Down the alley by the side of the house they ran, broke down the fence and pulled the machine into the yard. With many shouts they unwound the hose, attached it to the engine, turned the faucets and began to pump.
From the hose came a long whistling sound of air:
“Whee-ee-ee-e!”
Not a drop of chemical water. The celebration two years before had exhausted the chemical, and the engine had never been recharged. The hen-house burned without interruption.
Ginny Babe Chew turned toward that crowd of heroic negro firemen, and the pumps of her profanity worked without a hitch as she poured out a stream of sulphurous and vitriolic language upon their luckless heads. Skeeter Butts still hung to the tree with both hands, laughing with whoops like a yelling Comanche.
The firemen laid hold upon their chemical machine and dragged it out of the yard.
Suddenly Skeeter’s laughter ended with a gurgle of choked surprise. With his mouth still open wide, he gazed upward at a little dormer window which looked out of the attic of Ginny Babe Chew’s home. Slowly his hair rose up on his head, and cold chills ran down his spine.
The light reflected from the burning hen-house clearly revealed a male human face at the dormer window!
The man was looking down into the yard, watching the crowd, watching the fire, and at times grinning at something he saw. Skeeter watched that face for two or three minutes; its clear outlines were stamped indelibly upon his mind. He had never seen the negro before!
Then he sprang to the side of Vinegar Atts and squalled: