The thing was simple, almost childlike in its silliness, but it was tremendously effective. The white guard in the outer line had each been armed with a little piece of shining steel three inches long, fixed in a handle—a plain shoemaker's pegging awl. At a given signal they had wheeled and thrust these awls into the thick flesh of every negro's thigh.
The attack was so sudden, so unexpected, and the pain so sharp, so terrible, for the moment every negro's soul was possessed with a single idea, how to save his particular skin and do it quickest. All esprit de corps was gone. It was each for himself and the devil take the hindmost! Some of them never stopped running until they cleared Buffalo creek, three miles out of town.
Andy's ambitions were given a violent turn in a new direction. Before the polls closed at sundown he appeared at the office of the Eagle and Phoenix with a broad grin on his face and asked to see the major.
He entered the editor's room bowing and scraping, his white teeth gleaming.
Norton laughed and quietly said:
"Well, Andy?"
"Yassah, major, I des drap roun' ter kinder facilitate ye, sah, on de 'lection, sah."
"It does look like the tide is turning, Andy."
"Yassah, hit sho' is turnin', but hit's gotter be a purty quick tide dat kin turn afore I does, sah."
"Yes?"