Skeeter Butts sprang to his feet with a startled exclamation, then sank back again with a cold sick sensation at the pit of his stomach.
“Dat means I done lost my little she-goddess, Figger,” he sighed pitifully. “’Tain’t no use to hope no more.”
“Aw, pert up, Skeeter!” his friend urged. “You ain’t drapped de pertater yit!”
Tella Tandy appeared to be in a trance. She looked with unseeing eyes over the faces of the crowd, then began in a weak, uncertain voice:
“I ketch de name of Vinegar Atts—I sees a fly—shoo fly!—church. Revun Atts is ’postlizin’ in de pulpit—de elder is gwine hab trouble in de cong’gation—he better watch his eye——”
“I ketch de name of Prince Total—Marse Tom am lookin’ fer dat lost demijahm whut Prince borrered—I ’speck Prince better fotch dat jug back befo’ he keeps it buried too long by dat pine stump——”
“I ketch de name of Pap Curtain—Pap is a slick-head nigger—a word from de sperit lan’ tells Pap dat he better ketch de trabbel itch an’ hike—de gram-jury meets nex’ week——”
For twenty minutes this revelation held the audience in tense, dreadful silence—twenty minutes of frightful retrospection and introspection, and when a negro’s name was mentioned that darky suffered a nervous shock from which he did not recover for a week. Even if his name was not mentioned, the darky was afraid it would be, and was appalled at what the revelation might be.
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!”