A Chariot of Fire
The man traveling through the Louisiana swamps is often appalled by the deathlike stillness of the woods.
Slimy creatures crawl in the muck under his feet without a croak or hiss. Gaudy birds fly from living trees to dead, gaunt stumps without a note of music. The fox and wolf which sometimes make the woods vocal with their barking, slink away at the approach of man in silence. The whole place seems to be engaged in the deepest conspiracy to accomplish something which the slightest sound would disturb or frustrate.
Generally, a negro walking through the woods alone will bawl a song at the top of his voice. For some reason he feels that there is safety in sound, just as the Chinaman beats a tin pan to chase the devil away. But no negro ever has the courage to shatter one of these conspiracies of silence when he finds it in the swamp. If everythingelse begins to make a racket, he will, too. But he won’t start anything.
Which accounts for the fact that two negroes, not two hundred yards apart, were walking through the Little Moccasin Swamp, and were unaware of each other’s presence.
One negro was troubled. He stopped, removed his high silk hat, and mopped the sweat from the top of his bald head. He lowered his head and listened, then he raised his head and listened. For a moment he thought he heard something, then he found the silence more intense than ever.
“Dar’s somepin gittin’ ready to happen aroun’ dis woods,” he whispered to himself. “I been listenin’ in dese here swamps all my life, but I ain’t never heard no sound like dat ontil now.”
He squatted behind a stump and peered anxiously about him. Great trees of the primeval forest reared themselves above him, skirted and frocked like a Druid priest with the funereal moss. Under the wide-spreading branches of these trees long corridors ran in every direction like the floral avenues through some giant hot-house conservatory. Nothing moved, no sound could be heard under those majestic arches of the forest.
The negro stooped and placed his ear to the ground. He had heard an express train at a long distance, and the sound he was hearing at intervals was something like that. But he knew it was twenty miles to the nearest railroad which carrieda train which could travel fast enough to make a similar sound. He had also heard a wolf-pack coming through the forest on one occasion, and thatpad-pad-padof their flying feet was not dissimilar in sound to what he was hearing. He was also familiar with the herds of wild hogs which infested the Little Moccasin, and when they were moving rapidly at a long distance the sound would be like the persistent thrumming he could dimly hear.
“Whutever dat is, ’tain’t hittin’ de groun’ wid its foots,” he announced to himself, as he glanced up about him with fear-shot eyes. “Dis here nigger is gittin’ ready to vacate hisself from dis swamp.”
He glanced up at the sky. It was as clear as a soap bubble. The haze of the evening was settling upon the tree-tops like a vail of purple and gold under the setting sun. He was looking for the signs of the sudden storms which blow in from the Gulf, and he sniffed the air for the odor of smoke from a forest fire.
“’Tain’t no fire, an’ it ain’t no cycaloon storm,” he muttered.
He turned and walked rapidly down the little foot-path, still listening, but now more interested in getting out of the darkening woods than in locating the source of the sound. Suddenly he heard the noise so loud and distinct that his next guess was nearer than he dreamed.
“Dat’s a automobile engyne!” he chattered, the goose-flesh rising all over his body. Then he shook his head in mute denial of his assertion. The nearest public highroad was ten miles away.
“Not even a skeart nigger preacher kin hear ten miles,” he muttered. “An’ nobody but de debbil could run a automobile in dese here woods whar dar ain’t no road!”
The thought brought him to a quick halt. Suppose the devil were loose in these woods, riding around in a flivver or straddle of a motor-cycle, seeking whom he might devour?
“I don’t crave to meet de debbil,” the colored clergyman murmured, as he reached up for his stove-pipe hat and grasped it firmly in his fingers.
“I done slanderized the debbil too frequent in my sermonts!”
He turned his face until his eyes looked straight into the face of the setting sun, and he began to leave the scenery of the swamp behind him. He did not run. No man can run as fast as the Rev. Vinegar Atts was traveling.
And Vinegar knew where he was going. In the very heart of that Little Moccasin Swamp was the Moccasin prairie. It was an open space containing nearly a square mile of ground without a tree or stump. It was completely surrounded by water, and two years before a raging forest fire had left it a charred ground strewn with ash and soot. Now it was covered with grass and wasas smooth as a baseball diamond. Vinegar was including that open space in his route toward Tickfall because he could travel across it with ease and speed.
Suddenly every winged creature of the swamp broke the silence and became vocal with screams of fright. Hundreds of wild pigeons rose in the air and began to describe mad circles over the head of the running negro. From all the watercourses rose the wild fowls that love the low, damp marshes, and they sailed upward with hoarse shrieks of fear. The angry, fighting, bark-like call of the hawks, mingled with the scream of eagles, and these fearless birds sailed straight into the glowing red eye of the sun to meet the peril that was coming.
Vinegar Atts could not see because he was blinded by the sun. But soon a roar sounded above him like the exhaust of an automobile, and Vinegar looked up.
An airplane was climbing the pathless air in long, spiral flight directly over his head—the first flying-machine that the Rev. Vinegar Atts had ever seen. Its long wings were tipped as with fire by the rays of the setting sun. Beneath it the screaming birds sailed wildly, madly, performing all sorts of aerial stunts.
Vinegar dropped on his knees, with his arms stretched up toward the graceful creation of man’s brain and hands. A few phrases from his old,worn Bible came to his mind, and he bellowed them at the top of his voice, as he listened to the exhaust of that great motor.
“Like de noise of chariots on de top of mountains, like de noise of a flame of fire dat devoureth de stubble—all faces shall gather blackness—dey shall run like mighty men——”
The birds scattered far and wide over the swamp. There was a great silence. Vinegar opened his eyes, and lo, the airplane was sailing slowly downward.
“My Gawd!” Vinegar howled. “De chariot of fire!”
Thereupon he fulfilled the prophecy of the Book of Joel, and rose from the ground and “ran like a mighty man.”
The airplane settled upon the edge of the Moccasin prairie. A young man dismounted from the machine, glanced at it critically, then took a survey of the sky with a rather furtive eye, and turned with an air of decision and disappeared in the swamp.
Then a strange negro stepped to the edge of the clearing, waited until he was sure that the airman was not going to return, and walked over to the machine.
“Dat white man is done got enough flyin’ an’ he’s drapped dis car down here fer good,” he decided. “Dis am four miles from Tickfall, an’ ef dat white man had wanted to land anywise nigh he could hab done it.”
He stood scratching his head and pondering.
“Naw, suh,” he concluded. “Dat white man is done lost dis here flyin’-machine. He lost it a puppus. He ain’t never comin’ back fer it.”
Sniffing at the taint of hot oil which spoiled the rich odors of the woods, the strange negro wandered on toward Tickfall, his nose in the air.
Incidentally he had some plans in the air.
Three men left the landing place of the airplane and started for Tickfall, four miles away.
The Rev. Vinegar Atts arrived first because he was in a hurry, and ran every step. He staggered into the Hen-Scratch saloon in the last stages of physical exhaustion, and dropped down in a chair beside a table.
Three negroes sprang to their feet, terrified by the colored clergyman’s appearance and manner.
“Whut ails you, Vinegar?” Skeeter Butts exclaimed. “You look like you done been run by a ha’nt!”
“Wusser ’n dat, nigger,” Vinegar panted, as he wiped the copious perspiration from his bald head, and reached out a trembling hand for the reviving drink which Figger Bush had thoughtfully broughthim. “I done seen a chariot of fire come straight down from de glory of de Lawd!”
Hitch Diamond glanced at the empty glass, and then nodded significantly to Skeeter Butts.
“Don’t gib him any more, Skeeter,” he suggested. “De revun is done had too many drams already.”
“’Tain’t so,” Vinegar grunted. “I ain’t drunk. I’m seein’—things!”
“I ketch on,” Hitch chuckled. “I done seen things in my day, too. I seen a purple elerphunt wunst. I wus settin’ on de side of a puffeckly straight wall ticklin’ one of dese here ukuleles. Whar you been at? Whut else did you see?”
“Been out in de swamp. Seen a chariot of fire come down outen de sky. I heard it zoonin’ fer a long time—sounded like a automobile. All de birds in de woods flew up to see it, an’ squalled like dey wus skeart to death. It lit out in de Little Moccasin prairie.”
“Whut happened when she lit?” Figger Bush inquired.
“I didn’t stay to see,” Vinegar sighed. “Fer a fack, I wus makin’ myse’f absent befo’ she lit.”
Suddenly Skeeter Butts began to laugh. He slapped his brown hand upon his thigh and cackled like a hen. The more he laughed the funnier something got to him.
“I knows whut ails Vinegar, brudders,” he snickered. “He’s done see a——”
Skeeter’s assertion paused in midair, because the door of the Hen-Scratch saloon was pushed open, and the second man had arrived from Moccasin prairie.
This man was a stranger, and was built on circular lines, round head, round eyes, round face, round body. His character and modes of thought and action also followed curved lines. There was nothing straight about him.
“Good evenin’, brudders,” he greeted them. “My name am Red Cutt. Kin you-alls tell me whut town dis is?”
“How come you don’t know whar you is at?” Skeeter asked suspiciously.
“I jes’ landed,” Red Cutt remarked simply.
“Didn’t de train corndoctor tell you whar you wus gittin’ off?” Hitch Diamond rumbled. “Or mebbe you rid de brake rods?”
“Naw, suh,” Red Cutt replied smilingly. “I rode through de air.”
“Gimme somepin to hold on to, niggers,” Figger Bush snickered, as he sat down with pretended weakness in a chair and grasped the legs of the table. “Here’s one nigger whut says he seen a chariot of fire, and here comes a secont nigger whut says he took a ride in it.”
“’Twarn’t no chariot of fire,” Cutt said easily. “It was a airship. Didn’t none of you niggers ever see no airplane?”
“Suttinly,” Skeeter Butts answered. “I doneseen a millyum of ’em in N’Awleens. But you is de fust cullud aviator I’s seen.”
“Dar ain’t many in de worl’,” Cutt said quietly. “I reckin I’m about de fust nigger flier in de worl’.”
“Listen to dat,” Vinegar Atts exploded. “Ef I hadn’t been so skeart I’d ’a’ had good comp’ny back to town.”
“Wus you de brudder dat wus bellerin’ so loud?” Cutt inquired. “I heard somebody, but I couldn’t locate ’em. I couldn’t find no good landin’ place close to town. I wus skeart I’d tear up a lot of fences an’ telegram poles ef I landed in Tickfall. I wus skeart I’d hab to pay fer ’em. So I landed out in de swamp.”
“Dat wus right,” Figger Bush laughed. “No Tickfall niggers, excusin’ Skeeter Butts, is got to see a airship, an’ I b’lieves dat Skeeter is lyin’. Ef you’d landed in town, all us Tickfalls would hab fell in a well or run ourselfs to death.”
At this moment the green-baize doors of the saloon were pushed open and a white man entered. The third man had arrived in Tickfall.
At first glance he appeared to be a mechanic. His hands were large, black with the grime of machinery, and hard. His face and clothes were streaked with grease. The skin of his face had been whipped by the air until it was tanned like leather.
“Good evenin’ boss,” Skeeter exclaimed, standingup and taking the stranger in at a glance. “Er—dis here is a cullud bar, an’ us cain’t serve de white——”
“I don’t want a drink,” the young man answered. “I want some information. Do any of you know where Mr. Arsene Chieniere lives?”
There was silence for a moment, then Vinegar interpreted:
“He means Mr. Arson Shinny!”
“O—suttinly, suh,” Skeeter exclaimed. “He lives right straight out dis road whut goes in front of dis saloon. I seen Miss Jew-ann Shinny pass here to-day—gwine todes home.”
“Miss Juan?” the young man asked, giving the beautiful Latin pronunciation, and speaking the word like a caress.
“Dat’s de lady,” Skeeter answered. “Dey lives ten miles out on dis here road.”
“Where can I hire a flivver to take me out there?”
“I’s de only taxi-man in town,” Skeeter said, as he reached for his cap. “I’ll take you out dar in twenty minutes fer two dollars.”
“Get busy,” the young man answered, as he sat down to wait.
The other three negroes sat whispering to each other for a few minutes, then Vinegar inquired:
“Beg pardon, boss; ain’t you a railroad man?”
“Yes,” the stranger answered, with a barely perceptible hesitation.
“I knowed it,” Vinegar chuckled. “I bet Miss Jew-ann Shinny is gwine be glad to see you!”
“I’ll go to see now,” the young man smiled, as he heard Skeeter’s machine at the door.
It was not possible for Skeeter Butts to keep his mouth shut for twenty minutes, and the young man beside him, as he watched the long sandy road roll under the machine like a brown ribbon, was equally willing to talk.
“Is you-alls kin to de Shinnys?” Skeeter asked.
“No.”
“Gwine dar on bizzness?”
“No—yes.”
“Dar ain’t nobody at dat house to do bizzness wid excusin’ Mr. Shinny an’ Miss Jew-ann.” No answer. “Which one am you doin’ bizzness wid, boss?”
“Which one do you think?”
“Of co’se, I’m jes’ guessin’—but ef I wus a white man I’d shore crave to talk bizzness wid de lady.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” the stranger laughed.
“I done got you located now, boss,” Skeeter chuckled delightedly. “You is courtin’.”
They turned suddenly to the left and ran intoa dark road which lead through a section of the Little Moccasin Swamp. The wheels began to slip in the mire and Skeeter gave his entire attention to his automobile to prevent stalling in the mud. At last they reached firmer ground, and Skeeter returned to the conversation.
“Of co’se, I ain’t axin’ you fer no job, boss, but I’s been powerful assistance to a whole passel of young white mens dat’s come courtin’ in dis country.”
“What special help can you render?” the stranger asked.
“Expe’unce an’ conversation,” Skeeter replied promptly. “I done courted ’bout a millyum womens my own self, an’ I knows all de funny curves dey tries on. I gives exputt advice to all de niggers dat marries in Tickfall. I ain’t no marrifyin’ man myse’f, but I favors it an’ he’ps it along.”
“How can you render assistance through your conversation?” the young man smiled.
“Gosh, white man! You ain’t never done no courtin’ in de South, is you? Eve’y white man whut goes courtin’ hires a nigger to go wid him.”
“What for?”
“I see you don’t know nothin’,” Skeeter chuckled. “I esplains dis fack; eve’y white lady dat is wuth courtin’ is got some nigger gal wuckin’ fer her in de kitchen. Eve’y white man whut onderstan’s courtin’ hires a nigger boy to go widhim an’ wait on him while he courts de lady. Now, dat nigger boy goes into de kitchen an’ tells dat nigger gal whut a allfired good ketch fer de white lady his boss am—an’ de nigger gal tells dat nigger boy whut a histidious, highfalutin lady her mistiss is, an’ dat arrangement he’ps courtin’ long an’ does a large amount of great good.”
The young man laughed, and Skeeter bent over his wheel, watching the road for stumps as his machine plowed through some high marsh-grass.
“Now, I always gives my white man a good recommend at de fust off-startin’,” Skeeter continued. “I tells de nigger gal my white folks don’t drink none, don’t gamble none, is got plenty money, owns a big plantation, and hires plenty niggers. When us mens goes home, dat nigger gal tells her mistiss whut I said about her gen’leman friend. Don’t you think dat’s a good arrangement?”
“I don’t know,” the young man said dubiously, as they ran into a clearing and stopped in front of a wide-spreading farmhouse. “I’ll wait and see. I like to talk for myself, but I might need you yet.”
“I hope so, boss,” Skeeter smiled as he pocketed the two dollars which the young man extended. “You want me to wait fer you?”
“No.”
“Want me to come back fer you?”
“No.”
“A’right. Ef you needs me, jes’ ax fer SkeeterButts. I’s got a good name ’mongst de white and de blacks.”
Miss Juan Chieniere sat upon the wide, white portico and watched, as the white man dismounted from the machine. She watched until Skeeter had turned and started back the way he had come. She watched the young man turn and enter the gate. All of this with indifference, which suddenly turned to an interest, which left her gasping with delight.
“Oh—Jim!”
The Frenchwoman makes the most fascinating sweetheart and the most attractive wife in the world, to all except a blind man. To all the other things which the Frenchwoman possesses in common with her sisters, she adds the charm of manner. In other words, when she loves a man, she shows it! The glance of the eye, the quiver of the lips, the gesture of her hands, these things speak for her and plead for her and pray for her!
“Oh—Jim!” she repeated.
“I told you I was coming,” was all that Jim said.
“But—how did you get here, Jim?”
“I flew through the air like a bird, just like I told you I would.”
Her hand motioned him to a seat by her side, and every posture of her body, as she moved aside to give him space, bespoke a welcome without words.
“Where did you get the airplane, Jim?” she questioned.
“I stole it,” Jim answered frankly. “I stole it from the government of the United States. It’s an army airplane, designed to strafe the Huns. I just hopped in, shot the juice to her, and flew seventy miles to see you!”
“Holy Mother!” the girl exclaimed tragically. “What will they do to you for that crime?”
“I should worry—they haven’t caught me yet. Besides, I’ve got a whale of a lie fixed up to tell them.”
“Let me hear your lie, Jimmy,” the girl fluttered. “I’ll be scared to death while you are here, unless the lie is a real good one, and will save you if you get caught.”
Jim hesitated a moment while he reached for his cigarette-case. The girl took the match from his fingers, struck it into flame, and held it to his cigarette, thus lighting his face and her own in the gathering dusk.
“Whew,” he whistled, as his hungry eyes devoured the beauty of her face. “It would have been worth it if I had stolen a whole squadron of war-ships to come to see you in.”
“Tell me the beautiful alibi lie, Jimmy,” the girl insisted.
“You can’t appreciate the value of a lie until you know the truth,” Jimmy began, inhaling his cigarette smoke. “The truth is this: I have beenin the aviation camp for eighteen months without a chance of getting leave of absence to come to see you. The only chance I have ever had to talk has been on your visits to your brother at the camp, and those opportunities have been too few. Now, I am an expert airplane mechanic, and in repairing machines I am permitted to try them out before brave aviators like your brother are permitted to risk their valuable lives in them. So this afternoon I repaired a machine and took a trial flight which has extended for seventy miles, and which ended just about four miles from Tickfall, and ten miles by automobile from you. I came here to see you because I love you, and before I go back I expect your promise to marry me!”
“Oh, how perfectly glorious!” the girl exclaimed. “That’s the truth! Now, tell me the beautiful lie!”
“When I go back to the camp I shall tell them that I started out on a trial flight, and had engine trouble; had to land in the heart of these great Louisiana swamps, and lost my bearings. I shall tell them I spent two days wandering in the wilderness like the children of Israel before I found a human habitation. There I got help, made my repairs, and hurried back!”
“That’s fine, Jimmy!” Juan exclaimed. “But will they believe it?”
“I don’t know. If you think it is too risky,suppose you promise to marry me right now, and let me hurry back?”
“You’re joking, now, Jimmy,” the girl answered promptly. “You must save your lies and jokes till you get back to camp. Maybe they’ll believe them.”
The door opened, and a handsome gentleman stepped out upon the porch.
“Father,” the girl said, as they both rose to their feet, “this is Mr. James Gannaway, from the aviation camp where brother is.”
“I welcome you, young man,” Mr. Chieniere exclaimed cordially. “I wish you were my son come in from the camp.”
“I wish so, too,” Jim said simply, and his words held a meaning which the father did not get.
When Skeeter Butts returned to the Hen-Scratch saloon, he found his three friends at the table, listening with the most intense interest to the speech of the stranger recently arrived among them, Red Cutt.
They were so intent upon his words that Skeeter regretted his absence from the saloon. He felt that he had missed something of the utmost importance, for he had never seen his three friendsmore excited than they were at that particular moment. Skeeter paused at the door and listened. Red Cutt was speaking.
“De fust time I ever saw anybody go up in de air wus at a county fair. Dar wus a balloon tied on de end of a rope, an’ a white man wus in charge, and he let eve’ybody whut had a dollar go up in de air as fur as de rope went.”
“How many foots could you go up?” Vinegar inquired.
“One thousand foots,” Red Cutt informed him. “Dat is as fur as de rope stretched. Of co’se if de rope broke, I imagines a nigger might hab went a heap farther, but dey wouldn’t charged him nothin’ fer dat extry trip.”
“An’ did you go up in it?” Hitch Diamond asked.
“Naw, I didn’t hab no dollar; but I made up my mind right dar dat some day I wus gwine up.”
Skeeter Butts joined the company at this point, sat down and lighted a cigarette, leaned back and asked with great nonchalance:
“How long has you been tryin’ to fly, Brudder Red Cutt?”
“I been at it for the last ’leven or twelve months. Is you had any expe’unce flyin’?”
“Naw, suh, I ain’t had much to speak about,” Skeeter Butts replied. “Of co’se, I took a few little flies when I wus in de army, but I didn’t run de machine myself, an’ I don’t know very much about it.”
“I’m glad to hear you say dat, Skeeter,” Red Cutt responded. “You see, my bizzness jes’ now is travelin’ through de country teachin’ cullud folks how to fly dese machines. De gover’ment of the Nunited States is makin’ about a million of dese airships eve’y week. As soon as de war is over dey won’t have no need for dem airships in de Europe war, an’ dey will have about forty millions dat dey will want to sell cheap.”
“Dat sounds good to me,” Skeeter Butts said in pleased anticipation. “I always has wanted one of dem things.”
“Well, you kin git you one,” Red Cutt said. “A good hand-me-down airship—dis here gover’ment will be mighty nigh givin’ ’em away, because dey won’t have no whar to keep ’em atter de war is over.”
“I’ll shore git me one,” Hitch Diamond said in a loud voice.
Red Cutt looked at him and nodded his head approvingly.
“I’ll git me one,” Vinegar Atts proclaimed.
“Put me down for one, de best one you got,” Skeeter Butts announced.
“I ain’t sellin’ ’em, nigger,” Red Cutt laughed. “I learns fellers how to fly in ’em. The gover’ment ain’t gwine deliver ’em to you. Dey will all be landed at de same place on de Gulf of Mexico, an’ eve’y nigger has got to go git his own an’ pick out of the bunch de one dat he wants.”
“You means dat we got to fly our own machine home?” Skeeter Butts inquired.
“Suttingly,” Red Cutt answered.
“Gosh! I reckon we does need lessons in flyin’,” Vinegar Atts proclaimed.
“One dollar, per lesson, each nigger,” Red Cutt announced in a businesslike tone.
“How many niggers is allowed to learn at one time?” Skeeter inquired.
“One hundred niggers. We organizes de High Exalted Nigger Flyin’ Club, and we all takes lessons at the same time.”
“When is we gwine organize dis club?” Skeeter Butts inquired.
“It will suit me best if we organizes to-night,” Red Cutt replied. “Because, you see, I ain’t got so awful long to stay at any one place.”
“I kin fix dat,” Hitch Diamond growled. “De Nights of Darkness lodge meets to-night. We has got a little mo’ dan one hundred members, but dar never wus a lodge full of niggers whar all of ’em had one dollar per each at one time. So I imagines dat when we sends out word dat eve’y nigger dat comes to de lodge to-night must have a dollar fer a special puppus dar won’t be mo’ dan one hunderd dat will see deir way clear to come.”
“We might take our fust lesson at de lodge to-night, atter we completes de organization,” Red Cutt suggested.
“Dat will suit me perzackly,” Hitch rumbled.“I’s de presidunt of de Nights of Darkness lodge, and I’ll give de word, an’ whut I says goes.”
Red Cutt reached to his hip-pocket and brought forth a red-covered book and laid it on the table before them. Vinegar Atts leaned over and gazed at the title of the book—“How to Fly.” He opened to the title-page of the volume and beheld a picture of a man dressed in the aviator costume, with his goggles pushed back on his forehead, his mouth wide-spread in a happy grin.
“Somepin shore tickles dis flyin’-man,” he chuckled. “I wonder is he so awful pleased wid himself because he is gwine up or because he has jes’ come down?”
“As fer as I am concerned,” Skeeter cackled, “I think I could pull a bigger grin atter I done come down dan I could ef I wus jes’ gwine up.”
“Atter you has studied dis book a while, an’ tuck a few lessons in runnin’ de machine, you will laugh de most at de chance of gwine up,” Red told him.
He handed the book to Vinegar opened at the preface, and said:
“Read whut it says at the fust openin’ of de book.”
The colored clergyman leaned back and gazed at the page, reading aloud, giving to the words his peculiar African pronunciation.
“‘Wid a desire to train an aviator into proper capability so dat he may, when embarkin’ on hiscareer, have skillful an’ complete knowledge of his perfession——’”
“Dat’s de word!” Red proclaimed. “Skillful an’ complete knowledge of his perfession!”
“‘An’ fly widout dose disasterous an’ unnervin’ consequences—’” Vinegar resumed but was instantly interrupted.
“Dat’s de sentence whut suits me best,” Skeeter announced. “I don’t want no disasterous an’ unnervin’ consequences when I gits up in de air.”
“Dis here am de very book dat shows you how not to have ’em,” Red Cutt said. “An’ dis is de rule dat we go by.”
He rapidly turned over the pages of the preface, indicating a place on the page, and allowed Vinegar to resume his reading.
“‘Do not rush students through deir trainin’. Haste makes waste. Dis fack should be inscribed on de door of every hangar.’”
“Hanger!” Figger Bush exclaimed. “How come dat book speaks about hangin’? I thought we wus talkin’ about flyin’, an’ now you done got off de subjeck.”
The other three negroes looked at Red Cutt rebukingly, as if they also thought that he had brought into the matter of flying a theme which no negro in the South cares to discuss. He is willing to walk, to run, to swim or fly, but he has an insuperable aversion to hanging.
“Dat shows dat you niggers have got a heap tolearn,” Red Cutt laughed. “A hangar is jes’ like a stable. You keeps a buggy in de stable, an’ a automobile in de garage, an’ a airplane in a hangar.”
“Mebbe so,” Skeeter said in a dissatisfied tone. “But I don’t like dat word, jes’ de same.”
“Dar ain’t no noose to dis hangar I speaks of,” Red Cutt assured him.
“No noose is good noose,” Skeeter proclaimed. “But I don’t like dat word.”
“Don’t let a word pester you,” Red Cutt laughed as he rose to his feet and picked up his hat. “Meet me at de Nights of Darkness lodge to-night an’ I’ll tell you some things dat will git on your squeamishness heap wuss dan a word.”
“We will all be dar!” the quartet chorused.
“All you got to do is to be dar wid yo’ dollar,” Red Cutt answered as he stepped through the green-baize door of the saloon.
The ancient Greek of apostolic days was not alone in his eagerness “to see and to hear some new thing.” When the word went abroad in the negro settlements of Tickfall that there was to be a new thing at the lodge that night, cost of admission being one dollar, three hundred and twenty-five negroes, by methods distinctly Ethiopian, securedthe necessary dollar, which for that night only was the password to the lodge.
When Red Cutt appeared upon the scene, he by himself was worth the price of admission. He had dressed himself in a faint imitation of the costume of an aviator. That costume was a mixture of all the varied uniforms that he had seen, and portions of which he could acquire.
Beginning at the feet, for some reason known only to himself, he wore a pair of spurs; around his legs were leather puttees—to that extent he resembled a cavalry officer. His pantaloons were hunting-breeches. His coat was a hunting-coat, somewhat appropriate because it was rain-proof, and might shed oil easily. His head-covering was a cap with a rubber visor, and his eyes were covered with enormous automobile goggles. He wore gauntlets on his hands, and somewhere he had acquired four brass buttons, from each of which was suspended a gaudy ribbon. He had evidently acquired these decorative ribbons at some association of drummers or the convention of some political party. One ribbon bore the words “Reception Committee.” A second ribbon was inscribed “Delegate,” and a third ribbon bore the magic word “Information.”
He was escorted to a seat on the rostrum by the president of the lodge, and looking through his automobile goggles at the crowd of negroes assembled, he was surprised, and felt some uneasiness.
He had expected not more than one hundred negroes. That would have been a crowd that he could manage; but when he found exactly three times that number, the assemblage looked to him too much like a mob—or at least it looked like it might be easily converted into one.
Hitch Diamond rose to his feet.
“Brudders, dar is a cullud pusson here to-night who is come on a important job. He is de only nigger in dis country whut ever went up in a airship. He has had plenty expe’unce as a flyin’ man, an’ he has come to learn us all how to fly up!”
“Whar we gwine fly to?” a voice spoke up.
“Wharever you wants to go,” Hitch Diamond answered.
At this point Pap Curtain rose to his feet. “Is dis here nigger a member of our lodge, Mr. Pres’dunt?” he snarled.
“Naw, suh.”
“Is dis here some new degree we takes in dis lodge?” Pap persisted.
“Naw, suh.”
“Well, whut is dis about?”
“Ef you’ll set down, Pap,” Hitch growled, “an’ let our visitin’ brudder tell his bizzness in his own way, mebbe you’ll git some information.”
“I’s one of de bo’d of directors of dis here lodge,” Pap snarled. “Ef dar is any bizzness dat I ain’t seen about befo’hand, I’m ag’in’ it.”
The lodge members showed impatience at thisinterruption. Pap had been a conscientious objector to nearly everything the lodge had ever undertaken. He was quick to notice their impatience, and sat down grumbling to himself.
Red Cutt arose and fingered the three badges on his breast. Touching one particular badge by the corner, and holding it out so that the lodge could see, he announced:
“Dis badge is marked ‘Information,’ an’ means dat I’m de man who answers questions an’ kin tell Pap Curtain whut he wants to know. Most of you knows my visit to dis town is to organize a school of flyin’ niggers. Some of you knows how to run automobiles, an’ so you kin ride over de country. I wants to learn you how to fly through de sky jes’ as easy as you walk on de ground. Atter you have got de lesson in yo’ mind, I will he’p you to buy a cheap airship from de gover’ment, an’ den you will be fixed jes’ like Gawd intended fer a nigger to be.”
Pap Curtain sprang to his feet, waved his hat in the air, and exclaimed in a loud voice:
“I’ve heard tell of dese flyin’ fellers, but I ain’t never seen one fly. Ef dis visitin’ brudder has come to give an exhibition I favors it!”
“Dat’s whut he has come to do,” Hitch assured him.
“Whar is yo’ flyin’-machine at?” Pap howled.
“Out in de Little Moccasin prairie,” Red told him.
“Less go out an’ take a look at it!” Pap exclaimed.
“I favor it,” three hundred negroes shouted in a chorus.
“I nominates myself to lead de peerade!” Vinegar Atts vociferated.
The movement was so unanimous that Red Cutt was frightened. He had no desire to go out to that airplane in the dark. He remembered a negro who had come to a little town where he had lived once and had pretended to be able to walk on the water. He posed as a divine healer, and a frequently made statement was: “I kin walk on de water, but I don’t want to.” Thereupon some skeptical negroes had carried him down to the banks of the Mississippi and tossed him headlong into the yellow stream, insisting that he give them a demonstration of his ability to do what he said he could do. They had fished this divine healer out of the river with a hook and rolled him on a barrel for an hour before he showed the least sign of returning consciousness. Red Cutt was appalled by the thought of what might happen to him if that mob of negroes insisted upon his giving a trial flight.
“Come on, niggers!” Vinegar Atts bellowed. “Less go out an’ see de flyin’-machine!”
Three hundred negroes moved their feet as one man. Hitch Diamond laid his hand upon the arm of Red Cutt about as a policeman would put a manunder arrest. Vinegar stepped forward and got on the other side of the aviator, and they conducted him down the rickety stairs of the lodge room and led the procession that formed in a straggling line in the middle of the sandy street.
It was a night in which the moon shone in all its glory—such a moon as glows over the Louisiana swamps when the humidity of the atmosphere seems to focus the rays in startling brightness on every object. The negro is like a cat, sleepy and dull during the day; but he wakes up at night, and is a prowler in the streets and woods and fields. It was four miles to the Little Moccasin prairie, but that tramping crowd of men thought nothing of that, and as they marched they sang, keeping step to music that carried echoes of the African jungle, and those minor tones which are characteristic of all people who have been enslaved since the ancient days when subjugated Israel in the land of Egypt “hung their harps on the willows.”
“Look here, niggers,” Red said to Vinegar and Hitch. “Dis is not de proper night to take a ride in a airplane. De moon is shining too dang bright. Ef I git up fawty thousand foots in de air, an’ look down at the yearth in dis moonlight, eve’ything below me would look like a smooth sheet of white paper. I never would know whar I come from, an’ I wouldn’t know whar to land, an’ I might drif’ off, whar nobody never could find me, an’ whar I cain’t never git back here.”
“We don’t want nothin’ like dat,” Hitch Diamond growled. “We cain’t affode to lose you.”
“Ef dese niggers insist on me takin’ a ride, how is we gwine prevent it?” Red Cutt inquired.
“I’ll tell you,” Vinegar replied. “When we gits out whar de airship is at, I’ll make ’em a speech.”
In an hour they reached that point in the Little Moccasin prairie where the airplane rested on the smooth short grass. When they approached that wonder-mechanism of man’s hand and brain, the negroes became reverently silent, and yet that silence was vocal with the weird, nerve-racking funereal sounds of the swamp. Great bullfrogs bellowed like multitudinous lost cattle; a wildcat screamed like the tones of a woman in great pain and fright; and the swamp wolves galloped to the edge of the clearing and barked at them with all the annoying impertinence of fice dogs.
Vinegar Atts did not like the looks of the airship. It was the first he had ever seen, and it bore too much resemblance to a wasp, and looked very much as if it might carry a dangerous stinger in its tail. With the true orator’s instinct for dramatic effect, he looked around to find the most impressive place for him to stand. Not at the tail, because that might be dangerous; not at the sides, for wasp might flap its wings; so he moved up in front and stood looking with great interest at a wheel of paddles right in front of the machine.That did not look good to him, either, so he backed off well out of range, and announced:
“Brudders of the Nights of Darkness lodge, as fer as I knows, dar ain’t only two niggers in dis crowd dat ever seen one of dese things befo’, but dis here chariot of fire ain’t no new thing. De Prophet Elijah went up in one of ’em to heaven.”
“Bless Gawd!” a negro’s voice exclaimed reverently.
Then in his rich barytone voice, Vinegar Atts began to sing, and one by one the voices of the negroes joined in: