’ at de jedgement. Now yuh gots dat straight in yuh head?”
Mingo nodded assent. He was beyond the power to speak.
The big negress jerked him suddenly to his feet, propelled him across the room and into the stygian recesses of the closet. Then she slammed the door, turned the immense iron key in the lock, and dropped it in her pocket.
“Well, dat’s dat!” she remarked, as she wiped a moist, mystified face upon a corner of her apron. “Mus’ hab been Jedus done um atter all.” Then, as though to dismiss the matter, she added: “No, I be damn ef he did. He ain’t gots it in um.”
IV
