Mustard Prophet wheeled his mule and stopped before Colonel Gaitskill.
The whole procession swung into a large open space beside the court house, set apart for the use of the country people as a hitching place for their horses. All the business men in Tickfall promptly shut up shop and assembled in front of the courthouse to learn what all the fuss was about—and every white man’s coat-pocket sagged down on one side about four inches lower than it did on the other, and he kept his hand in that pocket.
The negroes of Tickfall and the neighboring plantations outnumbered the whites by ten thousand.
Having a natural respect and generally a true friendship for the white people, following the peaceable pursuits of agriculture, raising cotton, cotton, and then more cotton; music-loving, laughter-loving, care-free as children and inoffensive as a bird, the negroes of Tickfall lived quietly with their white neighbors and employers.
But any unusual movement among them always awakened the white man’s suspicions and brought him forth full-armed, grim as death, white-faced and keen-eyed, to search the matter to the very bottom.
A white man jostled against Dr. Sentelle.
The venerable preacher thrust his hand into the tail-pocket of his clergyman’s coat and found himself in possession of a heavy pistol. Colonel Gaitskill backed quietly into the arms of a man standing behind him and found both side pockets of his coat weighted down with weapons.
Then Gaitskill stepped forward again and became the spokesman, his voice cracking like a bull-whip in the hands of a cowboy:
“What are you niggers doing in town?”
“Us comed to town to git away from de canned bull, Marse Tom,” Mustard Prophet informed him.