“Hol’ on, niggers—us needs anodder rule! I adds, ‘No cuttin’ out church!’”
“’Tain’t necessary,” Hitch snickered. “You cain’t keep de niggers outen chu’ch when terr’ble times comes!”
“I guess us better git out an’ succulate dis repote, niggers,” Vinegar said when he received this assurance. “Us ain’t got any too much time. De Shoofly chu’ch-bell rings to-night at eight o’clock.”
The grapevine telephone was promptly put into operation, and in twenty minutes every negro in Tickfall knew that a dreadful and mysterious malady was rife among them, and that death waited just around the corner with a sharp butcher-knife in his hand.
Laughter died in the throats of the most laughter-loving people in the world; the thrumming of the banjo ceased in the cabin; the chatter of care-free women and the shouts of happy pickaninnies sank away into silence; easy-smiling lips took on a pout of distress, and eyes which usually glowed with humor looked into the mystery and the dark of the unknown and were strained and fear-stricken.
Like old hens going to roost, the women began to assemble in the large, barnlike Shoofly church long before dark. The town began to fill up with negroes from the plantations and the swamps, and from every negro settlement in Tickfall, the feet of the negroes made straight paths toward the Shoofly church. The ringing of the church-bell was a signal for the belated to hasten, and the building was packed with people when Vinegar Atts rose and started a hymn. It was an old, familiar tune to them all, and for a moment the great volume of sound rolled out of the house and thundered into the ears of all the white inhabitants of the town. But as the congregation began to consider the meaning of the words they sang, they appeared ominous with warning and threat, and gradually the voices died away:
Some folks do not believe
Dat a whale could Joner receive;
But dat don’t make my tale at all untrue!
Dar is whales on eve’y side,
Wid deir mouths opened wide,
An’ you better look out or one will swaller you!
Then Vinegar Atts announced:
“Mr. Muskeeter Butts will specify de puppus of dis meetin’!”
Skeeter arose, clawed at his high, white collar so that he could speak without strangling to death, adjusted his enormous cuffs so that he could hold the newspaper, and began in a trembling, squeaky voice: