THE EXAMINATION.
“Boss,” said Old Wash the other night, “I have got ter hol’ a zamination over in my deestrick for skule teecher, an’ I wisht you’d write out de questions for me.”
I knew that the old man was the moving spirit in educational and religious matters in his end of the county and that he holds an examination now and then among the colored applicants, and none of them may teach or preach unless the old man passes on their papers.
After much work I wrote a list of questions suitable, as I thought, for such an occasion and read them to the examiner.
“Deys all right, boss, ’cept one thing. Jes write de answers dar, too. It’s a po’ teecher dat ain’t got his ansers as well as his questuns. An’ I’d lak for you ter go along, too, jes ter see me squelch dem smart Ike niggers dat think dey kno’s it all.”
On the day appointed there were three applicants. One was a pompous looking darky with a knack of saying things grandly and using big words. I named him Pompey. Number two was a sanctimonious looking fellow who knew it all. He was a newly fledged preacher. Number three was a knowing-looking, sly soon, with less book sense, but more mother wit than the others. He looked like a slick one.
Nothing pleased the old man more than to show off his own learning and he quickly caught on to Pompey’s gait—going him, in fact, one better. Slowly and with great dignity he pulled out his roll of manuscript, adjusted his big, iron-rimmed spectacles, and squelched them all in the beginning with the flow of language:
“Now, I’m gwine ax you all a few supernumerous questions, calk’lated to disembody de fundermentalerties of yore onderstandin’ an’ de posserbilerties of yore interlects for impartin’ informashun. An’ I want you all to chirp right out as peart as jay-birds on a Friday.”
There is a negro superstition to the effect that all jay-birds go to a place unmentionable on Friday and carry sand to his Satanic majesty. I wondered If it was a hint of what the old man had coming for them.
Adjusting his glasses again, the old man said to the preacher: