“Naw, suh, it’s been worritin’ me all day.”
“Dis book tells whut dreams means, Hitch,” Skeeter exclaimed as he opened the pages.
The negroes bunched up close around him, and after a moment Skeeter found the place and read aloud:
“‘Donkey—If you see him runnin’, brings misfortune; if he is tied you will ex-per-i-ence great loss; if you hear him bray, signifies death.’”
As Hitch Diamond received this intelligence he was a study for the psychologist. His iron features seemed to disintegrate, becoming a heterogeneous mass of conflicting emotions; his giant form seemed to shrink until his garments became too large, and hung loose and flapped around him; his scalp moved, forming a wedge on the top of his head, the point of the wedge at the apex of his skull.
“Oh, swelp me!” Hitch mourned. “I shore hab put up a job on myse’f dis time!”
The negroes gazed upon him with mournful curiosity, but none offered encouragement or sympathy. The fear of the unknown had gripped them all. In the blazing heat of the mid-afternoon, few living things were stirring, and an unearthly stillness seemed to pervade the entire town of Tickfall. In that vast silence of sun-slashed sky, and drooping, withering earth, and quiet animate life, these six men sat, filled with superstitious awe, appalled by fear of the unknowable, confidently anticipating the very worst of misfortune.
After a long time, Pap Curtain began to fidget.
“Say, Skeeter,” he whispered, “I don’t hanker atter no trouble, but I dreamed ’bout a cart las’ night. I’s jes’ bound to know whut dat means. See if——”
His whisper ended in a gasp as Skeeter began to turn the pages of the mysterious book with nervous, shaking fingers.