Thus he hoped to break the hoodoo. But uneasiness filled his soul.
“My Gawd,” he sighed. “I shore feels powerful bad.”
At two o’clock that afternoon four hundred negroes stood around the baseball diamond and cheered the Tickfall team as they went to the field and the Sawtown visitors went to bat.
Figger Bush, the famous Tickfall pitcher, rubbed his hands with dirt, tightened his belt, took a chew of tobacco, waved one foot in the air, and pitched his first ball. Kerplunk! It landed in the stomach of the Sawtown batter, doubled him up, and dropped him in a heap on top of the plate.
Two delighted, grinning, Sawtown teammates caught the injured man by the arms, lifted him, and escorted him to first base, enlivening their progress down the line by directing to Figger Bush certain remarks which were calculated to reduce his self-esteem to the minimum.
The second batter hit the first ball, sent it far over in the high weeds back of center field; then he and the injured teammate loped leisurely into home.
“Git yo’ eye steady, Figger!” Butts squealed. “Don’t let ’em rattle you up!”
“Figger, Figger, he’s de nigger!” the Sawtown men bawled. “We done got dat nigger’s figger!”
Once more Bush wound up to pitch the ball, but the moment he brought his arm back for the whiplike throw, the ball slipped out of his fingers, rolled weakly across the diamond, and was retrieved by the third-baseman.