“Pull, you damn’ fools!” yelps Oscar.
And Little Eva starts on her long trip, as yuh might say. Up and up she goes, head and feet down, them spangled wings straight up. I’ve allus had my own idea of an angel, and Susie didn’t fit that idea.
Then the angel stopped and kinda hung there, swingin’ around.
“Keep her goin’!” hisses old Zibe from the side of the stage.
“The angels are takin’ her away,” wails Mrs. Noon.
Cra-a-a-ack!
That two-by-six snapped by too much weight, and down comes the handmade heaven. Susie lit on her head, and here comes Oscar Tubbs, Burlap Benson and Fetlock Feeney, follered by that busted two-by-six. Oscar lit on his feet, busted plumb through where Susie had already cracked the boards, and stopped with only his head in sight.
It shook the whole stage and also the whole danged house. One of Burlap’s boots hit me in the head, but as my lights went dim, I heard somebody yellin’, “Three angels gone to hell a’ready, and the fourth one dropped for reasons knowed to all of us!”
I woke up with Zibe and Zeke Hardy moppin’ me head with cold water, and I can hear Dog-Rib arguin’ at the top of his voice, “I don’t care a dang if Hank is still knocked out—we’ll have that there hoss race, or our money back. You’ve done advertised a race, and we crave a race.”
“But there ain’t no jockey to ride that race,” pleads Judgment. “You can see for yourself that Hank Potts ain’t fit to ride nothin’.”