Just as the shortstop threw to first the Sawtown first-baseman got a look at Coco’s face.
“My gosh!” he whooped.
His arms dropped paralyzed to his sides, he received the baseball full in his stomach, and started after Possum at his best gait.
“My Gawd!” the Sawtown pitcher yelped; his glove fell from his hand, and he started away.
“Dat gal’s got some kind of ketchin’ disease!” the third-baseman squalled; and thereupon he and the second-baseman, the shortstop, and the catcher started after the pitcher in wild flight, looking behind them as if fearful that the object of their fright would pursue them.
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!”
Vinegar’s hand was pointing Coco out to the crowd, but the girl at that moment was looking toward Skeeter Butts, grinning like a drunken nightmare.
The crowd paused just long enough to look.
What they saw was a girl who had been shiny-black two hours before—but now her face was white, with black rings around the eyes and mouth; a ghastly, horrible whiteness, poisonous-looking and appalling, enough to frighten any sane man into jimjams.