He turned, entered the bank, locked the door behind him, and strode to the telephone.
“Hello, Susie!” he said to the operator. “Gimme the station-agent at Tonieville—quick!”
There was a nervous quiver in his strong voice, and as he waited he drummed with his fingers on the table, tapped the toe of one foot on the floor, then snatched up a paper-weight and began to grind it savagely into the blotter on a desk.
The coons had exasperated him often enough, he thought; but Pap Curtain had gone the limit. He would catch that nigger and wring his fool neck.
“Hey—hello!” he bawled through the speaking-tube. “Is that you, Bill? This is Gaitskill—Say, has No. 2 passed through Tonieville yet? Coming now? All right, listen: tell the constable to board the Jim-Crow coach on that train and haul off a nigger—a yellow nigger with a baboon face and shifty eyes and a mouth which sneers. Yes! his name is Pap Curtain. He’s got a pocketful of money. Sure! Haul him off. Tell the constable to bring him back on No. I! Good-bye!”
Gaitskill hung up the receiver, wiped the sweat from his face, and walked out of the bank, pausing at the door long enough to inform the clerk:
“I’m going down to the cotton-shed, Frank. Got to hold an executive session with those coons!”
Pap Curtain had the negro-coach all to himself. He leaned back and sighed with a vast content.
“Dem coons tried to knife me, but I beat ’em to it!” he snickered, as the train puffed slowly along. “One hundred an’ eighteen dollars is shore good wages fer a day’s wuck.”
He planned his expenditure of the money: first a visit to New Orleans, and a happy time in the negro resorts of that city. After that a job on a steamboat which traveled down the river. After a long time, a return to Tickfall and a renewal of friendships with his negro neighbors.
“Niggers don’t hold spite long,” he grinned. “An’ money don’t bother ’em hardly at all, whedder he makes it or loses it!”
The train stopped at Tonieville and Pap stuck his head far out of the window to see who he would know at the station.
He felt a sharp tap on his shoulder, pulled his head in, and looked behind him.
A tall white man with tobacco-stained whiskers and a deputy-sheriff’s badge pinned to a strap of his suspenders spoke:
“Climb off peaceable, Pap Curtain! Colonel Tom Gaitskill wants you back at Tickfall on the next train!”
“Naw, suh, white folks,” Pap protested earnestly, his intense fright making him stammer. “Marse Tom done run me outen Tickfall dis very mawnin’. He tole me ef I didn’t leave town he would bust my haid open. You done cotch de wrong coon!”
“Git off!” the deputy commanded shortly, waving his stick toward the door.
The train went on and left Pap Curtain at the station in the care of the constable.
“You is shore made a miscue dis time, Mr. Sheriff,” Pap declared. “Marse Tom is always b’lieved in me an’ trusted me—Gawd bless his heart! You cain’t make Marse Tom hear nothin’ bad ’bout me—naw, suh, you couldn’t bawl it inter his year wid one of dese here Gabriel trumpets. I’s a good nigger—a powerful good nigger!”
The grinning constable reached out with theend of his stick and struck it sharply against one of Pap’s bulging pockets. There was a pleasant clink of much silver in response.
“Colonel Gaitskill telephoned that your pockets were full of money,” the constable told him. “I’ll let you pack it until we git back to Tickfall—then you can tell your Marse Tom where you happened to get it all.”
Pap Curtain’s legs suddenly grew weak, and he sank down upon a depot truck and became silent.
He set himself to light a Perique stogy—one of the two which he had bought from Skeeter Butts for five cents—bought with Figger Bush’s money. He broke three or four matches before he got a light, and then repeatedly forgot to draw upon his cigar.
It went out again and again, and he always had trouble in relighting it. His hands trembled more and more with each successive attempt.
“Lawd!” he sighed to himself. “Dey shore got me now!”
The niggers had trusted him, and he had buncoed them all. The place where his foot had slipped was when he told them to go the bank to see Marse Tom.
“White folks always gits nigger bizzness in a jam,” he thought tearfully. “Dem niggers wus suckers, but lawdymussy, I wus shore one big whopper of a fool!”
The sweat stood in chill beads on his face. He knew what the inside of the penitentiary looked like—he had served a brief term in prison. Hehad tried to make friends with the “nigger-dogs”—bloodhounds—but it could not be done. He had tried to escape; that, also, was a failure.
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.“Colonel Gaitskill telephoned me that your pockets were full of money.”
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.
“Colonel Gaitskill telephoned me that your pockets were full of money.”
“Lawd!” he mourned. “Dey got me dis time!”
The north-bound express whistled for the station. The agent ran out, flagged it, and the deputy helped Pap climb on. Pap had suddenly become an old and feeble man, broken, hopeless, forsaken, shamed, dreading above everything his return trip to Tickfall.
The deputy led him to a seat in the smoking car and offered him a cigar. Pap gazed at him as if he did not understand, then took the cigar and looked at it as if he did not know what it was. All the light had gone out of his eyes, and his face looked like a scarred and wrinkled shell.
Detraining at Tickfall, the deputy waited for Pap to get ahead of him. Pap, noticing his gesture, muttered in a far-away voice, as in a dream:
“Comin’, white folks! I’s right at yo’ hip!”
When Gaitskill, in response to a knock, opened the door of the Tickfall National Bank to admit them, he greeted the deputy in his strong, cordial voice, conducted the two back to his private office, and seated the sheriff and his prisoner in two comfortable chairs.
“You brought him safe back, Sheriff,” Gaitskill smiled cordially, as he seated himself. “Take a cigar. Take two—here! Hold your pocket open!”
He grabbed a handful of the cigars, slipped them carefully into the deputy’s pocket, and sat down again.
Pap Curtain watched them like a trapped wolf, breathing in deep, audible gasps like a man choking.
Gaitskill’s face was genial and humorous, his fine eyes twinkled, and he beamed upon Pap Curtain with a smile as cordial as sunshine.
That smile sent the cold shivers up Pap’s spine, and made the hair bristle and crinkle with terror on the back of his neck. He had had dealings with Marse Tom before, and he knew that Marse Tom had no patience with a crooked, tricky nigger.
“My Gawd!” Pap sighed. “Dat white man is gwine hang me shore!”
Gaitskill pulled out a heavy purse, laid two yellow-backed bills on the table in front of the constable, and said:
“There’s your pay, Bob. Much obliged for bringing my nigger back. I guess you want to run around town a little before you go back.”
Bob grinned his appreciation, pocketed his money, and strode out.
Gaitskill looked at Pap Curtain and broke out in a loud laugh.
Great tears rolled down Pap Curtain’s face and splashed upon the hands folded in his lap, but Gaitskill took no notice.
“Now, Pap,” Gaitskill grinned, “that was a great stunt you pulled off on me. What do you think I ought to do to you for it?”
“Dunno, boss,” the negro quavered, leaning over and resting his teary face upon his hands.
“How many of those niggers did you get?”
“I didn’t git any, Marse Tom,” Pap declared, hoping to build up some sort of defense. “It wus dat fool Figger Bush an’ Prince Total whut succulated de repote!”
There was a wild yell up the street and a rumble of wagon wheels.
Gaitskill sprang up and walked to the front of the bank, where he could look through the window.
Pap Curtain, trembling, horrified, followed Gaitskill because he was afraid to remain alone.
Ten wagons passed the bank, the teams going in a fast trot, each wagon containing ten or twelve squalling blacks, who waved their hands at the bank as far as they could see it.
Pap Curtain ducked behind the door and kept himself invisible—for each wagon contained a load of his victims!
“That’s your work, Pap!” Gaitskill grinned, when the wagons had passed.
“Yes, suh,” Pap answered in a weak, tearful, hopeless voice.
“If I had known about it when I telephoned the constable, I would not have had him bring you back, Pap. I thought you had robbed all those niggers of a dollar each.”
“Yes, suh,” Pap sighed, praying for more light.
Gaitskill took a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket, felt its texture with a banker’s expert fingers,then said in a voice which dripped with the sweetness of appreciation and praise:
“That trick was the real stuff, Pap! How did you ever think it up?”
Every pore of Pap’s body was spouting cold sweat. His eyes burned, his throat choked, his brain reeled, his limbs trembled—he was racked, tortured with fear and anxiety—and yet this white man seemed to be talking kind words.
“Oh, Lawd,” he prayed, “let a leetle sunshine in!”
“It certainly takes a coon to catch a coon!” Gaitskill laughed. “The idea of making a negro pay a dollar for the privilege of working on a cotton plantation when the white folks are begging for hands—think of it, Pap!
“One hundred and eighteen niggers gone off on a cotton-picking picnic to the Niggerheel plantation, paying a dollar each for the privilege of gathering a thousand bales of cotton, and swearing that they will stick to the job because they paid to get it! Say, nigger, you are the greatest coon in Tickfall!”
Pap Curtain straightened up; his shoulders came back with a snap; he drew a breath so deep that it seemed to suck in all the air in the bank.
“I’m certainly much obliged to you, Pap,” Gaitskill said earnestly. “I take back what I said this morning. You’re a good nigger. Here’s ten dollars for your trouble.”
Gaitskill opened the door.
Pap Curtain stepped out, holding the crinklingbill in his hand. He reeled down the street like a drunken man, staggered across the village to Dirty-Six, and sat down on the rickety porch of his cabin.
The Gulf breeze swept across his sweat-drenched face, cooling it like a breath from the land where angels dwell.
Slowly his shattered nerves were composed; slowly his trembling limbs were stilled; slowly his twitching muscles quieted. He felt tired. He breathed deeply, like a man who had emerged from the depths of great water.
Then he filled his mouth with chewing tobacco and grinned.
“Lawd!” he chuckled. “I’s powerful glad it come out de way it done.”
His mind quickly reviewed each incident of this exciting day, and as he watched the sun sink below the horizon, he announced his conclusion:
“When Marse Tom tole me to leave dis town, he jes’ nachelly overspoke hisse’f!”
Unthinking people assert that negroes do not think.
Nevertheless, when Skeeter Butts, by methods peculiarly his own, became the high-proud owner of a good, cheap automobile, he permitted only three friends to ride with him,—Vinegar Atts, Hitch Diamond, and Figger Bush.
Figger was necessary because his superb voice added to the others, completed the most melodious male quartette in Louisiana. Hitch Diamond as a prize-fighter, Vinegar Atts as an ex-pugilist who had been called to preach, each possessed the physical strength of a forty-horse-power mule. Skeeter needed them to lift his automobile out of the mud and to push it through the sand.
Was not that a thoughtful selection of first-aids to the helpless?
Truly, that outfit was a fearful and wonderful thing.
When those four negroes climbed into that car and began to sing to the accompaniment of a mechanism which sounded like a saw-mill, a cotton-gin, and a boiler factory loaded upon a log-train chasing a herd of bleating billy-goats alongthe public highway, the effect produced made the pious cross themselves, the ungodly “cuss,” and the little children run to their mothers, whimpering with fright.
A white man might think a thousand years and never think up an arrangement like that.
Then to show that his mental incubator was still capable of hatching out little fuzzy, two-legged chicken-headed thoughts, Skeeter bought a steamboat!
“Whar is Hitch Diamond at, Kunnel?” Skeeter asked of a handsome, white-haired gentleman standing in front of the Tickfall post-office.
“He’s up at my house, unloading fireworks from a dray,” Colonel Gaitskill answered.
“Hitch don’t go back to wuck to-day, do he?” Skeeter inquired in a shocked tone.
“Certainly not,” Gaitskill smiled. “This is a national holiday. I imagine Hitch has finished that little job now. Are you folks going off to make a day of it?”
“Yes, suh, us is fixin’ to cel’brate, too!” Skeeter chuckled.
“Do you know why we celebrate the Fourth of July, Skeeter?” Gaitskill asked with a smile.
Skeeter knew. He also knew that “Fighting Tom” Gaitskill stood before him, and this old soldier had not fought with the heroes of ’76. He tempered his answer to a hero of the Lost Cause.
“Shore, Marse Tom!” he chuckled. “Dis is de day dat our white marsters kilt all de dam-yanks!”
Gaitskill laughed.
“Your answer is a credit to your tact and diplomacy, Skeeter, but it certainly upsets the records of history. Where are you going?”
“We’s gwine down to de river.”
“I want you and Hitch Diamond to help me with the fire-works to-night,” Gaitskill said. “You get back by dark.”
“Shore, Marse Tom!” Skeeter cackled. “We ain’t gwine miss no free show. I’ll go git Hitch an’ de rest of de bunch now!”
The seven-mile road to the Mississippi River was smooth and level and was a favorite with Vinegar and Hitch, who preferred riding to climbing out to lift or push. So, one hour later, the automobile quartette stood beside a stump on the banks of that majestic stream and sang of the time “when de water’s so low, de bullfrog roll up his pants jes’ so, and wade acrost from sho’ to sho’; while over in de channel de catfish say: ‘We’s gittin’ plum’ freckle-faced down our way.’”
Six miles up the river at the bend, a little steamboat whistle squalled at them through the still July atmosphere. The quartette promptly sat down and watched the boat’s approach.
The boat was about thirty feet long and about eighteen feet wide, was built with a flat keel which made it float on the top of the water like a cigar box, and was propelled by a paddle wheel in the rear about as big as a barrel.
Some river fishermen own such boats, living in them, and peddling their fish to the negroes onthe plantations along the river. The vessel could ride the current down-stream and make six miles an hour; going up-stream, it hugged the bank, navigated the slack water, and got there as soon as it could. Three miles an hour up-stream was going some.
As the boat drew near, the quartette noticed that the machinery was protected by a rudely-built roof, and the crew consisted of one man who sat on a three-legged stool, smoked a pipe, shoveled coal, steered, and pulled the whistle-cord, and still had plenty of time to watch the scenery.
“Dat’s de life fer me,” Skeeter Butts exclaimed. “Up ’n’ down de river, fishin’ an’ swimmin’ an’ sleepin’. Ef I owned a steamboat like dat, I’d go right back to Tickfall an’ ax all my friends good-bye.”
“Me, too!” Vinegar Atts rumbled. “Ef I had a boat, I’d trabbel dis river givin’ religium advices to all de niggers on de river plantations. I’d preach eve’y night an’ I wouldn’t fergit to ax some hones’ brudder to pass de hat.”
“Steamboats is got some good p’ints over autermobiles,” Hitch Diamond growled. “You don’t got to lift ’em outen de mud or push ’em up-hill through de sand.”
“Ef I had a boat,” Figger Bush cackled, pulling at his little shoe-brush mustache, “I’d buy me a derby hat an’ a grassaphome, an’ a long-tail prancin’-albert coat, an’—an’—I’d climb up on top of it an’ sing all de songs I knows.”
The whistle squalled again.
“She’s fixin’ to make a landin’!” Skeeter exclaimed.
The boat passed them on the current, then turned and puffed along the bank through the still water opposite to where they were sitting. A black, chunky, bull-necked negro, the whites of whose eyes shone across the water like china door-knobs, hurled a rope toward them.
“Gimme a turn aroun’ dat stump!” he bellowed, as he stopped the machinery.
While the quartet tied the boat the owner stepped into a little canoe and paddled ashore.
“Howdy, brudders!” he bellowed, as he sat down with them. “My name is Pipe Smash.”
“Us is got names, too,” Skeeter Butts proclaimed, as he introduced himself and his friends. “We been watchin’ you’ boat an’ wishin’ dat we had one.”
Smash hesitated just a second before answering. An eager look flashed in his eyes and vanished. Then he said:
“’Tain’t such a awful rotten dawg’s life fer a nigger—livin’ on you’ own boat. I’s jes’ mournin’ in my mind because I’s got to quit it.”
“How come?” Skeeter asked.
“I’s gittin’ married real soon an’ de gal specify dat she don’t want no home whut floats aroun’ permiscus so dat de chickens don’t know whar to come to roost. She wants me to sell out an’ sottle down on dry land.”
“Dat’s a powerful sensible notion,” Skeeter Butts proclaimed, as his appraising eyes searched the steamboat. “Is you foun’ a buyer yit?”
“Naw!” Pipe Smash said disgustedly. “White folks won’t buy no nigger’s boat, an’ niggers ain’t got no money.”
“How financial do a nigger got to be to pick up a good, cheap, han’-me-down boat?” Skeeter asked cautiously.
“Well, suh, I figger it out dis way,” Pipe Smash said, boring the middle finger of his right hand into the palm of his left hand for emphasis. “I bought dat whole boat jes’ as she floats from a white man whut picked a fuss wid de cote-house an’ had to run in a direction whar de river didn’t go. It costed me two hundred dollars ten year ago, an’ is some wore out. One hundred dollars in cash spondulix gits her now.”
Skeeter glanced at the faces of his three friends and each responded with a slight nod. Skeeter made a careful advance.
“Ef I jes’ knowed somepin ’bout how to run a steamboat—” he began.
“Don’t none of you niggers know nothin’ ’bout steam-engines?” Pipe asked, in a peculiar voice.
“Naw!” they said in a chorus.
A peculiar expression passed over Pipe’s face.
Skeeter’s quick eyes caught the look, and he rightly concluded that Pipe was going to take advantage of their ignorance to cheat them.
“’Tain’t no trouble to learn how to run ’em,” Pipe remarked. “All you got to do is to keep fire in de furnace an’ water in de b’iler, an’ hol’ to de steerin’-wheel an’ stay in de river.”
“Dat sounds easy,” Skeeter said, as he rose tohis feet. “Less paddle out an’ take a look at dat boat.”
When they were all aboard and the engine was puffing laboriously up the river, Pipe Smash looked at the four grinning negroes with an air of triumph.
He knew his steamboat was sold.
They were traveling about as fast as a lame man could walk, but there was an exhilarating throb to the engine, and a cheerful slap-slap to the paddle-wheel, and the river went past them instead of taking them with it, and by shutting their eyes for five minutes and then opening them they could see that they were actually gaining on the scenery.
And the scenery would set an artist wild: a sky like a soap-bubble, and high in the dome a buzzard sailing like a speck of dust, a river like a broad, flowing ribbon of old gold, and close to the levees on each side the woods, dense, black, moss-hung and funereal, absorbing so little of the sun’s light that the negroes could hear the call of the night-owls and the voice of the whip-poor-will.
Suddenly Skeeter’s high soprano voice ran out across the water, the other voices joined, and the woods echoed back the music:
“When peace like a river, attendeth my way,When sorrers like sea-billers roll—Whutever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,It is well, it is well, wid my soul.”
“When peace like a river, attendeth my way,When sorrers like sea-billers roll—Whutever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,It is well, it is well, wid my soul.”
“Whut is de name of dis boat called, Pipe?” Skeeter asked at the end of their song.
“’Tain’t got no name,” Pipe answered.
“Dat won’t do,” Vinegar Atts bellowed, as he looked with proprietary eye upon the vessel. “Less call her by some high-soundin’ name.”
“Less call her deSkeeter Butts?” the little barkeeper promptly suggested.
“Naw!” the three other men whooped.
Skeeter giggled.
“I figger dar will be three votes agin any yuther nigger’s name in dis bunch,” he said. “Less call her deHen-Scratch.”
“Naw!” the trio bellowed. “A saloom ain’t no fitten name fer a boat.”
“Less call her deShoo-fly.”
“Naw!” the bunch howled. “We don’t name no boat after a Mefdis meetin’-house.”
Finally Skeeter said:
“I motions dat we leave it to Pipe Smash to name de boat fer us!”
“Dat’s right! Gib us a good name, Pipe!”
Pipe scratched his woolly head and thought. Then he said:
“Is you niggers made acquaintance wid a coot?”
“Suttinly.”
“Is you ever seed how a coot starts to fly? He leans fur back like he was restin’ on his tail den he takes a runnin’ shoot——”
“Shore! We knows!” the men interrupted.
“Dis boat gits its start by shovin’ wid its tail,” Pipe resumed. “Furthermo’, dis boat, like a coot,is a lan’ an’ water bird. Accawdin’ to dat notion, I votes dat we call dis boat after de nigger word fer a coot——”
“DeMud Hen!” the quartet whooped triumphantly. “DeMud Hen!”
From that moment our four friends were consumed with desire to own the boat which had received such a high-sounding and appropriate name.
Skeeter presided at a lengthy consultation, then came forward to the pilot-wheel and counted one hundred dollars into Pipe Smash’s greedy palm.
“Each of us chips in twenty-five dollars, Pipe,” Skeeter explained.
“Dat’s a fine way to do,” Pipe grinned. “Is you elected who is de head boss leader yit?”
“Naw,” Skeeter said. “We ain’t got dat fur.”
“Ef you ’vide up yo’ jobs an’ decide who is gwine be who, I’ll learn you how to run de boat an’ esplain each man’s job to him,” Pipe proposed. “Atter dat, I’ll step off.”
“I announces myse’f de captain of dis boat!” Skeeter Butts yelled. “Any objections?”
“I’s de commondore,” Hitch Diamond bellowed.
“I’s de skipper,” Figger Bush quacked.
“My job is cut out for me,” Vinegar Atts grinned. “I’s de fust high exalted chaplain.”
“Whut do de chaplain do?” Skeeter Butts wanted to know.
“He sets down an’ sings religium toons ontil somebody dies,” Vinegar informed him. “Denhe gibs de dead man religium advices, ties a lump of coal to his foots, an’ draps him in de ribber.”
“Dat’s a easy job!” Figger cackled.
“’Tain’t so,” Vinegar growled. “Plenty accidunts happen on boats—de b’iler busts, de boat snags out de bottom on a stump an’ sinks, de boat ketches on fire an’ burns up, an’ niggers falls overboard an’ gets drowndead.”
“Shut up, Revun!” Skeeter Butts barked. “Dat kind of graveyard talk gibs me trouble in my mind.”
“Prepare to git ready to die!” Vinegar bellowed dramatically. “Dis river is ’bout fawty miles deep!”
“Whut you figger on doin’ as commondore, Hitch?” Skeeter asked.
“I sets in de middle of dis boat to balunce de load,” the giant prize-fighter announced. “I’ll watch you fiddle wid dat little steer-wheel, an’ between times, mebbe I’ll shovel a leetle coal.”
“Whut you gwine do as skipper, Figger?” Butts inquired next.
“I skips all de hard jobs, an’ all de easy wuck dat I kin,” Figger snickered. “I don’t mind standin’ up in front an’ watchin’ fer snags an’ allergaters. I’s gwine hab a fence rail tied under each arm an’ stan’ straddle of a log. Ef dis boat sinks, Figger figgers on floatin’ to land!”
“I’s gwine lay in some fence-rails, too,” Vinegar Atts declared. “I’ll need a whole wood-pile of ’em.”
“It’ll take a whole log-raft to float me,” HitchDiamond decided. “I’ll fix it togedder as soon as I git back to land.”
“Whut good will a lot of fence-rails do you niggers ef dis old engine busts?” Pipe Smash inquired in a tone of comment. “When a steamboat blows up dar ain’t enough of it left over fer any fool nigger to set on.”
“Dat’s so,” Skeeter Butts replied uneasily, trying to grin with stiffening lips. “Does dey bust up pretty frequent?”
“Naw, suh, dey never busts up but once,” Pipe Smash grinned. “Once is a plum’ plenty fer any kind of boat.”
“I mean does pretty many boats bust up?” Skeeter explained.
“All of ’em—soon or late,” Smash chuckled.
“Mebbe I hadn’t oughter been so spry ’bout buyin’ dis boat,” Skeeter mourned, as he looked down into the muddy water and shuddered.
“I wouldn’t say dat till I learnt how to run de boat,” Smash responded. “Come here an’ take holt of dis wheel.”
Smash had shrewdly waited until the right time to give this invitation. They were now riding down the middle of the river on the current. The boat was still lacking in speed, but it moved as smoothly as a high-powered automobile.
“Huh,” Skeeter chuckled. “Dis here is a snap. I feel like I been runnin’ steamboats all my life. Gimme elbow room accawdin’ to my muscle, niggers, an’ watch Cap’n Skeeter Butts make deMud Henflit!”
Hitch Diamond, the commodore, reached for the coal shovel.
“Drap dat shovel, Hitch!” Pipe Smash grinned. “Coal costs a heap money an’ you don’t want to waste it goin’ down-stream. De time to shovel ain’t yit.”
“Dat’s right,” Hitch agreed. “It ’pears to me like we is all got a snap. I shore feels comferble.”
“I got a easy job, too!” Vinegar proclaimed. “’Tain’t no real trouble to set down an’ wait fer a corp’.”
“All you niggers, come here!” Pipe Smash exclaimed. “I wants to press somepin’ powerful heavy on yo’ minds, an’ ef you fergits it offen yo’ minds, I tells you right now dat Revun Atts won’t wait long to git a fust-rate corp’.”
“Whut’s dat?” Skeeter chattered.
“You see dat contraption up on dat engine whut looks like a clock?” Pipe Smash asked.
“Yes, suh!”
“Dat is called de steam-gage. Dat shows how much steam is in de b’ilers. Now dis engine won’t tote but sixty pounds of steam an’ be plum’ safe—you see dat indicator p’ints to sixty now.”
“Dat’s right!” Hitch Diamond corroborated.
“Whut do us do ef we git over sixty?” Skeeter asked tremblingly.
“Ef you is puffin’ up-stream, you kin risk sixty-five,” Pipe Smash told him. “But atter you pass dat number—good-night!”
“Dat ain’t tellin’ me whut to do!” Skeeter snapped.
Smash scratched his woolly head, loosened his soiled shirt-collar by running his fingers around his fat neck, and sighed.
“I don’t know whut is did wid dem succumstances,” Smash declared. “I ain’t never loss my good sense an’ got up dat high yit. But I got it figgered out dat a real quick nigger could do two things: he kin open de furnace, rake out de hot coals, set de boat on fire an’ burn her up; or, he kin jump in de river an’ let de boat float ontil she busts!”
“Hear dem words!” Vinegar Atts bawled. “I knowed I had a good chance to orate over a corp’!”
Skeeter Butts looked greatly scared for a minute, then he took a big breath and rallied.
“Dat ain’t so awful dangersome,” he said. “I bet you niggers seben dollars per each dat dat indicator don’t never reach sixty no more—open dat furnace door, Hitch, an’ cool de b’iler!”
The commodore lost no time in obeying the captain.
“Dat ain’t de right way to do!” Pipe Smash told them. “Ef you open de furnace door, de b’iler gits hotter—dat makes de fire draw better!”
“Shet dat furnace door, Hitch, you fool!” Skeeter barked. “My Lawd, you’s gittin’ us ready to bust!”
The commodore shut the door.
Then Pipe Smash gave them another jolt:
“You all is got one mo’ little jigger to watch, niggers!” he said, pointing to a glass tube. “Dat little, round, glass bottle is de water-gage. Youwanter put water in de b’iler till dat water-gage stands half-full all de time. Ef dat little bottle ever goes plum’ dry, de buzzards will be pickin’ yo’ bones outen de top of de cypress trees along dis river!”
“Hear dat, now!” Vinegar Atts whooped. “Dis here chaplain shore has cut out a hard-wuckin’ job fer hisse’f!”
“Shut up, Revun!” Skeeter snapped. “You ack like you wus proud dis boat wus gwine bust.”
“’Tain’t so!” Vinegar protested. “I done invested my whole June sal’ry from de Shoo-fly chu’ch in dis boat!”
Skeeter’s eyes lit on Figger Bush.
“Figger,” he said, “you done nominate yo’se’f de skipper—you skip aroun’ here an’ sot yo’ eye on dis glass bottle!”
“She won’t dry up as long as I rides in dis boat!” Figger said with conviction. “I wouldn’t take my eye offen dat bottle ef a allergater tickled me wid his tail!”
“I got a few mo’ advices,” Pipe Smash announced. “You wants to keep de lily-pads, snags, an’ wire-grass outen de paddle-wheel an’ de steerin’-gear. Ef you don’t you’ll git kotch in de current an’ float plum’ to de Gulf of Mexico.”
“Hear dem words!” Vinegar Atts whooped. “All you niggers better be on de mourners’ bench a gittin’ religium!”
“Shut up, Vinegar!” Skeeter wailed. “You set behime dis boat an’ watch dat paddle-wheel.”
“I shore will!” Vinegar declared. “An’ de fusttime she fouls up you’ll see Vinegar floatin’ to’des de shore straddle of his own coat-tail! Dis chaplain don’t take no chances wid hisse’f—I don’t need no visit to de Gulf.”
“I cain’t remember nothin’ mo’ to say,” Pipe Smash said, scratching his woolly head. “Mebbe I oughter say dis: Keep all de bolts screwed up real tight.”
“Dat’s my job!” Skeeter declared. “I don’t trust dese igernunt niggers wid no monkey-wrench.”
“Dat’s right, Cap’n!” Pipe Smash applauded. “You keep dat monkey-wrench in yo’ hand an’ ’tend to dat job wid yo’ eyes wide open, or you’ll shore hab to paddle yo’se’f ashore wid yo’ hands!”
They passed the spot on the shore where, four hours earlier, the boat had been tied to a stump.
Pipe Smash glanced up at the sun.
“I ’speck it’s ’bout time I wus steppin’ off an’ lettin’ you-alls hab yo’ boat,” he said. “I’s gwine to de railroad track an’ ketch de log-train fer Kerlerac. Dar’s a big Fo’th of July nigger dance at Kerlerac to-night.”
Skeeter ran the boat past the stump, gave the wheel a turn, the current swept the rear of the boat around, and Skeeter puffed up to the landing with the skill of an expert pilot.
“Well did!” Smash applauded, as he leaped into the canoe and paddled to shore with the line. “You ack like you been runnin’ steamboats all yo’ life!”
When the men stood once more upon the groundthey shook hands all around and were perfectly happy.
“Now, fellers,” Skeeter said, “I motions dat we goes back to Tickfall in de auto, gits us a lot of grub an’ fixin’s, an’ come right back to de boat fer a long ride.”
“Ef you’s plannin’ to take a long ride, fellers, mebbe I could do you a las’ kind favor by tightenin’ up all de machinery,” Pipe Smash said. “I got a little time yit.”
“De Lawd bless you, my brudder!” Vinegar Atts howled. “Dat would shore be a Christyum ack.”
“Be shore an’ watch dat little bolt back behime de steam-gage, cullud folks,” Smash grinned. “De jumpin’ of de steam loosens up dat bolt mo’ dan any.”
“You go on an’ tight her up, brudder!” Vinegar urged. “Put yo’ muscle to it right!”
“Good-bye, niggers!” Pipe Smash howled. “You won’t see me when you come back. I hopes you’ll like de boat an’ hab good luck!”
As Pipe climbed on the boat the automobile roared the departure of the happy quartet.
Two hours later the automobile party returned to the river.
They unloaded four baskets of food and four large watermelons. Figger Bush had advocated bringing a jug, but Skeeter Butts had vetoed the suggestion on the ground that it might offend the Reverend Vinegar Atts, chaplain. Skeeter knewbetter than that, but he saw no reason why he should furnish the bunch with a gallon of liquor when he did not drink himself.
“How we gwine git dis truck to dat boat?” Hitch Diamond growled, looking across the water in surprise.
“How did dat Pipe Smash git to land when de little canoe is tied up agin de side of dat steamboat?” Figger Bush asked.
“He come in hand over hand on de rope,” Skeeter Butts informed him. “Pipe knowed ef he tied dat canoe to de land some nigger would steal it.”
“Dat’s a fack,” Hitch Diamond bellowed. “’Taint safe to leave nothin’ aroun’ whar a po’ nigger kin set down an’ trabbel in it.”
Skeeter Butts laid hold upon the line and passed over to the boat swinging by his hands as agile as a monkey. Then he put to shore in the canoe and ferried his friends across. Afterward, he brought in the food supplies.
“We’ll trabbel up de river fust, niggers,” Captain Skeeter Butts announced, as he and Hitch Diamond busied themselves with the fire in the furnace. “Soon as I gits a little practice wid runnin’ her, we’ll turn down stream an’ paddle plum’ to de Gulf of Mexico.”
As far as they could see, they were the only living creatures on the river. The noon sun blazed in the heavens and made the deck of the boat like a furnace; the heat reflected from the water was simply dreadful. A white man would have fallenwith heat prostration in an hour, but these children of the sun laughed and sang and shouted, and stood in the blaze of light, grinning, white-toothed, and perfectly happy.
They ate watermelon, gobbled their lunches, smoked cheap cigars, and talked like a lot of gobbling turkeys. Finally Vinegar Atts walked to the edge of the boat and looked down in the muddy swirl of the Mississippi.
“Dis water looks heap deeper to me since dat Pipe Smash went away,” he contemplated. “An’ I bet it’s powerful wet, too!”
“You git a rockin’-chair outen de bood-war an’ set down, Revun!” Captain Butts commanded. “I don’t wanter hear you startin’ no doubts!”
“Dar ain’t nothin’ in de drawin’-room but a three-leg stool,” Vinegar mourned. “’Taint got nothin’ to rest my back agin.”
“Let her go!” Hitch Diamond, the commodore, bellowed in a voice which could be heard a mile.
Skeeter Butts laid one hand upon the wheel and with the other slightly opened the throttle.
The paddle-wheel spanked the water for three revolutions, then there was a backward jerk which loosened every negro’s teeth.
Hitch Diamond fell against the furnace door on his hands and knees. Figger Bush went crashing against the fragile side of the vessel, Skeeter Butts draped himself over the pilot-wheel with a loud squall, and the stool on which Vinegar Atts sat turned over, upsetting the dignified chaplain and landing him on his back, wherehe lay bellowing like a cow and waving his hands and feet toward the blue sky.
Two watermelons and four baskets of grub rolled overboard followed by Vinegar’s precious stove-pipe hat, which bobbed up and down on the water like a diminutive battleship monitor.
The little boat was tugging at the end of her rope like a lassoed mustang.
“Stop her!” Hitch Diamond, the commodore, bellowed in a voice which could be heard two miles. “We fergot to untie de boat from dat stump!”
Skeeter had already stopped the engine, and the negroes lost no time in releasing the line.
Then started a pow-wow lasting an hour, about whose business it was to untie the boat. They finally made Figger Bush the goat, on the ground that his office of skipper was to skip around and do everything the others forgot. They abused him dreadfully for his neglect of duty, and Skeeter turned his back to the wheel several times while he delivered a remark which was calculated to reduce Skipper Bush’s self-esteem to a minimum.
This was a very risky proceeding on the part of the pilot, especially when the boat was hugging the shore and navigating the slack water. Skeeter found it out when the bottom of the boat grated dully upon some soft substance underneath, and the boat paddled feebly, emitted a few discouraging puffs, and stopped.
Then the worm turned, with the venom of a moccasin snake.
“Dar now!” Figger Bush snarled. “Lookwhut you done went an’ did! Run us up on a mud bank!”
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.When the boat stopped.
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.
When the boat stopped.
Skeeter reversed the machinery, pulled the whistle-cord, puffed and snorted, sloshed the Mississippi about some, developed a thousand snort-power from his engine, but not enough horse-power to back off.
In his embarrassment he sweated enough water to raise the river and float his craft off the mud bank, if the water could have been applied at the right place.
The other three negroes took a delight in informing him in raucous tones what a sublimated donkey they thought he was.
Figger Bush developed an unusual flow of eloquence, and finally ended a superb climax by the proclamation:
“All dem unkind words whut you said I wus for not untyin’ de boat—you is dem!”
Then Skeeter had an inspiration.
He handed the end of a rope to Hitch Diamond and Vinegar Atts, and remarked in an unusually sweet tone:
“You two cullud pussons please git over on de shore an’ pull dis boat outen de mud!”
“Naw!” the two men howled. “We ain’t gwine mess up our clothes!”
“All right!” Skeeter remarked. “I’ll let deMud Henset on her nest till she hatches out a rise in de river an’ floats off.”
He sat down, lighted a cigarette, fanned himself with his hat, and inquired:
“Whar’s dem watermellyums? I feels hongry!”
“Lawdymussy!” Vinegar Atts howled. “Whar is dem dinner-baskits an’ my stove-pipe preachin’ hat?”
Skeeter arose to his feet with a nonchalant air, shaded his eyes with his hand and looked far down the river. A black hat bobbed merrily upon the waves, followed by four baskets and two watermelons.
A loud wail arose from the stranded boat, the loudest wail emitted from the throat of Vinegar at the loss of his precious hat.
“O Lawd!” he mourned. “Dat’s de best money-collectin’ hat I ever did own. A nigger would look down in dat black, silk hat an’ drap in a dollar jes’ to hear it blop!”
“’Twon’t be no trouble to git it back agin ef you pull us outen de mud,” Skeeter suggested artfully. “We’ll go on up to de bend, den turn aroun’ an’ chase our dinner-baskits an’ yo’ hat!”
“Dat’s de way to do!” the commodore and chaplain readily agreed, as they climbed into the canoe. “We’ll shore pull her off!”
One half hour of herculean effort on the part of the two men with the tow-line, accompanied by the steady coughing of the one-lunged steamboat, and the wailing admonitions of Skeeter and Figger, and then the boat floated free. Hitch and Vinegar climbed back on deck, fell exhausted, and lay flat on their backs looking at the blazing sky above them.
For two hours more, they paddled up the river without mishap. Skeeter Butts began to grin.
“I’s ketchin’ on, fellers!” he exclaimed. “I feels as scrupshus as a blue-jay wid a fresh worm!”
It would have been better for Skeeter, had he watched what was going on in the river. Just as he reached the bend, six miles above the Tickfall landing, there broke upon the still air, two loud, soul-thrilling whistles, one before them up the river, the other behind them.
If our friends had been experienced boatmen, they would have landed when they heard those two signals, tied their boat, crawled over on the far side of the levee, and engaged in earnest prayer for the safety of their craft.
Both boats had whistled for the bend.
One was theFederal, a government tug, which was forbidden to pass the city of New Orleans at a speed exceeding twenty miles an hour on account of the damage done to the shipping and the levees; the tug-boat was now splitting the Mississippi River wide open at forty miles an hour, and the swell of the rollers in its wake lashed the levees like the breaking of sea-billows on a rock-bound coast.
The other boat was the big river steamerNackitosh, whose wash was known and cursed by river fishermen and rafters from St. Louis to the Gulf.
The two boats passed each other in the bend, and then theMud Henfound herself in the middle of the river, which rocked like a storm at sea.
Skeeter Butts clung desperately to the pilot-wheel, slapping around it like a dish-rag waving in the wind; Hitch and Vinegar, who had been lying flat on their backs on deck, began to roll and scratch and claw at the deck to keep from falling overboard into the river; Figger Bush fell into the coal-pile near the furnace, scrambled like a cat in an ash-barrel, and kicked lumps of coal all over the boat.
There is nothing which can roughhouse a little boat as shamefully as two big boats; from the government tug there came a fan-shaped stern-wave four feet high, rode under theMud Hen, hoisted her nearly end on end, and let her down. Then the wash from the side-wheel steamboat met the tug’s stern-wave, rode over it like a petrel, and came aboard theMud Henfor a friendly call on the new owners.
Four hundred barrels of nice, wet Mississippi River water sat down in the laps of the terrified Tickfall quartet and embraced them lovingly.
Then this colored quartet sang a scale of ninety or one hundred assorted yells never before introduced in any musical composition. In fact, they put their souls in their voices with such surprising effect that it introduced them to sounds from their throats which they did not know up to that time they possessed.
TheMud Henturned completely around three times, tossed on the current like a match-box, stood on first one end and then the other, and pretty nearly straight down.
The experience was not dangerous, merely exciting; but the quartet did not know that, and when at last the river quieted, and they found themselves still afloat, they regarded it as a miracle wrought by the mercy of heaven.
It was five minutes before Skeeter Butts could recover his breath and crawl to the wheel. Five minutes more passed before he was able to speak a word. Then in a dry tone—the only dry thing about Skeeter—he said:
“I wus fixin’ to turn aroun’ at de bend, anyhow. I figger it’s ’bout time we wus gittin’ back to de automobile.”
The hour’s ride back to the Tickfall landing was free from conversation. Not even Vinegar Atts could think up anything to say. Each had bidden farewell to the world a few minutes before, and now in a sense of great deliverance, they were trying to repossess it.
As they approached the landing their courage slowly revived.
“Dem two boats sot us right behime death’s door, Skeeter,” Vinegar remarked in a weak voice.
“It squoze me up some in death’s door,” Skeeter chattered, slapping at his wet garments. “Dat expe’unce is done ruint me—I won’t never be de same agin.”
“I’se glad it happened,” Hitch Diamond growled. “It wus a powerful good try-out fer dis boat. I don’t believe nothing kin sink her now!”
“Ain’t it de trufe!” Figger Bush quacked. “Iain’t never gwine be skeart on disMud Henno mo’.”
“You look at dat glass water-tube an’ see is de b’iler got plenty water in it!” Skeeter barked. “Mebbe some spilt out when we wus mighty nigh upsot.”
Figger skipped to the water-gage and grinned triumphantly.
“She’s all right,” he yelped. “Is you keepin’ yo’ eye on dat ole steam-gage?”
Skeeter was.
In fact, he was gazing at that steam-gage with hypnotic fascination. He swallowed a succession of Adam’s apples like a string of smoked sausages before he could speak.
Skeeter knew precious little about machinery. Pipe Smash’s solemn and impressive warning about the steam-gage of theMud Henhad scared him. His experience on the river with the two big boats had fortunately not upset theMud Hen, but it had considerably upset Skeeter’s mind and his judgment. What Skeeter thought he saw that steam-gage doing is a mechanical impossibility, but his announcement had a startling effect.
“Come here, fellers, an’ look at dis steam-gage!” he wailed. “Dat indicator is done gone plum’ aroun’ de face of dat clock five times an’—she’s—gwine—aroun’—again!”
“My Gawd!” Vinegar Atts whooped. “DisMud Henis gittin’ ready to bust! Jump! Jump fer yo’ lives!”
Four negroes went over the side into the middle of the river.
TheMud Hen, paddling busily, kept to the current and moved serenely down the river.
Then, while the four frightened negroes got the shore, frog-fashion, Pipe Smash climbed out from his hiding place in front of the engine, and laid his experienced hand upon the pilot-wheel of theMud Hen.
He glanced at the steam-gage, and the indicator pointed steadily at sixty degrees of steam. Skeeter’s terrified eyes had played a trick on him!
“Gosh!” Pipe Smash exclaimed with a wicked grin. “I never had no idear dat steam-gage wus gwine skeer dem coons. I had a notion dey would leave dis boat when dey got kotch in de big wash of de steamboat gwine up de river. I wus plannin’ on dat.”
He stooped and threw a shovelful of coal into the furnace, and chuckled aloud:
“I fergot to tell Skeeter dat de furnace of dis engine wus so little dat nobody cain’t git up mo’ dan sixty pounds of steam—’tain’t no danger of dis engine bustin’ onless de b’iler runs dry. Excusin’ dat, dis here indicator cain’t slip aroun’ five times like Skeeter said it done—after it gits past dat biggest number on de gage, it hits a peg! I figger dat Skeeter was skeart!”
Pipe walked to the stem of the boat and shading his eyes looked up the river to the Tickfall landing. He waved his hat in the air and whooped, making more noise than his steamboat whistle.
Standing upon the shore, dripping puddles from their water-soaked garments, the Tickfall quartet heard that ironical whoop.
Broken-hearted and disconsolate, they watched their boat move serenely around the lower bend and pass out of sight in the gold and purple haze of the setting sun.
Returning to Tickfall in the automobile, the four negroes made much talk over the loss of theMud Hen.
“We bought dat boat good an’ hones’ wid real money,” Skeeter mourned. “Pipe Smash stole it from us.”
“Mebbe so,” Vinegar Atts growled. “But it ’pears to me like we left dat boat in de middle of de river, an’ dat’s jes de same as givin’ it to any nigger dat’s willin’ to ketch holt.”
“Dat’s de way I felt when I left her,” Figger Bush cackled. “I warn’t needin’ no steamboat jes’ den. Skeeter said dat steam-gage wus a cuttin’ up! I tuck his word fer it ’thout lookin’.”
“Us, too!” Hitch and Vinegar agreed.
“Nothin’ didn’t ail dat steam-gage,” Skeeter snapped. “Dat boat didn’t bust-she never would ’a’ busted. My eyes wus kinder jiggerty an’ I couldn’t look real good.”
“You didn’t talk that way on de boat,” Vinegar Atts growled. “I done loss my twenty-five dollars because you didn’t hab sense enough to watch yo’ bizziness!”
“My hind-sight is always better’n my eye-sight,” Skeeter Butts replied in piteous accents.
“I must hab got started wrong end foremost in dis worl’, for I never sees nothin’ till I gits past it.”
“Stop blimblammin’, niggers!” Commodore Hitch Diamond ordered. “Mebbe we’ll git back to Tickfall in time to see de fire-works.”
“Dat reminds my mind!” Skeeter Butts exclaimed. “Marse Tom Gaitskill tole us to git back from de river in time to he’p him shoot ’em off!”
The Fourth of July in Tickfall was a Gaitskill institution.
In the month of May, 1865, Tom Gaitskill returned to Tickfall in the tattered gray of a Confederate soldier—a colonel at nineteen years of age.
He cast off the past with his worn-out garments, married a beautiful girl, and started with her, hand in hand, along the paths of peace.
Two months later, on the Fourth of July, he dragged the only cannon Tickfall possessed to the top of the hill in front of his house, invited every white child and every negro piccaninny to his home to witness the celebration, and with his own hands fired one shot from the cannon for every year of independence in the United States of America.
As the years passed, the Gaitskill Fourth of July celebration grew and developed and became a social institution, until finally, when wealth flowed in upon Gaitskill in a golden stream, he made it a practice to entertain the whole population of the village on that night.
The fiftieth celebration was now in progress.
On Gaitskill’s spacious lawn in front of his house, all the white people, men, women, and children, had assembled; in a large horse-lot by the side of the house, all the negroes had congregated; across the street in a large pasture was an immense accumulation of fire-works.
Fifty years had performed gracious offices for Tom Gaitskill and his wife. The beauty and nobility of honorable old age was theirs, as they stood beside the white colonial columns of their home and welcomed their guests, white and black. The two presented a picture which a man sees once in a lifetime—then remembers it forever more.
Suddenly “Old Sneezer,” the venerable Tickfall cannon, boomed!
“Come on, Skeeter!” Hitch Diamond growled. “We better go over in de pasture an’ he’p de white folks shoot off de works!”
“Hitch,” Skeeter answered pitifully, “I feels powerful sick. It ’pears like I cain’t git dat steamboat offen my mind. You an’ Vinegar an’ Figger go over an’ he’p de white folks an’ let me set an’ ponder a while.”
“All right!” Hitch growled. “But ef Marse Tom ketches you cuttin’ out wuck, he’ll kick you all over dis hoss-lot!”
Old Sneezer boomed again!
Then for two hours the population of Tickfall sat entranced.
Numberless roman candles shot their balls high in the air with a graceful curve, countless sky-rockets burst above their heads in a shower ofsparks, an artillery fire of bombs burst into stars over them, cataracts of red, white, and blue fire flowed in a tumbling stream, horses, bicycles, automobiles, and whole strings of railroad cars traveled across the pasture, while through it all sounded the boom! boom! boom! of old Sneezer, the cannon, counting the number of years of our national independence!
In the midst of this celebration, Skeeter Butts was suddenly galvanized into action by a great idea. He went racing across the street into the pasture, and drew Hitch Diamond and Figger Bush to one side.
“Listen, niggers!” he panted. “Rake off some of dese here fireworks! Marse Tom is got a heap mo’ dan he needs! Swipe out a few!”
Following his own suggestion, Skeeter seized a keg of calcium powder and ran across the pasture, setting it in the corner of the fence. He was followed shortly by Hitch Diamond and Figger Bush, one bringing an unopened package of roman candles and the other a package of sky-rockets.
“Dat’s plenty of dis kind of truck, fellers!” Skeeter cackled. “Go back an’ rake off de bigges’ cannon pop-crackers you kin find!”
From that moment Skeeter became an active assistant in the celebration, and when the old cannon boomed for the last time and the fire-works ended with a final set-piece which revealed the American Flag, twenty feet high and nearly forty feet long, the populace of Tickfall roared their hearty approbation to the skies.
Ten minutes later a procession of negroes marched down the hill from the Gaitskill home, their glorious, pipe-organ voices chanting the Battle Hymn of the Republic.