Hitch sat down upon the lumber-pile and slipped quietly over the edge, preparing to descend.
He hung the seat of his trousers upon a splinter and lunged forward in a sudden panic, tearing the garment almost off his body.
As he climbed quietly down the side of the pile, he hung the leg of his trousers upon a projecting stick and ripped the leg almost up to the waistband. Dropping down upon the sawdust path, he took a step or two and found that his torn pantaloons hindered his progress, and might afford his pursuers a hand-hold for his capture.
Sorrowfully he took the garment off and stood in his giant strength, panoplied in his red underclothes!
“There he goes!” a voice called in the dark.
Clenching his iron fists, Hitch started at fullspeed. Ten men blocked the entrance before him. He went through them like an express-train, rolling some of them heels over head.
A man ran out of a by-path, and his head collided with Hitch’s fist like a punching-bag. As the negro ran another, another, and another came out of the little pathways, and each one went down like a bag of salt. Thus Hitch arrived at the main passageway.
Then he found every by-path pouring forth its quota of men, every thoroughfare contributed its number, and every man upon the lumber-piles ran toward one spot to illumine the passage with their dark lanterns.
“Lawdymussy!” Hitch sighed. “Ef I don’t mix wid ’em, dey’ll shoot me!”
To the end of their lives, those powerful, husky sawmill men told with awe-stricken voices of the fight of that giant black in the lumber yard. Hitch mixed with them. No man dared to use his pistol for fear of killing a friend. It was a hand-to-hand battle, one negro against forty mill-hands.
With a wild, insane bellow Hitch hurled himself upon that mob of cursing, shrieking, clambering, clutching men, and they set upon him like ravening wolves.
The confusion was terrible, the noise was deafening, the shout and the tumult of the battle echoing back from the mountains of lumber. Hitch alone seemed to have a clear idea of his battle—he knew that every man was against him. The others hindered each other, but Hitch knew that he wasfree to knock any nose and pound any head and butt any stomach.
The proximity of the lumber on each side of the thoroughfare was an aid to Hitch. When he hurled his mighty body into a crowd of his opponents, and they reeled back from the impact and struck the backs of their heads against the wood, it took them a few minutes to recover from the shock, while Hitch gave his attention to others.
His giant fists pounded heads as though they were egg-shells; his ponderous bare feet landed with mighty kicks in the stomachs and the backs of men; his long, iron arms whirled like the wings of a windmill, mowing them down, every man who was touched falling unconscious or helpless.
Four men clung to him like cockleburs to a sheep’s wool, trying to drag him down by their weight. Hitch scooped them up in his mighty arms and fell with their combined weight against a pile of lumber, crushing them and breaking their holds.
An excited watchman on a lumber-pile above him sought to contribute a share to the battle by dropping upon Hitch’s head a girder or joist such as is used in constructing the framework of houses. The piece of timber fell ten feet from Hitch’s struggling body, and he set his hand upon it with a bellow of joy.
In that moment Hitch became another Goliath, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam, and whose spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron.
When Hitch began to lay about him with that joist the battle was won. The foolish watchman who had contributed such a mighty weapon to the enemy was so astonished that he fell, clattering, off the lumber-pile and broke his arm.
The men charged him once more, but Hitch waved his big piece of timber from side to side, mowing them down. A pistol-shot from the top of the lumber warned Hitch that it was time to leave.
A loud, disappointed wail sounded from the top of the lumber, where the men were operating the dark lanterns, and instantly began the crack, crack, crack of the pistols, shooting at Hitch as he ran down the corridor.
Men still arriving, coming in from other by-paths and avenues between the lumber, scrambled out of Hitch’s way, fearful of being shot from above.
Hitch found a clear path and took it. In a little while he was out of range of the bullets and out of the glare of the lights. He scrambled over a low fence, and found himself in a side street outside of the lumber yard.
“Hey, men!” a triumphant voice shrieked. “Here he is! We’ve got him! Come on! We’ve caught him!”
Shriek after shriek arose from the middle of the lumber yard, accompanied by the triumphant voices repeating:
“We’ve got him!”
“Dey ain’t got me!” Hitch grinned as he looked over his shoulder at the flashing lightswhich were converging at another point on top of the lumber. “I’s gwine drap down an’ rest a minute; den I’s gwine take dis red suit of underclothes to Tickfall, an’ git some pants an’ a coat to put on over it.”
He dropped down in a thicket of plum-trees, completely exhausted. While he rested he listened.
“Kill him!”
“Befo’ Gawd, white folks, I ain’t done nothin’, nothin’!”
“Knock him over the head with that jug and make him shut up!”
A loud scream and silence!
“I wonder whut road goes back to Tickfall?” Hitch whispered with fear-stiffened lips. “One dead nigger is more’n a plenty!”
Skirting the edge of the town to be out of the electric lights, Hitch Diamond sought the way to the river. With him every place was either up or down that great stream, and he remembered that Tickfall was up the river.
When he found the levee and stood looking out upon the dark water so great was his confusion that he was unable to tell which way the stream was flowing.
He heard behind him the shouts of the approaching mob, punctuated now and then by the terrible screams of a man being led out of the woods to suffer death. He shuddered and wondered that any man could make as much noise with his throat as did this terrified negro in the hands of the mob.
A moment later there was no question in Hitch’s mind which way the Mississippi River was flowing, for Hitch was swimming noiselessly across the current toward the opposite shore. But the Father of Waters is no quiet mill-pond. The pressure of its mighty current is the push of every drop of water falling between the Rockies and the Alleghanies and the inflow of the rivers between. That current carried Hitch down the stream, in spite of his most powerful efforts to resist it.
Several men ran out on the levee and threw their lantern rays across the water.
Hitch promptly turned on his back and floated, riding the current as motionless as a log. When the light left the water, Hitch struggled on, fighting the dark, muddy stream.
Suddenly the water swept him against one of the immense cypress braces of the revetment levee. He seized it, almost dead with weariness. He realized that he was not twenty feet from the shore he had left, and but a short distance from the mob. But this revetment offered a hiding place, and he grasped it eagerly.
The voices of the mob came to him distinctly across the water.
“Befo’ Gawd, white folks, you-alls ain’t got me right!” the hopeless captive wailed. “I ain’t done nothin’ a-tall! All you white mens knows Dude Blackum—dat’s me! I lives in de cabin jest up ferninst de mill-pond, an’ wucks on a farm fer my livin’!”
“Shut up!”
The crowd which had fought and been defeated by Hitch Diamond was in no mood to listen to the explanations of another negro. A long, wailing cry was Dude Blackum’s answer, and the mob moved on.
Suddenly there was a whoop, a clatter of pistol shots, a howling mob swarming over the levee, a splash of water, and a number of voices:
“Catch him! Head him off there! Kill him!”
A number of flash-lights whipped the water, and one big lantern shot a broad, blinding, dangerous streak. That flare of light caught the round, black head, swimming, struggling in the current, and held it.
“Now, men!” a voice called. “There’s your mark—shoot straight!”
There was a fusillade—Hitch Diamond noted with elation that the black, woolly head bobbed on.
“Fer Gawd’s sake!” Hitch murmured. “Why don’t dat coon dive an’ float?”
Suddenly an authoritative voice cried:
“Stop shooting, men! Get in your skiffs and row out there and catch that negro! It’ll take him half an hour to swim the river!”
“My Lawd!” Hitch Diamond moaned. “Little Hitchie is shore up ag’in it now!”
“Hurry, men!” the same authoritative voice called.
There was the sound of running feet along the levee, then a moment of breathless silence while the flash-lights lashed the water.
Then far out into the stream there was a loud scream, a loud splash, and silence!
“Dar now!” Hitch mourned. “De water cramps got him! He’s dead!”
The lights of the lanterns searched everywhere. No black object floated, nothing at all was seen.
The same clear, authoritative voice spoke again, and a tone of sadness softened it:
“I guess that’s all, men! We may as well go home now!”
“I’s gwine home, too!” Hitch Diamond whimpered piteously.
He climbed down the levee, after battling his way across the river, found a public highway on the other side, and stepped into the middle of the road. Looking about him cautiously, he inflated his lungs with air. After that he dropped his hands to his sides and began a steady and persistent trot, his feet striking the sand with the monotonous regularity of a ticking clock, each stride carrying him away from the scene of his adventure.
Hour after hour, as persistent as a desert camel, Hitch moved ahead, his breath like a husky bellows, his body pain-shot from his many wounds.
By early dawn he was miles away, tortured by hunger and compelled to face the fact that hecould not go to a house and beg for food, nor could he forage in the daylight for lack of clothes.
“Lawd,” Hitch mourned. “Ef I ever git back to Tickfall, I’s gwine git on de water-wagon, an’ cut out de booze. I’ll cut out prize-fightin’, cussin’, an’ trabelin’ aroun’. I’ll git me a good, easy job ’thout much work to do, an’ rest my bones till I die!”
As the first faint streaks which marked the rising of the sun shot across the sky, Hitch left the road and walked toward the river.
He entered some deep woods and crawled into a thicket of small trees which were heavily draped with muscadine vines. Dragging these vines down and packing them around him so that they made a complete covering, he lay flat on the ground and slept like a dead man until darkness came again.
When Hitch awoke he could see the dim outlines of the river levee, and he started toward it, every muscle stiff and aching and crying for more rest.
“I’s gwine git over on my own side of dis river befo’ I fergits whut side I b’longs on,” he soliloquized. “Bad luck is hittin’ me too fast fer me to take any chances!”
Weak from hunger and weariness, with his strength bound by his stiff and aching muscles, the current carried Hitch almost a mile down the stream before he could battle his way across.
When he landed he lay for an hour upon the shore, hardly able to move. At last he started,going away from the river until he found the public road, then turned to the right and started forward on a steady trot.
Daylight found him twenty-seven miles nearer Tickfall, and the third day had begun for him without food. Hunger gnawed at his stomach with the teeth of death.
As he approached the woods where he expected to hide for the day, he noticed a thin column of smoke rising above the branches of the trees.
“Ef I kin find dat fire in de woods, an’ some nigger is watchin’ it, I won’t hab no trouble,” Hitch muttered. “Dey’ll onderstan’ dat I’s done had troubles an’ dey’ll git me some pants an’ somepin to eat.”
He crept into the timber and began to walk slowly and cautiously toward the place where he thought he had located the smoke.
It was much farther than he had estimated, and he crawled and crept for a long time before he reached it.
Some one had cooked food there, for an old tin can was still redolent of boiled coffee; there were the feathers of a chicken, and the scales of a fish, and the crumbs of bread.
Moaning to himself like a wounded animal, Hitch dropped upon all fours and picked up every crumb of bread, and sucked the remaining sustenance from every chicken and fish bone which had been cast aside, and drained every drop of coffee from the empty can.
Then he heard a noise behind him and turnedto gaze into the scarred, black, masklike face of Dinner Gaze.
Hitch was not at all surprised to see some negro from Sawtown hiding in the woods. In fact, he knew if the negro who built the fire was a traveler he had very likely come from that mill town.
The proverb that the wicked flee when no man pursueth does not apply to the negro in the South. However innocent he may be of crime, he desires to depart from a place where there has been trouble between the negroes and the whites. If he is a transient like Hitch Diamond, or his occupation is rather questionable, like the gambling-house of Dinner Gaze, he is sure to leave at the earliest opportunity and go where he has friends or where the white people who know him will defend him from harm.
“Hello, Dinner!” Hitch exclaimed.
Dinner’s black, beadlike eyes glowed unwinkingly.
“I thought they kilt you in de river, Revun,” he muttered in his soft, easy voice.
“Naw, suh, dey wusn’t atter me,” Hitch said with difficulty, feeling a great weakness and nausea come over him. “Dey kotch Dude Blackum an’ Dude escaped away. He sunk while he was swimmin’ in de river.”
“Did de mob tear all yo’ clothes off?” Dinner Gaze asked.
“Naw, suh; I had bad luck an’ loss all my clothes befo’ dat happened. Dat’s how come I got to trabbel at night.”
“Is you hongry?” Gaze asked.
“Ain’t had nothin’ fer two days, an’ dis is de beginnin’ of de nex’ day,” Hitch told him.
Dinner Gaze picked up a small handsatchel which he had set down at his feet and prepared to leave.
“I’s sorry you didn’t git here in time fer breakfast, Revun,” he said. “Ef you’ll stay right here I’ll go git you some ole clothes an’ a little vittles. I kin beg ’em from some white folks’s house.”
“I’s mighty nigh dead wid bein’ so hongry, Dinner,” Hitch pleaded. “Ef you’ll he’p me outen dis scrape I’ll shore love you ferever.”
“Don’t be oneasy,” Dinner grinned. “I’ll he’p you as much as I kin.”
Dinner may have intended to aid Hitch, but that portion of Tickfall Parish was scantily inhabited. He walked several miles before he came to a human habitation, and there he was refused both food and clothes.
Furthermore, Hitch had said enough to cause any man to suspect that he was implicated in the Sawtown murder, and negroes are afraid to render aid and comfort to criminals, even of their own race.
Hitch waited for several hours, and finally fell asleep, dreaming of all the things he had ever seen or heard of that were good to eat. He awoke at nightfall, famished. Dinner Gaze had not returned.
“Dat nigger lied to me!” Hitch exclaimed desperately. “Ef I had him here I’d kill himwid my bare hands. Ef I ever git de chance to even up, I’ll do it ef I die!”
Cursing his misfortunes, he arose and stumbled weakly forward.
Two days later Hitch Diamond stumbled up the steps of the little cabin at the Gaitskill hog-camp, seven miles from Tickfall. He fell unconscious at the feet of old Isaiah Gaitskill, the negro overseer.
“My Lawd!” Isaiah exclaimed, clawing at his white wool. “Wharever Hitch has been at, he comed away so fast dat he runned out of all his clothes!”
It was Sunday morning in Tickfall. A crowd of men were standing in front of the Shoofly Church, idly waiting and chewing tobacco. A row of men sat like buzzards upon the top of the rickety fence, also chewing tobacco. Half a dozen saddle-horses stood hitched to the trees and two-score dilapidated buggies stood in a row with their horses hitched to the fence.
Now and then some young negro girl wandered aimlessly toward one of these buggies, then hastened her footsteps as if she had just remembered leaving something under the seat.
Some young negro man quickly ceased his low-toned conversation and watched her out of thecorner of his eye. Presently the girl climbed into the buggy and sat down. Promptly the young man left his companions and went and sat beside her. That was the end of their interest in the services to be conducted in the church that morning.
The young man had found the saint of his deepest devotion.
The Rev. Vinegar Atts came stalking across the churchyard like a turkey walking through mud and dressed in all his Sunday finery. None of the men seemed to be aware of his presence. Vinegar reflected on the strangeness of this, and began to ponder uneasily on his chance of retaining his job as the preacher at the Shoofly Church.
He bowed and spoke to all the men, and hardly one of them gave him a nod of recognition in return.
Vinegar determined to find out the cause of this indifference, and he chose for his informant a man named Pap Curtain—a tall, slim negro with a yellow monkey face and an habitual sneer upon his lips.
“Whut ails you niggers to-day?” Vinegar demanded in a trembling voice. “How come dis here awful silence aroun’ dis church?”
“Hoodoo gal!” Pap Curtain answered laconically, pointing across the churchyard.
“Huh!” Vinegar grunted with popping eyes.
On the other side of the yard old Ginny Babe Chew, a woman of immense size, was walking beside a slim young negress dressed in white and very handsome.
“Huh,” Vinegar grunted again, unable to comprehend.
“How much will you gib me fer a piece of real news, Revun?” Pap inquired.
“Ef you got any tales to tell, bawl out!” Vinegar snapped, for the men’s actions were getting on his nerves.
“You remember hearin’ ’bout dat Dude Blackum whut got into trouble wid de white folks at Sawtown las’ Monday night?” Pap asked. “Well, suh, dat little gal wid Ginny Babe Chew is Dainty Blackum, Dude’s cote-house wife!”
“My Lawd!” Vinegar growled as he sat down upon the ground under a tree like a man suddenly overcome by weakness. He pulled out his corn-cob pipe and gave himself up to troubled meditation as he filled and lighted it. After a few moments he said:
“Pap, de niggers never will git over deir skeer ’bout dat little entertainment wid Dude Blackum. I don’t b’lieve he done whut de white folks said he done.”
“Hush!” Pap cautioned. Then he asked: “Whut diffunce do dat make now? He’s done dead!”
There was a long silence while the two men watched the handsome, graceful girl walking beside the elephantine form of Ginny Babe Chew. Finally Pap Curtain said aloud as if to himself:
“She’s tall an’ wavy like a stalk of sugar-cane, an’ sweet plum down to de groun’.”
“She ain’t mournin’ so powerful deep fer datDude Blackum,” Vinegar remarked. “She’s dolled up in a white dress!”
“Dat Dude Blackum shore did lose somepin beside his life when he parted wid dat female woman,” Pap said. “Ef I could hab a gal like dat keepin’ house fer me, I’d shore cut out all meanness ferever.”
Vinegar Atts shuddered and rose to his feet.
“I ain’t waste no time talkin’ ’bout dead niggers,” he said uneasily. “I done seed de ghost of dat Dude Blackum ’bout fo’teen times.”
“You ain’t by yo’se’f in dat, Revun,” Pap sighed. “Eve’y time I thinks of dat nigger I gits de jiggety-jams.”
“I knowed Dude Blackum a little bit—I seed him on de train once,” Vinegar said. “But ’pears like his ha’nt ain’t gwine let me alone a-tall!”
Dainty and Ginny Babe walked up the steps and entered the Shoofly Church, followed by the curious eyes of all the men in the yard.
“Dar now!” Vinegar mourned. “’Tain’t no use to try to hab preachin’ dis mawnin’—dat hoodoo gal is done got dis meetin’-house in a mess. I feels like somebody is done criss-crossed my head wid a rabbit-foot.”
He knocked the tobacco from his pipe and thrust it into his pocket, his eyes set upon the door through which the girl had passed.
“When did Dainty Blackum come to Tickfall?” Vinegar asked.
“Yistiddy. Ginny Babe Chew met her at dedeppo. Some yuther niggers come up from Sawtown, too. You know how niggers is—dar’s a scatteration when somepin like dat happens.”
“Yes, suh. De guilty niggers scatterates as fur as dey kin git an’ as quick as dey kin go,” Vinegar agreed. “De not guilty niggers hikes out of de place to de near-by towns an’ waits till de clouds rolls by.”
“I’s jes’ whisperin’ to you ’bout dat Dainty Blackum, Vinegar,” Pap said suddenly. “I ain’t gwine ’round braggin’ no brags ’bout knowin’ dis Blackum gal. White folks gits awful rambunctious when a nigger kills a white man like Dude done.”
“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” Vinegar murmured. “I done j’ined de lodge of silunce.”
The two men separated, Vinegar enterin’ the large, cool, dilapidated church. The band of men standing in the yard followed, as a drove of mules follow a gray mare upon the dusty highroad. The buzzard-like men climbed from their perches on the fence, dusted the seats of their trousers by quick, sliding motions of each hand, and entered the building. In the intense silence their heavily shod feet made ugly noises upon the uncarpeted floor.
Vinegar sensed tragedy everywhere. He looked around him uneasily, spotting certain unfamiliar faces in the congregation.
Ginny Babe Chew sat on the front seat with Dainty Blackum, the two occupying the middle row of pews. On Vinegar’s right, on the frontseat, sat a man who had a knife-scar in his neck, a bullet-scar on his cheek, and the top of his left ear was missing. On Vinegar’s left was a tall, ladder-headed negro, dressed like a preacher, sitting on a front bench.
There was no organ or other musical instrument in the church. Vinegar Atts, who had a voice like a pipe-organ, always raised his own tunes and depended upon Skeeter Butts, Figger Bush, and Hitch Diamond to carry the music in the congregation.
Vinegar looked in vain for his three friends to-day. Hitch Diamond had been gone for three Sundays; Skeeter Butts was organizing a baseball nine, and Figger Bush had gone away with a fishing-party of white people.
Suddenly the voice of Dinner Gaze, sitting on Vinegar’s right, rose loud and clear in the silence:
“On de yuther side of Jordon,In de sweet fields of Eden,Whar de Tree of Life is bloomin’,Dar is rest fer you!”
“On de yuther side of Jordon,In de sweet fields of Eden,Whar de Tree of Life is bloomin’,Dar is rest fer you!”
No one in the congregation knew the song, and the solo-voice floated out like the song of a bird. The people sat with bowed heads and listened. When the song ended Vinegar walked out of the pulpit and extended his hand cordially to Dinner Gaze.
“Glad to meet yo’ ’quaintance, my brudder!” he rumbled. “Will you h’ist de toons fer us?”
Dinner Gaze rose from his seat and, stooping as if he were trying to catch a rat, walked to the front of the congregation. Pausing a moment, his body began to weave to and fro as if in conformity to the words of Scripture: “All my bones shall praise thee.” Then to the surprise of the congregation, after all this orthodox preparation for starting a tune, Dinner Gaze suddenly walked back to his former place and sat down! In the meantime Vinegar Atts was getting acquainted with the other stranger on the opposite side of the house.
“Yes, suh, my name is Tucky Sugg,” the stranger told him. “I ain’t no reg’lar preacher, but I exhausts a little befo’ de people sometimes.”
“I hopes you’ll take up yo’ stayin’-place wid us,” Vinegar said cordially. “Us needs good mens.”
He turned to motion to Dinner Gaze to start the song, and found that Dinner had gone back to his seat.
“Whut ails you, brudder?” he asked.
“I’s skeart I don’t know enough toons to lead de singin’,” Gaze said with a grin. “I retires.”
Vinegar’s eyes fell upon Ginny Babe Chew.
“H’ist a toon, sister!” he commanded. In a hoarse bellow Ginny Babe began:
“Blow—ye—de—trumpet—blow——”
“Blow—ye—de—trumpet—blow——”
One line was enough.
The words were not inspiring, the tune and tone and manner of the fat leader was a call to penitence, anguish, and tears.
Vinegar sprang to his feet.
“Dat’s won’t do, sister!” he interrupted. “Less singdistoon!”
He began a song in a bellow which shook the rafters of the house and rattled the windows and threatened to crumble the foundations of the building. The song was a jay-bird affair, waltz-music to the stanza and jig-time to the chorus. The song might as well have been totally unfamiliar to the congregation. It was really one of their favorites—but, in spite of that, they let Vinegar sing it through as a solo.
Verily, the hoodoo was working.
Vinegar was appalled at the unresponsiveness of his congregation, and when the crowd had listened without objection or commendation to a solo prayer and to a reading from the old, worn Bible upon the desk, the preacher was almost in hysterics. He had never seen anything like that before.
Vinegar turned to Ginny Babe Chew a second time and said desperately:
“Now, sister Ginny, less hab anodder song—a lively toon whut eve’ybody knows!”
Ginny Babe Chew rose to her feet, her hand started the gestures of an old-fashioned singing-master, her body “weaved,” her voice arose in ahigh, drawling falsetto, utterly unlike her natural tone:
“Blow—ye—de—trumpet—blow—”
“Blow—ye—de—trumpet—blow—”
If the human eye had power to slay, Ginny Babe would now be dead. Vinegar Atts glared at her with such a murderous look that the congregation forgot to sing and watched him. Ginny Babe turned and gazed at the preacher with the air of a hurt child, and quietly took her seat.
There was continued silence in the congregation.
Vinegar raised another tune:
“I muss tell de good Lawd all of my trials,I cannot bear dese here burdens alone!”
“I muss tell de good Lawd all of my trials,I cannot bear dese here burdens alone!”
There was continued silence on the part of every one except the preacher. The congregation knew the song and loved it, but they acted like they had never heard either the song or the tune. They were certainly lacking in that Christian coöperation which the song recommended, and Vinegar had to tell his troubles and trials without their assistance.
Then in utter desperation, Vinegar turned again to Dinner Gaze and said pleadingly.
“Fer Gawd’s sake, brudder, come out here an’ sing us a sweet toon—it don’t make difference even ef we don’t know it.”
Long after Dinner Gaze had ended his brief sojourn in Tickfall, the congregation of the Shoofly Church remembered him as he stood before themwith his scarred face and sang the song of the shining shore:
“My days are gliding swiftly by,An’ I, a pilgrim stranger,Would not detain ’em as dey flyDem hours of toil an’ danger;Fer, Oh! We stand on Jordon’s strandOur frien’s are passin’ over;An’ jest befo’, de shinin’ sho’We may almost discover.”
“My days are gliding swiftly by,An’ I, a pilgrim stranger,Would not detain ’em as dey flyDem hours of toil an’ danger;Fer, Oh! We stand on Jordon’s strandOur frien’s are passin’ over;An’ jest befo’, de shinin’ sho’We may almost discover.”
After this Vinegar arose, announced his text, and began his sermon.
Thereupon Aunt Biddy Chivill, an old negress, deaf as an adder, arose from one of the pews and seated herself in a chair inside the altar railing. Unrolling a trumpet hose she had inherited at the death of a wealthy white woman in Tickfall, she screwed the parts together with great pride and ostentation, and settled herself to listen.
Vinegar spoke about four sentences to which Biddy Chivill listened attentively. Then with an air of final decision, Biddy removed the trumpet from her ear, unscrewed each part with great care and stowed the instrument away in a bag which she carried in her lap, taking great pains to lock the bag. Folding her hands across her lap she fell into peaceful slumber while Vinegar Atts bellowed on.
Sister Ginny Babe Chew, having attempted two abortive toots upon her trumpet, also fell asleep.
But while Aunt Biddy Chivill slept, her little four-year-old granddaughter became immediately active and very much awake. She crept out into the aisle and began to walk around aimlessly, her bare feet making no noise upon the uncarpeted floor.
For a while she amused herself by staring into the faces of the men and peeping under the sun-bonnets of the women. The hands which were stretched out to arrest her were carefully avoided, and she rewarded each person making the attempt with a childish scowl.
Then she sat down upon the floor and crawled under the benches. She lay on the floor and rolled under the benches, bobbing up at unexpected places with an angelic smile.
After this she found a large box in the rear of the church.
In spite of the town stock laws, the hogs ran wild in that portion of Tickfall known as Dirty-Six, where the Shoofly Church was located. Many of these animals had their sleeping place under the church, and the building was infested with fleas.
It was a custom when a church meeting was to be held, to sprinkle the floor with lime and sweep it out, thus ridding the house temporarily of the insects. For that purpose a large box of lime was kept in the rear of the church.
It was this box that the little black baby girl discovered. She stood on tiptoe, stretched herself up, and looked in. It was white, very white, inside. She reached over the edge and touched the whiteness.She brought the hand out and looked at it. It also was white.
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.The “Revun” Vinegar Atts began his sermon.
Drawn by E. W. Kemble.
The “Revun” Vinegar Atts began his sermon.
Then the child reached into the box with both hands, filled them with lime, and rubbed them on her face. By the mercy of heaven, she did not get any of the stuff into her mouth and eyes. Then she sat down and rubbed her feet with lime. The effect was gratifying and she smiled.
By this time the sermon was ended. Vinegar had not done much, but he had done the best he could.
“Brudder Tucky Sugg will pray for us!” Vinegar bawled.
The congregation reverently bowed.
Then a little black girl with lime-whitened face and hands and legs, trotted silently up the aisle and stood beside brother Tucky Sugg, listening earnestly to his bawling voice.
She stretched out a tiny, lime-whitened hand and touched Tucky Sugg timidly on the top of his step-ladder head.
“Who you tryin’ to talk to, Revun?” she asked in a bird-like voice.
Tucky Sugg opened his eyes and saw something he had never seen before.
With a loud bellow like a frightened cow, he rolled backward on the floor, and got up with an intense desire to run.
“My Gawd!”
The voice was like an explosion of dynamite, and expressed the consternation of the congregation as they rose to their feet prepared for flight.
Ginny Babe Chew awoke from her slumber. She stared at the little child a moment, then reached out a fat, motherly hand.
“Come here, honey!” she bawled. “Yo’ mammy oughter had washed yo’ face an’ hands befo’ she sont you to de meetin’-house.”
She wiped the lime off the child with the end of her apron, and took the child in her lap.
Then, while the congregation was still standing, Dinner Gaze from his place at one side of the house began to sing, while all stood and listened:
“At de feast of Bill Shasser an’ a thousan’ of his lords,While dey drunk from golden vessels as de Book of Truth records,In de night as dey reveled in de royal palace hall,Dey wus seized wid cornsternation—’twas de Hand upon de wall!So our deeds is recorded—dar’s a Hand dat’s writin’ now.Sinner, gib yo’ sins de go-by an’ to de Marster bow!Fer de day am approachin’—it must come to one an’ allWhen de sinner’s corndamnation will git written on de wall!”
“At de feast of Bill Shasser an’ a thousan’ of his lords,While dey drunk from golden vessels as de Book of Truth records,In de night as dey reveled in de royal palace hall,Dey wus seized wid cornsternation—’twas de Hand upon de wall!So our deeds is recorded—dar’s a Hand dat’s writin’ now.Sinner, gib yo’ sins de go-by an’ to de Marster bow!Fer de day am approachin’—it must come to one an’ allWhen de sinner’s corndamnation will git written on de wall!”
On the instant that the song ended, a long, wailing cry, that was at once full of anguish and heart-break, ran through the building!
Old Isaiah Gaitskill, superintendent of the Gaitskill hog-camp, ran down the aisle, clawing at the white wool which fitted his head like a rubber cap.His face was ashy with the dust of the high-way, and tears had streaked it where they had ran downward through the dust.
“My Gawd, cullud folks!” he wailed. “De white folks is done kotched Hitch Diamond—dey are fotchin’ him to jail right now! Here dey come down de big road. Oh, my Gawd!”
The old negro turned and fell with his hands clasping the altar, sobbing like a child.
The entire congregation ran out of the building into the churchyard and looked up the street. To the end of their lives they never forgot what they saw.
Hitch Diamond, bareheaded, barefooted, dressed in a red undershirt and a pair of blue overalls, was walking down the middle of the street, his hands manacled behind him, his head hanging in shame.
Dust covered him from head to feet, and perspiration streamed down his face. He had tried to wipe the perspiration away by rubbing his head upon his broad shoulders, and this had smeared his face with mud until he was a horrible creature to behold.
Hitch looked old, he looked sick. All of the pride and jauntiness which had characterized him when he left Tickfall for the prize-fight had dropped away, and he was merely the shell of theman who had gone away from home to certain pugilistic victory.
On either side of Hitch Diamond rode a strange white man—New Orleans detectives employed by the mill owners of Sawtown to track the fugitive down. Behind the three rode the sheriff of Tickfall Parish, Mr. John Flournoy.
Dainty Blackum ran back into the church and brought from the pulpit a glass pitcher with a broken spout. She met Hitch and the officers right in front of the church, and the officers called a halt as she held the pitcher up to Hitch Diamond’s thirsty lips. Then, dipping a handkerchief into the water, she wiped the mud and sweat from the tortured man’s face.
Wail after wail arose from the crowd of negroes in front of the Shoofly Church, and Hitch turned and looked at them as if he did not realize where he was.
Vinegar Atts ran out and placed his trembling hand upon Sheriff Flournoy’s dusty stirrup.
“Whut dey got Hitch fer, Marse John?” he sobbed.
“Murder!” Flournoy growled through jaws which were shut together like a bear-trap. “He killed the night watchman at the Sawtown mill!”
The party started again, and Vinegar stood in his tracks as if turned to stone.
It seemed to take a few minutes for the Shoofly congregation to comprehend what Flournoy had said, or else the shock was so great that even their emotions could find no expression, voluble as theyare as a race. Then a moan of sorrow swept like a deep-toned note from some mighty musical instrument; it was rich, melodious, heart-breaking—an expression of the deepest and most acute grief of their humble lives.
For Hitch was the hero of the colored population of Tickfall. They had shared his glory as victor in many a hard-fought fistic battle. They had won many dollars on his prowess as a boxer. They had helped to train him and perfect his wonderful physical organization for every contest he had ever participated in, and they loved him!
And Hitch deserved their affection. According to his lights he was a good man, a clean liver, one who took the best care he knew how of his superb body. There was nothing vicious or ugly about his disposition. He was merely a great, strong, bone-headed pugilist, who had made the most of himself by developing and using the best talent he possessed, namely, his giant strength.
Still moaning like the sea as the tide flows out, the Shoofly congregation flowed out into the road and fell in behind, forming a long procession of sorrowing friends.
Suddenly, above the low moan, in a tone which ripped and roared and snarled like the angry water breaking through a levee, came the mighty voice of Ginny Babe Chew:
“Murder! Murder! Murder! Whut do Gawd Awmighty think about dat?”
She pranced down the street, thrusting the people aside with her ponderous body as a steamboatcuts through the mushy ice upon a river. Her voice howled like a wolf’s call, with a taunting, bark-like, malicious, nerve-searing gratification:
“Murder!”
She managed to reach the head of the procession and walked just behind Sheriff Flournoy’s horse.
She whirled round and round like a Dervish, stooped and threw dust in the air, tore her clothes, and waving her fists at the sky shrieked like a maniac:
“Murder! Murder! Murder!”
John Flournoy stopped his horse, and turned and looked at her with a queer expression upon his face. Once he opened his mouth to speak, then shut his jaws tight, turned his eyes forward and rode on.
“Murder!” Ginny Babe Chew screamed.
Vinegar Atts could endure the horror no longer. He ran forward, and caught Ginny Babe by her fat shoulder and whirled her around. Vinegar had had years of experience as a pugilist and was Hitch’s boxing partner to this day. He knew exactly where to place his blow.
His open palm with all his strength behind it flattened upon Ginny Babe’s squalling lips. She uttered a low grunt, and fell in the street.
John Flournoy looked back and nodded his approval.
The crowd coming behind split in two halves, and walked around Ginny’s prostrate body, noting without pity that a stream of blood was flowing from her thick lips. The crowd behind had beenaugmented by hundreds before they reached the Hen-Scratch saloon.
Skeeter Butts had just come to town in his automobile, and was standing in front of his place of business. His face turned the color of ashes, and his lips stiffened with horror as he realized what was coming down the street to meet him.
“Oh, Hitch!” he wailed. “Shorely dey ain’t got you right, is dey, Hitch? Tell me dat dey done missed it!”
But Hitch was too tortured to reply. He cast one lingering look upon his friend, and turned away with blood-shot, agonized eyes. Skeeter Butts reeled back from the middle of the street and covered his eyes with his trembling hands.
For a while after that the procession moved forward in silence. Then a succession of piercing screams shattered the atmosphere. A handsome girl, whose hands and face were the color of old gold, came running down the street, and threw her arms around Hitch Diamond’s neck.
“Oh, Hitchie! Hitchie! Hitchie!” she screamed.
It was Goldie Curtain, Hitch’s wife.
For a moment Hitch’s giant body wavered, his knees bent under him, and he staggered as if about to fall. He stopped and leaned heavily upon the sobbing girl whose arms clasped his neck.
“Move on!” a sharp-voiced officer spoke.
Goldie Curtain fell in the dust of the street like one dead. Sheriff Flournoy, whose face was turned to look behind him, did not see her lying there. His nervous horse leaped over her prostrate body.
Vinegar Atts, sobbing aloud, picked the girl up in his powerful arms, carried her into her own house and placed her upon a bed. Then he came out and joined again with the crowd which followed Hitch until the doors of the jail closed behind him.
When Hitch had passed out of sight behind those doors, Ginny Babe Chew came staggering down the street, wiping the blood from her lips and the front of her dress. She stood in the middle of the street in front of the jail, shrieking like a maniac. She stooped and gathered handfuls of sand and tossed them into the air above her head, while her calliope-like voice shrieked again and again:
“Good-by, Hitch! Good-by, Hitch! Good-by, Hitch!”
A whole week passed during which Skeeter Butts sat in the Hen-Scratch saloon, nervously smoking cigarettes and listening to the whispered tales which came to him from his negro friends.
Skeeter had made no attempt to see Hitch Diamond, and had not talked about him to any of the white people. He knew it was not wise to show too much interest in the case of a negro criminal. He did not care to get himself under suspicion. All of Hitch’s friends felt the same way, and since their first dramatic display of emotion as Hitchwas led captive before the Shoofly Church, they had assumed an attitude of indifference toward Hitch and his pitiable plight.
It was the Sunday following Hitch’s return to Tickfall when Skeeter determined to interview Sheriff John Flournoy. Skeeter timed his call with the sheriff’s custom of sitting on a little side porch of his home and smoking an after-dinner cigar.
Skeeter fumbled for a few minutes with his hat, considering how to begin what he had to say. Then he asked:
“Marse John, whut is de white folks gwine do wid Hitch Diamond?”
“Hang him!” Flournoy said bluntly, merely for the purpose of seeing what Skeeter would say next.
The colored man said nothing for five minutes. He sank down weakly upon the bottom step of the porch, his shoulders pathetically hunched, and his head resting upon his hands. At last he mumbled:
“Marse John, I don’t b’lieve Hitch kilt anybody. He never done it.”
“Have you any proof of his innocence, Skeeter?” Flournoy asked.
“Naw, suh.”
“It’s hard for me to believe, Skeeter,” Flournoy continued quietly. “Hitch Diamond was born on my plantation, and ever since I have known him he has been a big, good-natured, bone-headed, peaceable, law-abiding negro. Robbery and murder are not in his line.”
“Dat’s right, Marse John—Hitch never done it.”
There was a little silence, after which Flournoy said:
“I think they’ve got Hitch, Skeeter. Some of the white people in this town have always been very fond of Hitch. They ought to come to his aid at once—he’s their nigger. But all the white folks have kept away.”
“Dat’s a bad sign, Marse John,” Skeeter agreed mournfully.
“Yes. It means that Hitch is up against it.”
“Whut proofs is dey got, Marse John?” Skeeter asked.
Replying, Flournoy spoke slowly and painfully, as if the narration was repugnant to him:
“Hitch Diamond got off the train at Sawtown about three o’clock on Monday afternoon. A grocer saw him dressed in a stove-pipe hat, a Prince Albert coat, and a yellow waistcoat. A little later he was seen by two small white boys without his hat, coat, or vest, sitting on the wharf-boat. A watchman on the wharf-boat says that Hitch attempted to run when he came near, and in the effort to arrest Hitch his shirt was torn off his back. Dainty Blackum says that Hitch came to her home, barefooted, bareheaded, with no outer shirt, but wearing a red undershirt.
“Hitch Diamond and Dude Blackum had a drink together, and then both men left Blackum’s cabin about dark and went toward the sawmill. Five hours later the commissary store was robbed and the watchman was killed.
“The mill employees organized a search-partyand had a hand to hand battle with Hitch Diamond inside the lumber yard, and Hitch escaped. The flash-lights were playing on Hitch, and everybody saw him and recognized him.
“After Hitch escaped, Dude Blackum was caught inside the lumber yard, and in attempting to escape by swimming the Mississippi River, Dude was drowned.”
“My Lawd!” Skeeter shuddered.
“Now, here is the worst part of it,” Flournoy continued. “A stove-pipe hat, a Prince Albert coat, and a yellow waistcoat were found under the steps of the commissary store, and these garments fit Hitch Diamond perfectly, and Hitch admits that they are his. A pair of black trousers, torn at the seat and with one leg split up the front from the bottom almost to the waistband, was found near the scene of the fight in the lumber yard, and this pair of trousers fits Hitch and he admits that the garment is his.”
“Oh, Lawdy!” Skeeter shuddered.
“Hitch can give no reason for his visit to Sawtown except that he had never been there and wanted to see the place. He explains the loss of his hat and coat and vest by saying that he surrendered them to a negro whom he had never seen before and whose name he did not know to be hung up in the Sawtown barracks where the homeless workmen sleep. He confesses that he abandoned his trousers in the lumber yard for the purpose of fighting his way through the mob of searchers and escaping.
“Hitch declares that he did not know a human being in Sawtown. Dainty Blackum says that Hitch told her that he had known Dude Blackum for many years. Hitch says he went to Dude Blackum’s cabin to get a drink of liquor. Dainty says he pretended to be a negro preacher, and claimed to be much hurt because Dude had not secured him to marry them.
“Hitch admits that he traveled from Sawtown to the Gaitskill hog-camp wearing no garments except his underclothes, and going by night. Old Isaiah Gaitskill says that Hitch came to his cabin in that undressed condition, sick with hunger and exhaustion, and would not permit him to send for a doctor, to inform his wife, or let any of his friends know where he was!”
“My lawdymussy!” Skeeter chattered. The little barkeeper felt as though cold snakes were crawling up and down his spine, and he sat for ten minutes without saying a word. At last Flournoy asked:
“What do you make of it, Skeeter?”
“Marse John,” Skeeter protested in a wailing tone, “Hitch Diamond is done cornfessed too much!”
Flournoy understood exactly what he meant.
“Certainly,” he said. “Hitch has talked too freely to be guilty—his statements have been too frank. A guilty negro never does that; if he commits a crime, he denies everything to the very last, and offers no explanation for anything.”
“Dat’s right,” Skeeter sighed. “Dat’s how he do.”
“But you’d have a happy time convincing a jury of Hitch’s innocence on the ground that he had talked too much!”
After a long silence, Skeeter asked:
“Whut does you think about dis case, Marse John?”
“I think Hitch was drunk,” Flournoy answered. “I doubt if Hitch himself knows whether he committed that crime or not. He talks a lot of stuff about meeting a man on the train, about losing some money, about giving his clothes away, about being stepped on by some man while he was lying asleep in a gulley—all of it a perfect mess. I hate to admit it, but I really believe that Hitch committed the crime while in an intoxicated condition. Dainty Blackum says that he took fourteen swallows of bust-head, pine-top, nigger whisky in her cabin, and that he and Dude took the jug with them when they left.”
“My gosh!” Skeeter sighed. “When did de white folks ’terrogate Dainty Blackum?”
“They questioned her in Sawtown the day after Dude was killed by the mob,” Flournoy replied. “Dainty is here now—in Ginny Babe Chew’s house. I’m keeping watch on her, because she’s a material witness.”
“When am Hitch’s trial gwine be, Marse John?” Skeeter asked.
“It begins a month from next Tuesday,” the sheriff said.
“Pore old Hitchy!” Skeeter mourned.
Two big tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped upon his brown hands. His lips began to tremble, and he hid his face with his hat and sat with his shoulders shaking with grief. Finally he said in a mournful voice:
“Hitch is always been de bes’ nigger frien’ I’m had, Marse John—him an’ Vinegar Atts. I wus always a little runt nigger an’ I didn’t had no kinnery, an’ Hitch an’ Vinegar, dey always deefended me when de yuther nigger-boys pecked on me——”
Skeeter began to sob and sat mourning for his friend as though he were already dead.
Flournoy endured the racket as long as he cared to, then tossed his cigar-stub into a rose-bush, walked down the steps, and climbed into his automobile.
Without a word to Skeeter, he shot down the runway into the street and turned toward the courthouse. In a moment he was swallowed up in a cloud of dust.
Skeeter sat for two hours turning over the appalling array of facts which the sheriff had set before him for the condemnation of his friend. Nothing seemed to be lacking except Hitch’s confession that he had robbed the store and killed the watchman.
“Dis here is awful!” he sighed. “I’s gwine over an’ git some religium advices from de Revun Vinegar Atts.”
He found Vinegar occupying his customary seat under a chinaberry tree in front of the Shoofly Church. Vinegar moved his chair only when the shadow of the tree shifted and the sun shone upon his head. He called this diversion “settin’ de sun aroun’ de tree.”
“Revun,” Skeeter began, “I been cornversin’ Marse John Flournoy about our chu’ch an’ lodge brudder, Hitch Diamond.”
“No hope!” Vinegar grumbled. “Hitch is done flirted wid a hearse one time too many. He’s as good as dead.”
“Cain’t we do nothin’ fer him?” Skeeter asked.
“We kin save up money in de chu’ch an’ de lodge fer a real nice funeral,” Vinegar said. “Atter de white folks is done deir wuck, Hitch’ll furnish de corp’.”
“Is you interrogated any of de white folks?” Skeeter inquired.
“Yes, suh. Marse Tom Gaitskill tole me all I knows. Hitch wucked fer de kunnel, an’ kunnel say he’s got to git him anodder nigger—de cote-house is gwine spile Hitch!”
“Ain’t de kunnel tryin’ to he’p Hitch none?” Skeeter asked.
“Naw. What kin be did fer a nigger whut is kotch his tail in a cuttin’-box like Hitch done?”
“I feels sorry fer Hitch, Revun,” Skeeter mumbledpiteously. “Gawd, I’d do anything fer him dat I could!”
“Not me!” Vinegar bellowed. “When de white folks backs off, dat’s de sign fer Revun Atts to git away befo’ de bust-up comes. Naw, suh, Hitch ain’t got no hope!”
Vinegar’s voice was a bellow which could be heard a block away. He stood up, took off his stove-pipe preaching hat, and mopped the sweat from the top of his bald head with a big, red handkerchief.
“Naw, suh!” he howled. “You oughter had been to chu’ch dis mawnin’ an’ heered me orate ’bout Hitch Diamond. I shore preached his funeral good! I tole dem niggers how Hitch went to N’Awleens an’ fit in a sinful prize-fight an’ got on a big, bust-head drunk an’ vamoosed up to Sawtown an’ robbed an’ kilt, an’ is fotch back here now to dis town to show whut happens to de members of de Shoo-fly Chu’ch when dey rambles away from de highways of holiness—whoosh!”
Vinegar broke off with a snort and a flourish, seizing the chair in which he had sat and thrust it up so close to Skeeter’s chair that he pinched Skeeter’s fingers.
Then he sat down with his thick lips not two inches from Skeeter’s ear.
“Listen, Skeeter,” he whispered. “Marse Tom Gaitskill an’ Sheriff John Flournoy don’t think dat Hitch is guilty—dey’s bellerin’ it aroun’ town that Hitch is shore a deader so dey kin hunt fer de real guilty man on de sly!”
“Bless Gawd!” Skeeter grinned.
“I been buttlin’ fer Marse Tom ever since Hitch went to N’Awleens, an’ I been snoopin’ aroun’ an’ listenin’ to deir talk. Marse Tom an’ Marse John sot up mighty nigh all night las’ Friday talkin’ an’ smokin’ an’ cussin’ in Marse Tom’s dinin’-room. I sot up out on de porch an’ listened to ’em. Dey done agree dat de bes’ thing fer Hitch is fer eve’ybody not to hab no hope. I agrees wid de white folks.”
“Bless Gawd!” Skeeter Butts cackled.
“Git yo’ nose on de trail an’ sot yo’ mouth to howlin’ like a houn’-dog, Skeeter,” Vinegar grinned. Then, in a bellow which echoed back from the woods in the rear of the church, he howled: “No hope!”
“Dem is de best religium advices you ever orated, Revun,” Skeeter cackled as he rose to his feet. “I’s gwine turn detecative right dis minute an’ snoop aroun’ seein’ how much I kin find out!”
He walked straight to the courthouse and entered the sheriff’s office.
“Could I be allowed to see Hitch, Marse John?” he asked.
“Certainly. Any of his colored friends may see him if they come at a reasonable time. I’ll admit you to the jail.”
When Skeeter was admitted and locked behind the bars of the jail, and saw Hitch Diamond pacing up and down the corridor in the second story, the only occupant of the prison, he found to his annoyance that he could not begin a wordof conversation with his lifelong friend. When talking to others, he could speak about Hitch and his misfortune with great volubility, but face to face with Hitch, what was there to say?
The two sat down, Skeeter laid a package of cigarettes upon the seat of a chair beside them, and after that for twenty minutes there was perfect silence. Not a word had been spoken except their first brief and embarrassed greetings. Each sat, smoking furiously, and lighting a fresh cigarette upon the stub of the old one.
At last Skeeter managed to speak, and made the one request which opened the floodgates of Hitch Diamond’s talk:
“Tell me all about it, Hitchy. Don’t leave out no little thing.”
Hitch dropped his cigarette at his feet and began.
For two hours his low voice rumbled on, the narrative beginning from the moment he left Tickfall to go to New Orleans to the prize-fight and progressing with minute particularity to the moment when he sat in the jail beside Skeeter Butts.
Skeeter listened with a heart as heavy as lead. It seemed to him that Hitch had confessed everything except the actual commission of the crime of murder and robbery. The array of proof which Flournoy had was sustained and established in every particular by Hitch’s story. Vinegar had fired his hopes for a moment by betraying the secret that the white folks were unconvinced of Hitch’s guilt and were hunting for the perpetratorof the deed. But Skeeter knew when Hitch had finished his story that Hitch would pay the penalty for his crime.
Not a word did Skeeter utter until the narrative was ended. Then he arose and held out his hand.
“Good-by, Hitch,” he said, with a catch in his voice. He walked down the steps, and the jailer opened the door and let him out.
Passing across the courthouse yard he met Sheriff Flournoy.
“Marse John,” he said, “you tole me dat Hitch wus borned on yo’ plantation. Does you know who his maw is?”
“Certainly.”
“Is his maw livin’ yit?”
“Yes.”
“I ain’t never heerd Hitch say nothin’ ’bout his maw,” Skeeter remarked.
“Hitch don’t know who his mother is,” Flournoy smiled. “I doubt if she knows that Hitch is her son.”
“How come?” Skeeter asked.
“Hitch’s mother committed a little crime the year before I was elected sheriff. Hitch was then one year old. His mother abandoned him—ran off and stayed away for thirty years. Hitch was taken care of by the other negroes on the plantation, and all who once knew who Hitch’s mother is are now either dead or have gone away from here.”
“Fer Gawd’s sake, Marse John!” Skeeterwailed. “Why don’t you tell Hitch who his maw am? Who is she?”
Flournoy considered this question while he took the time to light a fresh cigar. Then he asked:
“If I tell you who Hitch’s mother is, will you promise never to reveal it?”
“I promises!” Skeeter exclaimed.
“His mother is Ginny Babe Chew!” the sheriff told him.
Skeeter reeled back from the shock, and an exclamation shot from his throat like a bullet.
He turned round and round like a man who was dazed, uttering a series of highly profane expletives like the crackling of thorns under a pot.
“You asked me why I didn’t tell Hitch who his mother was,” the sheriff continued, as he started away. “I think you know the answer!”
Ginny Babe Chew!
Like a panorama the events of the Sunday before passed before his dazed and horrified vision—Ginny Babe Chew, shrieking, cursing, whooping, thrusting the people aside and pressing up behind the sheriff’s horse, howling after her son the charge of “Murder! Murder! Murder!” Again he saw her struck down by the massive fist of Vinegar Atts, the blood streaming from her lips, the mob splitting into halves as they walked past her, while she groaned and cursed, groveling in the dust. Again he saw her staggering down the street, the blood reddening the front of her dress and making a red froth upon her lips, as she stood in front of the jail tossing dust into the air, gyrating, shrieking,cursing, and wailing, “Good-by, Hitch! Good-by, Hitch!”
What a mother for any man to have!
Skeeter staggered across the courthouse yard, wiping the clammy sweat from his temples.
“Marse John made me promise not to tell nobody who Hitch’s maw is. Ef I wus to tell dat fack, de white folks would hang Hitch Diamond befo’ night. Dat’s de awfullest fack agin him yit!”
In front of the post-office he met Vinegar Atts.
“Revun Atts,” Skeeter said earnestly, “ef you know any good religium advices to gib to a nigger whut is about to die, fer de Lawd sake go preach ’em to Hitch Diamond. De white folks is got him—got him good!”