Sweating bodies, laughing mouths, grotesque faces, feet drumming fiercely. Deacons clapping as hard as the rest.
“Great big nigger, black as tar
Trying tuh git tuh hebben on uh ’lectric car.”
“Some love cabbage, some love kale
But I love a gal wid a short skirt tail.”
Long tall angel—steppin’ down,
Long white robe an’ starry crown.
’Ah would not marry uh black gal (bumm bumm!)
Tell yuh de reason why
Every time she comb her hair
She make de goo-goo eye.
Would not marry a yaller gal (bumm bumm!)
Tell yuh de reason why
Her neck so long an’ stringy
Ahm ’fraid she’d never die.
Would not marry uh preacher
Tell yuh de reason why
Every time he comes tuh town
He makes de chicken fly.
When the buck dance was over, the boys would give the floor to the girls and they would parse-me-la with a slye eye out of the corner to see if anybody was looking who might “have them up in church” on conference night. Then there would be more dancing. Then Mr. Clarke would call for everybody’s best attention and announce that ’freshments was served! Every gent’man would please take his lady by the arm and scorch her right up to de table fur a treat!
Then the men would stick their arms out with a flourish and ask their ladies: “You lak chicken? Well, then, take a wing.” And the ladies would take the proffered “wings” and parade up to the long table and be served. Of course most of them had brought baskets in which were heaps of jointed and fried chicken, two or three kinds of pies, cakes, potato pone and chicken purlo. The hall would separate into happy groups about the baskets until time for more dancing.
But the boys and girls got scattered about during the war, and now they dance the fox-trot by a brand new piano. They do waltz and two-step still, but no one now considers it good form to lock his chin over his partner’s shoulder and stick out behind. One night just for fun and to humor the old folks, they danced, that is, they grand marched, but everyone picked up their feet. Bah!!
XII
The Head of the Nail
Daisy Taylor was the town vamp. Not that she was pretty. But sirens were all but non-existent in the town. Perhaps she was forced to it by circumstances. She was quite dark, with little brushy patches of hair squatting over her head. These were held down by shingle-nails often. No one knows whether she did this for artistic effect or for lack of hair-pins, but there they were shining in the little patches of hair when she got all dressed for the afternoon and came up to Clarke’s store to see if there was any mail for her.
It was seldom that anyone wrote to Daisy, but she knew that the men of the town would be assembled there by five o’clock, and some one could usually be induced to buy her some soda water or peanuts.
Daisy flirted with married men. There were only two single men in town. Lum Boger, who was engaged to the assistant school-teacher, and Hiram Lester, who had been off to school at Tuskegee and wouldn’t look at a person like Daisy. In addition to other drawbacks, she was pigeon-toed and her petticoat was always showing so perhaps he was justified. There was nothing else to do except flirt with married men.
This went on for a long time. First one wife then another complained of her, or drove her from the preserves by threat.