Drawn by E. W. Kemble.

Diada picked up the gun, holding it like a club, and striking her tireless trot, followed in his tracks.

Diada, Daughter of Discord.

MORE
E. K. MEANS
Is this a title? It is not. It is the name of a writer of negro stories, who has made himself so completely the writer of negro stories that this second book, like the first, needs no title. ILLUSTRATED BY
KEMBLE
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1919

Copyright, 1919
BY
E. K. MEANS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York

Foreword.

The stories in this volume were written simply because of my interest in the stories themselves and because of a whimsical fondness for the people of that Race to whom God has given two supreme gifts,—Music and Laughter.

For the benefit of the curious, I may say that many of the incidents in these tales are true and many of the characters and places mentioned actually exist.

The Hen-Scratch saloon derived its name from the fact that many of its colored habitués played “craps” on the ground under the chinaberry trees until the soil was marked by their scratching finger-nails like a chicken-yard. The name Tickfall is fictitious, but the locality will be easily recognized by the true names of the negro settlements, Dirty-Six, Hell’s-Half-Acre, Shiny, Tin-row,—lying in the sand around that rich and aristocratic little town like pigs around their dam and drawing their sustenance therefrom.

Skeeter Butts’s real name is Perique. Perique is also the name of Louisiana’s famous homegrown tobacco, and as Skeeter is too diminutive to be named after a whole cigar, his white friends have always called him Butts. Vinegar Atts is a well-known colored preacher of north Louisiana, whose “swing-tail prancin’-albert coat” has been seen in many pulpits, and whose “stove-pipe, preachin’ hat” has been the target of many a stone thrown from a mischievous white boy’s hand. Hitch Diamond is known at every landing place on the Mississippi River as “Big Sandy.”

When these tales were first published in the All Story Weekly, many readers declared that they were humorous. Nevertheless, I hold that a story containing dialect must necessarily have many depressing and melancholy features. But dialect does not consist of perverted pronunciations and phonetic orthography. True dialect is a picture in cold type of the manifold peculiarities of the mind and temperament. In its form, I have attempted to give merely a flavor of the negro dialect; but I have made a sincere attempt to preserve the essence of dialect by making these stories contain a true idea of the negro’s shrewd observations, curious retorts, quaint comments, humorous philosophy, and his unique point of view on everything that comes to his attention.

The Folk Tales of Joel Chandler Harris are imperishable pictures of plantation life in the South before the Civil War and of the negro slave who echoed all his master’s prejudice of caste and pride of family in the old times that are no more.

The negroes of this volume are the sons of the old slaves. Millions of them live to-day in the small Southern villages, and as these stories indicate, many changes of character, mind, and temperament have taken place in the last half-century through the modifications of freedom and education.

This type also is passing. In a brief time, the negro who lives in these pages will be a memory, like Uncle Remus. “Ethiopia is stretching out her hands” after art, science, literature, and wealth, and when the sable sons of laughter and song grasp these treasures, all that remains of the Southern village negro of to-day will be a few faint sketches in Fiction’s beautiful temple of dreams.

E. K. Means.

CONTENTS

Diada, Daughter of Discord

I
A BRAND FROM THE BURNING

Diada was a sight.

She stood on the Gaitskill lawn motionless as a brown wooden statue, gazing like a homesick child toward the purple haze which hung over the Little Moccasin Swamp. Her hips bulged out behind like a bustle; her stomach protruded in front like the chest-protector of a fat baseball-catcher; her back curved above her hips and bent at her shoulders, giving her the appearance of a hunchback; and as for her face—well, the children of Tickfall took one look at that mug and hiked for home, howling at every step; the pious took a look and crossed themselves; the ungodly “cussed”; and it is rumored that some negroes turned white.

Every feature of that face was a horror.

Her head was covered with a mat of coarse hair growing down on a sloping forehead almost to her eyebrows; her eyes were immensely large and protruding, and had the wolf’s vicious glint and surly shifting glance; her nose was no longer adorned, according to the custom of her native land, by having long thorns and splinters of bone thrust through it, but it had suffered grievously from this devotion to fashion, and was now a battered daub of a snout which looked as though it had been run through a sausage-grinder before it was smeared on her face; her ears had been so deformed by carrying heavy iron rings that the lobes hung down nearly to her shoulders and flapped at every motion of her head like the loose-hung ears of the hound; and her mouth was a cavernous monstrosity—great, horrid, horselike teeth protruding outward, and covered with thick, repulsive lips which curled back when she spoke or grinned until the blue gums of the upper teeth were revealed.

Colonel Tom Gaitskill was among the ungodly who gazed upon this horrific vision with profane utterance. He turned to the tall, weather-tanned man who sat beside him on the porch and spoke:

“Lem, I have known you and loved you for thirty years. I have applauded most of the things you have done. But it is now my solemn duty to inform you that you are a d—— fool!”

Captain Lemuel Manse broke into a loud laugh. He looked at Diada and laughed again; then he looked at Gaitskill’s horrified countenance and laughed louder.

“I’m afraid you have none of the spirit of the Christian missionary, Tom,” Manse finally managed to say.

“If the Christian missionaries in the Pacific Islands are engaged in saving the immortal souls of she-baboons like that,” Gaitskill snorted, pointing to Diada, “I’ll never give ’em another cent—not a dang cent!”

“Diada was made in the image of God, Tom,” Manse snickered.

“She may have been—once!” Gaitskill snapped. “But a hooliboogoo ran over her and mussed up that image considerably. When are you going home?”

“Why do you ask?” Captain Manse inquired.

“My eyes are getting sore looking at that heathen cannibal—that’s why I ask,” Gaitskill replied. “When are you going to take her away from here?”

“Tom,” Manse said in a voice of mock sadness and reproof, “I’m surprised at you. It’s been five years since I was a guest in your hospitable home, and in less than two hours after my arrival you inquire the time of my departure! Shame!”

“Keep your eye on that nigger!” Gaitskill said with a chuckle as he pointed to a giant black who came through a side gate into the lawn.

With the free stride of the athlete, Hitch Diamond, the immense, coal-black prize-fighter, came across the grass, his eyes following the winding galleries of the house, apparently in search of Mr. Gaitskill.

He came face to face with Diada before he noticed her; he gazed with popping eyeballs; his pugilistic courage and his giant strength oozed out at his bootheels, and his iron jaw dropped down and wigwagged like the loose under lip of a plug horse sleeping in the sun.

“My Gawd!” he exclaimed.

He slunk slowly backward until he got some thorny shrubbery between himself and Diada, and then his ponderous feet beat a wild tattoo of panicky retreat upon the sodded turf.

“There, now!” Gaitskill exclaimed. “Hitch Diamond has given an outward and visible manifestation of my inward and spiritual emotions. Look at the wench! She hasn’t moved a muscle of her body for twenty minutes! Can’t you get her to do something?”

“Sure!” Captain Manse answered, feeling in his pocket and bringing forth a ten-cent piece. “Have you got a dime in your pocket?”

Gaitskill produced the silver piece and held it out.

“No,” Manse said, “I don’t want to touch it. Throw your money out there in the grass!”

The two men tossed their coins out into the thick Bermuda grass, and Manse gave a sharp whistle.

Diada turned and trotted toward him like a dog.

“Hunt, Diada!” Manse exclaimed, pointing to the grass. “Hunt!”

Diada wheeled and made a wide circle around that part of the lawn; then traveling in a steady trot, she made ever narrowing circles, eyes searching the ground. Suddenly she stopped, picked up a silver dime, placed it to her nose, gave a snort of disgust, and tossed the coin aside.

“That was your money,” Manse explained. “She’ll find mine in a minute.”

Even as he spoke, Diada pounced upon the silver piece and came trotting up to the porch and placed it in her master’s hand.

“Ah, I see!” Gaitskill exclaimed comprehendingly. “I have spent my life hunting for my collar-buttons, shirt-studs, hat, and socks. So have you. So has every man. And you’ve brought this cannibal belle to this country with you to help you find yours!”

“No, Tom,” Captain Manse laughed. “I bought Diada to save her life. My yacht stopped at one of those little islands in the Pacific Ocean which has about a thousand inhabitants—there’s no end of such islands out there. The cannibal chief came on board with Diada and offered to sell her to me.”

“He explained that he had captured her from a neighboring tribe and had intended to eat her. I bought her for about eleven dollars, paying for her in red calico, brass beads, and some tinware. The cannibal chief put one of the tin buckets on his head for a hat and rowed away as happy as an angel with a crown upon his forehead and a harp within his hand.”

Manse broke off and emitted a sharp whistle. Diada came to him on a trot.

Manse caught her left hand, pushed back the loose sleeve of her white dress, and bared her arm.

Gaitskill shuddered.

Just below her elbow was the slowly healing scar of a most horrible wound.

“My stars!” Gaitskill exclaimed. “That wound looks like it had been made by teeth!”

“That’s where the old chief bit her to see if she was good to eat,” Manse explained. “He said she was too tough.”

Gaitskill glanced at Diada’s face. The vicious, surly glint was gone from her eyes, and she gazed with a mild, pleading look upon the man who had saved her—the look of the dumb animal which has suffered and shows gratitude for relief. Gaitskill underwent a change of heart. He rose to his feet and stood facing them both.

“Lem,” he said, “if that cannibal chief had showed me that wound I would have bought Diada if she had cost me a thousand dollars.”

“Certainly, Tom,” Manse replied quietly. “There was nothing else for me to do.”

Diada turned and walked back to the lawn, taking the same motionless posture, gazing out toward the purple haze of the Little Moccasin Swamp.

Gaitskill sat down, lit a cigar, and gave himself up to deep thought. Then he asked:

“Now that you’ve got her, Lem, what are you going to do with her?”

“I’m going to give her to you!” Lem said quietly.

“Wha-what?” Gaitskill barked, springing to his feet again. “Good gosh!”

“I’ll have to do that, Tom,” Manse said defensively. “This is the first time she has been on land since I bought her. Now, I’d like to leave her here with you all the time, but if you won’t keep her——”

“I won’t,” Gaitskill snapped. “You can bet on it, I won’t!”

“Well, keep her here for me for two weeks,” Manse pleaded. “I’ve got to run up to St. Louis on some business, and when I come back, I’ll take her away with me.”

“That sounds easy,” Gaitskill remarked. “Do you think Diada will stay with me?”

“Yes, if I tell her to.”

“All right,” Gaitskill assented. “I’ll keep her. I’ll turn her over to the care of the niggers and forget her—if I can. But I want you to give her all the instructions necessary for the next two weeks. I don’t speak cannibal.”

II
HITCH HAS VAGUE MISGIVINGS

When Captain Lemuel Manse and his wife had been whirled away in the Gaitskill automobile to the Tickfall landing where their yacht awaited them in the Mississippi River, Gaitskill sat down on the porch to think over his troubles.

Diada stood before him on the lawn, motionless and ugly as a heathen idol, her eyes still watching the purple haze above the swamp.

“Something over in that swamp has got to be hypnotized,” Gaitskill muttered to himself as he watched her. “When she gets a little tame I’ll take her for a trip to the hog-camp. I suppose she never saw anything but a cocoanut palm.”

He leaned over the porch railing; looked back toward the rear of the house; cupped his hands around his mouth like a trumpet, and bellowed:

“Oh, Hitch! Come here! Hear me!”

“Yes, suh, white folks! Comin’! Comin’ wid a looseness; comin’ right now!”

Hitch came, but he chose a very unusual route—through the house. Arriving at the door which admitted him to the porch where Gaitskill sat, he stopped, peeped at Gaitskill, then peeped at Diada, and ducked back into the room.

“Come here, Hitch!” Gaitskill commanded.

“Excuse me, Marse Tom,” Hitch muttered. “I’s axin’ you whut you wants?”

“Come out here! What in the name of mud is the matter with you?” Gaitskill bawled.

Hitch came out, his ponderous feet paddling along the floor like a lame duck, while his eyes never strayed from the broad, hunched back of Diada.

“’Scuse me, Marse Tom,” Hitch pleaded. “Dat new she-queen you’s hired to dec’rate dat lawn is done deprive me of my goat!”

“Don’t be a fool, Hitch!” Gaitskill snapped, smothering a desire to laugh. “That nigger woman is Captain Lemuel Manse’s house-servant. She’ll be here with us two weeks. I want you and Hopey to treat her kindly and make her feel at home.”

“Boss, is she gentle?” Hitch asked as if he were alluding to a newly purchased horse.

“Certainly,” Gaitskill assured him. “What’s the matter with you? Diada is just a nigger woman like Hopey.”

“Mebbe so suh,” Hitch mumbled. “But she shore don’t look like Hopey in looks.”

“Take her around to the kitchen and give her something to eat,” Gaitskill commanded.

“Yes, suh,” Hitch answered obediently, but his tone expressed the exact denial of his words, and he stood right where he was. “Yes, suh; I’ll fetch her aroun’ to de kitchen—er, uh—atter while—soon’s I kin git aroun’ to it. Ole miss tole me to go down to de sto’house right now——”

“She told you nothing of the sort!” Gaitskill snapped. “Take Diada to the kitchen. Tell Hopey I said feed her. Hear me?”

Hitch’s whole body moved in the general direction of Diada, with the exception of his feet. He swayed toward her like a pendulum, and then swung back. He took a big breath, looked at Gaitskill, and muttered:

“Lawdamussy, Marse Tom, dat woman is wild; dat’s a plum’ hawg-wild nigger, fer shore! An’, boss, I tells you honest—ef any cullud pusson in de worl’ is wilder dan whut I is, I don’t wanter had nothin’ to do wid ’em.”

“Thunderation!” Gaitskill roared. “Come down here in the yard with me!”

“Yes, suh; I’s right on yo’ hip. I’ll foller as fur as you leads de way.”

Gaitskill laid his hand upon Diada’s arm, and she turned and looked at him with a suspicious glance, like the expression in the eyes of a dog when petted by a stranger. Hitch backed away.

“Look out, Marse Tom!” Hitch howled. “She’s gittin’ ready to kick!”

In a moment Diada’s eyes changed to a milder expression, and Gaitskill patted her on the shoulder about as he would caress the side of a horse. Seeing this, Hitch crept up nearer, put out his hand and touched Diada’s wrist.

“She feels like a shore-’nuff, nachel-bawn nigger, Marse Tom,” he exclaimed. “Kin she talk?”

“Yes,” Gaitskill told him. “But she can’t talk our language, Hitch. She hasn’t been in this country long. You’ll have to make signs to her and talk to her that way.”

“Ax her to say somepin’, Marse Tom!” Hitch begged. “Lemme hear how she sounds!”

Gaitskill had not the remotest idea how to make her talk; in fact, he had never heard the sound of her voice. But he did not intend to reveal his ignorance to Hitch Diamond.

“No,” he said. “She can talk in the kitchen. Take her around to Hopey.”

Hitch walked up, crooked his forefinger, hung it lightly in the sleeve of Diada’s dress, and murmured:

“Come along with me, Sister Diada—foller along atter brudder Hitchie Diamond—us’ll go git some hot vittles!”

Diada took one step forward; Hitch winced as if anticipating a kick and stopped.

“Fer de Lawd’s sake, Marse Tom!” he howled. “I don’t want dis strange cullud pusson walking behine me! You lead her to de kitchen an’ lemme fetch up de rearwards!”

Gaitskill laughed, caught Diada by the sleeve, and led her to the kitchen.

Hopey, the cook, had just taken a pan of hot biscuit out of the oven when the door opened and Diada came in, filling the doorway like a picture in a frame and concealing Mr. Gaitskill, who walked behind her. Hopey’s biscuit-pan hit the floor with a bang, the biscuit rolled around the kitchen, and Hopey sank down in a heap on the nearest chair, covering her head with her flour-sprinkled apron.

“Oh, my Lawd,” she said, rocking herself from side to side and whimpering like a puppy. “De ole debbil is done come to git me at last!”

“Shut up, Hopey!” Gaitskill commanded. “Get up from there!”

“Oh, Marse Tom!” Hopey whooped. “Is de Ole Scratch gone?”

“Look up, Hopey, an’ trus’ de Lawd!” Hitch Diamond boomed, walking over and snatching the apron off of Hopey’s head. “Marse Tom is done hired a new fancy cook. He tole me she wus jes’ like you. Take a look, Hopey!”

Thus encouraged, Hopey raised her head. Then her wide, easy-smiling mouth widened into a laugh which shook the rafters of the house.

“Marse Tom,” she giggled, “you shore is one smart white man. You been blimblammin’ me fer twenty year because I feeds eve’y nigger whut pokes his head in my kitchen do’. You ain’t gotter feed dem mens no mo’, Marse Tom! Des new cook ain’t gwine be attracksome to nobody!”

“Hitch is lying to you, Hopey,” Gaitskill laughed, glad to find that Hopey was not afraid of Diada. “Diada is here for just a short visit. I want you and Hitch to take care of her for the next two weeks. Feed her something right now!”

Gaitskill walked through the house, seized his hat and hurried down-town. He had enough of Diada and the negroes, and if anything happened he wanted to be absent.

In the kitchen, Hopey promptly assumed the rôle of hostess and boss.

“Pick up dem biscuits, Diader!” she commanded, pointing to the floor. “You made me drap ’em, now pick ’em up! You got to he’p me eat ’em, too!”

Diada, getting more information from Hopey’s gestures than from her speech, stooped down, picked up a hot biscuit, passed it under her nose, snorted with intense disgust, and hurled the biscuit from her with such force that it flattened against the wall and stuck there.

“Hey, dar! Whut you mean, nigger?” Hopey whooped. “Stop flinging dat biscuit aroun’ like it wus a gob of mud!”

Diada glanced around and pounced upon the only thing in the kitchen with which she was familiar—a carving knife with a long steel blade. She thrust it into the folds of her dress.

“Hol’ on, dar, sister!” Hopey admonished her. “Marse Tom don’t allow no stealin’ niggers aroun’ him. Fetch out dat butcher-knife! Excusin’ dat, I gotter slice some ham fer dinner.”

Understanding the gestures, Diada returned the knife and Hopey proceeded to slice a large ham. She laid four large cuts upon a plate, then turned her back for a moment. When she looked again Diada had devoured every slice and was hacking at the big ham with the carving knife!

“Whoop-ee!” Hopey howled, rushing at Diada. “Stop chawin’ on dat raw ham! Dat’ll gib you worms, nigger!”

But Diada did not heed this warning. She cut off a large hunk of the ham, then sat down and devoured it like a dog.

“Hitch,” Hopey demanded, watching Diada with popping eyeballs, “whut kind of nigger is dis?”

“I dunno,” Hitch murmured. “She muss be some new kind of nigger. She come from furin parts.”

“I can’t cook no vittles as long as I’s got to look at dis circus coon,” Hopey declared. “I’s gwine up-stairs an’ tell ole Mis’ Mildred!”

“Don’t leave her here wid me all by myse’f, Hopey,” Hitch begged. “Take her wid you!”

Hopey walked over and laid her hand on Diada’s arm.

“Come on here, you ole fool,” she said. “Why don’t you ack like nobody else?”

III
ON THE RAMPAGE

Mrs. Mildred Gaitskill was intensely interested in social reforms, uplift movements, purity clubs, and foreign missions. Colonel Tom Gaitskill had often heard her remark that she had “felt a call” to be a missionary to the heathen when she was young; and Mr. Gaitskill, having a better recollection of the characteristics of the superb girl he had taken into his home thirty years before than she had of herself, was often tempted to tell her that she was nothing but a civilized heathen when he married her.

She had just finished writing the last of twenty invitations to the members of the Dunlap Missionary Society. She began a note addressed to Dr. Sentelle, the pastor of her church. After a few words of explanation she wrote:

I believe that Diada will be helpful in inspiring the missionary ladies of our church with a greater love for the dear heathen.

I have invited all the members of the society to my home to-morrow evening at eight o’clock to see Diada and have her reveal something of the customs of her native land. Will you not honor us with your presence—

The letter writing was interrupted by the entrance of Hopey and Diada—Hopey in the lead, puffing like a tugboat towing an ocean liner.

“Mis’ Mildred,” she began, “I’s jes’ ’bleeged to fotch dis here Whut-is-it up to yo’ room.”

“You refer to Diada?” Mrs. Gaitskill inquired sweetly, her love for the dear heathen enveloping her like a garment.

“Yes’m. Dis here Diader ain’t right in her haid. Down in de kitchen she hauled off and throwed one of my biscuit ag’in’ de wall an’ it stuck! She et a whole half a ham raw! She swiped de butcher knife right under my own eyes! She done ack powerful scandalous, an’ ef she potters aroun’ my kitchen I ain’t gwine cook!”

“She doesn’t know any better, Hopey,” Mrs. Gaitskill told her.

“Yes’m. An’ you cain’t tell her nothin’ because she’s plum’ deef ’n’ dum!”

“Oh, no!” Mrs. Gaitskill smiled. “She can talk! Can’t you, Diada?”

Diada leaned over the writing desk, picked up a long, keen, pearl-handled paper knife and thrust it into the folds of her dress; but she did not utter a word.

“Gimme dat knife, Dummy!” Hopey yelled indignantly. “Whut you mean swipin’ ole mis’s pretties? You keep up dat gait an’ de white folks ’ll tie you to a tree an’ you won’t git nothin’ to eat fer a week, unless de woodpeckers feeds yer!”

Diada handed back the paper-cutter, but she kept her eyes upon it covetously.

“Whut’s de matter wid dis coon, Mis’ Mildred?” Hopey wanted to know.

“She’s a stranger from a strange land, Hopey,” Mrs. Gaitskill replied. “She doesn’t understand our ways.”

“She sho’ is strange,” Hopey affirmed with deep conviction. “Look at her eyes an’ years an’ toofs an’ nose! Look at her stomick—it don’t sag down correck an’ it don’t stick out at de right place——”

“That will do, Hopey!” Mrs. Gaitskill said sharply. “You must not comment on the personal appearance of your guest——”

“She sho’ is a guess—Mis’ Mildred. She’s got me guessin’!”

“Place a chair by the window, Hopey,” Mrs. Gaitskill said. “I’ll keep Diada with me.”

“Which?” Hopey howled. “You gwine let dat coon set in yo’ boodwar in one dese gold cheers?”

Hopey placed a rocking-chair by the window and motioned Diada to sit down.

“Set easy, Diader!” she commanded sharply. “Yo’ whole hide couldn’t hold as much money as dat cheer costed. An’ do yo’ manners, nigger! You is de onlies’ coon whutever set down in ole Mis’ Mildred’s settin’-room!”

She turned and walked down-stairs, informing Hitch Diamond in tragic tones that Mrs. Gaitskill had “done gone cripple under de hat.”

Peering through the branches of a large pecan-tree which stood beside the window, Diada could see the purple haze which hung above the Little Moccasin Swamp. Charmed by this vision she settled back in her chair and remained perfectly quiet.

Mrs. Gaitskill sealed all her envelopes; then finding that she lacked a sufficient number of stamps walked down-stairs to the library. The instant she left the room Diada stepped out on the window-sill, poised for a moment, and leaped with the agility of a monkey from the window to a heavy branch of the pecan-tree. Slipping quickly to the ground she started for the Little Moccasin Swamp.

Avoiding the streets of Tickfall by a detour, she struck into a long, swinging, tireless trot, as rapid as the gallop of a mustang, and in twenty minutes swung off into the bridle-path which led to the Gaitskill hog-camp. Her long skirts hindered her by catching upon the briers and underbrush. She stopped, rolled her skirts up above the knees, knotted them into place by a deft twist, then trotted on.

Standing under the shadow of a live-oak-tree on the Little Moccasin ridge, holding a double-barreled, muzzle-loading shotgun, was a diminutive darky named Little Bit. His eager eyes were searching the branches of a hickory tree for an elusive gray squirrel. Little Bit was afraid of snakes, varmints, his own shadow, and “ha’nts.”

“Dis shore is a lonesome place,” he chattered to himself. “I’s got snake-dust in my shoes, an’ a buckeye in my pocket, an’ a buzzard’s feather in my hat—but I ain’t feel like nothin’ cain’t happen——”

Twenty yards away Diada stood in the shadow of another tree watching him. She was very much interested in the little negro, who had his back to her. With absolutely noiseless tread she approached him—her intentions most friendly and peaceable. When she was ten feet away Little Bit turned around and saw her.

The features of Little Bit’s face first expanded, then contracted, then resolved into a heterogeneous mass expressive of more conflicting emotions than he had ever before experienced. The gun fell from his hands and dropped with the barrel resting across his toes. Even in his agony of fright he was conscious of Diada’s shortened skirt, and beheld her big, brown knees, knotted and gnarled like the trunk of a black gum-tree. With a trembling hand he reached upward for his hat—a sure sign he was getting ready to go away from there at his best speed.

Like a flash he wheeled and raced bareheaded down the ridge, slapping his hat against his thigh at every step like a jockey lashing his mount. In a moment he merged himself like a brown, fleeting shadow among the shadows of the overarching trees. Diada picked up the gun, holding it like a club, and striking her tireless trot, followed in his tracks.

Old Isaiah, the venerable negro superintendent of the Gaitskill hog-camp, sat upon the porch of the cabin sunning his rheumatic legs when Little Bit came racing across the clearing at breakneck speed.

“Save my life, Isaiah!” Little Bit shrieked. “She’s a comin’!”

“Sot down, Little Bit,” Isaiah remarked in a sleepy tone. “You gits at least one good skeer eve’y day. Now set yo’ triggers an’ take good aim, an’ git at de right eend of de gun befo’ you shoots her off! Who’s a comin’?”

“Gawd knows!” Little Bit moaned.

“Whut do she look like?” Isaiah demanded.

“She don’t favor nothin’ or nobody!” Little Bit sighed. “Oo-ee! Her’s got on shoes an’ socks, but her dress is cut bobtail——”

He stopped with a shriek. Diada, carrying his gun, came walking sedately across the clearing toward the cabin.

Isaiah gazed upon her for a second, then slowly raised himself to his feet, and with the explosive force of a steam-whistle, he bellowed:

“My—good—gosh!”

He ran to the side of the house where an ax reposed upon the wood-pile. Seizing this, he flourished it in a threatening manner and bawled:

“Hey, dar! Stop! Hol’ up! Quit yo’ foolin’!”

Diada paid no heed to these admonitions, but continued her advance, holding Little Bit’s gun by the end of the barrel and swinging it like a club.

“Throw a chunk at her, Little Bit!” Isaiah howled. “Skeer her away!”

The boy snatched up a pebble, hurled it at Diada, and ducked under the house.

Diada stopped. Beholding Isaiah’s threatening gestures with the ax, she whirled the gun around her head like a cowboy preparing to hurl a lasso, and threw it, butt-foremost, at Isaiah. The weapon curved like an arrow, missed Isaiah’s head by two feet, struck against the side of the cabin, smashing the gun-butt to splinters and discharging both barrels!

Thereupon Isaiah and Little Bit departed from the hog-camp and did not come back for two days.

The sound of the explosion frightened Diada, and she leaped back into the jungle like a deer, struck the Tickfall trail, and one hour later sat down beneath the pecan-tree in Gaitskill’s yard.

Late that night Colonel Tom Gaitskill stuck his head into the door of his wife’s bedroom and demanded in irascible tones:

“Mildred, where are those sky-muckle-dun-colored pajamas young Tom sent me from Chicago?”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Gaitskill laughed. “Have you looked for them?”

“Yes, but I can’t find ’em. Come and help me hunt!”

Two minutes later Mrs. Gaitskill stuck her head into her husband’s room and demanded:

“Where is my silk flowered kimono? Is it in your room?”

“No!”

“I can’t find that kimono anywhere!”

The two began a search, but the missing articles were not found. When finally they abandoned the hunt, Gaitskill sighed in relief:

“I hope those pajamas are gone for good. Young Tom was a fool to send me such a slosh of color as they were—made me look like a soused rainbow!”

IV
A KIMONO-CLAD APPARITION

The next evening, promptly at eight o’clock, the members of the Dunlap Missionary Society began to arrive. Then Colonel Tom Gaitskill became uneasy and sought out his wife:

“Mildred, are you planning to bring that cannibal wench into the drawing-room and show her off?”

“Certainly, Tom,” she replied. “That’s why I invited the ladies here—to see Diada.”

“Have you talked to her about it?”

“No. How could I? I’ve dressed her nicely, and she’s—well—tolerably presentable.”

“Have you ever heard her say a word?”

“No.”

“Does she appear to understand what you say?”

“No—I don’t know,” Mrs. Gaitskill answered.

Gaitskill rubbed his hand across his forehead, then swept it down his long, white beard.

“All right, Mildred,” he grinned. “It’s your obsequies. But I hope that dear heathen won’t perform any circus stunts.”

The conversation was brought to a close by the arrival of the Reverend Dr. Sentelle, an aged, feeble, badly crippled man, who leaned heavily upon his walking stick as he entered the door.

That walking stick was a curiosity. At the large end it was as big around as an average man’s leg, tapering slightly toward the lower end, and weighing eleven pounds! Thus spoke the owner about it:

“Sir, this stick came from the battlefield of Shiloh. I was wounded in that battle, sir, and as you can observe, have been a cripple ever since. I fell beneath a dogwood tree and lay there for nearly two days. After the surrender, sir, I returned to the battlefield and cut down that tree and have carried it ever since as a walking stick. The tree was fertilized by my blood, sir, and it is only just that it should bear my infirmities.”

While imparting this information, it was the invariable custom of the venerable preacher to catch his stick by the little end and emphasize his remarks by waving it above his auditor’s head. And as he could not stand for any length of time without his cane, it was a common thing to see him during his pulpit discourses reverse his stick and shake it at the heads of his congregation, exactly as many an irate baseball player has punctuated his remarks to the fans in the grand stand by flourishing a bat.

As Dr. Sentelle entered the room upon the arm of Colonel Gaitskill, the guests knew that all were present who had been invited. They stiffened in their seats. They had heard much about Diada since her arrival in Tickfall and they were awed to an electric silence of waiting, holding themselves in smiling readiness for the entrance of the stranger from the cannibal islands of the Pacific Ocean.

The minutes passed. The silence became oppressive. Colonel Gaitskill jiggled his feet. Then through the open window came the voice of Mrs. Gaitskill:

“Hopey, have you seen Diada?”

“No’m. I ain’t saw her. I ain’t pesterin’ my mind ’bout her. Dat nigger ain’t my kind of black folks!”

“Go find Diada at once! Bring her into the drawing-room! Hear me!”

“Yes’m, I’ll fotch her in!”

Twenty minutes later Mrs. Gaitskill entered the drawing-room alone. The situation was embarrassing, but Mrs. Gaitskill was not even slightly flustered. She possessed an immense reserve of coolness which contrasted sharply on this occasion with the painful distraction of her husband.

The minutes passed—leaden minutes. Some of the guests made a pretense of little conversational flurries.

“Our missionaries are so heroic—The lecture was so edifying—How they must love their work—I have often felt a call—Their lives are very lonely—Sacrifice and service—My daughter shows such a fine missionary spirit—I tell Eula—The lovely cannibals—I always say—Of course——”

These hushed, tentative fragments of conversation were interrupted by the triumphant, booming voice of Hopey:

“Hey, dar—you deef ’n’ dum’ nigger! Whut you mean by keepin’ Mis’ Mildred’s comp’ny waitin’? Ain’t you got no manners?”

Still the minutes passed.

Colonel Gaitskill became quite distraught, and excusing himself, slipped up-stairs and helped himself to the contents of a private decanter. He came back to face the same intense, expectant silence which some of the guests attempted to relieve by exchanging seats with other guests. Once more there were scattering efforts at normal talk:

“The Christmas ship to the Belgians—Splendid missionary spirit—I haven’t much to give—I told her God loves the dear cannibals—Home and foreign—All the chickens I took from under the setting hen——”

“Git on up dem front steps!” Hopey howled, as if she were driving a pig. “Go on in dat front do’! Hurry!”

The front door opened and Diada entered, advanced to the center of the drawing-room, and stopped.

It is impossible to describe the peculiar sound which was emitted from the throats of the twenty women at their first sight of Diada.

Her physical ugliness was deplorable and appalling; but that which produced the peculiar utterance from the missionary ladies was this:

Diada was clothed in Mrs. Gaitskill’s light-blue, pink-flowered kimono, and beneath that she wore Colonel Gaitskill’s sky-muckle-dun-colored pajamas!

Diada was six feet tall, and the kimono ended just below her knee and flared wide open in front, for two garments of the same size could not have enveloped her. The pajamas ended just above Diada’s black shoes and revealed about four inches of her stocking—the shoes and stockings being all that she now wore of the garments with which Mrs. Gaitskill had originally clothed her for the reception.

Diada stared about her for a moment, then sat down upon the piano seat.

Her ponderous elbow struck the keys with a crashing discord, and Diada gave forth a sound expressive of delight—it sounded like the snort of an elephant. Then using her elbows instead of her hands, the dear immortal heathen proceeded to make the most unheavenly noise that ever vexed the ears of Christian missionaries, home or foreign.

In the midst of this horrifying situation, Hopey entered the drawing-room, her hands resting upon her hips, her mouth bawling voluble apologies:

“My Gawd, Mis’ Mildred! I ain’t to blame fer dis here turr’ble sight! I foun’ Diader settin’ under de pecan tree in de dark, an’ I couldn’t tell whut she had on till she done open dat front do’ an’ went in whar de light wus shinin’. Lawdamussy! Diader favors a scrambled circus band-waggin!”

The ladies of the missionary society covered their faces with their flimsy, transparent handkerchiefs, and kept up that peculiar sound of outraged modesty.

Then Diada broke out in a new place.

Still pounding on the piano with her naked elbows, she began to sing—singing with a voice which caused the tiny threads in the electric-light globes to quiver and grow dim, and wrought such havoc in the ears of the missionary women that they followed Diada’s heathen music with a Christian accompaniment of startling yelps, like the frightened squeaks one hears at the county fair when the unsophisticated village maidens loop the loop or dip the dip or hear the wild man of Borneo roar.

Colonel Tom Gaitskill sprang to his feet, seized Dr. Sentelle’s walking stick by the little end, and flourished it at Hopey.

“Hopey!” he whooped to be heard above the noise, “you take that—infernal—female—wench out of this house. Do it now! I’ll——”

Diada turned around and looked at Colonel Gaitskill. She beheld an immense club flourished threateningly above her head. On the day before, she had seen old Isaiah at the hog-camp waving an ax at her with the same menacing gesture.

With a loud whoop, Diada sprang across the drawing-room, dived headfirst through a large plateglass window, ran across the yard, and departed from Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s hospitable home forever.

V
HITCH ENLISTS THE PARSON’S AID

On the following morning, Mrs. Tom Gaitskill had a real cause for worry: Diada could not be found and was last seen going toward the Little Moccasin Swamp.

This swamp was twelve miles long and eight wide, traversed by winding streams of slow-moving, oily, yellow water, abounding with quagmires, full of poisonous vines and deadly serpents, the feeding range of wild hogs as vicious as wolves. It was a man-trap, a dreadful place to all except the most experienced woodsmen. Many a hunter had led his squirrel-dog into that swamp, and only the dog found his way back home. The man’s friends found him a few days later by watching the spiral flight of the buzzards concentrating at one spot in the jungle.

“Tom,” Mrs. Gaitskill exclaimed in anxious tones, “you must send Hitch Diamond after Diada at once!”

“Let her go!” Gaitskill replied indifferently. “I’m surfeited with her society. Maybe she’ll come back after a while.”

“You know she will not, Tom,” Mrs. Gaitskill protested with glistening eyes. “If she is not captured before she gets too deep in that swamp, she is gone forever.”

“If she took my pajamas with her, I’m fully resigned to the will of the Lord,” Gaitskill grinned. “They’re gone forever, too.”

“Oh, hush!” Mrs. Gaitskill begged, her fine face flushed with mortification. “Oh, those garments in my reception-room—I can’t bear to think of them! But we can’t let her wander off in that swamp and die.”

“I’ll send Hitch after her—if he’ll go,” Gaitskill said, and walked back toward the rear of the house, where he located Hitch, not by sight, but by sound:

“My wife’s strong-minded,
She’s double-j’inded,
She ain’t tame,
Scan’lize my name——”

The negro ceased singing, jerked off his big hat, and sprang to his feet.

“Hitch,” Gaitskill began, “Diada ran away last night. I want you to find her.”

“Yes, suh; Hopey narrate me about dat.”

“Go out into the swamp and find her!” Gaitskill commanded.

Hitch sat down and scratched his head; he plowed up the dirt with the toe of his ponderous boot; he slapped at the flies with his hat. He was trying to think up a plausible lie as an excuse for declining the proffered job.

“Naw, suh, Marse Tom,” he said slowly. “I’s powerful sorry, but I jes’ nachelly, can’t go—er—de lodge meets to-night——”

“You’ll be back before night,” Gaitskill assured him.

“Yes, suh, but I gotter hustle aroun’ an’ git some money to pay my dues——”

“I’ll pay your dues.”

“Yes, suh, but—er—I gotter had my lodge clothes cleaned an’ pressed, an’——”

“Get some nigger to do that for you. I’ll pay him.”

“Yes, suh——”

Hitch stopped. His resources were exhausted. He looked at Gaitskill with a face as expressionless as a glass-eyed doll. “Marse Tom is sho’ a quick ketcher,” he thought. Then he spoke aloud:

“Marse Tom, I jes’ nachelly don’t wanter go atter dat coon! Why don’t you an’ me jes’ let her ramble? Us kind of folks hadn’t oughter pay dat nigger no pertick’ler mind—she ain’t——”

Gaitskill turned and walked away.

He was too much in sympathy with Hitch’s argument to discuss the matter. He salved his conscience with the reflection that he had told Hitch to go, although he was pretty sure that Hitch would slip off down-town, stay hid all day, and return at night to report that he had failed to find Diada.

But contrary to Gaitskill’s expectations, Hitch did some heavy thinking, then sought out the Rev. Vinegar Atts, pastor of the Shoofly church.

“Elder,” he began, “does you b’lieve in cornvertin’ de heathen?”

“Suttinly,” Atts replied, scenting a contribution for foreign missions.

“Well, suh,” Hitch declared, “now is de choosen time to get right nex’ to a shore-’nuff she-heathen. Marse Tom is got her out to his house on a little visit, an’ las’ night de Revun Sentelle an’ all de miss’nary ladies of Marse Tom’s chu’ch was makin’ ’miration over dat coon, an’ I figgers dat us Mef’dis niggers oughter jub’late too.”

“Shorely, shorely!” Vinegar Atts boomed. “Whar is dis here she-heathen at?”

“Her’s gone out fer a walk in de Little Moccasin Swamp,” Hitch informed him. “Ef us walks out to’des de swamp, ’pears to me we mought meet up wid her an’ git real good acquainted.”

“Dat’s good argufyin’,” Vinegar responded, reaching for his hat. “Whut do she look like?”

“Her looks like us niggers—only ’bout fawty’leben times more!” Hitch told him.

“Kin she talk?”

“Yes, suh, but a feller cain’t ketch on to nothin’ she specifies. It’s a kind of jibber-jabber monkeytalk dat lubricates a whole lot, but it don’t show whar at!” Hitch informed him, wondering at the same time how she really did talk—for Hitch had never heard a sound from her throat.

“Ef she cain’t talk to us, an’ we cain’t talk to her, we shore ain’t gwine fuss an’ fall out!” Vinegar declared.

The big, fat, squat-legged preacher trotted along beside the giant prize-fighter toward the swamp, and by the time they turned off the main road on to the bridle-path which led to the Gaitskill hog-camp, Hitch had told the preacher as much about Diada as he thought Vinegar ought to know. Needless to say, he did not mention her ugliness, her size, her love for raw meat, nor his own overwhelming fear of her.

“Whut’s de matter wid dis swamp, Hitch?” Vinegar demanded, gazing at the trees and wiping the copious sweat from his face.

The swamp had suddenly become as hot as an anteroom to hell. The trees had lost their green sparkle, assuming the colors of decay—corpseyellow and livid green, shining with an oily, sickening glitter.

Hitch shuddered. It was easy for him to believe that Diada had conjured the swamp and had caused it to assume this aspect of menace.

“Less hump along to’des de hog-camp, Revun!” he exclaimed. “I’s skeart of dis place. I been talkin’ to hear my tongue rattle, but now I kin shet my mouf an’ hear my jaws rattle.”

Something scared the birds in the jungle and they flew shriekingly from tree to tree, all going in the same direction.

Submerged among the immense trees of the jungle the negroes could not tell what was happening in the heavens, but they noticed that the sun had changed, no longer spraying off of the tops of the trees like falling water, and the path at their feet had become almost invisible in the darkness.

A wind suddenly swept through the forest, cold as a breeze from the arctic icebergs. Every tree and shrub leaned away from that icy blast, and vines which trailed the ground for hundreds of feet slowly rose up and whirled and writhed in the air like long, slim snakes. In twenty seconds that one puff of wind had passed and there was no more, and the scalding heat rose from the ground like steam from the boiling caldrons of Tophet.

At any other time, Hitch Diamond would have known that a Southern rain-storm was coming and would have paid no attention to it except to seek a cleared spot in the forest, where the dead limbs falling from the trees could not impale him to the ground.

But now his fear was superstitious, and it became infectious to Vinegar Atts and the two raced before the storm like catboats on a wind-swept lake.

Then the rain fell—fell exactly as if some great Titan’s hands had lifted up the silver bowl of the Gulf of Mexico and emptied its contents on their heads. The first big drop felt like a bucketful and seemed to wet them all over.

From that moment they stumbled rather than ran, simply fell forward, caught themselves, and fell forward again—who could run under Niagara’s tumbling flood?

And thus they ran blindly into the august presence of Diada!

Just as another icy blast swept through the jungle, lasting for twenty seconds and stopping the rain, the two men looked up and beheld Diada, facing the breeze, standing in their path like a rooted tree. She still wore Mrs. Gaitskill’s light-blue, pink-flowered kimono, and that gaudy garment trailed out behind her and snapped in the breeze, resembling the variegated tail of some enormous tropic bird.

To the astounded men Diada looked as big as a skinned mule.

With a shriek Hitch Diamond dodged around her, leading Vinegar Atts in the flight by a nose, and the two men ran on toward the hog-camp—the falling rain thundering around them like the sound of a troop of cavalry crossing a wooden bridge.

As they plunged across the open clearing in front of the cabin Hitch looked back.

Diada was forty steps behind him, trotting easily, covering incredible space with each step, her horrible mouth twisted into a cannibal grin. But it did not look like a grin to Hitch—those immense, protruding teeth and the repulsively thick lips curled back above and beneath them reminded him of nothing so much as the mouth of an angry, biting jackass.

“Here she comes, Vinegar!” Hitch bawled. “Come in an’ shet de do’!”

But they were too late. Diada’s foot struck the bottom step of the little porch just as Hitch reached the top step. Diada grasped Hitch by the coattail and was towed into the house by that frightened giant who promptly shucked off his coat as he passed through the door and let Diada have it.

Vinegar Atts turned around and took a long look at Diada. He reeled back against the wall, covered his eyes with his hands, and in horror-stricken tones he bellowed:

“Come here, Hitch, an’ he’p me! Somepin’ is done happened to my eyesight—I ain’t seein’ right!”

VI
PLACATING A DERVISH

Outside the wind and rain roared like a hurricane and great lumps of hail struck upon the solid roof of the cabin like brickbats, rolled off, and hit the ground with a loud click.

Large particles of hail, looking as if a number of lumps had met and merged in mid-air, fell down the large open chimney, and rolled out upon the floor. On any other occasion Hitch and Vinegar would have pounced upon them, but now neither moved to pick them up.

The three rain-drenched people stood in the middle of the floor, each in the center of a widening puddle; then they relieved the strain by changing their location and began to drip in a new puddle.

At last Vinegar’s legs sank under him, and he dropped upon a chair.

“Oo-ee!” he sighed. “De good Lawd sho’ is made a mistake when He fotch me into dis here tangle-up. He’s done got my tail caught in a cuttin’-box.”

“Talk to her, Revun!” Hitch begged in an agonized whisper.

“You cornverse her, Hitch,” Vinegar Atts pleaded. “I’ll set right here by you an’ pray constant.”

Diada walked to the fireplace, squatted down, picked up two splinters of wood and rubbed them together. A tiny blue flame curled around the fingers of the woman. Sheltering the flame with her hands, she added more fuel, and in a moment stepped back from a roaring fire.

“Look at dat!” Hitch Diamond exclaimed in tones of wonder and admiration. “Made a fire by rubbin’ two sticks ag’in’ each odder. I done tried dat a thousan’ times, but I didn’t make nothin’ but sweat!”

“Whut you reckin she done built dat fire fer, Hitch?” Vinegar inquired with chattering teeth.

“Mebbe she wants to dry out dem clothes she’s got on,” Hitch surmised.

“I dunno,” Vinegar responded in fearful tones. “It ’pears to me dat it’s mighty nigh dinner-time, an’ I’s done heerd tell dat sometimes dose here she-heathens eats folks.”

“Oh, hush, nigger!” Hitch mourned, sinking down upon a bench at the far end of the room. “Don’t start no news like dat! Please, suh, Revun Atts, git yo’ religium wuckin’ ag’in’ her right now!”

“I don’t know how!” Vinegar lamented. “I ain’t never had no expe’unce on dis kind of job.”

“Whut do de Bible say do?” Hitch demanded.

“It say, ‘Watch an’ pray,’” Vinegar told him.

“Dat ain’t gwine do no good in dis case,” Hitch declared with conviction. “You mought as well pour dem advices back into de jug. Leasewise I cain’t figger out how it kin do any good. But ef you wants to try it, you do de prayin’ an’ lemme watch.”

“I’s mos’ too close to dis fire, Hitch,” Vinegar remarked uneasily. “I prefers to pray in de kitchen.”

“I’ll go wid you,” Hitch declared eagerly.

The two men entered the only other room to the log cabin, each blocking the other in his eagerness to be the first to get through the door. Diada promptly followed them, and the two men backed against the wall, looking in vain for some way of escape for Diada was between them and the door.

Hanging from the rafters in the kitchen were half a dozen strings of smoked sausages in skins.

Diada reached up and clawed down one of the strings and proceeded to eat the sausage raw. Like a child chewing a thread, she began at one end and lapped up link after link of the sausage. When that had been devoured, she snatched down another string and began on the end of that. Then she snapped off a link and offered it to Vinegar Atts.

“No’m; thank ’e, mum,” Vinegar said. “I likes to watch you chawin’ it. Fer Gawd’s sake, don’t nibble at dat sausage like dat—eat a plenty!”

Hitch Diamond pulled down two more strings of the sausage and handed them to her.

“Honey,” he said in wheedling tones, “don’t encourage no delicate appetite. Fill up—fill up! Wallop up dem sassages till you git whar you cain’t do nothin’ but chaw because yo’ swaller is full up to de top. Den, bless Gawd, dar won’t be no room in yo’ insides fer me!”

“Huh.” Vinegar Atts grunted, “I’d rather had a jackass chaw me dan dat baboon. Look at her toofs!”

At last Diada concluded her feast, tossed the undevoured links of sausage on the floor and started back toward the other room. The two men followed because there was nothing else to do. When they had seated themselves before the fire Vinegar said:

“Hitch, talk to her a little bit an’ git her feelin’ good, an’ mebbe her’ll let us go back to town.”

“I dunno how to begin,” Hitch complained. “Ef a cullud lady won’t talk, seems like I cain’t git no hand-holt to remark nothin’ to her.”

“Ax her inquirements!” Vinegar advised.

There was silence in the cabin while Hitch explored his brain for a suitable question to ask. Outside the raidn fell in a torrent and the jungle roared like thunder. Finally Hitch spoke:

“Diader, does you enjoy yo’ meals in dis country?”

Diada did not answer, but Vinegar Atts did.

“Git away from de subjeck of grub, Hitch. De sausages is done all been et mighty nigh, an’ whut is dis she-heathen got to eat fer supper but us?”

“I ain’t gwine be here fer supper!” Hitch informed him.

“Me neither—ef I makes no mistake,” Vinegar replied earnestly. “Go on wid dem inquirements!”

Hitch took a new start:

“Does you had a good time, Diader? Enj’y yo’se’f?”

“Mebbe dat ain’t no polite question to ax dis kind of coon,” Vinegar remarked when Diada made no answer. “Try somepin diffunt, Hitch!”

“How old is you, Diader?” Hitch asked desperately.

A discreet silence on the part of Diada.

“I knowed you pulled de stopper outen de wrong bottle dat time!” Vinegar commented. “Ax her somepin ’bout her kinnery!”

“Wus yo’ maw an’ paw feelin’ tol’able when you seed ’em las’?” Hitch inquired timidly.

To all appearances Diada had not heard.

“Mebbe all her kinnery’s in jail,” Vinegar declared. “Anyway, she don’t wanter talk about ’em. Stop axin’ fool questions, Hitch! You put yo’ foot in it eve’y time you opens yo’ mouf!”

“Looky here, Revun!” Hitch retorted in irate tones. “I fotch you out here wid me to cornvert dis here heathen. You brag yo’ brags dat you could, now lemme see you git at it! You ain’t axed her nothin’ since you come—jes’ been rubber-neckin’ at her like a goggle-eye perch. Now you git busy on dis dam’ ole baboon an’ ’suade her to be a Christian like us is!”

Thus admonished, Vinegar Atts took a big breath, stared timidly at Diada’s feet, and began:

“Diada, does you foller up de chu’ch?”

“Git pussonal, Revun, git pussonal!” Hitch advised, when Diada did not reply. “Stop beatin’ de bush aroun’ de debbil.”

“Diader, does you take up wid religion?” Vinegar inquired. But Diada made no reply.

“Ax her do she expe’unce religion!” the prize-fighter prompted the preacher. “Ax her do she know dat she’s a chile of Gawd!”

“Diader,” Vinegar asked timidly, “is you got any shore an’ certain hopes of heaven?”

“Dat’s right! Git pussonal!” Hitch applauded.

But Diada steadfastly refused to make any confession of faith.

“Ax her is she committed any sins!” Hitch suggested. “Git pussonal!”

“Looky here, Hitch!” the preacher complained. “I don’t know how dis cullud pusson sets her table an’ I’s skeart I’ll fall in de soup. Whut’s de use axin’ pussonal inquirements when a feller don’t git no kind of respondunce nohow?”

He leaned back, his face overshadowed with gloom and fear. He thrust his hand into his pockets, and his face suddenly cleared.

“I got her now, Hitch! Look at dis!”

Vinegar held up a small round mirror with an advertisement on the back. He looked at himself, then passed it to Hitch, who examined his own features carefully, and who then passed the mirror to Diada.

With wondering faces the two men watched the eternal savage feminine to see if it was like the other kind of eternal feminine. It was.

Diada placed the mirror about four inches from one big, protruding eye, squinted into the glass, and then slipped the little mirror into her hair, gave the hair a deft twist, and brought her hands down—empty.

“Dar now!” Vinegar mourned. “My little lookin’-glass is plum’ gone, jes’ as good as ef she’d swallered it!”

“Dat’s right!” Hitch agreed. “Diader shore made a short cut-off.”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling in an attitude of religious resignation, and saw Little Bit’s mandolin hanging on a nail above his head. He reached up and took it down.

Seating himself, he swept his fingers across the strings. Diada’s mouth opened in a wide grin.

“I’s got her. Vinegar,” Hitch boomed. “Now I’s gwine fetch her a few lively toons, an’ while I plays you open dat do’. Mebbe I kin sing dis heathen chile to sleep, but ef I cain’t, you keep yo’ eye on me an’ git ready to scoot!”

Hitch got busy with the mandolin, and Vinegar availed himself of the first opportunity and opened the door. The rain had ceased, and from the hot ground a fog had risen like steam so thick and heavy that objects were invisible at a distance of twenty feet.

Hitch sang a few songs, and at the conclusion of each song he moved back from the fire under pretense of being too warm; but he moved every time a little closer to the open door.

Then Diada rose and began a weird, awkward dance, marking the steps by a peculiar guttural sound like a grunt. Under the weight of her ponderous tramping feet the cabin trembled. The negroes trembled, too, but they were having a chill. In a moment their fright had assumed the proportions and powers of a dynamo propelling them out of that cabin.

“Git ready, Vinegar!” Hitch howled, as he madly played and sang. “I’s done got in de notion to skedaddle. When I gives de word, you better do it!”

Diada had begun to whirl like a dancing Dervish. Mrs. Gaitskill’s silk kimono stood straight out from her mighty shoulders and Colonel Gaitskill’s pajamas became a blear of color in her mad gyration.

Vinegar Atts rose and walked toward the door. Hitch Diamond stood up, thumping madly upon the strings of his musical instrument, watching his chance.

Just when the two men were ready to bolt Diada whooped, sprang through the door, leaped into the open space in front of the porch, and continued her mad rotary dance. There was a flash of steel, and from somewhere on her person Diada produced what Hitch recognized as Mrs. Gaitskill’s pearl-handled paper-cutter, and the large steel carving-knife which Hopey used in the kitchen.

Then began a dance of steel which filled the negroes with horror.

Diada tossed the knives in the air where they whirled like steel wheels, and beneath them she continued her wild gyrations; with wonderful skill, she kept the two blades in the air above her, catching them unerringly when they fell and tossing them up again, while a strange, guttural shriek emanated from her throat, curdling the blood in the veins of Vinegar Atts and Hitch Diamond.

Suddenly Hitch Diamond bellowed:

“Good-by ma honey! I’ve run out of money
Good-by, ma honey—I’m gone!”

Before the mandolin, which Hitch hurled from him, had struck the ground, he and Vinegar were half-way across the clearing and a race-horse could not have caught them for their first mile of travel back to town.

Pounding up the street toward the Tickfall courthouse, Hitch Diamond spoke for the first time in seven miles:

“Elder Atts, I don’t b’lieve you really favors furin missions!”

VII
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS

Colonel Tom Gaitskill and Dr. Sentelle stood on the street in front of the court house discussing the missionary meeting of the evening before and the sudden departure of Diada.

“Do you think Diada’s visit will quicken the missionary activities of the women of our church?” Dr. Sentelle laughed.

“Who knows?” Gaitskill grinned. “She certainly made an impression on me! An escaped heathen running at large in the vicinity of Tickfall might quicken all kinds of activities——”

Their attention was diverted by the sight of two negroes who stumbled down the middle of the street in the last stages of exhaustion, puffing like steamboats, covered with swamp-mud, their garments torn to shreds by their flight through the vines and underbrush.

“Hey—Hitch!” Gaitskill called.

The two negroes stopped, staggered to where Gaitskill was standing, and sank down upon the curbstone at his feet.

“We done got away, Marse Tom!” Hitch Diamond panted. “Us escaped jes’ like de Bible say—wid de skin off our teeth.”

“Where have you been?” Gaitskill asked.

“Me an’ Vinegar is been huntin’ dat Diader you sent me atter dis mawnin’,” Hitch answered; then in a tone of sharp complaint: “Marse Tom, whut you makin’ all dis splutter ’bout dat varmint fur? She ain’t right in her intellectuals!”

“I don’t believe you’ve been anywhere near that swamp,” Gaitskill grinned.

“We shore has, Marse Tom,” the negroes said in one breath. Then they began a recitation of their experiences, snatching the sentences out of each other’s mouths:

“She built a fire by rubbin’ two sticks——”

“She et raw sassages——”

“She danced a jig in dat cabin wid butcher-knives——”

“She had on a chop-tailed nightshirt——”

“An’ cute little pants jes’ de color of a rotten egg busted on ’em——”

Their recitation was interrupted by the sound of galloping hoofs. Two mules were coming down the road at full speed, one mule ridden by a bent-shouldered old man whose kinky white wool fitted his head like a rubber cap, and the other ridden by a diminutive, pop-eyed boy so black he could shut his eyes and become almost invisible.

At every jump the riders belabored their mules with clubs, thus giving them additional reasons why they should accelerate their operations; and even the mules seemed to realize that it was an urgent case.

They shook their heads, groaned like elephants in distress, and seemed to measure off ten or fifteen feet at a leap. The riders jolted to and fro like two gray squirrels in the storm-tossed branches of a tree, but they hung on to the shaggy manes of their mounts with one hand and operated their clubs with the other.

“Hey, you niggers!” Gaitskill called. “Whoa!”

The mules, hearing that last command, stopped.

Now when a mule stops, he stops with a suddenness; he stops all over and all at once; he stops like a wet dish-rag which drops upon the floor, like a stepladder which collapses and comes down flat upon the ground.

The mules stopped.

Isaiah and Little Bit did not. They went on. They dived ungracefully over the heads of their mules, struck the ground twenty feet ahead of them, rolled over and over in the moist sand, then got up in a most solemn and dignified manner, walked sedately to the spot where Vinegar and Hitch sat on the curbstone, and took a seat beside them.

“Bless gracious, Marse Tom!” old Isaiah panted. “I’s skeart plum’ outen my good sense!”

“What happened, Isaiah?” Gaitskill laughed.

“Marse Tom,” Isaiah answered, “dar’s a plum’ wild woman out in de Little Moccasin Swamp. She throwed a gun at me de yuther day an’ run me an’ Little Bit clear outen de hog-camp. Us rambled back dis atternoon, an’ dat wild woman wus still dar—settin’ on de po’ch steps bangin’ on Little Bit’s banjo an’ singin’ jes’ like a pig squeals when he gits hung in de fence. When she seed me a comin’, she riz up—she looked powerful mad to me——”

Isaiah broke off and chuckled. Then he continued, in solemn and convincing tones:

“Marse Tom, I’ve saw a pig git mad an’ bust outen de pen an’ fight an’ bite jes’ like a dog an’ run eve’y pig and nigger off de plantation. An’ I’ve saw a cow git mad an’ kick over de bucket of milk an’ hook de feller whut milked her. An’ I’ve saw a man git mad an’ cut up scand’lous an’ git tuck up an’ crammed in jail. An’ I’ve saw a woman git mad—plenty womans—but I ain’t never stayed an’ saw whut dey done. Naw, suh, I skedaddles. Dat’s how come me an’ Little Bit is here now. Dat wild woman looked mad!”

There was a loud whoop up the street, and the sound of galloping hoofs smote again upon the ears of the little group in front of the court house. As they turned to look a whole cavalry troop of horses and mules swung into the main street and galloped at full speed toward the court house square.

It was a perfect Mardi Gras procession.

One aged negro passed on a blind mule, holding a baby in his lap, while two little pickaninnies rode behind him—four on one animal. An immensely fat woman rode by astraddle of a pacing donkey; she balanced a bundle as large as herself on the neck of her mount—food and household comforts of that sort, wrapped up in a red bed-quilt.

A negro boy came by holding a sack whose contents wriggled and whined, and the mustang he rode was throwing fits—the sack contained four hound pups. Another coon rode by holding in his free hand a bucket of molasses; and strapped to his back, like a knapsack was an immense bird-cage containing a parrot, who clung desperately to his giddy perch and squawked: “Look out! Look out! Look out!”

Thus, in grotesque procession, there passed before the astonished eyes of Colonel Tom Gaitskill every negro tenant and workman from the Nigger-heel plantation—four hundred men, women, and children, with his overseer, Mustard Prophet, in the lead!

“Thunderation!” Gaitskill bawled in a mighty voice. “What’s the matter with you damnation niggers?”

Mustard Prophet wheeled his mule and stopped before Colonel Gaitskill.

The whole procession swung into a large open space beside the court house, set apart for the use of the country people as a hitching place for their horses. All the business men in Tickfall promptly shut up shop and assembled in front of the courthouse to learn what all the fuss was about—and every white man’s coat-pocket sagged down on one side about four inches lower than it did on the other, and he kept his hand in that pocket.

The negroes of Tickfall and the neighboring plantations outnumbered the whites by ten thousand.

Having a natural respect and generally a true friendship for the white people, following the peaceable pursuits of agriculture, raising cotton, cotton, and then more cotton; music-loving, laughter-loving, care-free as children and inoffensive as a bird, the negroes of Tickfall lived quietly with their white neighbors and employers.

But any unusual movement among them always awakened the white man’s suspicions and brought him forth full-armed, grim as death, white-faced and keen-eyed, to search the matter to the very bottom.

A white man jostled against Dr. Sentelle.

The venerable preacher thrust his hand into the tail-pocket of his clergyman’s coat and found himself in possession of a heavy pistol. Colonel Gaitskill backed quietly into the arms of a man standing behind him and found both side pockets of his coat weighted down with weapons.

Then Gaitskill stepped forward again and became the spokesman, his voice cracking like a bull-whip in the hands of a cowboy:

“What are you niggers doing in town?”

“Us comed to town to git away from de canned bull, Marse Tom,” Mustard Prophet informed him.

There was a barely audible “Ah!” from the throats of the white men, who had held their breath in intense desire to catch Mustard’s answer. The anxiety of the white men was instantly relieved. They did not understand, but if that crowd of men, women, and children were scared and running away from something, that put a much better light upon the matter.

“To get away from—what?” Gaitskill snapped.

“Dunno, suh,” Mustard replied, scratching his head. “I’s done heerd tell dat she eats ’em alive.”

“Eats—what? who?”

“Dey calls her de canned bull,” Mustard informed him in uncertain tones.

“I presume he means cannibal,” Dr. Sentelle suggested with a loud chuckle.

“Yes, suh,” Mustard acquiesced. “Dat whut I jes’ said.”

“What do you know about a cannibal?” Gaitskill growled.

“Hopey, de woman whut cooks fer you, sont me word, an’ old Isaiah an’ Little Bit fotch me de pertick’lers,” Mustard told him. “Ole Isaiah tole me dat he done saw dat wild woman fight a bear an’ she kilt it dead. He specify dat she gib dat bear de all-under holt an’ de fust two bites!”

“Isaiah is an old liar,” Gaitskill said.

“Yes, suh. But I knowed you didn’t want me to happen to no harm, so I hauled off an’ come to town.”

“What did you bring all these other niggers for?” Gaitskill asked.

“I didn’t fotch ’em wid me, Marse Tom,” Mustard declared. “I tried to git ’em to stay back, but sompein itched ’em right sudden to trabbel, an’ here dey all am.”

There was a loud burst of laughter from the white men, Gaitskill found his coat-pockets relieved of their heavy guns, Dr. Sentelle lost the six-shooter out of the tail of his Prince Albert coat, and the business men went haw-hawing to their stores, leaving Colonel Gaitskill and Dr. Sentelle to face the rabble of panic-stricken negroes.

Gaitskill’s mind revolved a number of plans before he found one to suit him. Finally he stood on the court house steps and made oration:

“Hey, you niggers! Listen to me: Go to the back door of my store and get your rations for the night. All you nigger men be at the old cotton-shed to-morrow morning by sunrise! Hear me!”

“Yes, suh!” a number of voices responded.

“Now, Mustard,” he said to his negro overseer, “you get all these coons to the cotton-shed on time. We want to get an early start!”

VIII
AT THE GAITSKILL HOG-CAMP

The next morning fifty-five negroes mounted on mules and horses waited at the cotton-shed for Colonel Tom Gaitskill. Their only theme of conversation was Diada.

“Revun Atts,” Mustard demanded of the pastor of the Shoofly church, “when you got shet up wid dat wild woman in de hawg-camp, why didn’t you ax her ’fess religion?”

“I did make a riffle,” Vinegar Atts responded, “but I couldn’t git my mouf set right fer preachin’ de Word.”

“He seen his duty but he done it not!” Hitch Diamond bellowed.

“I didn’t had no light on how to do it,” Vinegar said defensively. “Excusin’ dat, I warn’t studyin’ how to save by grace; I wus ponderin’ how to save my grease.”

The conversation ended by the arrival of Colonel Gaitskill, dressed in a hunting suit and riding his favorite black horse.

The negroes grouped their mounts close around him to hear what he had to say.

“I want you niggers to ride out to the hog-camp with me and help me bring Diada back to my house. All this talk about Diada being a cannibal is a lie. She ain’t a pretty nigger woman, but she’s just like other black folks. She won’t hurt anybody. When you find her, go right up to her, just like you would to any other nigger woman. Hear me!”

“Yes, suh!” the voices answered.

“Marse Tom,” Hitch Diamond asked, “who’s gwine lead dis here peerade?”

“I am.”

“I’s powerful proud to hear dat, kunnel,” Hitch declared. “An’ please, suh, kin I fotch up de rear an’ keep dese niggers from laggin’ back?”

“Yes, if you prefer that place.”

“Hitch needs he’p, kunnel,” Vinegar Atts declared promptly. “I’ll fetch up behine wid Hitch.”

“All right,” Gaitskill agreed, stifling a desire to laugh. “Of course, if Diada should attack us from the rear——”

“Huh!” Vinegar Atts interrupted him. “I’s gwine fetch up de exack middle of dis here peerade.”

“Now, listen!” Gaitskill commanded in a loud voice. “I don’t want Diada hurt in any way. Don’t use any clubs or guns or knives. Catch her with your hands. Come on, men!”

The posse pounded down the swamp road for four miles, then started in single file along the narrow bridle-path which led to the hog-camp three miles distant in the center of the swamp.

From the moment they entered the swamp the shouts and laughter of the negroes ceased.

They had all spent their lives within sight of that jungle and knew well its fearful menace and entertained toward it a most wholesome fear. They knew that three deep, broad bayous flowed into it, widened into an enormous mud-puddle and disappeared, swallowed up by rank, encroaching vegetation. They knew that the slow-moving, slimy water was a breeding place for countless insects which stung and bit and poisoned, and inhabited in pestilential swarms the only open breathing spaces reserved amid the vegetation, and they had seen cattle stagger out of that swamp, their nostrils, throats, and ears filled with tiny insects, fall to the ground in convulsions, and die.

The ground around them was covered with vegetation, so ropy with vines that a raccoon could not penetrate it; the branches of the immense trees hung downward, and were draped with long, ropelike funereal streamers and festoons of Spanish moss, so that it seemed that half the vegetable world was growing from below upward and the other half was growing from above downward, making a hot-house purgatory, shut off from the sky above and the earth below, and enclosing the men who rode that narrow path like a trap.

The dim ridge which their horses trod was the one route of ingress and egress through that obscure, uncharted morass reeking with poison and choked with a growth which seemed coeval with the dawn of creation itself.

Gaitskill, noting the sudden silence of the negroes, became uneasy. He knew that if the darkies were thrown into a panic they would spur their mounts into the jungle to hide, and that would be the end of both the horse and his rider.

“Marse Tom,” old Isaiah said in a trembling tone, “My hoss is a walkin’ lame.”

Gaitskill stopped and stood facing the long line of frightened negroes.

“All you niggers pull to one side and let Isaiah ride back to town!” he called.

“Who? Me?” Isaiah bawled. “Naw, suh! Dis hoss ain’t so powerful lame—not as much as he wus when I fust spoke. An’ even if his behine leg wus twisted plum’ off, I’d shore make him hop along wid you-alls.”

“Any of the rest of you niggers got lame horses?” Gaitskill laughed.

“Naw, suh, kunnel,” Hitch Diamond yelled, the last man in the line. “My hoss is walkin’ so spry I cain’t keep him behine by hisse’f. Lemme ride up dar close to you!”

“Stay where you are, Hitch!” Gaitskill laughed. “You asked me to let you ride behind. Come on, men!”

The path widened and the horses struck into a trot which brought them to the hog-camp in half an hour.

Throughout the length and breadth of this swamp, about a mile apart, there were curious mounds rising ten or twelve feet above the surrounding marsh. All these mounds were round in shape and flat on the top.

Some of them were not more than a hundred feet in diameter, while others were large, containing half an acre of land. They had been built a hundred years before by the Indians—and served a very practical purpose. When the water flooded the swamp in the autumn the wild animals took refuge on these mounds. The Indians penetrated the jungle in their canoes and visited each mound, easily slaying the deer and bears, and thus procuring their winter supply of meat.

The Gaitskill hog-camp occupied the largest of these mounds, the cabin standing in the center of a two-acre plot. The flat top of the mound had been kept cleared of timber, but the jungle encroached to the very edge.

The posse galloped into this clearing, and Colonel Gaitskill dismounted from his horse.

“You darkies stay here!” he commanded. “I’ll see whether Diada is in the cabin.”

The cabin was empty. All of Isaiah’s smoked sausage and hams had disappeared. Little Bit’s mandolin, with the strings broken, lay in the corner of the room, and a part of Mrs. Gaitskill’s silk kimono hung from a splinter on the wall, showing how it had been torn off. From a nail on the wall hung a long lasso.

Taking down the rope Gaitskill walked out again to the negroes.

“She’s not here, men,” he announced. “We’ll have to hunt her in the swamp.”

Adjusting the rope to his saddle-horn he mounted and sat for a moment debating his next move.

Then Diada emerged from the jungle and stood at the edge of the clearing, looking curiously at the troop of men.

“Dar she!” the negroes howled.

Gaitskill rode slowly forward, holding out his hand in a gesture of friendliness about as one would approach to catch a horse. But Diada moved slowly backward, keeping in the cleared space, always just one leap distant from the jungle.

Twice they circled the clearing in this ridiculous fashion, Gaitskill repeating in most wheedling and coaxing tones every expression of fondness and endearment with which he was acquainted.

“Dat chin-music ain’t gittin’ Marse Tom nothin’,” Vinegar Atts declared, watching the elusive Diada. “Me ’n’ Hitch’s done tried dat!”

Finally Gaitskill abandoned that plan, and quietly loosened his rope and got ready to throw.

Riding back a few feet he gave the rope a quick swing, and the noose settled prettily around the arms of the giant woman just above her elbows. There was not a trace of fear in her face, and she moved slowly backward until the rope was taut. To the interested negroes it looked like the simple, peaceable game of “playing horse.”

Then Gaitskill spurred his horse to one side and gave the rope a sharp jerk. Instantly a long-bladed butcher-knife flashed in Diada’s hand, and the severed rope trailed loosely upon the ground, while the now harmless noose slipped down over her hands and was lightly tossed aside.

“Dar now!” Hitch Diamond exclaimed in tragic tones. “Dat fish is done unbit an’ div!”

Gaitskill slowly drew in the rope and was busy making another noose, when there was a warning shout from the negroes.

Diada was coming across the clearing toward Gaitskill, leaping like a deer. There was no trace of anger in her manner, and no sign of danger except the long-bladed knife in her powerful hand.

Gaitskill’s nervous horse shied at that monstrous woman with her fluttering, ragged garments, and wheeled and bolted, snorting with terror.

The jungle kept the horse in the clearing as effectively as a barbed-wire fence, but the animal had two acres of level ground to run on and he proceeded to cover that ground in record-breaking time. Gaitskill might have quieted the animal very quickly, except for the fact that this performance seemed to please Diada, and she continued her pursuit, chasing Colonel Gaitskill all around the lot.

“Look out, Marse Tom!” the negroes bawled, amid whoops of laughter. “Don’t let her ketch yer!”

The laughter of the negroes diverted Diada’s attention to them.

With a loud “Whoosh!” she sailed into that compact mass of men and horses, scattering them like a brick dropped into a pile of feathers. Horses nickered and plunged, mules squealed and kicked, and negroes screamed with fright, and in a moment the cleared space in front of the hog-camp was a circus-ring of panicky men and beasts performing every imaginable stunt, with Diada in the star rôle of circus-master and chief of clowns.

Colonel Gaitskill’s horse found the path which led back to Tickfall, plunged down the embankment, and ran away with his helpless rider. The negroes, seeing Gaitskill’s departure, followed at their swiftest gait, their shrieks and wails of fright and woe rolling through the swamp with hideous reverberations.

One mile from the hog-camp Gaitskill regained control of his horse, and turned to ride back.

Then he heard the thundering hoofs of the horses and mules coming down the narrow bridle-path toward him. The road was not wide enough to pull aside and let them pass; even if it were, in that moment of panic, the horses and mules might become frightened at him and plunge into the swamp.

Gaitskill regretted the necessity for his action, but there was nothing else to do; he led that column of wailing negroes in ignominious flight back toward Tickfall.

He kept ahead of them until he reached the main road, then turned aside and let them precede him.

As he sat watching that ludicrous procession of squalling blacks, his own horse suddenly snorted and bolted down the road at its wildest speed. Gaitskill looked back to ascertain the cause of the animal’s fright.

Lo, Diada was in full pursuit of the flying posse, trotting with the speed of a galloping horse, her tongue hanging out like a hot dog’s, Mrs. Gaitskill’s kimono trailing behind her like a torn battle-flag, her long, ugly-bladed knife clutched in her powerful hand. One word came from her throat with the explosive sound of a pistol-shot:

“Whoo-ash!”

There was no stopping his horse, so Gaitskill rode the four miles back to Tickfall in something like eight minutes. When he swung out of the swamp road into the town he looked back again.

Diada was half a mile behind him, trotting tirelessly, covering about ten feet of ground with each tremendous stride. Her farewell admonition came to him across the distance.

Softened by the intervening space, it seemed to contain a plaintive note of appeal; yet this impression was but momentary, for Gaitskill found too close a kinship between this outlandish expression and the snarl of the wolf, the hiss of the snake, and the scream of the jungle beast bent on blood and death.

IX
“DESE HERE IS TURR’BLE TIMES”

Fifty-five terrified negroes galloped wildly into Tickfall, distributed themselves in the various negro settlements of the village, and told fifty-five separate and distinct tales of horror about the fiasco at the hog-camp.

One half truth ran through all the narratives, holding them together as vari-colored beads are held upon a string:

“Marse Tom Gaitskill bragged his brags at de cotton-shed dat he wus gwine walk right up an’ put his hand on dat wild woman. But he never done it a-tall—naw, suh.”

“He didn’t git no nigher dat woman dan de eend of a lassoo, an’ when she snuck up behine him wid dat big butcher-knife in her han’, dat white man jes’ nachelly ’vaporated! Yes, suh! Us niggers tried to keep up an’ go along home wid him, but we ain’t never got in sight of Marse Tom till yit—an’ us is plum’ back in town! Dat nigger woman run at us jes’ like a wild hawg—you-all knows how de hawgs pop dey jaws an’ says ‘Whoosh!’ When a wild hawg does dat way, nigger, you better coon up a tree. Well, suh, dat’s jes’ whut she said to us—‘Whoosh!’”

Thus the negroes walked from house to house telling their appalling stories to little groups of pop-eyed listeners, adding something more blood-curdling to the tales with each repetition, until the terrified inhabitants of Shiny, Shoofly, Hell’s Half-Acre, and Dirty Six were as uneasy and fearful as if they were standing in the crumbling crater of a rumbling volcano.

Then the grapevine telephone was put into operation.

There is nothing as mysterious to the white man as the negro’s method of communicating information for long distances and to the remotest cabins of his race. “Word wus sont,” is the negro’s only explanation of how he happened to know twenty minutes after it occurred that a murder had been committed in the woods twenty miles away.

Long before night the town began to fill up with negroes coming in from plantations ten and twelve miles away. They arrived unostentatiously, seeming to spring up from the very sand of the street. They seemed jumpy when they were spoken to, moved about not singly but in groups, and kept looking back over their shoulders.

The white people of the town noticed the anxiety and strain, and it became a contagion. They knew that a wild woman was at large, meditating they knew not what outrage.

The sun set as red as blood, and in a few minutes a heavy, smelly, yellow Gulf fog swept the town, making objects invisible at a distance of twenty feet, almost blotting out the little electric lights which had just enough candle-power to reveal where they were but not sufficient to show where anything else was.

The Reverend Dr. Sentelle stumped his way down to the post office upon his ponderous cane, mailed a letter, and stood for a moment in the doorway puffing a cigar. Several negroes passed, walking down the middle of the street just as the venerable preacher flicked his cigar-stump toward the gutter. The butt whirled round and round and struck the ground with a splash of fire from the lighted end.

What a howl!

The men ran down the street yelping like hound-dogs, their feet pounding upon the sand, their voices trailing off into less audible sounds of woe as they continued their rapid flight.

Wondering at the unusual occurrence, Dr. Sentelle felt his way back to his home through the thick fog, and stood leaning upon his gate gazing up the street.

An object approached him, loomed up with gigantic proportions through the fantastic exaggerations of the fog, stopped a few feet from where the preacher stood, and spoke one word in a thunderous tone:

“Whoosh!”

Dr. Sentelle’s heavy walking stick went clattering upon the ground, he reeled backward, struck his heels against the porch steps, and sat down with a violence which filled the dome of his cranium with bursting, falling stars.

“Heavens!” he exclaimed.

Diada stooped, picked up Dr. Sentelle’s stick by the little end, and, thus armed with a weighty club, she went loping onward.

A group of darkies sat in a negro barber-shop discussing the wild woman of the woods. Diada opened the door, entered as quietly and peaceably as she could, and remarked:

“Whoosh!”

The negroes disappeared as promptly and as completely as if that word were a cyclone puffing at a handful of feathers.

Diada trotted down the street in the direction they had gone and found herself in front of the Hen-Scratch saloon, where a house full of patrons talked in whispers and fortified themselves by indulgence in red liquor. Diada entered the swinging door and gave the pass-word: “Whoosh!”

The negroes whooshed. They went away from that place in every direction, exhausting the treasuries of their throats for sounds to vocalize their surprise and terror.

Suddenly from every negro section of the town there arose a wail which reverberated through the village of Tickfall and brought every white man to his feet white with fear:

“Ah-ee! Ah-ee! Ah-ee!”

Every white man seized his arms and ammunition and started for the front door; then the thought of his defenseless family stopped him, and held him there to patrol his yard and guard his own house from the unknown peril which threatened.

Everywhere could be heard this wild call of fear.

Horses and mules broke out of their enclosures and galloped wildly about the streets with a thunder of pounding hoofs, calling to each other with frenzied nickering. The cows began a ceaseless bawling, and the excited dogs ran madly up and down the premises of their masters, making a pandemonium with their furious barking.

At intervals the noise lulled for a moment; then invariably would be heard a wild scream, clear as the outcry of a panther, ending with Diada’s one word, divided now into two distinct syllables:

“Whoo-ash!”

Colonel Tom Gaitskill leaned against the white columns of his porch and listened to the weird sounds which came to him from every quarter. In one negro settlement the inhabitants were bawling a song at the utmost capacity of their lungs, drowning their fears with music.

In another settlement, with the regularity and drumlike throb of a mighty chorus of immense hammers pounding upon steel anvils, was heard the cry: “Ah-ee! Ah-eel Ah-ee!”

From the section of the town occupied by the whites could be heard the nickering and running of horses, the bellowing of the cows, the barking of the dogs, and now and then a fusillade of pistol shots. While in the negro section closest to his home, Colonel Gaitskill could hear the Rev. Vinegar Atts bellowing like a bull of Bashan, praying in a voice which could be heard a mile, while those who knelt with him backed him up in his stentorian implorations with responses which echoed like a roll of thunder:

“O Lawd, dese here is turr’ble times——”

(“Listen, Lawd, dat’s de trufe—turr’ble times——”)

“De sun is done turned inter darkness an’ de moon inter blood, an’ de drefful day of de Lawd am come——”

(“O-o-o Lawd, she sho’ am come——”)

“We done saw de woman clothed wid de sun an’ de moon am under her foots——”

(“Ah-ee! Amen!”)

“Accawdin’ to Dy Word she done flied out to de wilderness whar she done been nourished fer a time, an’ half a time, an’ yuther times——”

(“Ah-ee! Double time——”)

“Woe to de inhabiters of de yearth——”

(“Whoa!”)

“O-o-o Lawd, fotch down thy angel to tote dis nigger home——”

Not a man or woman, white or black, closed an eye in Tickfall that night.

The sheriff and a number of business men held innumerable conversations over the telephone and finally a company of them convened in the sheriff’s office in the courthouse to confer about what should be done to quell the panic. But conversations and conferences came to naught because they were afraid to go through the negro settlements in the dense darkness lest some panic-stricken negro fire upon them from behind the door or beneath some cabin.

At the first streak of dawn the negroes, with one accord, moved toward the business part of the town and assembled in a dense mass around the courthouse, looking to the white people for protection.

Sheriff Flournoy made them a speech telling them that the white people were their friends, that no harm could come to them, that there was no cause for uneasiness, and that he wanted them to stay around the courthouse all day.

At the conclusion of his speech, Flournoy started across the street to enter the Tickfall bank. There was a wild yell from the negroes and a mighty scramble among them to get around on the other side of the courthouse.

Diada came out of an alley beside the Gaitskill store and stood in the middle of the street. She was holding Dr. Sentelle’s ponderous walking stick by the small end like a club. She gazed, apparently in wonder, at the crowd of negroes and whites.

As the silent mob viewed her with alarm, wondering what outrage she would commit next, she caught the big stick with a hand on either end, raised it high above her head, and screamed:

“Whoosh! Whoo-ash! Whoosh!”

Flournoy drew his pistol and fired in the air above her head three times.

Diada ducked at each shot, then she stood upright, whirled the club around her head, and threw it at the sheriff. The missile curved like an arrow and went straight toward the mark. Flournoy avoided a crushed skull by falling flat upon the ground and letting the club pass over him.

When he rose to his feet, Diada was trotting down the road with the speed of the wind.

“Get your horses—everybody!” Flournoy shouted.

With that word of command began the greatest man-hunt that Tickfall Parish had ever known.

X
THE MAN-HUNT

Every man in Tickfall who had any sort of animal to ride bestrode the beast and joined the procession, which moved out of town in the wake of Diada. Hundreds of negroes who had ridden in from the plantations the night before galloped down the road behind the whites. And every canine of any size or color attached himself to the posse and went plunging along with the men.

They came to a straight stretch of road where they could see for over two miles. At the far end of that stretch they beheld Diada, her head and shoulders stooped far over, trotting with gigantic strides, traveling with the tireless persistence of a desert camel.

To their surprise, Diada did not run into the swamp, but continued upon the main road, which led to the Tickfall landing on the Mississippi River. Seeing this, the men did not attempt to run her down, but remained content to keep her in sight. At the end of an hour she was still trotting easily with no signs of fatigue.

Finally Diada turned and ran into the forest. With a mighty clamor the men raced after her, floundering through the underbrush, and galloping far over into the woods. When the posse had passed out of sight among the trees, Diada quietly climbed down from the branches of a big tree, where she had concealed herself, and started down the road again.

The dogs discovered her first.

Yelping furiously they drove her from the main road across the prairie marsh which skirted Lake Basteneau, and penned her upon a narrow point which projected like a peninsula into the lake and was thickly overgrown with cypress saplings about as large around as a man’s wrist.

The marsh between the road and the lake was too soft for the men to venture on with their horses, and it was even dangerous for a man to walk upon because of the quicksands. But the men could look from the road, across a part of the lake, and easily see Diada and the dogs.

“Don’t go after her, men!” Flournoy called. “Let the dogs run her away from there! We’ll get her when she comes off that point!”

With the large butcher-knife which she had procured from Mrs. Gaitskill’s kitchen she had begun to cut down the cypress-saplings, trimming off the leaves and the branches. She piled them up, dozens of them, working swiftly.

The dogs did not advance to attack Diada. They merely stood and barked at her. But they were in possession of the only exit from the narrow point on which Diada had been trapped.

“Dat gal must be gittin’ ready to beat dem dogs off wid dem poles,” Hitch Diamond remarked to the other negroes. “She’s shore put a job up on herse’f.”

But Diada had a surprise in store for them all.

Balancing one of the long saplings on the top of her hand she hurled it like a javelin with the speed and accuracy of an arrow. A hound-dog gave a yelp which seemed to break in two in the middle—then he died. The javelin had pinned him to the ground like an entomologist’s specimen on a cardboard.

Then the javelins flew thick and fast into that bunch of dogs, and every flying weapon found a mark and brought forth a yelp of death. In a few moments the dogs turned tail and came whining back to their masters.

Diada snatched up a number of the javelins, ran off the point of land, and trotted down the edge of the lake toward the river.

“Leave your horses and follow her, men!” Flournoy ordered.

Four hundred men sprang to the ground, spread out in a long line like a fish-seine and went plunging across the marsh in pursuit of the fleeing woman. The grass was waist high, dead and dry as dust, but it offered no places for concealment, and Diada’s tall form was easily kept in sight.

At intervals the woman turned and hurled a javelin at the posse, but they were careful to stay out of danger.

In a little while the men noticed that Diada had begun to show signs of exhaustion. She was traveling more slowly, stopping now and then to catch her breath, and moving forward with a more pronounced stoop to her mighty shoulders.

She had eaten nothing for two days, had had no rest or sleep, and was now on the last lap of a twelve-mile run at full-speed!

Finally she slowed down to a walk, and the walk became a sort of stumble. She still carried a few of her javelins, and it was evident that she was now dependent upon them to keep her pursuers at a distance, while both she and they realized that she was now in the center of a prairie of marsh grass where she could not supply herself with new weapons when those she possessed were exhausted.

Something of the pathos of the situation dawned upon the men, both white and black, and they became silent, eyes strained toward the weakening, staggering quarry, so soon to fall into their hands.

For twenty minutes the silence was unbroken except for the swish of the marsh grass as the men waded through it. Far across the prairie could be seen the levee of the Mississippi River.

Suddenly the silence was broken by the long, dear, musical whistle of a boat upon the river.

Diada stopped. Again that long, clear whistle came belling across the sun-scorched prairie.

Diada raised her hands straight up above her head like a sun-worshiper, emitted a long, plaintive, howling scream, which ended with that word which was branded upon the memories of Tickfall forever: “Whoosh! Whoo-ash!”

So dramatic was her action that the hair stood up on every man’s head, and a cold chill swept across every sweat-drenched body.

The woman trotted slowly onward, moving now in a straight line toward the river. She had nearly a mile to travel to reach the levee, and she saw that she could not make the distance before she was captured.

Then she sprung another surprise—one which came very near being the death of her pursuers.

Kneeling in the grass she picked up two tiny splinters of bark and rubbed them rapidly together. A small blue flame curled around her fingers and caught in the dry marsh grass. Running to another point she dropped the flame there.

Then a wild yell of horror swept across the prairie and she beheld four hundred men in a panic, fleeing for their lives.

Diada was safe from the fire because what little breeze there was blew landward from the lake. In an incredible time that prairie had become a furnace of fire, the racing flames pursuing the screaming men, making a scene resembling nothing so much as the picture of that hell so vividly described “where the smoke of torment ascendeth and there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!”

The fire was checked when it reached the wide sandy road which led to the Tickfall landing.

By the mercy of Heaven the men reached that road unscorched by the flames! Mounting their horses, they looked across the charred grass of the prairie and beheld Diada trotting slowly onward toward the Mississippi levee.

With a wild shout they sent their steeds pounding down the road after her.

Then around the bend of the river came a beautiful sea-going yacht—an exquisite queen of the waters. Her whistle emitted four long, clear signals for the Tickfall landing.

“By George!” Colonel Gaitskill exclaimed, “that is Captain Lemuel Manse’s yacht. My telegram caught him at Vicksburg, and he turned around and came back!”

In a moment the yacht came opposite to where Diada stood upon the bank of the river. The watching men saw her lift her hands high toward the heavens. Then they heard a long, clear shout, ending with the familiar: “Whoosh! Whoo-ash!”

The yacht answered with two short, sharp whistle signals.

Diada ran swiftly down the levee, and then leaped high and plunged far over into the muddy waters of the Mississippi!

The wondering, watching men saw her head emerge from the waves, saw her swim like a fish to the yacht, saw her seize a rope which was tossed over the side, and climb hand over hand to safety and rest and peace and the care and protection of her friends!

“That’s all, men!” Gaitskill said in a voice which choked in his throat. “You may all go back home now. Diada is gone from Tickfall forever!”

XI
“WHU ATCH”

The yacht anchored in the middle of the river; a skiff went to shore and brought Colonel Tom Gaitskill and Sheriff Flournoy on board.

Sitting around a small table on the deck they told Captain Lemuel Manse the story of Diada’s sojourn in Tickfall.

Finally Gaitskill asked:

“Lem, what the devil did that wench mean by hollering ‘Whoosh!’ at everybody?”

“She was not saying ‘Whoosh,’” Captain Manse replied. “What she said was ‘Whu atch!’ That was the first expression she used to me when the cannibal chief brought her aboard the yacht.”

“Well, what does it mean?” Gaitskill persisted.

Captain Manse put his hand with a kindly gesture upon his friend’s arm and told him.

Gaitskill’s fine face turned ashen, and he winced as if a knife had pierced his heart.

The words mean:

“Help! I am in trouble!”

Getting Ready to Die

Sheriff John Flournoy loafed in the office of the Tickfall Whoop, and listened to the bark and splutter of a little one-dog-power engine attached to the printing press. The air was permeated with the odor of gasoline, machine oil, and printers’ ink. The cigar he was attempting to smoke tasted of all three, and he tossed it out of the window.

“Just before Christmas is the worst time of the year,” he sighed impatiently. “Everybody tries to be so blame cheerful and good-natured.”

He turned around in his screaking swivel-chair and glared at the typewriter on the table before him. He reached out an idle finger and touched a key; there was an immediate response in the sharp tap of the type upon the platen.

“I never did fiddle with one of these things,” he grinned to himself, as he picked up a sheet of paper and adjusted it in the machine. “But I’m never too old to learn.”

Then, with the ponderous middle finger of each giant hand, the big sheriff began to poke out letters which spelled words—sometimes. Tiny beads of sweat came out on his forehead; his iron jaws clamped; his lips tightened; and a strained look came into his eyes, accentuating the tiny wrinkles which formed crows’-feet on each side of his temples.

“Gosh!” he complained. “I never worked as hard in my whole life. Why in thunder don’t they arrange these letters alphabetically, instead of scrambling them all over the ranch so a feller can’t find them?”

After a long time he leaned back with a sigh of infinite relief and snatched the paper from the machine. A broad grin spread over his face at the sight of his handiwork.

“This is a fearful and wonderful thing,” he chuckled. “I didn’t know there were as many figures, punctuation marks, and capital letters in the world as I have interspersed gratuitously in this interesting communication.”

The bark and splutter of the gasoline engine suddenly ceased. Flournoy sprang up and opened the door of the office entering into the press-room.

“What’s the matter?” he demanded. “Broke down?”

“Naw,” the one lone printer informed him. “I’m finished.”

“No, you ain’t!” Flournoy informed him. “Come in here a minute!”

Wonderingly, the printer entered the office. Flournoy handed him the sheet of paper on which he had been writing.

“How much space will that take in your paper?” the sheriff asked.

The printer finished reading, broke into a loud laugh, and answered:

“About two sticks.”

“All right,” Flournoy grinned. “You set that up, take some article of the same length out of your paper, and put mine in its place. Then run me off three copies.”

Half an hour later the printer entered the office with three damp copies of the Tickfall Whoop and pointed to the contribution which Flournoy had furnished.

“These three papers are all you ran off?” the sheriff asked.

“Yep.”

“All right. You understand this piece of news is not for general circulation.”

Folding and pocketing the three copies, Flournoy walked slowly back toward his office in the courthouse.

Sitting on a stone step in front of the court house, trusting the December sun to limber up his rheumatic muscles, was old Isaiah Gaitskill. Motionless as a stone idol, his battered wool hat in his clawlike hand, toothless, his face wrinkled like the withered hull of a walnut, his snow-white wool fitting his head like a rubber cap, he made a characteristic picture of the South.

“Have you seen a copy of the Tickfall Whoop this morning, Isaiah?” Flournoy asked.

“Naw, suh. I lef’ my specks to home, an’ so I didn’t git no paper,” Isaiah answered easily.

“Here’s one of ’em,” Flournoy grinned, taking it from his pocket. “You better look it over—there’s something about you in it.”

“How’s dat, boss?” Isaiah asked quickly. “Who knowed my name so good dat he writ’ me in de paper?”

“Your name isn’t mentioned,” Flournoy smiled. “It just speaks of the colored folks in general. Shall I read the article to you?”

“Yes, suh, ef you please, suh,” Isaiah answered eagerly. “I hadn’t oughter lef’ my readin’ specks at de hawg-camp. My Lawd, how come all de niggers got spoke about in de white folks’ paper?”

Flournoy impressively opened the sheet, adjusted his eye-glasses with dignity, frowned portentously, knowing well that the negro was watching every move. Having thus impressed Isaiah with the importance of the article, Flournoy read aloud what he had written a few minutes before:

DANGER! DANGER!

ALL THE NEGROES IN TICKFALL ABOUT TO DIE!

A mysterious disease has broken out among the negroes in Tickfall, resulting in a number of sudden deaths. The doctors of the town declare there is no cure. The parish health-officer, Dr. Moseley, pronounces the disease to be “ancestors,” and declares that all the negroes have them——

There was a lot more of the same sort, and it was read aloud by Sheriff Flournoy with due impressiveness, and with the design of striking terror into the hearts of the negroes of Tickfall. When he had finished reading, this incorrigible practical joker asked seriously:

“Would you like to have a copy of this paper, Isaiah?”

“Yes, suh, boss! Gimme two copies!” Isaiah exclaimed as he sprang to his feet. “I’s gwine down an’ tell de niggers somepin dey don’t know!”

Snatching the papers from the sheriff, old Isaiah started toward Dirty-Six with surprising speed for a man of his age and feebleness. The first person he met was the Rev. Vinegar Atts.

“How come all dis bust of speed, Isaiah?” the fat preacher grumbled. “Whut’s itchin’ on you to trabbel so peart?”

Isaiah thrust the paper into the hands of Vinegar Atts.

“Read!” he chattered. “Read dat paper an’ git ready to die!”

The fat, pot-bellied, squat-legged preacher spraddled his feet in the middle of the road like a Colossus and began to read. Suddenly his hand trembled, his feet began to shuffle in the sand, and he breathed heavily and audibly, like an asthmatic donkey. When he had finished, his hands dropped inertly to his sides, and with wide-open mouth, he sucked in a breath which threatened to consume all the air in Tickfall.

“My Gawd!” he bawled. “Isaiah, I tell you de honest truth—I ain’t fitten to die. I ain’t made no kind of arrangements to die!”

“Dat’s right!” Isaiah agreed mournfully. “Dis here terr’ble news is done kotch me up short, too!”

“Lemme sot down!” Vinegar panted, as he walked to the curb and sat down with his feet in the gutter.

The paper shook in his trembling hand, and Vinegar glared at it with horror-stricken eyes. One imagines that a condemned criminal would gaze at a cup of poison with such a look. The man’s thick lips turned ashen, and when he snatched off his hat his scalp had become furrowed with little ridges.

To one unfamiliar with the negro character, it is almost incredible how much importance the members of that race attach to the printed word. Since that time, over half a century ago, when every negro received a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and by the magic of print found himself free from bondage, it has never occurred to one of them to question the veracity of any article in book, magazine, or newspaper. Printed words have the potency of words of Holy Writ.

“O Lawdy!” Atts bawled. “Ain’t dis awful? My gosh, I never had no notion befo’ whut a mean, wuthless, onery nigger I is! Isaiah, I’s a bad nigger. Nobody don’t soupspicion how bad I is!”

“Gawd knows!” Isaiah remarked gloomily.

“Yes, brudder,” Vinegar whined, gasping for air. “Dat is whut is troublin’ my mind right now!”

“Sheriff John Flournoy gimme two papers,” Isaiah said. “I cain’t read nothin’. I’s gwine leave ’em wid you. I’s moseyin’ back to de hawg-camp to git ready to die!”

“Dat’s right, Isaiah,” Vinegar mourned. “Dat is all whut is lef’ fer us po’ niggers to do. Less all start to git ready to prepare to die!”

A few minutes later Vinegar Atts entered the Hen-Scratch saloon, dragged his lead-weighted feet over the sand-covered floor, and fumblingly spread out a copy of the paper upon the table before the eyes of Skeeter Butts, Hitch Diamond, and Figger Bush.

“Read dat, niggers!” he bellowed in awe-stricken tones. “Read an’ prepare fer de end!”

Skeeter Butts started to read the article aloud, but long before he had finished his voice was trembling until he could hardly enunciate the awful words. He stopped, placed his quivering hands over his face, tried to rub the stiffness out of the muscles of his lips and cheeks, and sighed:

“You finish it fer us, Revun! Dis is awful!”

When Vinegar Atts concluded, the three negroes groaned aloud.

“Whar did you git dat paper, Revun?” Hitch Diamond inquired, his giant form shaking with the palsy.

“Isaiah got it from Sheriff Flournoy,” Atts replied.

“Ef Sheriff Flournoy an’ Dr. Moseley is tuck it up, dar ain’t no hopes fer us,” Skeeter Butts lamented. “Dem white mens do bizzness wid niggers ’thout no pity. De pest-wagon is comin’ fer us all!”

Into each mind came the instant recollection of that dreadful time, thirty years before, when the yellow-fever had invaded Tickfall, leaving barely enough of the living to bury the dead; when two-wheeled carts had rumbled through the negro settlements of Tickfall at midnight, and the cart-driver had bellowed through a cloth saturated with carbolic acid and wrapped around his mouth: “Bring out your corpse!”

“Whu-whu-whut is ancestors?” Hitch Diamond stammered, glaring at the newspaper. “Whut kind of new ailment is dat?”

“De paper don’t say,” Skeeter Butts declared tremblingly. “But I figger it’s some kind of new worm or bug. All de niggers has ’em.”

“I wonder ef dat’s how come I feels so bad?” Figger Bush asked fearfully, pulling at his little shoebrush mustache. “I thought I needed a drink or somepin, but dis writin’ says it’s a epizootic!”

“No mo’ drinks fer you, Figger,” Vinegar Atts rumbled. “Ef you figger on havin’ any shore hopes of heaven, you better cut it out!”

“I—I—I swears off now!” Figger stuttered, looking at Atts with eyes which nearly popped out of his head.

“All us niggers better refawm,” Hitch Diamond declared. “I don’t b’lieve prize-fightin’ is a fitten occupation fer a nigger about to die!”

“Sellin’ booze shorely ain’t a heavenly job,” Skeeter said sadly. “I never thought ’bout dat befo’.”

“Preachin’ don’t he’p a nigger be as good as I wish it would,” Rev. Vinegar Atts lamented. “I’s a real mean nigger myse’f!”

“Ef all de niggers in Tickfall dies, whut’ll de white folks do fer wuck-hands?” Figger Bush asked.

“Huh,” Hitch Diamond grunted. “No white man wouldn’t miss you! You ain’t did a day’s wuck sense you wus bawned.”

“I wus bawned tired,” Figger said defensively. “I’s jes’ nachelly one of dese set-easy niggers!”

“You better git a hustle on you in yo’ las days,” Skeeter informed him. “De good Lawd ain’t got no use fer lazy folks.”

“Us better all git gooder dan we is,” Vinegar Atts said positively. “I been tellin’ dese Tickfall niggers eve’y Sunday ’bout deir devilmint, but ’tain’t done ’em no good. Now it’s plum’ too late!”

“Naw, Revun, ’tain’t too late,” Skeeter Butts said earnestly. “I b’lieve us’ll all listen to religium advices right now. Don’t gib us up—keep on tryin’!”

“Would you wish to he’p me refawm dese niggers?” Atts asked.

“Suttinly,” Skeeter said eagerly. “Ef dey don’t refawm, I’ll shoot daylights through ’em—I—I mean I’ll be powerful sorry for ’em.”

Skeeter took a big breath, sighed audibly, and wiped the cold sweat from his temples.

“Will you he’p in dis refawm, Hitch?” Vinegar inquired.

“Shore will!” Hitch informed him. “I’ll begin on de fust nigger you p’ints out to me. Jes’ one religium roun’ will be all Hitchie wants—I’s de real K. O. con of dis town.”

“Dat ain’t de right kind of talk to use, Hitch,” Vinegar said reprovingly. “You better learn some church-word talk befo’ you starts out on dis refawm.”

“Dem niggers will git my drift,” Hitch declared with conviction.

“Whut refawms is we gwine start?” Skeeter Butts asked.

“Lawd,” Figger Bush squeaked. “It’s a endless job—look at me for ninstunce!”

“Whut is yo’ mos’ upsettin’ sin, Figger?” Vinegar asked.

Figger meditated for a long time. Then he said:

“So many sins is done got me down dat I don’t rickolect which one fust upset me, Revun.”

“Aw, don’t waste no time on Figger!” Skeeter Butts said disgustedly. “He’s a hopeless job!”

“Don’t say dat, Skeeter!” Figger pleaded. “You know you is done led me inter all de devilmint I ever done!”

Skeeter gasped like a landed fish.

“Ain’t it de truth!” he mourned. “You ain’t never had sense enough to be bad by yo’se’f! I shore is made a bad impression on you, Figger—I’s awful sorry!”

“Less pass some rules ’bout dis refawm!” Hitch Diamond proposed. “We’ll bunch all de sins togedder an’ tell de niggers to quit ’em all!”

“Dat’s de idear!” Vinegar agreed. “Git me a pencil an’ a piece of write-on paper!”

Perfervid advocates of temperance and total abstinence violently proclaim without fear of successful contradiction that in the haunts of the demon rum are hatched out all the iniquitous schemes for the destruction of the morals of the people. Nevertheless, this is the record of the most extensive reform ever achieved in any community in the United States, and it was born in the Hen-Scratch saloon, in a negro settlement called Dirty-Six, in Tickfall, Louisiana, on a certain day in December.

For two hours the four negroes sweated and fumed, consuming cigarettes, and devising their code of morals. At last Vinegar Atts laid the sheet of paper on the table and they surveyed the result:

No lofen.
No quorlen.
No fites.
No kussen.
No drams.
No gamblen.
No steelen.

“My Lawd!” Figger Bush sighed. “Dat takes away all my employments. Ef a nigger cain’t do none of dem things he mought as well be dead!”

“You’se gwine be soon enough, Figger,” Vinegar Atts reminded him in mournful tones. “Don’t go shovin’ up dat happenstance by wishin’ fer it!”

“‘No fites,’” Hitch Diamond read. “Dat puts me outen bizziness.”

“I ain’t got no job,” Skeeter mourned, looking at the paper. “‘No drams, no gamblen.’”

“‘No lofen,’” Vinegar Atts lamented. “I’s a powerful fat nigger to git active right sudden, at my age.”

Suddenly Atts sprang to his feet and howled:

“Hol’ on, niggers—us needs anodder rule! I adds, ‘No cuttin’ out church!’”

“’Tain’t necessary,” Hitch snickered. “You cain’t keep de niggers outen chu’ch when terr’ble times comes!”

“I guess us better git out an’ succulate dis repote, niggers,” Vinegar said when he received this assurance. “Us ain’t got any too much time. De Shoofly chu’ch-bell rings to-night at eight o’clock.”

The grapevine telephone was promptly put into operation, and in twenty minutes every negro in Tickfall knew that a dreadful and mysterious malady was rife among them, and that death waited just around the corner with a sharp butcher-knife in his hand.

Laughter died in the throats of the most laughter-loving people in the world; the thrumming of the banjo ceased in the cabin; the chatter of care-free women and the shouts of happy pickaninnies sank away into silence; easy-smiling lips took on a pout of distress, and eyes which usually glowed with humor looked into the mystery and the dark of the unknown and were strained and fear-stricken.

Like old hens going to roost, the women began to assemble in the large, barnlike Shoofly church long before dark. The town began to fill up with negroes from the plantations and the swamps, and from every negro settlement in Tickfall, the feet of the negroes made straight paths toward the Shoofly church. The ringing of the church-bell was a signal for the belated to hasten, and the building was packed with people when Vinegar Atts rose and started a hymn. It was an old, familiar tune to them all, and for a moment the great volume of sound rolled out of the house and thundered into the ears of all the white inhabitants of the town. But as the congregation began to consider the meaning of the words they sang, they appeared ominous with warning and threat, and gradually the voices died away:

Some folks do not believe
Dat a whale could Joner receive;
But dat don’t make my tale at all untrue!
Dar is whales on eve’y side,
Wid deir mouths opened wide,
An’ you better look out or one will swaller you!

Then Vinegar Atts announced:

“Mr. Muskeeter Butts will specify de puppus of dis meetin’!”

Skeeter arose, clawed at his high, white collar so that he could speak without strangling to death, adjusted his enormous cuffs so that he could hold the newspaper, and began in a trembling, squeaky voice:

“Marse John Flournoy gib dis here newspaper to Isaiah Gaitskill. Brudder Isaiah gib it to Revun Vinegar Atts. I reads a piece offen dis here front page.”

As Skeeter read, the negroes joined in with a wailing lamentation, which as the fearful news sank into their consciousness became thunderous.

“‘Danger! Danger!’” Skeeter read. “‘All de niggers in Tickfall about to die!’”

(“O Lawd, hab mussy! Dig my grave wid a silber spoon!”)

“‘A mysterious disease has broken out among the negroes in Tickfall, result-in’ in a num-ber of sud-den death——’”

(“Ah-ee. O he’p us! Gwine to die!”)

“‘De dorctors of de town de-clare dar is no cure—’”

(“Jes’ plum’ ’bleeged an’ bound to die!”)

All night long the negroes remained packed in the Shoofly church, actually too scared to go home in the dark. Song after song rolled like thunder from the building, a pathetic effort to drown their fears with music. Never had Vinegar Atts been as earnest in his prayers and exhortations, nor had the people of his parish ever before shown such earnestness in their responses. Every man and woman in the church professed religion that night. Never was a reform as instantaneous and as complete.

Along toward day the negroes began to rid themselves of their weapons of sin. Figger Bush came to the front of the congregation with the “jerks” and tremblingly laid upon the top of the table a cheap pistol, a pair of brass knucks, and a deck of greasy, soiled playing cards. His example was contagious, and in a few minutes the table was loaded with cards, whisky bottles, dice, brass knucks, daggers, razors, rabbit feet, and hoodoo-charms of all sorts.

“Cornfess yo’ sins!” Vinegar Atts bellowed. “Cornfess up!”

Negroes sprang up all over the house and bawled their iniquities into the ears of the people, but each negro was too intent on thinking of his own transgression to listen to the vices of his fellow, who spoke as a dying man to dying men!

When the rising sun dissolved the last lurking shadow, the all-night revival came to an end in this manner:

Hitch Diamond arose, holding in his hand the sheet of paper which contained the rules of reform devised in the Hen-Scratch saloon.

“I motions befo’ we turns out dat all of us promise to keep de rules wroted down on dis paper!” he bellowed.

After he had read the list the congregation unanimously adopted this new code of conduct and dispersed. The people walked home in groups, looking fearfully behind them at intervals, lifting their feet high like turkeys walking through mud, ready at an instant for precipitate flight.

The sudden reform among the negroes of Tickfall caused a sensation among the white people of the village.

As a general thing, a white man was accustomed to spending four days hunting for a negro willing to do half a day’s work; he secured promises from ten darkies to “be dar early in de mawnin’.” Then he waited ten days, and went out and did the work himself.

But by nine o’clock on this day, the Tickfall bank was crowded with negroes who wished to see Marse Tom Gaitskill about getting a job. Every merchant in the town was beset by applications for labor. Darkies walked from house to house, seeking employment, and every chance pedestrian upon the street was accosted with a greeting which after a while almost shattered the nerves of the white inhabitants of the village:

“Got any wuck fer a strong, willin’ nigger, boss?”

Of course the negroes spoke not a word which would reveal the reason for this sudden increase in industry, and the white people could only observe the amazing results and wonder.

Nearly every lawn in Tickfall held a boy busy with tools, cutting the grass, raking the dead leaves, hoeing out the flower-beds, and mending the fences. White people accustomed to seeing a workman take ten minutes to chop down one weed, and half an hour to light his corn-cob pipe, now observed that all were working with feverish haste, and at the same time with the most minute care and exactness as if it were a religious observance of some sort.

“What ails all these coons in town?” Gaitskill laughed as he looked down the street and saw not a single dusky loafer.

“Christmas is coming!” Flournoy laughed. “Day after to-morrow is Christmas. Had you forgotten?”

“They must expect to draw a prize-package from the white Santa Clauses this year,” Gaitskill grinned. “Heretofore they’ve been jest as lazy before as after.”

At that moment Hitch Diamond came around the corner and stopped in front of the Gaitskill store.

“Marse Tom,” he said earnestly. “How much do a barrel of lime cost?”

“Not much,” Gaitskill said. “Want to whitewash something?”

“Yes, suh; dat is, some yuther niggers do. Us is got a notion to waste a lot of whitewash on our fences an’ cabins.”

“I’ll give the niggers all the lime they need,” Gaitskill said promptly. “Tell ’em to come to this store and get it free!”

Hitch Diamond turned and walked hastily down the street. In the next half hour he paid a call at every cabin in all the negro settlements of Tickfall. He pounded on each cabin door with his iron fist, and when the door was opened he entered and looked around.

“How many niggers lives in dis cabin?” he asked. “How many of dat gang is got ’um a job?”

When he found a negro who had no employment, he swept down upon him with all the righteous fury of a prophet of old.

“Whut ails you, nigger? Don’t you know you’s gwine to die? Git ready! Git ready! Go to Marse Tom Gaitskill’s sto’ an’ tell dem white men to gib you a bucket of lime an’ a white-wash brush. Den you white dis cabin, inside an’ out, an’ put whut’s lef’ on dis ole rickety, busted-down fence! Fix de fence up, too!”

At noon, when Gaitskill passed his store on the way to lunch, a clerk ran out and said:

“Colonel, do you really mean for us to give all that lime away? The niggers have carried away forty barrels of whitewash in the last two hours!”

Gaitskill emitted a sharp whistle of surprise. He scratched his head a moment, then grinned:

“It’s all right, Frank. Let ’em have it. Christmas is coming!”

Rev. Vinegar Atts found himself overwhelmed with work. The sudden change in the moral life of his parishioners made a demand upon his services every moment of that busy day. Sick people, who could not come to the church, sent for him to come to see them. Prayer-meetings were held in many of the cabins. A constant stream of people moved in and out of the Shoofly church, and their singing and shouting could be heard for a mile.

“Git ready to die! Git ready to die!” Vinegar bawled from house to house. “De ancestors will git you ef you don’t watch out!”

Under Hitch Diamond’s direction, all the negro settlements were being whitewashed. Under Vinegar Atts’s admonition the cabins were swept out, the yards were cleaned, the cabins were aired, and every scrap of paper and every particle of trash was gathered up and burned. These were not original ideas with the negroes. They had been taught this in the fever epidemic, when a government health officer had had charge of the sanitary work of the village.

The village began to fill up with strange darkies who had come in from the plantations and the swamp.

“Whut you coons doin’ here?” Vinegar Atts demanded of a bunch of them.

“Us come in whar de dorctors kin git to us easy,” one of them answered nervously. “Word wus sont dat all de niggers is about to die!”

“Dat’s right!” Vinegar bellowed. “But whut sort of sight will you coons be when you is dead—mud all over yo’ britches an’ no socks on? Git busy and clean up! Go down to de bayou an’ take a wash—buy you a clean shu’t an’ some socks—git ready to die!”

Skeeter Butts sat alone in the Hen-Scratch saloon. He was the only idler in Tickfall, a compulsory idler, for the reform had put him out of business. The sound of the fiddle and the banjo was heard no more. Laughter and shouting had ceased. Not a negro entered his barroom, and most of his regular customers passed on the other side of the street. Skeeter sat in front of his saloon all day in mournful and fearful loneliness.

Then, just at dark, he had the surprise of his life.

Three men came up the street and stopped, talked for a moment in low tones, then entered the saloon on tiptoe and came to where Skeeter was sitting behind the bar.

“Us is a cormittee to wait on you, Skeeter,” Vinegar Atts said in funereal tones.

“Whut is I done?” Skeeter asked in a frightened voice.

“’Tain’t whut you done; it’s whut you ain’t done,” Vinegar informed him. “You done showed yo’se’f de one sinner in Tickfall.”

“How come?” Skeeter asked.

Vinegar Atts produced the paper on which he had written the “Rules of Reform” in that very room the day before. He handed the paper to Skeeter.

“Whut do de fust rule say, Skeeter?” he demanded.

“‘No lofen,’” Skeeter read tremblingly.

Vinegar Atts placed a heavy hand upon the shoulder of the barkeeper and bawled:

“What is you done fer a livin’ to-day, nigger?”

“Nothin’,” Skeeter stammered. “I—it ’pears like you-all is done put me outside of a job. I ain’t had no customers to-day.”

“You been loafin’,” Hitch Diamond proclaimed in a pugnacious voice. “How does you especk to git to heaven when you die? Don’t you know de ancestors will get you befo’ mawnin’?”

“Less don’t gib de ancestors no show at him,” Figger Bush squealed. Figger was covered with whitewash, had done his first day’s work for years, and was feeling righteous. “Less hang him to a tree an’ larn him a lesson!”

“Hol’ on, fellers!” Skeeter begged earnestly. “I didn’t ketch on ’bout dis rule. I figgered dat a nigger whut had a job oughter stay on it. De Tickfall niggers all j’ined de refawm, but I thought I oughter stay on my job so I could sell booze to de coons from de swamp an’ de plantations. But none of ’em didn’t buy!”

“You git outen dis sinful saloon an’ go to wuck,” Hitch howled, shaking his hamlike fist under Skeeter’s nose, “or I’ll bust yo’ fool neck!”

“Yo’ intentions is good, Hitch,” Vinegar Atts said reprovingly; “but you is done busted rule two whut says ‘no quorlin’,’ an’ you mighty nigh fractioned rule number three whut specifies ‘no fightin’!”

“I—er—uh—Skeeter knows I ain’t mean no harm,” Hitch murmured painfully. “I jes’ said dat because I loves him. I’d druther bust his neck dan not hab him foller along atter us when us goes to heaben.”

“I’ll git good,” Skeeter said meekly. “I’ll see Marse John Flournoy as soon as it’s good daylight to-morrer.”

“Better not pesticate Marse John, Skeeter,” Figger Bush advised him. “He tole me dat de nex’ nigger whut axed him fer a job wus flirtin’ wid a hearse!”

“Whut kin I do?” Skeeter lamented. “Dar uster be mo’ free jobs dan willin’ niggers; now dar’s mo’ niggers dan jobs.”

“Ef you cain’t wuck fer somebody else, wuck, for yo’se’f,” Vinegar Atts advised him. “Git a scrub-brush an’ slop-bucket an’ scour out dis here saloom. Git a sack of lime an’ whitewash it! Dis house belongs to Sheriff Flournoy, an’ he’ll remember you kind when you is goned hencefo’th an’ ain’t never no mo’!”

“I’ll shore do it!” Skeeter assured them.

Having accomplished their mission, the committee then sat down and became sociable over Skeeter’s cigarettes. When they had smoked for a while Skeeter suddenly asked:

“Revun Atts, whut is de lates’ news from de epizootic?”

“I ain’t heerd nothin’,” Atts replied. “Of co’se, I ain’t gwine aroun’ beggin’ fer de pest-wagon by axin’ de white folks no fool questions!”

“Whut do de papers say?” Skeeter persisted.

“Dunno.”

“I bet you some of dem papers is got a heap mo’ in ’em ’bout de disease dan de papers us niggers got to read,” Figger Bush proclaimed.

“Huh!” Vinegar Atts exclaimed. “I never thunk of dat! Of co’se, de white folks ain’t gwine print all de news fer a nigger.”

“Dey don’t divide up nothin’ else even,” Hitch Diamond said. “I motions dat Skeeter Butts be ’p’inted a cormittee to visit all de white folks’ houses an’ colleck up deir old Tickfall Whoopses so us kin git de lates’ news.”

“I’ll do it,” Skeeter said uneasily; “but I ain’t gwine tell ’em whut I wants wid de papers. I’ll specify dat I wants ’em to cover some shelves in de Hen-Scratch.”

“Start soon in de mawnin’, Skeeter,” Atts admonished him. “We’ll meet you here at dinner-time an’ read up—mebbe all de niggers on de plantations is dead an’ us don’t know it. I’s seed a whole passel of buzzards sailin’ aroun’ to-day!”

The committee moved on, visiting from house to house, admonishing each occupant who had not observed all the rules of reform, just as the white men had done years before during the fever epidemic.

Then a totally unexpected thing happened.

The next day being Christmas Eve, every negro in Tickfall lost his job at noon. All business places were closed, and every man went home to get a good start for the Christmas celebration. Several hundred negroes found themselves with a half-day of idleness confronting them. They cut all the weeds on the streets in all the negro settlements, burned all the trash, put four coats of whitewash on the Shoofly church, mended all the fences, tore down several unsightly shacks which had been decaying in the sun for half a century, dug ditches to drain their communities, and ceased their work at dark to get supper and assemble in their church, where Vinegar Atts later confronted more work-weary parishioners then he had ever seen before.

In the midst of their evening service Skeeter Butts arrived, carrying a bundle of papers almost as large as himself, which he placed upon a table in front of the pulpit desk.

This incident was sensational in itself, promising all sorts of fearful possibilities; but the congregation received its greatest jolt when it beheld the Rev. Dr. Sentelle crippling slowly up the aisle behind Skeeter, leaning heavily upon his eleven-pound walking stick.

Dr. Sentelle was the lion of Tickfall, beloved and magnified by whites and blacks. He was a man of influence and power for miles around. Intense courage glowed in his eyes, which held smoldering flames like the eyes of a jungle beast; tenderness, gentleness, sweetness, and love, love, love were etched in the map of his pain-wrinkled face like an illuminated missal by Bellini; and his beautiful voice was as sweet as music, every spoken word caressing like a woman’s hand.

“Bless Gawd!” Vinegar Atts bellowed at sight of the white clergyman. “I capsizes right now in favor of de Revun Dr. Sentelle. He’s gwine fotch us a Chris’mus message!”

The entire congregation rose to their feet. Vinegar Atts trotted half-way down the aisle and met the cripple. With a murmur of thanks, the white man placed his delicate, blue-veined hand in the crotch of Vinegar’s powerful arm and stumbled slowly, feebly forward to the pulpit platform. When he had seated himself the negroes sank quietly back upon the benches.

In the meantime all the business men in Tickfall were holding a meeting in the rear of the Tickfall bank.

“I propose a basket of grub for every nigger cabin in town!” Gaitskill proclaimed as he sat at the head of the table. “We have no poor whites in this village, but the negroes are always hungry.”

There was a unanimous murmur of assent.

Then Gaitskill laughed.

“By the way, what has happened to set all the coons to cleaning up? I’ve been too dang liberal with my benefactions—I’m short sixty-two barrels of lime!”

“Christmas is coming!” several voices murmured, and there were many nodding heads, and a broad grin passed around the table.

“Say, fellers,” Sheriff Flournoy grinned, rising to his feet and taking a newspaper from his pocket, “er—ah—I beg pardon, are we through with business?”

“Sure!” Gaitskill smiled. “We’re agreed that the niggers get the grub.”

“I started a little joke in town the other day,” Flournoy went on.

Then he explained about the article he had written, and read it aloud to them.

There was a whoop of laughter, after which one asked:

“Did you get results?”

“No,” Flournoy said disgustedly. “I ought not to have started it with old Isaiah Gaitskill—he’s about half-witted.”

“By George!” Gaitskill exclaimed, springing to his feet. “That accounts for all this cleaning up and whitewash—the niggers are expecting an epidemic of disease and are getting ready to die!”

Perfect silence greeted this announcement as its full significance dawned upon each man. Then Dr. Moseley, the parish health officer, spoke earnestly:

“Gentlemen, let us not say one word to the contrary. Let the darkies clean up and keep clean!”

“I have done good by stealth and blush to find it fame!” Flournoy interrupted mockingly.

“It means health, gentlemen,” Dr. Moseley declared. “Health and long life to us all—er—by the way, I propose that as a toast right now!”

For nearly forty years Gaitskill had held this meeting in the rear of his bank on every Christmas Eve. The men were familiar with his custom, and the physician’s suggestion met with instant response.

Gaitskill rose, unlocked his desk, pushed back the top, and the men gazed with lively anticipation upon the glasses and decanters there concealed.

“Hitch!” Gaitskill called. “Oh, Hitch Diamond! Come here!”

There was no answer. Hitch had long before deserted the colonel and gone to the Shoofly church.

“I bet that coon answers promptly to-morrow morning,” Gaitskill laughed as he grumblingly filled the glasses.

“Christmas is coming!” a laughing chorus murmured.

Suddenly there was a shout which rolled like thunder over Tickfall, the sound permeating even the thick walls of the Tickfall bank.

“Listen to the niggers!” Flournoy grinned.

There was a moment’s silence; then the mighty ululations of a negro song floated to them on the wings of the wind. The men arose.

“Health and long life to us all!” Dr. Moseley repeated.

“To us all!” the men murmured with nodding heads. Then they drank.

Time inevitably weakens all reforms. It robs the greatest and most imminent danger of its terror. And time completely overthrew the reform in Tickfall and so endowed the negroes with courage that any timid darky would have tickled the whiskers of a bearcat with the end of his flat nose.

The time required to accomplish this relapse was one day—the day which comes but once a year—Christmas!

The day found every negro in Tickfall in a receptive mood. As a result, every white man in the town had the privilege of a few moments’ conversation with all the blacks in the town some time during the day.

The sun-slashed streets of Tickfall were filled with them, moving to and fro, like ants in a hill, all feverish in their activity, and all so shoutingly happy that the town was as noisy as a parrot’s cage.

Their order of advance was something like this:

a The servants of the household.
b Those who had been servants during the year.
c Servants of former years.
d Those who had done odd jobs.
e Those whose names the white man knew.
f Those who knew the white man’s name.
g All the other niggers in town.

And each white man had supplied himself with about half a barrel of cheap candy, three or four bunches of bananas, a barrel of apples, a hatful of small change, and a supply of tobacco, cigars, plugs, and snuff, bestowing these gifts according to his inclination.

The first ceremony of the day was the formal distribution of the eggnog to the servants of the household.

Of course, after Hitch Diamond, Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, and the rest of our colored friends had spent three days in a frightful ride upon the water-wagon, their repeated visits to the homes of their Tickfall white friends where the eggnog foamed like the surf of the sea had a most demoralizing effect.

In fact, Hitch Diamond and Vinegar Atts called upon Marse Tom Gaitskill and made themselves such nuisances that Gaitskill locked them both up in an empty corn-crib and turned the water-hose on them.

Death had no terrors for these people on Christmas Day.

“Huh!” Hitch Diamond bellowed. “I wouldn’t be skeart to-day even ef de Revun Dr. Sentelle hadn’t made us such a purty speech. I done separated my idears from my habits!”

“I ain’t skeart, neider!” Vinegar Atts whooped. “Nobody ain’t gwine pat me in de face wid a spadeful of dirt!”

Christmas baskets came to every cabin; pickaninnies ran the streets, their pockets filled with pennies, and their hats laden with oranges, bananas, and cheap candy; children, white and black, cluttered up the few asphalt pavements with every sort of Christmas toys, until the careless pedestrian was in danger of tripping over some contraption and breaking every leg he had; and negro women gadded the streets dressed in finery which was very suggestive to the white folks of dresses they had seen earlier in the year in the drawing-rooms of their women.

By nightfall the Hen-Scratch saloon was filled with negro men, all perfectly sober, and all laughing, and all happy beyond the dreams of angels.

Figger Bush thrummed a banjo; Pap Curtain had a fiddle; Mustard Prophet blew a cornet; while every man exhausted the vocal treasury of his throat for sounds to add to the volume of music:

I’s as crazy as a loon,
Fer I gib a silber spoon
To a yeller she-coon,
On dis here Chris’mus day.
But a white woman owned it,
An’ said she never loaned it,
An’ de cotehouse kotch me right away!

Vinegar Atts pushed through the crowd, shaking hands cordially, smiling like a big, fat baby, and bellowing his congratulations:

“Merry Chris’mus, niggers! Us is done fell from amazin’ grace to a floatin’ opportunity!”

“Bless Gawd!” Skeeter Butts squealed. “I’s shore glad us ain’t refawmed no more! Less all j’ine hands in a circuous-ring an’ sing dat good ole favoryte toon, ‘De Star-Spangled Banana’!”

“Naw!” Vinegar Atts bawled. “We is done loss all our good sense! Less go an’ pay our manners to de white folks!”

“Lead de way! Lead de way!” a chorus of voices answered. “Us follers right at yo’ hip!”

Weep and howl, ye dwellers in the East and West and North, because ye were not in Tickfall on that Christmas night! Your negroes have cast aside the supreme gifts which make us love them in the South—humor, pathos, laughter, and music!

You listen to your phonographs and try to imagine what real music is like; you go to grand opera and think you hear it; but reserve your judgment until you hear a marching column of negro men, each of their throats having the range and capacity of a pipe-organ, and all of their songs set to a sweet minor, which is characteristic of the music of all enslaved people since that far distant day when the whip-driven Israelites “hung their harps on the willows.”

On the Christmas following the close of the Civil War, the impoverished white people of Tickfall sent Christmas baskets to their ex-slaves, who were as poor and hungry as themselves. That night those ex-slaves, as an expression of their gratitude to their old masters, formed in a body and walked from house to house, singing the songs of the old plantation days. White women came out upon the porticoes, leaned their quivering shoulders against the big columns, and wept uncontrollably in memory of other and happier days.

White men stumped out upon those same porches with crutches and canes, or with wooden legs, and listening, visualized the smoke-fogged battlefields, the blood-drenched ground, the clash and onsets of the great war, and beyond the acrid smoke of that holocaust they beheld a magnificent civilization which rose in beauty like a dream, and then vanished forever more. For over half a century this custom had been observed every Christmas. It survived the horrors of the Reconstruction Era when Northern carpet-baggers sought to lead the black race astray and turn them against their former masters.

And now that marching column had formed again, two hundred strong, two abreast, with Vinegar Atts and Hitch Diamond in the lead.

All over Tickfall the white people were waiting for this, the day’s supreme event. The negroes knew the favorite songs of all the older citizens. Rev. Dr. Sentelle listened to “Dixie,” and “Jesus Lover of my Soul.” Bowing his acknowledgments, Dr. Sentelle said:

“Boys, when I die, I want you to sing both of those songs at my funeral!”

And a few years later they did it!

Marse Tom Gaitskill, being a Kentuckian, listened to “My Old Kentucky Home,” and to “Darling Nellie Gray”——

Oh, my eyes are getting blinded, and I cannot see my way;
Hark! There’s somebody knocking at the door.
I hear the angels calling, and I see my Nellie Gray,
Farewell to my old Kentucky shore!

Leaving one house to go to another, the negroes always broke into some rollicking plantation melody, singing it on the way, so that their pilgrimage was a pilgrimage of song. At the end of the town, remote from all the negro settlements, was the home of the sheriff, Mr. John Flournoy, so that the negroes came to his residence last.

They marched melodiously into his yard, spread out over the lawn, taking care to trample down none of the flowers and shrubs, and their mighty voices reverberated through the valleys and from the hilltops, and could literally be heard for miles.

Mr. John Flournoy and his gracious wife stood upon the portico, sometimes smiling, sometimes with serious faces and moist eyes, as they listened to the old melodies which had colored the very fiber of their souls.

Finally a hush fell upon the crowd, and Mr. Flournoy thought the time for his speech had come. But not so.

Vinegar Atts stepped forward within a few feet of the porch steps, removed his battered slouch hat, and began:

“Marse John, all us niggers is been singing to youall white folks ever sense we warn’t more’n hawn-high to a billy-goat. We remembers all dem happy Chris’mus times of yuther years, an’ we wish we could keep up dis music eve’y Chris’mus till ole Gabriel blows his hawn. But de time is done come when us muss tell you good-by, an’ you won’t never hear our singin’ no more!”

“Lawd hab mussy!” a chorus of men’s voices sounded like a prayer.

“You is done been a good frien’ to all us po’ niggers, Marse John,” Vinegar went on earnestly. “We hates to go away an’ leave you——”

The negroes had begun to “weave,” and a moaning sound issued from every throat like a great organ tone, and the light of the full moon casting the shadows of the trees upon the upturned faces of the men, made an effect funereal and impressive indeed.

“What the devil are you talking about?” Flournoy demanded in a voice which was almost a scream.

“Us is gittin’ ready to die, Marse John,” Vinegar told him. “De paper is done printed de word about all de niggers havin’ dat new kind of epizootic, an’ you rickoleck when de yeller fever kotch us niggers all of us fell right down in de middle of de big road an’ died!”

Vinegar took a worn and ragged newspaper out of his pocket, unfolded it carefully, and handed it to Sheriff Flournoy. It was one of the copies of the Tickfall Whoop which Flournoy had given to old Isaiah Gaitskill several days before.

“You kin read whut de paper says yo’se’f, Marse John,” Vinegar said.

That was one time in Mr. John Flournoy’s life when he wished himself to be somewhere else immediately. He was an inveterate practical joker, but he was as tender-hearted as a woman, and it appalled him that he had administered this wound to his negro friends on this happiest day of the year.

“Boys,” he said painfully, “this article is not true—it is a joke! Somebody has been trying to scare you!”

“Who played dat joke on us, Marse John?” Vinegar Atts asked.

Flournoy took thirty seconds to consider his answer to that question, realizing as never before how very much the truth hurts, when you have to tell it!

“I did it!” he answered, and the words strangled in his throat.

There was one minute of perfect silence.

Then Vinegar Atts replied with just two words: “Ye-es, suh!”

Slowly he turned and started toward the street, Hitch Diamond walking beside him. Two and two, the crowd of negroes silently fell into line and marched out.

Skeeter Butts was the last to leave.

As Skeeter started through the gate he felt Flournoy’s heavy hand upon his shoulder and winced.

“Tell me the truth, you little yeller devil!” Flournoy drawled. “Didn’t you niggers know all the time that that was a joke?”

Skeeter chuckled evasively. He had no intention of revealing a secret of the most secretive race in the world; least of all did he intend to make trouble between the white folks by revealing the fact that Dr. Sentelle, pitying the fright and ignorance of the negroes, had investigated, learned the facts, and informed them.

But the sheriff’s hand upon his shoulder was suggestive of the majesty and might of the law, and Skeeter had a mortal fear of getting, as he would have expressed it, “into a lawsuit wid de cotehouse.”

“Yes, suh,” Skeeter chuckled. “We did learn a leetle about dat befo’ Chris’mus. We borrowed a lot of papers from de white folks an’ didn’t see nothin’ about it in deir papers, so us soupspicioned dat you had done got up a buzzo on us. But us is all Christians, Marse John—we don’t bear you no grudge!”

Then he slipped from the hand of the law and ran laughing down the street.

A Mascot Jinx

“Dis here cullud lady is gwine be my wife. I make you ’quainted wid Coco Ferret!”

Love had flushed the saddle-colored face of Skeeter Butts to a brownish-crimson, and the gorgeous splendor of his clothes reflected the sunburst of affection in his heart.

Hitch Diamond held out his hand to a fat, dumpy, simple-faced country negro girl, and grinned.

“Huh,” he chuckled, as Coco Ferret shook hands, “dis here gal is all soft and puffed-up an’ squeezy like a big balloom.”

“Dat’s right,” Skeeter grinned, eying the girl with a prideful gaze. “I likes ’em dat way. Edgecated niggers is too slim an’ active. Dey gits biggity an’ bumptious. Dey axes ’terrogations an’ is bawn to trouble.”

“Dis lady oughter make a good-pervidin’ cook an’ housekeeper,” Hitch suggested, looking her over as if she were a horse which Skeeter had bought.

“I shore is bofe dem things,” the girl responded. “Skeeter ain’t gittin’ no set-easy gal.”

“I hopes you’ll bofe be as happy as married niggers ever is,” Hitch remarked politely.

“Happy is our name, Hitch,” Skeeter declared confidently. “Dis here gal is already fotch me luck, an’ I’s gwine use her fer our mascop in de ball game to-day.”

“Whut is de word about de game, Skeeter?” Hitch grunted. “Is us gwine win?”

“Suttinly,” Skeeter declared. “I done bet fawty dollars. Coco is bet ten dollars. I b’lieves in bettin’ all I kin git.”

“Dem Sawtown niggers is powerful pert players, Skeeter,” Hitch warned him. “Dey wucks reg’lar in de big sawmill, an’ dey got plenty muscle an’ wind. Dey plays baseball all day on eve’y Sunday, an’ dey keeps in fine practice. Dey all ’pears like new-issue niggers to me—slick-heads, plum’ full of tricks, an’ dangersome.”

Skeeter turned and looked over the picnic grounds where a number of husky blacks were prancing around with the women. They all wore their baseball suits, and these uniforms drew the women like a barrel of sugar attracts flies.

“Yes, suh, I admits dem facks,” Skeeter said. “But look at de baseball team us is got—Figger Bush is de best pitcher in Loozanny; Prince Total ketches; Mustard Prophet straddles fust base—us is been playin’ all summer, an’ we is winned eve’y game up to now!”

“Dat’s so,” Hitch remarked, with less uneasiness in his voice. “I reckin I’ll bet eve’y dollar dat I’m got.”

“Dat’s de talk,” Skeeter applauded. “I been pussuadin’ all de players on de Tickfall team to bet all de money dey had.”

“Dat ain’t good bizziness,” Hitch declared. “Ef players bets deir own dollars an’ de team is losin’, dey all gits rattled.”

“Mebbe so, wid white folks,” Skeeter replied. “But ’tain’t so wid niggers. You know how niggers is—ef dey think de yuther man is gwine lose money on deir wuck, dey don’t pay no mind, an’ de Lawd’s will kin be did. But ef a nigger figgers dat he’s gwine lose money on his own se’f—Lawdy, he shore do scratch gravel!”

Their conversation was brought to a close by a long blast upon a fox-horn.

“Dat means de picnic dinner is sot,” Skeeter interpreted. “Us better hurry or all dem yuther niggers will wollop up de grub.”

As they took their places at the long table where the food was piled up in an appalling and unappetizing mass, Vinegar Atts bellowed:

“Who is de she-queen you is armin’ aroun’, Skeeter?”

“Dis here is my gwine-be wife,” Skeeter grinned. “Her name’s Coco.”

“It’s ’bout time you wus gittin’ married an’ sottled down,” Rev. Vinegar Atts proclaimed, scenting a wedding fee. “Den you’ll be king of de coconut tree. Ef you puts off gettin’ married too long, you gits outen de habit of wantin’ to be.”

“Me an’ Coco is got de same mind now,” Skeeter snickered, proud of the attention they were attracting. “Coco is de mascop at de ball game dis afternoon.”

At the far end of the table the manager of the Sawtown team heard this last remark and uttered an exclamation. Stepping over to one of his players he asked:

“Buff’lo, how come us fergot to fetch a mascop along wid us?”

“Dunno, cap,” Buffalo replied. “I got my rabbit’s foot.”

“Dem Tickfall coons is got a woman fer a mascop,” the manager said. “An dey got Figger Bush fer a pitcher, an’ Prince Total ketches. Dat powerful arrangement shore looks bad to me.”

“Why don’t us hoodoo Figger?” Buffalo inquired.

“How is dat did?” Manager Star asked eagerly.

“Make a cross on Figger’s head wid a rabbit foot,” Buffalo informed him.

“Dat’s easy,” Star grinned. “Gimme yo’ foot, Buff’lo.”

Ten minutes later the Sawtown manager sidled up to Figger Bush and remarked:

“You gotter pitch hard dis atternoon, Figger. I thinks you needs some nourishment. I gives you dis big, yeller awange as a peace-off’rin’.”

As Figger, grinning, reached out for the orange, Star let it fall from his hand and roll under the table. Figger went down on his hands and knees, crawled under the table for his gift, and when he came out felt some sharp object scraped across his woolly scalp. When he stood up he beheld Manager Star grinning at him, holding up a mangy rabbit foot.

“Sawtown wins de game to-day, Figger,” Star snickered. “I done cross yo’ head wid a rabbit foot, an’ luck ain’t wid yo’ no mo’.”

Figger Bush turned almost white.

As Star walked away, Figger turned every pocket in his clothes wrong side out, found every cent of money he had in his possession, and crammed it into his mouth. Stooping down, he made a cross in the sand with his middle finger, drew a large ring around the cross, and dropped the money out of his mouth into the center of the ring. Then from under each coin he gathered a tiny pinch of dirt, placed it in the palm of his left hand, turned around three times with his eyes closed, and tossed the grains of dirt over his head.

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.

Every member of the Sawtown team sprang into the air, emitted ecstatic whoops, and plastered the helpless Figger with every name in their vocabulary which they thought would stick.

When Bush finally threw the ball it went over the plate ten feet in the air, and a giggling batboy chased it until it struck against a stump on the edge of the bayou and stopped.

“Oh, Figger!” Skeeter screamed, with a sob in his voice. “Whut’s de matter, pardner? Whut ails ye? I got my dollars on ye, Figger; buck up, fer Gawd’s sake——”

Bush’s answer was a pitched ball which struck the ground three feet in front of the plate, bounced waist-high to the batter, and was slugged far over in the left field, where it fell in a slough, and the fielder had to wade in the muck to his knees to get it.

“You’re all right, Figger!” the Sawtown players shrieked. “You suits us fine! Don’t let Skeeter Butts git yo’ goat!”

Figger’s eyes twitched, his jaws worked on his tobacco quid like a mill, his knees grew weak and wabbly. He wound up to throw the ball, then suddenly stopped his operations, straightened up, and felt at the top of his head as if something had hit him.

He threw four balls in rapid succession, not one of which came within ten feet of the plate, and the batter walked to the first.

He threw another ball, hit the batter on the elbow, and he walked to first.

He threw another ball, the batter tapped it, and it dropped at the feet of Figger Bush.

Figger wiped the bitter sweat out of both eyes, stooped down with great deliberation, picked up the ball, wiped the dust off of it on his ragged shirt, and threw it to first just as the three Sawtown men came over the home plate!

“Keep it up, ole boy!” the Sawtown men screamed. “You kin do it—you got us all guessin’—make us run de bases—dat’s de right boy!”

“Oh, fer de Lawd’s sake, Figger,” Skeeter squealed, “see ef you cain’t pitch jes’ one straight ball! Don’t put nothin’ on it—jes’ throw it straight an’ easy!”

Figger threw it straight and easy. A child could have hit it with a lead-pencil. What the batter did to that ball will never be known. It sailed over the top of the highest trees like a bird, and is lying hidden in the Dorfoche woods yet. Then this colored Ty Cobb walked around the bases and sat down on the home plate, conversing in the meantime with Figger Bush with choice language.

Prince Total threw aside his mask and chest-protector and walked down to the pitcher’s box just as the umpire tossed out a new ball.

“Figger, you is de wust pitcher I ever seen!” Prince howled. “You git up dar an’ ketch, an’ lemme see kin I fan dese niggers out. My Gawd, you muss be crippled under yo’ hat to play ball like you is doin’!”

“I is,” Figger replied, rubbing his woolly scalp like a man in a dream.

Skeeter Butts left the coaching line, ran into the crowd, and seized Coco Ferret by a fat arm.

“Come on outen dis crowd, honey!” he squeaked. “Oh, Lawdy, ef you never done no mascoppin’ before, you git to doin’ it now! Dis is awful!”

“How is mascoppin’ done, Skeeter?” she inquired as the little darky dragged her out of the crowd.

“Gawd knows!” Skeeter panted as he led her out to where all the Tickfall team could see her from the field. “You jes’ nachelly be it—like a luck charm.”

Then he turned to the players and howled:

“I done got yo’ mascop out in front, Prince! Look at dis pretty nigger gal an’ pick up a brave heart! Set yo’ eye on Coco and do yo’ durndest! Don’t let nothin’ skeer you, Prince, fer good luck’s done busted right in yo’ face!”

Prince Total, thus admonished, retired the Sawtown nine with only three pitched balls. Each batter knocked a fly which was caught in the field.

The Tickfall nine was suddenly jubilant. Four hundred Tickfall fans bellowed with joy. Skeeter Butts ran to Coco Ferret, threw his arms around her, an’ giggled:

“Oh, you little, fat mascop! You done bust de bad luck! Eve’y nigger in dis town loves you like a brudder—an’ me, you done winned my heart ferever an’ ever!”

When the Tickfall team came in to bat, Hitch Diamond puffed through the crowd like a steam-engine and started a row.

“Whut de debbil you mean by throwin’ dis game, Figger?” he howled in irate tones. “Whut de trouble wid yo’ head? Don’t you know you is losin’ yo’ own good money?”

“Trouble?” Figger Bush bawled. “Dem Sawtown niggers done put a hoodoo sign on me!”

“How come?” Hitch asked in a changed tone.