When the negroes had gone Skeeter counted the money remaining in the hand-satchel. It was nearly two hundred dollars.
The last day of the Tickfall fair was always given over to the negroes. Every darky who had a horse or mule was privileged to enter the animal for any race without paying a fee.
Under such an arrangement the chief attraction was the races, and the betting was wild and reckless. There was no betting-shed, no bookmakers. The gamblers circulated among their friends and placed private bets.
Skeeter Butts was perfectly happy. Whenever Sugar lost, he won; if Sugar won, it was no loss to him.
“Five hosses runs in de nex’ race, niggers,” Skeeter informed his fellow conspirators, in their operations to separate Sugar Sibley from her money. “Sugar bets on Hooligan. Ef Hooligan wins, each of you-alls is gotter gimme two dollars an’ fo’ bits; ef Hooligan lose, I splits dis ten-bill fo’ ways.”
Hooligan lost.
“Which hoss we gwine bet on nex’, Skeeter?” Sugar laughed.
“I ain’t no good jedge,” Skeeter grinned. “I foun’ out yistiddy dat sometimes dey runs bad an’ de nex’ time dey runs wuss.”
Three mules came loping down the track, and Sugar picked Hot-Dog for a winner, instructing Skeeter to place five dollars on that mule.
Hot-Dog started around the track as if he were going to eat it up, grew weary of the journey at the half-mile post, brayed, turned around, and galloped back to the grand stand, meeting the other two mules as they came under the wire.
Toward the close of the races Sugar Sibley began to complain.
“I sho’ is had bad luck, Skeeter,” she mourned. “Done bet my good money on five different races an’ ain’t winned a dollar. How come?”
“Dunno,” Skeeter murmured. “Mebbe ef I go down by de stables an’ pick up some tips——”
“Huh!” Sugar snorted. “I done tried dat game befo’. Down in Baton Rouge I made love to eve’ynigger stable-boy, nigger rubber, nigger jockey, nigger trainer, an’ nigger owner on de track.”
“Didn’t dey gib you no hot tips?”
“Shore! An’ eve’y time dey gimme a hot tip de hoss I bet on got cold foots—but I got scorched good an’ plenty!”
“Dey’s shore makin’ cracklin’ outen yo’ hide here,” Skeeter snickered. “Dese niggers will all die water-millyunaires ef yo’ pile holds out long enough.”
“I don’t keer,” Sugar said finally. “Dis here money ain’t cost me nothin’, an’ ’tain’t no loss ef I loses it.”
“Dat’s de right talk,” Skeeter exclaimed. “Less spend it all. I ain’t never wasted money like dis befo’, an’ I likes de exoncise.”
“We’s got to waste it all on de nex’ race, den,” Sugar snickered. “Dar ain’t but one mo’ race. Whut hoss we gwine lose on now, Skeeter?”
A red-headed boy climbed up a ladder in front of the starter’s stand to write the names of the horses in the next race on a blackboard.
“De fust name he writes totes my money!” Sugar proclaimed.
Then she watched a white hand chalking a scrawly signature.
“My Gawd!” Sugar and Skeeter exclaimed in one breath. “He’s done writ Doodle-Bug!”
With a tragic look on her face, Sugar Sibley stooped down, picked up the brown hand-satchel lying between her feet, and handed it to Skeeter Butts.
“I’ll expire game, Skeeter!” she said in a weak,shaky voice. “Bet it all—dollar fer dollar! Dis am de finish!”
Skeeter looked at her a moment, started to say something, then walked away in silence. Once out of her sight he ran with all speed in search of Hitch Diamond, Prince Total, Mustard Prophet, and Figger Bush.
“Git busy, niggers!” he howled. “Sugar bets dollar fer dollar on Doodle-Bug!”
“She’ll git accommodated up!” Prince Total guffawed. “Us niggers is gwine borry all de money on dis fair ground.”
“Why don’t she jes’ hand us dat brown satchel?” Figger Bush giggled.
“She wants some fun fer her money,” Skeeter grinned. “She’s a real, true spote.”
“Let me be de stake-toter?” Hitch Diamond giggled.
“Dat suits me,” Skeeter agreed. “Us’ll go up an’ stan’ by Sugar, an’ eve’y time dese yuther niggers fetches you a dollar I’ll put one on top of it. Us’ll do dis las’ race up in real good style.”
As Mustard and Prince and Figger made successive trips through the crowd of negroes, coming back each time with a little silver, Skeeter Butts noted with uneasiness the absence of certain cheap watches, brassy finger-rings, and gaudy, sparkling scarf-pins.
Finally Figger Bush placed a fifty-cent piece against Sugar’s choice and sighed:
“Ef dat Doodle wins Gawd knows whutdisdude’ll do! I’s done bet de barlow-knife outen my pocketan’ borried money on dese very clothes I wears. I’s plum busted, popped open, cleant out!”
Three horses loped up toward the starting pole.
Skeeter observed with satisfaction that Doodle-Bug balked right in front of the grand stand, that half a dozen men tried to make him move and failed, that the little jockey was bucked off, and that Doodle-Bug finally turned a complete somersault, landing on his back.
“Doodle-Bug is actin’ in form,” Skeeter grinned.
“He’ll run like a skint rabbit!” Sugar Sibley exclaimed, licking out her tongue, which was as dry as a shuck and felt as large as a doormat.
“I done seen him run!” Skeeter answered sarcastically.
The little negro jockey, mindful of the instructions received from Pap Curtain the day before, stood in front of the ugly tempered Tuckapoo mustang, slashing at the animal’s knees with his whip.
Reluctantly the horse moved backward step by step, and thus the jockey finally worked him to the starting place.
There was a mighty roar from the crowd, which became a thunderous clamor at the starter’s word:
“Go!”
Sugar Sibley, who had sat unmoved amid the losses of the entire afternoon, suddenly sprang to her feet, ran down to the rail, shrieking like a calliope, begging for Doodle-Bug to run, praying for Doodle-Bug to win, her wailing cry, like the clear notes of a trumpet, heard above the gigantic ululation of the crowd:
“Go, Doodle, go!”
And Doodle went!
At the quarter pole he was two lengths ahead; at the half he led by five lengths; at the three-quarter pole the two other horses were trailing one hundred yards behind. Doodle-Bug came under the wire so far in advance that half the people had left the grand stand for their homeward trip before the other horses arrived!
Faint, weak, giddy, Sugar Sibley staggered back to Skeeter Butts, reeling like a drunkard, clutching at her throat for its hoarseness, dripping with perspiration, her eyeballs burning like coals of fire.
“My Gawd!” Skeeter moaned. “Whut’s done gone an’ happened to dat Doodle-Bug?”
“Nothin’!” Sugar Sibley panted. “Doodle’s all right. Doodle belongs to me. He was riz an’ borned on my little farm an’ my chile Jimmy is a ridin’ him. Us always makes a killin’ on Nigger Day at the parish fairs.”
She took the empty brown hand-satchel out of Skeeter’s nerveless hands and opened it.
“Pour dat money in dis bag, Hitch!” she commanded. Then she uttered a wail, collapsed into a heap upon the seat, and her mouth dropped open like an imbecile’s.
Hitch Diamond had mysteriously disappeared!
Dizzy, nauseated, sweating at every pore, Pap Curtain sat up in the middle of his pallet in the rear room of the Hen-Scratch saloon, his tongue as dry and thick as if his mouth were filled with cotton-seed hulls. He moved his head and an iron wedge rolledoff the apex of his crown and bumped against the inside of his cranium like a rock rattles in a tin can.
“He’p! Come here, eve’body!” he bawled, balancing his head and steadying it with both hands to keep the wedge from bumping against a new place.
“Little Bit—Lawdymussy! My head hurts inside and outside!” he howled to the diminutive assistant barkeeper of the Hen-Scratch saloon.
Little Bit stood beside him, giggling, holding out a half-pint flask.
“Skeeter Butts say gib you dis as soon as you woked up!” he said.
Pap took the bottle, removed the cork; then his hand drooped limply, his head dropped to one side, and the precious fluid was pouring out upon the pallet.
“Hey, dar!” Little Bit shrieked, rescuing the liquid from total loss and kicking Pap into consciousness. “Git up an’ drink dis med’cine!”
Pap swallowed the contents of the bottle, then asked:
“Whut time is it, Little Bit?”
“It’s mighty nigh night.”
“Whut day is dis?”
“It’s jes’ de same day whut it’s been since mawnin’,” Little Bit informed him.
“Whut does you call it?” Pap howled impatiently.
“I calls it to-day,” Little Bit answered.
“Oh, lawdymussy!” Pap bawled. “Whut a fool!”
“Yes, suh, dat’s right!” Little Bit agreed innocently. “You shore is been a whopper!”
Then the medicine which Skeeter prescribed began to take effect, and Pap Curtain felt the revival of his faculties and his strength. He staggered to his feet, stumbled out of the rear door, and disappeared. He went straight to the home of Sugar Sibley, and found Sugar in the wildest hysterics.
Weepingly she told him the tale of her gains and of her great loss. Pap could sympathize with her, for on the day before he had experienced both himself.
Finally Pap said:
“Shut up, Sugar. You done lamented a plenty. Dem niggers whut stole dat money is gone out to de old fish-camp to ’vide it up. Ef you rides out dar right now, you kin ketch ’em at it!”
Twenty minutes later Sugar Sibley stopped Doodle-Bug behind a thicket at the old fishing camp on the Dorforche Bayou, and peered over the top of the bushes where she could hear masculine voices in hot debate.
In fact, it had been a day of such frenzied finance for the five negroes that an expert accountant could not have told what would be an equitable division of their spoils. So the thieves had fallen out, and their voices were raised to high pitch.
What Sugar saw filled her heart with hope and gladness.
Skeeter Butts, with a pile of money lying between his knees, was sitting on the ground, four other negroes watching the count, stopping at intervals to quarrel, but listening to the refrain of Skeeter as it crooned to the musical accompaniment of falling coins:
“A dollar fer me, a dollar fer Hitch, a dollar fer Mustard, a dollar fer Figger, an’ a dollar fer Prince!”
Their business was interrupted by a loud whoop.
A Tuckapoo mustang with a white face thrashed through the underbrush, and Sugar Sibley swept down upon them like an avenging fury, flourishing an immense pistol which cracked three times, the bullets kicking the dirt into the faces of the stooping men.
The five men, leaving their money untouched, got up and went away from the place with astonishing speed.
Sugar dismounted, crammed her money into her brown hand-satchel, jumped on the back of Doodle-Bug, and rode away.
An hour later, as the five weary, disconsolate men trailed back to town, they noticed in front of Pap Curtain’s cabin a Tuckapoo mustang with a white face.
Pap sat upon the porch, his mouth filled with chewing-tobacco and his heart filled with vast content.
Skeeter Butts spoke. “Pap is you saw anything of Sugar Sibley?”
“Suttinly,” Pap answered. “She’s layin’ in my cabin on de bed, takin’ a little nap.”
“You ain’t married to her, is you?” Skeeter asked after a moment of meditation.
“Who? Me?” Pap Curtain roared. “Naw! Sugar is my gal!I’m her daddy!Don’t you remember my gal, Skeeter? Dey used to call her Sweet befo’ her maw lef’ me an’ went down to Baton Rouge.”
Skeeter did not answer, and the gloomy procession moved on. Finally Skeeter Butts mumbled:
“Yes, I remembers dat gal when she warn’t more’n hawn-high to a billy-goat. But I’s had expe’unce dis day dat eve’thing ain’t sweet whut’s called Sugar!”
Mr. Shirley Rouke was one of the first-born sons of the silent drama.
The first moving picture ever thrown upon a screen in the city of New Orleans was projected by the capable hand of this red-headed Irishman.
In the famous resort known as West End, on Lake Pontchartrain, half of the inhabitants of the Crescent City assembled to watch the revelation of a two-hundred foot film which showed a man walking down the street, a dog trotting across the street and a horse and buggy going up the street!
Thrilled by this vision, the people roared their applause until the porpoises sporting far out in the lake dived for deep water.
In a short time the thrill and novelty of a plotless jumble of pictures wore off, and Mr. Rouke was quick to inform the Gitagraft Company that the people wanted stories—the pictures must have a punch and tell a tale. Then came an era of real plays and real actors and dramatized novels and scenarioswritten by authors whose names were famous across the continent.
“Do the newest thing first!” was Rouke’s motto. His active brain devised novelties like a liver secretes bile, and after each sensational innovation the Gitagraft Company counted its receipts, raised Rouke’s salary, and told him to go the extreme end of the limit.
Just as the theatrical managers delight to announce an all-star aggregation of actors, so Shirley Rouke had been the first motion picture director to feature an All-Native picture showing the native haunts and the natural characteristics of one race or tribe of people and using the natives and actors in the films.
At the foot of the Rocky Mountains he produced an All-Indian picture. In the far north, where the midnight sun casts a shadow on the snow, he got an All-Eskimo picture. At the entrance of the Shoguns’ temple in Tokio he began an all-Japanese picture which moved in exquisite beauty through the blossom-laden cherry groves, the wistaria-festooned tea houses, across the sacred bridge at Nikko, and ended at last with the happy lovers climbing the Jacob’s Ladder on the island of Enoshima.
He had just returned from China with an all-Chinese picture which began in the Botanical Gardens of Hong-kong, concluded its first reel at the Temple of Confucius in Canton—“One Minute Please!”—sailed down the Canton River on a Chinese flower boat, and concluded its fifth reel with a public execution on the northern frontier of theMongolian Empire under the shadow of the Great Wall.
He was now taking a two days’ rest in the office on Fifth Avenue and looking around for more worlds to conquer when, lo!—
“Niggers!” he bawled, springing to his feet and slapping the back of Peter Pellet, his camera artist. “An All-Coon Cast! Pack up your night-shirt, Peter! Us for the slimy cypress sloughs of the Sunny South!”
Peter Pellet’s participation in Rouke’s wild innovations had taught him that life, like his name, was a pill. He swallowed it loyally, but he reserved the inalienable right to petition and protest whenever Rouke grabbed him by the nose, pried open his mouth, and offered him another bitter dose.
“Aw ferget it!” he began. “A nigger can’t act. The nigger minstrels are all white men.”
“Sure!” Rouke agreed. “But they imitate niggers. That’s what makes them so funny. Nigger minstrels make a hit all over this country. Oh, sugar! the latest line of laugh looseners! Be ready, Pete! We leave on the night train.”
“May I ask what part of the South you expect to invade?” Peter inquired in a sour tone.
“We’ll honor the Pelican State with our presence,” Rouke grinned. “I know a man who knows niggers just like he had been a red corpuscle of their blood and had gone all through ’em. His name is Gaitskill, and he’s the loudest tick at Tickfall, Louisiana.”
Four days later Mr. Shirley Rouke sat beside the mahogany table in the office of Colonel Tom Gaitskill,president of the Tickfall bank, and told him of his plans.
“Do you know anything about negroes, Mr. Rouke?” Gaitskill inquired.
“Not a dang thing!” Rouke grinned. “Their faces and hands are black and I presume they are also black under their clothes, but I don’t know. All of them seem to answer promptly to the name of George. The Pullman porters are accommodating everywhere except in Mississippi, which has an anti-tipping law. I spent a month in New Orleans about twenty years ago, but didn’t get chummy with any smokes.”
“Your education has been sadly neglected,” Gaitskill laughed. “But you are now in a fair way to overcome its defects. Sir, you have my sincerest sympathy.”
“If you mean you are sorry for me, I don’t see any cause for your heart-break,” Rouke declared. “This is a simple business proposition. I’ll look around a little, get my locations, write my scenario, employ my actors, pay ’em a good salary, take my pictures and hike!”
“It sounds easy,” Gaitskill remarked gravely.
Then he laughed. Finally he asked: “Did you ever see a photograph of a negro?”
“Sure! I’ve seen Booker T.’s mug!”
“He don’t count,” Gaitskill said. “It’s a long, long way to Tuskegee, and these niggers around here could not pronounce that word if they practiced for a week.”
The door opened and a squat-legged, pot-belliednegro entered, removing his hat. His head was bald except for a tuft of moss-like hair growing above each ear, making him look like a fat-faced mule wearing a blind bridle. His thick lips pouted like the lips of a fretted child.
“What’s aching now, Vinegar?” Gaitskill asked.
“Marse Tom, ’bout dat left-handed screw driver dat you sont me out to borrer dis mawnin’; de black-smif tole me dat he loant it to Sheriff Flournoy, an’ de sheriff tole me dat Doc Moseley done borrered it, an’ Doc Moseley tole me dat he had Hitch Diamond wuckin’ wid it because Hitch already had such a powerful lef’ hook, an’ I hunted up Hitch an’ Hitch tole me I wus a dam’ ole fool. Hitch specify dat dar ain’t no sech thing as a left-handed screw driver!”
Gaitskill began to cough violently and ran to the window for fresh air, where he could also conceal his face from Vinegar Atts by turning his back.
To Mr. Rouke that cough sounded like a smothered laugh, but he had no interest in a screw driver and concentrated his attention on the negro.
Gaitskill had almost recovered from his fake cough when he chanced to turn his head and see Mr. Rouke. That brilliant New Yorker was gazing at Vinegar Atts with a scrutiny so intense, so penetrating that it seemed to go beneath the negro’s skin and pierce to the very marrow of his bones; while Vinegar gazed back into the Irishman’s blue orbs with the vacuous solemnity of a horse. That started Gaitskill in another fit of coughing.
Finally Gaitskill said:
“I’m sorry I put you to so much trouble, Vinegar. Here’s a half dollar to pay you for your work.”
“Wus you prankin’ wid me, Marse Tom?” Vinegar asked, as he pocketed the silver.
“Oh, no,” Gaitskill grinned. “How could I know there was no such thing as a left-handed screw driver?”
“Dat’s so,” Vinegar agreed. “Nobody cain’t find out nothin’ ’thout axin’.”
“I’m glad you happened in just now, Vinegar,” Gaitskill said, changing the subject. “This gentleman sitting here is Mr. Shirley Rouke of New York City.”
“Glad to meet yo’ ’quaintance,” Vinegar mumbled.
Rouke rose and held out his hand.
Gaitskill watched Vinegar with a smile: a negro positively hates to shake hands with any white man who is not his personal friend.
Vinegar looked down at Rouke’s hand, then reached out and caught hold of it about as a man would handle the tail of a vicious rat.
“Glad to meet you,” Rouke murmured, to whom this comedy was hidden.
“Yes, suh, dat’s right, suh!” Vinegar responded.
“Vinegar Atts is a preacher, Mr. Rouke,” Gaitskill remarked. “He is the leader of the negro race in Tickfall. I suggest that you talk over your plans with him and engage him to help you.”
“Thanks, Colonel,” Rouke said. “And now, not to detain you longer from your business, I’ll take a walk with Atts and we’ll have a talk.”
“My automobile is at your service,” Gaitskill said, as he shook hands. “I’ll be glad to help you in any way. Make yourself at home in this office.”
When the door closed behind this oddly assorted pair, Gaitskill broke out in a loud laugh.
“Boss,” Vinegar inquired, the moment they stepped out of the bank, “is you gwine converse me ’bout some kind of wuck?”
“Yes, I have a little proposition which——”
“Please, suh, less you an’ me go somewheres an’ set down,” Vinegar pleaded in a tone which throbbed with fatigue. “Nothin’ don’t make me as tired as talkin’ ’bout wuck.”
Vinegar led him through the narrow, winding streets of the negro settlement known as Dirty-Six, and conducted him finally to the Shoofly church. Opening the door, he brought out two rickety chairs, placed them in the shade of a chinaberry tree, sighed audibly, and sat down. Rouke placed his chair against the trunk of the tree and leaned back.
“Now, boss, beller dem sad news to me easy!” Vinegar admonished. “Don’t fergit it offen yo’ mind dat my maw fetched me up meek an’ mild an’ de good Lawd called me to preach. A real, stiddy job of reg’lar wuck would shore bust my cornstitution down.”
Being totally unaccustomed to negro whimsicalities,Mr. Shirley Rouke listened to this without a smile. His cool, steady eyes gazed at Vinegar deliberately, appraisingly, captiously, and Vinegar felt the fountains of fun turn dry as dust within him. This man would not take any nigger foolishness.
Without knowing it, Rouke had made his task doubly hard by causing Vinegar to feel ill at ease.
“I’m a motion picture director and producer for the Gitagraft Company,” Rouke began in a voice which clicked like the keys of a typewriter. “I want to produce an All-Negro picture, und’stand? I want you to help me get the actors and extras, help me to find my locations, give me the right steer on everything, and dope out everything I need to know about the blacks, see?”
There was one minute of perfect silence. Vinegar broke out in a profuse perspiration. He removed his hat, placed it on the ground, wiped the sweat off the top of his bald head by the simple process of rubbing the sleeve of his coat over it, and sighed like a bellows. Then he asked timidly:
“Boss, would you mind pourin’ all dem buckshots back in de pouch? Dey rattled an’ spluttered all aroun’ me, but dey didn’t hit nowhar.”
“How’s that? I don’t get you!” Rouke snapped.
The two gazed at each other like glass-eyed china dogs, both devoid of comprehension. Then Vinegar wailed:
“Marse Tom hadn’t oughter shoved me inter dis jam. Mebbe ef he’d tole me ’bout dis hisself, I might could ketch on!”
“I don’t get you!” Rouke barked.
“Yes, suh, dat’s right!” Vinegar assured him.
Rouke slapped the upper pocket of his fancy waistcoat, snatched out two fat cigars, and held them out to Vinegar Atts. Without knowing it, he had made an overwhelming hit!
Vinegar took a cigar, carefully removed the large purple and gold band, placed it on his little finger, held up his gorilla-like hand and gazed at the ornament as admiringly as a maiden views her engagement ring. Then he leaned back and puffed the smoke in a cloud around his head.
“Dis shore is a good stogie, boss,” he remarked. “I’s powerful sorry dar ain’t no women folks aroun’ to see me smoke it. It makes me feel a whole heap better. Whut did you say you done fer a livin’?”
“I make moving pictures,” Rouke answered.
“Movin’—which?” Vinegar asked.
“Moving pictures,” Rouke repeated in a sharp tone. “Didn’t you ever see any movies?”
“Yes, suh, mebbe so, suh, when I wus a little shaver, ‘way back befo’ de war. But I ain’t seem to rickoleck nothin’ ’bout it.”
“Aw, gosh!” Rouke snapped. “Are you kidding me?”
“Naw, suh, dunno, suh, ’spose not, suh.”
The Gitagraft Company suffered an inestimable loss by not having a camera artist present at this interview to preserve the facial expressions of these two men as they sat glaring at each other. Finally a gleam of intelligence penetrated the armor-plated skull of Vinegar, and he said:
“Boss, it ’pears like you an’ me don’t sop gravy outen de same dish. When you talks, nothin’ don’t specify; an’ when I talks my argumint don’t show wharin. Us is bofe jes’ wuckin’ our jaws widout chawin’ no cud. Whut I axes you is dis: Does you sells pictures or does you takes pictures?”
“I takes pictures,” Shirley grinned.
“Dar now!” Vinegar grinned back. “Now us is bofe lickin’ offen de same spoon. You keep yo’ mouf sot till I axes you anodder ’terrogation: Is dese here movin’ pictures jes’ de same as livin’ pictures?”
“Yes—no—I suppose so,” Rouke answered, wondering how he could explain to the negro without getting him all balled up again.
“Ef dat’s so, den I understand whut you signifies,” Vinegar boomed. “A feller come to my chu’ch las’ year an’ he had somepin like dat. He had a Noer’s Ark, an’ de Chillum of Israel, an’ a Daniel in de lions’ pen—an’ dat wus all pretty pious an’ proper. But atter dat, he had whut he called aTablow Vevongof livin’ pictures, an’ I didn’t favor ’em much. He put some black little tight underclothes on me an’ made me stand in a wash tub an’ called me ‘September Mawn.’”
“Aw, hell!” Shirley Rouke remarked. “That ain’t it at all.”
“Sorry, boss,” Vinegar said in troubled tones. “I figgered dat us wus jes’ ’bout to ketch on to each yuther.”
“Don’t you colored persons ever put on any plays?” Rouke inquired.
“Does you mean do us pull off any shows?” Vinegar asked.
“Yes.”
“Suttinly, boss. Us gin a show las’ week.”
“That’s good,” Rouke declared. “Now a moving picture is simply a show, a play, all the parts taken an’ acted by colored persons, and while they are playing we will take pictures of them. See?”
“I sees!”
“The actors won’t have a thing to do with the pictures. They only play the parts which I teach them. Und’stand?”
“Ain’t you gwine gib us no koodak shotsnaps of ourse’ves?” Vinegar demanded in a disappointed tone.
“Oh, sure!” Rouke assented in an acidulous voice. “Any dang little thing to please. Do you think you could round me up a bunch of colored people who would like to act in a show?”
“Git ’em?” Vinegar bellowed. “Boss, my job is gwine be to keep ’em away! When de news gits aroun’ dat eve’y nigger gits a free picture of hisse’f an’ a chance to speak a piece on de flatform—Mister Man, I tells you honest—us better keep dis a secret! You’ll wear yo’ koodak plum’ out takin’ nigger pictures!”
“All right!” Rouke agreed. “Keep it quiet. Don’t tell anybody except those you want in the play. See? Now let’s discuss terms.”
“Cuss—which?”
“Talk money!” Rouke barked.
Vinegar’s face fell.
“I thought de pictures wus free!” he protested.
“Oh, I don’t mean that!” Rouke grated throughhis teeth. “Listen! I want to know how much you will charge me to get the actors for the play and help me stage it. Get that?”
“I ketch on!” Vinegar beamed. “You wants to make a trade. Well, suh, when Marse Tom wants me to git him some plantation hands, he pays me one dollar apiece per each nigger an’ one dollar per day extry fer knowin’ whar dey is at an’ how to argufy ’em loose from de yuther planters.”
“I’ll pay you two dollars for every negro I employ in the play and five dollars a week for wages. When I see the actors, I’ll arrange rates with them. Is that all right?”
“Yes, suh, dat shore sounds like free charity,” Vinegar agreed.
“What about a contract?” Rouke asked.
“A which?”
“A contract—a writing—write up the agreement!” Rouke explained.
“You means a obscribe!” Vinegar said. “Naw, suh, ’tain’t wuth writin’ up. Niggers don’t favor obscribes. Us gits in lawsuits wid de cotehouse when us scratches on paper. Ef you pays us eve’y day, us niggers will wuck. Ef de pay stops, restin’ time is done come.”
“Very good!” Rouke said, as he rose from his chair. “Go out now and get all the niggers who have ever acted in a show. Tell them to meet me here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. I’ll see you then. So long!”
He turned and walked back toward the village of Tickfall.
Vinegar watched him until he disappeared from view; then he said:
“Dat’s a nice white man, but more’n half de time his mouf don’t understan’ his mind. Eve’y time I esplained to him whut he wus tryin’ to say, he specify dat wusn’t it!”
Rouke returned to his hotel, opened the door to his room, and found the chair by his typewriter pre-empted by Peter Pellet.
“What’s the grouch, Pete?” Rouke demanded. “You got a pout on your mug like a camel. I bet you can’t walk without stepping on your lip.”
“Oh, sugar, Shirley,” Peter mourned. “I just came in to tell you what a hellarious town this Tickfall is. During the day the men just sit in front of the stores and chew tobacco and kid the niggers. If a dog-fight happens the town gets so excited the doctors are called out to quiet their nerves. At night the whole bunch goes home and goes to bed. If it ain’t so, you may hang my body on a sour apple tree. I asked one of ’em what they did on Sunday and he said they went to church! What do you know about that? Two days of dissipation have dragged me down, Shirley—I’m a faint and feeble frazzle! Fan me with a brick!”
“Aw, can that!” Rouke growled. “Have you been out finding those locations I told you about?”
“You bet!” Peter answered, and now his tone changed to admiration. “These swamps are the real thing, Shirley. I saw a jungle so thick that a raccoon could not crawl through it without scraping all the hair off of his tail. I saw a lake that’s got nobottom, one side of it hot water and the other cold. I saw mosquitoes as big as a daddy longlegs—felt ’em, too; when they bite they feel like a red-hot poker and when you slap ’em you are a murderer with a raw and bleeding corpse upon your hands!”
“I saw a swamp rattlesnake five feet long, big around as my leg, full of fight as Jess Willard or Jesse James, and hungry enough to manifest a carnivorous desire for my acquaintance, but I moved the free lunch about forty feet away before he got a bite. I found a place where you could stick a pole down in the swamp mud, pull it out all dripping with water, and light it like a torch—the mud is so full of gas. I——”
“Get out of here!” Rouke said. “Order that reel from New Orleans to come up to-night and fix it up with the movie man so we can show it to-morrow morning!”
Left alone with his typewriter, Rouke slipped a sheet of paper in the machine and wrote:
THE JEWEL OF THE JUNGLE
“Gee,” he grinned, as he began his scenario, “that’s an utterly wretched title, I don’t think!”
When Rouke entered the Shoofly church next morning, he found the pulpit chair occupied by the Reverend Vinegar Atts, while forty of his parishionerssat in mute and reverent attitude in the pews.
Rouke stood for a moment in the dusty, smelly, dilapidated building, gazed at the rude benches scrawled with names and dates and letters, and at the windows whose broken panes had been mended by different colored glass, and his artistic soul got a cold chill. The place looked like a morgue and the occupants reminded him of stiffs.
“Bring your congregation out in front, Atts!” he called. “I want to see ’em in the sunlight!”
Standing in the churchyard, Rouke got his first look at some of our old acquaintances: Skeeter Butts, small, wiry, dressy, his face saddle-colored, his hair close-cropped with the part in the middle made by a razor, his shirt-collar so high that he resembled a sorrel mule looking over a whitewashed fence; Figger Bush, with his kinky wool, his ratlike eyes, and his shoe-brush mustache; Hitch Diamond, massive, solid, built like a rock quarry; and a dozen more men and a score of women filed out behind them and stood about the steps of the church.
Skeeter Butts suddenly left his place, passed around to the other end of the group, and stood close beside a certain girl.
Rouke, watching him, found in that moment the bright particular gem for the Jewel of the Jungle.
Lalla Cordona was well worth looking at.
She stood among the others as distinct as a polished diamond lying in a slag-heap, slim and straight as a javelin, graceful as a stalk of waving corn, the features of her coal-black face as clear-cut as a cameo, her flexible, expressive lips curling smilingly overabsolutely flawless teeth—she was as exquisite as a statue carved in ebony by the hands of Beauty and Grace.
But over all and through all there poured the flame, the personal magnetism of the girl, that unanalyzable something which makes the perfect moving picture type—the fire, the soul, which glows in the eyes, quivers in the cheek, distends the nostrils, curls the lip, or when the lip is still, reposes there, making the lip palpitant with its presence.
As for Skeeter Butts, love had made him a fool. No beggar ever groveled before a princess at the distribution of alms, no dog ever fawned before his mistress, as Skeeter acted in the presence of this ebon divinity.
“Skeeter’s done kotch it at las’,” Hitch Diamond grinned, as he watched the infatuated barkeeper. “He acts as proud as a monkey wid a tin tail, an’ as shy as a houn’ pup whut’s tumbled in a bucket of tar!”
“She’s sot up shiny and purty jes’ like a autermobile, ain’t she?” Figger Bush remarked in admiring tones.
“Huh,” Hitch Diamond grinned, “eve’y woman is sot up jes’ like a autermobile. A autermobile costs money to git it, an’ it costs money to keep it, an’ when it takes a notion to stop nothin’ cain’t make it go, an’ when somepin gits de matter wid it, not even Gawd knows whut de trouble am. Ain’t dat jes’ like a woman?”
This edifying dissertation was terminated by the stentorian voice of Vinegar Atts:
“Eve’ybody listen to me: dis here white gen’leman is named Mr. Rouke. He specify dat he gits up shows an’ takes koodaks fer a livin’. He wants us niggers to he’p him. Eve’ybody gits a free picture. Eve’ybody is ’lowed to speak a piece on de platform. Eve’ybody gits a few loose change fer deir time an’ wuck. I now resigns in Mr. Rouke’s favor!”
Vinegar sat down on the church steps and fanned himself with his hat.
“I want to teach you folks to play a drama entitledThe Jewel of the Jungle,” Rouke announced in crisp tones.
“Whut is a draymer?” Figger Bush wanted to know.
“It’s a tragedy,” Rouke informed him. “Not a funny play, but a show full of love and fighting, and brave men and women.”
“Don’t us be allowed to bust no jokes in dis here draymer?” Vinegar Atts wanted to know.
“No!” Rouke told him. “You won’t have to say a word. You don’t talk. You act!”
“Huh!” Skeeter Butts proclaimed. “You cain’t git up no lock-jaw play wid niggers. Ef a nigger cain’t whistle and sing and pat his foots, he’d druther be dead!”
“You don’t understand,” Rouke said sharply. “This is a motion picture play. Didn’t any of you folks ever see a movie show?”
“Naw, suh!” came a chorus of voices.
“All right!” Rouke answered. “Follow me and I’ll take you down to the theater and show you one!”
The negroes fell in line, and Rouke led themthrough the mazes of Dirty-Six, up the main streets of Tickfall and into the little theater.
Peter Pellet was perched aloft, having made all arrangements with the owner of the house for this exhibition.
The negroes seated themselves close to the front, a circle of light flashed upon the screen, a slight whirring sound came from the projection room and a title fluttered before them:
Then for twenty minutes the negroes were transported to a tropic island in the South Pacific Ocean.
They beheld a bamboo village, the little naked children playing in front of the huts, the dogs lying in the sun or slinking among the cooking-pots, the men and women wearing the rude, barbaric garments of the tribe, their legs and shoulders bare.
They witnessed the preparation for a great feast, the camp filling up with wild, cruel savages, both men and women.
Then the village princess danced before them, a frenzied whirl of bare arms and bare limbs, while a band of musicians beat upon rude instruments whose melody they could not hear.
They beheld a white man appear upon this scene, peep at the dancing princess, through the interstices of the jungle, fall in love with her infatuating grace and beauty, and later seek her out in her bamboo hut.
Betrayed by her white lover, the Black Swan sought revenge.
The white man was captured, bound to a stake, and in the midst of a horrible revelry of torture a posse of white men arrived, rescued the victim of savage hate, slaughtered most of the inhabitants of the village, burned the bamboo huts and departed.
But the Black Swan had escaped the slaughter, and the negroes watched her with breathless interest as she trailed the rescue party until they came to a narrow defile in the mountains. She climbed the mountain side and stood, at last, silhouetted against the sky, as graceful as the bird whose name she bore, looking down upon the posse in the valley below. She called to her faithless lover, hurled a javelin through his body, then turned and fled, leaping like a deer from rock to rock.
With tense bodies and aching eyes, the negroes watched the flight of the girl and the pursuit of the posse until the girl was cornered, stopping at last on a high, sharp crag, overlooking the sea.
Then as the rifle bullets of the pursuing mob splashed against the rock at her feet she poised like a bird prepared for flight, leaped far out from the precipice, curved like an arrow in its course, and plunged head foremost into the rolling flood of the ocean beneath.
The picture vanished and the negroes found themselves looking with popping eyeballs at a bare, white screen!
“Dar now!” Hitch Diamond bellowed in a mighty voice. “Whut do Gawd A’mighty think about dat?”
“Lawdymussy!” Figger Bush squawked. “Datlittle gal dived so fur she’ll stick head down in de mud in de bottom of dat puddle like a cypress stump!”
“Dat white man shore got his’n,” Vinegar remarked. “’Tain’t no way fer a white man to do—hangin’ aroun’ nigger cabins like dat!”
The electric light flashed up, and Mr. Rouke, stepped to the front.
“Now, folks,” he began, “you understand what a moving picture play is. There is no talking. The people act. I have a fine act for all of you to take part in, and I want you to meet me at the Shoofly church this afternoon at one o’clock. That’s all now!”
The negroes filed out in silence and scattered to different parts of the town.
Rouke and Pellet went to the hotel for lunch, and at the time appointed walked out to the church.
There was not a negro on the place. They waited for three hours and not one appeared, not even Vinegar Atts.
They began a search for Atts, and found him whitewashing a fence for Colonel Tom Gaitskill.
“What’s the matter, Atts? Why didn’t you niggers show up?”
Vinegar wiped the splashes of whitewash off of his black face and answered:
“Dey said dey didn’t want to come, boss.”
“Who said?”
“All of ’em, excusin’ dat little gal named Lalla Cordona, whut says she visitin’ here from N’Awleens. She wus game fer it, but nobody else wouldn’t mess wid it no more!”
“Why not?” Rouke snapped.
“Dey say dey wusn’t gwine play no play whar de white folks peeped at ’em through de bushes——”
“Aw, that’s not in the play—” Rouke began.
“Yes, suh ’tis! Dat’s wut de movin’ picture wrote down on de wall at dat little theater——”
“Yes, I know, but you don’t understand—where are all those people?”
“Dey’s all gone out to Lake Basteneau fishin’, boss. I’se gwine out as soon as I git dis fence whitewashed. A new coon done come to town and tole me he was de beau of dat Lalla Cordona. He’s done fotch her a red ruben necklace an’ a ruben ring, an’ I guess dat’s so. He hired me to drive him out dar.”
“I’ll go out there and bring them back,” Rouke said.
“’Twon’t do no good, boss. Dey won’t ack. All dem mens and womens say dey ain’t gwine do it. Dey got conscience scruples.”
“What’s the trouble?”
Vinegar scratched his head and answered, choosing his words with care:
“Well, suh, dey is all agreed dat dey ain’t gwine hab deir pictures took sashayin’ aroun’ in de woods widout no pants on!”
Rouke sat down on the end of a log and fanned himself with his hat. Then he said:
But why record what Shirley Rouke said?
Nothing but theDiabolos Gazetteprinted on asbestos paper on O-hell street in Purgatory Bottom would dare to publish the language of anger and disgustand exasperation to which Rouke gave vocal utterance.
Vinegar Atts, appalled to the core of his ecclesiastical soul by this thunderous fulmination of anathema, picked up his whitewash bucket and slunk away.
Turning a distant corner, he stopped and peeped behind him.
“Lawdymussy!” he sighed. “Dat yuther man is done j’ined in now! Dem white mens is shore tellin’ Gawd all about us niggers!”
Ten minutes later, Rouke, having relieved his mind, looked up and grinned at Pellet.
“Peter,” he said in a quiet voice, “would you mind leading me to the private office of Colonel Tom Gaitskill in the Tickfall bank? Since I’ve been associating with the negro inhabitants of this village, I don’t believe I have sense enough to find that office.”
Five personages arrived at the fishing camp on Lake Basteneau early the next morning.
First came Rev. Vinegar Atts and Miss Cordona’s New Orleans lover, the latter wearing clothes of the newest model and a slick smile of the most recent duplicity—a tall, slim, smooth-faced negro of the typical Ethiopian features and the air of a race-track tout.
Next came Miss Lalla Cordona in a hired buggy, as dressy as a cheap Christmas doll, radiant with smiles and quivering with vivacity and vital magnetism.
Then an automobile puffed along the swamp road and stopped in front of the camp and Shirley Rouke and Peter Pellet dismounted and unloaded their moving picture cameras.
“Dar now!” Vinegar Atts boomed. “Whenever a white man shows up at a nigger chu’ch, de niggers lose deir religion right away. Nobody bawls ‘Amen,’ nobody whoops ‘Hallelujah,’ an’ nobody gits happy. An’ when white mens shows up at a nigger fishin’ picnic—boof! de fun is done all over. Excusin’ dat, dem white men ain’t real pious—dey cuss!”
Skeeter Butts beat the New Orleans lover in a foot race to Miss Cordona’s buggy, helped her out, and engaged her in a rapid-fire conversation while he hitched her horse to a tree.
“Dem jewelry you got on yo’ pusson is shore squinchin’ to de eyes, Laller,” he proclaimed in admiring tones.
“Yes, suh,” Lalla remarked with self-satisfaction, as she preened herself before him revealing every excruciating gaud and gewgaw she could buy from the ten-cent store. “De man whut sold it to me told me dat ev’y piece wasrolledgold—he specify dat wus de purest kind of gold whut is!”
“Dat’s right!” Skeeter agreed. “You’s gwine be de only dazzle on dis fish camp—nobody cain’t shine while you is aroun’.”
When Skeeter beat him to the buggy, the city beau had simply lifted his hat to Lalla and walked away. At that moment the automobile arrived, and the stranger found consolation in watching the white men and their cameras.
Impelled by curiosity, the other negroes had gathered around, and the new coon saw a good opportunity to show off.
“Boss,” he inquired of Mr. Rouke, “is you-alls movin’ picture mens?”
“Yes.”
“Is you gwine take pictures of dis here lake?”
“Yes,” Rouke replied, as he busied himself setting up his machine.
The darky took off his hat, rubbed his head, hesitated a moment, then said in a pleading voice:
“Please, suh, boss, would you wish to take a picture of me doin’ some kind of stunts? I used to wuck in de movies an’ I likes it.”
“Who? You?” Rouke snapped, gazing at the negro with incredulous eyes. “What did you do in the studio?”
“I wucked fer a feller whut took de pictures. He lemme tote his extry films, and lemme hold his hat, an’ sometimes he gimme a board wid a number on it, an’ lemme stan’ in front of de picture-box while he turned de crank an’ tuck my tintype.”
Shirley Rouke saw that this speech had made an impression upon the negroes gathered around. He hesitated a moment, then said:
“What’s your name?”
“Dey calls me Sour Sudds.”
“All right, Sudds. You seem to have had considerable experience as a movie actor. Now if you can get some of these other people to get in it with you, I think I will take a picture of you all.”
“Come on, niggers!” Sudds bellowed in delightedtones. “Eve’ybody is gwine hab his tintype took! Hustle! Dese here white mens ain’t got no time fer foolishness!”
Under the leadership of Sour Sudds, the picnic party was eager to get into the picture.
“Is you gwine show us how to do, boss?” Sudds inquired.
“Certainly,” Rouke answered.
While Peter Pellet was adjusting his camera and placing his side lines, Rouke went into the fishing camp and brought out a small table and two chairs, which he placed in front of the camera.
“That won’t do, Pete!” he called, pointing to some lines which Pete had drawn in the sand. “You better get your cord and stretch it for your side lines like you do in the studio. These coons won’t pay any attention to a mark on the ground!”
Rouke hastened to the automobile and brought out a tray, two glasses, and a bottle of cheap wine, while Pellet readjusted his lines.
Then Vinegar Atts put in.
“Mister Rouke, I’s gwine be de umpire of dis here show because you an’ me done made a trade to dem effecks.”
“That’s right,” Rouke agreed, as his eyes ran over the crowd of negroes. “Get that black, dressy wench sitting beside that saddle-colored man!”
“Dat’s Laller an’ Skeeter!” Atts informed him.
“Get that black with the kinky hair and the shoebrush mustache!”
“Dat’s Figger Bush!”
The three actors were conducted to the front of the camera and Rouke gave his directions:
“Lalla, you and Sour Sudds sit down in the chairs beside that little table. Sour, you make love to the girl with all your might. Hold her hand, make goo-goo eyes, act like you loved her more than any other woman in the world——”
“Lemme do dat!” Skeeter Butts broke in.
Had there been a proneness to apoplexy in the Rouke family, Shirley would now be dead. As it was, Skeeter Butts never knew how near his interruption had brought him to a sudden and violent death. It is safe to say that nothing like that had ever happened before in the moving picture world.
“Buck up, Rouke!” Pellet spoke sharply. “Don’t scatter the beans!”
Rouke swallowed four times, then spoke in a voice as gentle as the tones of a butcher conducting some Mary’s little lamb into the slaughterhouse after the said lamb had butted him down:
“No, Skeeter. I’ll tell you what to do in a minute. I might also tell you where to go and some other things, but duty restrains my inclination.”
Then he turned to Figger Bush:
“Now, Figger, listen: when I give the word, you come over here and get this tray with the glasses and the wine bottle and bring it in and set it on the table between Lalla and Sudds. Then retire. Get me?”
“Yes, suh. I fotch it in an’ git out!”
“Sudds, you register love, infatuation—aw, I said that before! Lalla, you register maiden modesty, timidity, growing love. Now, Skeeter Butts, whenI give the word you enter, walk up to the table where Sudds and Lalla are sitting, register jealousy, anger, desire for revenge; then catch Sour Sudds by the shoulder, lift him out of the chair, and take the seat yourself. Sudds, you walk off. Lalla, you look after him and register love.”
The actors moved to their places and Rouke gave the command:
“Now—ready—rehearse!”
The rehearsal was perfect. Rouke and Pellet were delighted.
“Now we are ready to take the picture!” Rouke exclaimed. “All of you act just like you did before!”
Then he gave the command which in the moving picture world starts the camera crank to turning:
“Ready—Action—Go!”
Thereupon, Reverend Vinegar Atts walked out and sat down on the table between Lalla and Sudds.
“Hol’ on, dar!” he bellowed, shaking his finger at the camera. “Don’t I git my picture took, too? You an’ me made a trade——”
“Cut!” Rouke snapped, which is the technical word of command to the camera artist to stop the picture.
“Get away from there, you fat fool! What you cut across the front for and spoil the picture? Get out!”
Rouke’s tone and gestures were so threatening that Vinegar jumped ten feet, tripped over a side line and fell on his head.
“Aw, the devil!” Pellet snarled savagely. “Now I got to set up that line again!”
He stooped and clawed around on the ground to find a rock to throw, but rocks are as scarce as ice-cream cones in a Louisiana swamp.
“Huh!” Vinegar grunted as he moved farther and farther away from the irate white men. “Dem white gen’lemens is done poured me back in de jug!”
“Now, we’ll start again!” Rouke proclaimed. “Ready, action, go!”
Lalla and Sour Sudds began their love play, the camera clicking off their perfect action.
“Now, Figger!” Rouke bawled. “Come on! Pick up the tray and walk to the table!”
Figger came on. And Rouke nearly threw a fit.
Seizing the tray in both hands, Figger held it in front of him in a strained, awkward manner; he side-stepped into the focus of the camera, set his eyes straight at the lens where the country photographers used to tell us the “little bird” could be seen, and marched face-on to the table; he set the waiter down without changing his full-face position toward the camera, backed ten feet, side-stepped out of the focus, then squealed and kicked up his heels much as a mule colt would act when turned into a pasture!
“My—good—gosh!” Shirley Rouke shrieked. That is to say, this is the only remark he made which the law would permit of publication. “What did you mean by that stunt?”
“I wus havin’ my picture took, boss,” Figger informed him in frightened tones, for Figger was appalled by the language he had heard.
“But—but—why didn’t you act natural?” Rouke spluttered.
“Dat ain’t no way to do, boss,” Figger declared. “When us niggers gits our tintypes koodaked us is got to show bofe foots, bofe hands, bofe eyes, and bofe ears. We don’t take no sideways picture. Ef us don’t show all of ourse’ves, de niggers will figger dat one eye done got gouged out, or one ear done been cut off. Yes, suh, dat’s right.”
“Shore!” a chorus of negro voices answered. “Us ain’t gwine hab our pictures took no way but straight on!”
In hopeless impotence, Shirley Rouke turned to Peter Pellet for aid and comfort, and beheld that artist doubled up, helpless with laughter.
“What’s the matter with you, you blue-mass pill?” Rouke bawled.
“Oh, lordy, Roukey,” Peter howled. “That’s the funniest stunt ever pulled before a camera! It’ll get a laugh from Broadway to the Chinese Yellow Sea. Buck up, and go on with the show!”
Rouke felt greatly mollified.
“All right! Get ready, now! Pour the wine in those glasses, Sudds! Ready! Action! Go!”
The steady click of the camera amid a breathless silence; then Rouke’s command:
“Come on, Skeeter! Come on!”
Skeeter came on!
He bounced into the picture with a perfect imitation of a she-bear approaching a man who was holding her squealing cub by the ear. Sour bad been too realistic in his acting, and Skeeter was jealous. He grabbed Sudds by the nose, shook him as a dog shakes a rat, grabbed the wine bottle and broke it over Sour’shead, then administered a punch on the jaw which sent Sudds reeling out of his chair to the ground.
Then Sudds came back. Seizing Skeeter by the nape of the neck, he pounded his head against the table until it rattled like a snare drum. Skeeter twisted and squealed until he managed to land a mighty kick in the pit of Sour’s stomach, then he sprang up, grabbed a chair and proceeded to use it as a club.
Sour seized the little deal-table, poised it above his head like a shield, and pranced around, receiving Skeeter’s frenzied blows on the top of the table instead of the top of his head.
Lalla Cordona backed slowly away from the fray, her shapely, beautiful hands clasped over her heaving breast, her breath coming in quick gasps, her face expressing emotions which alternated between fear and hope and horror and despair.
Then she swept forward with a grace and power simply majestic in its action, held out her hands to the furious men and spoke one word:
“Please!”
The negroes, whose view of the fight had been obscured by the camera and the bodies of Rouke and Pellet, started around them toward the front, where they could see.
“Keep out of the picture!” Rouke screamed. “I’ll kill the first nigger that moves!”
Skeeter and Sudds ceased their combat, dropped their weapons of war, and each held out his hands to Lalla Cordona, pleading, beseeching, each asking her approval of the part he had taken in the fray.
The girl stood for a moment looking from one to the other, hesitant, indignant.
“Don’t pay no mind to dat Sudds, Missy,” Skeeter pleaded. “His name proves dat he ain’t nothin’ but dirty dishwater, an’ his maw wus a cheap washlady. Come along wid me, an’ be my frien’! I loves you mo’ dan he do!”
“You niggers hike!” Lalla spoke.
Her voice bit into their souls like acid, and the men turned and started slowly away.
The girl stood looking after them a moment, then she ran to the tree where her horse was standing hitched.
Skeeter and Sudds sprang after her.
“Come back, Miss Laller!” they bawled in a duet. “Us’ll be real nice gen’lemens!”
“No!” she said sharply, as she untied her horse and sprang into the buggy. “I done had enough rough-housin’ to last me a long time. I’s gwine back to Tickfall!”
Drenched with perspiration, his face as red as blood, Shirley Rouke mopped the sweat from his forehead and gazed inquiringly at Peter Pellet.
Peter was panting like a hot dog, but his eyes blazed in triumph.
“I got it all, Roukey!” he said.
Shirley Rouke and Peter Pellet sat upon the sun-slashed porch of the Tickfall hotel smoking their after-breakfast cigars.
The day was as clear and beautiful and buoyant as a soap bubble, and the Gulf breeze, sweeping across one hundred miles of forest, tasted salt upon their lips, and made music upon the fluted tree tops.
Rev. Vinegar Atts and Sour Sudds ploughed across the sandy street, and stepped upon the porch, where the men reclined in their chairs in lazy enjoyment of the hour.
“Mr. Rouke,” Vinegar began, “when is us gwine start takin’ our koodaks?”
“You niggers ain’t got good sense,” Rouke replied indifferently. “I tried to take the pictures yesterday, and you coons rough-housed and made a pack of dang monkeys out of yourselves.”
“Yes, suh, dat’s so,” Vinegar acquiesced. “But I done de best I could. Dem niggers ain’t edgecated up to koodaks yit.”
“I guess not,” Shirley drawled.
“Me an’ Brudder Sudds is been talkin’ about it,” Vinegar went on, “an’ Sudds specify dat he don’t think he had a fair show. He wants to hab one mo’ try-on.”
“Dat’s right!” Sudds chimed in.
“What do you folks want to do?” Shirley asked curiously.
“Sudds, he specify dat he figgers dat a make-b’lieve weddin’ betwix’ him an’ dat N’Awleens gal would be jes’ de right do,” Vinegar proposed.
“Who’ll marry ’em?” Rouke asked, watching the smoke curl up from the end of his cigar.
“Me!” Vinegar proclaimed in an explosive tone. “Dat is my real bizzness. I marrifies all de niggers.”
“I see,” Shirley grinned. “You want to get into the picture yourself!”
“Yes, suh, I’ll take a real good picture. I ain’t got no whiskers an’ my head is bald—dar ain’t nothin’ to hide me.”
“All right,” Rouke laughed. “Get all the niggers together, and I’ll try it again. Maybe you folks will get used to the camera after a while, and I can put on my play. Where is that little wench named Lulu——”
“Laller?” Vinegar corrected him. “She wucks fer Sheriff John Flournoy. I’ll git her for you.”
“Get busy, then,” Rouke snapped, his mind beginning to work like a dynamo. “Get all the niggers together at the Shoofly church at twelve o’clock. Tell that Lulu—Laller, to dress herself up for a wedding. Hunt up that Skoot Butts, and tell him to get ready to act the part of the rejected suitor—he was certainly a dandy in that rôle yesterday! Hunt up that Diamond Hitch, and tell him he is to be the father of Lalla, and give her away at the wedding. That’s all!”
Vinegar knew that he was dismissed, but he still lingered.
“Well?” Rouke demanded sharply, “what’s blocking the wheels of progress now?”
“Boss,” Vinegar said bashfully “you an’ me made a trade—an’ I’s wucked powerful hard—an’ ’pears to me like a few loose money——”
“Sure!” Rouke said, reaching into his pocket. “I presume you and Sudds have earned five dollars each, but danged if I know what you did for it!”
The two delighted darkies snatched the money, crammed it into their pockets, and went stamping down the steps.
At the corner, Sour Sudds said:
“Elder, you go hunt up dem niggers Mr. Rouke tole you ’bout, an’ I’ll rack over to de cotehouse an’ git dem license!”
“Dat’s right,” Vinegar boomed. “Dat white man done plum’ fergot dem cotehouse papers, an’ dis is gwine be a real cotehouse wedding. I fetches ’em off fine, Sudds. You oughter see me git active in a mattermony pufformunce!”
The negroes separated, and three hours later, the wedding party had assembled at the Shoofly church, and Rouke and Pellet arrived, each with a camera.
Peter Pellet got his location, adjusted his machine fixed his side lines and announced himself in readiness.
Rouke studied his characters, then began his instructions:
“Elder Atts, you and Sour Sudds are to come into the picture together and await the arrival of the bride. Lalla Cordona comes in on the arm of Diamond Hitch. All the rest of you folks bunch up together behind the wedding party. Skeeter Butts, you establish yourself—stand out in front of the invited guests, and register pain because you have lost this beautiful bride. Now—ready—rehearse!”
Then Sour Sudds suddenly bethought himself, fumbled in his pocket, trotted into the church and came out with a little square-topped writing tableand a chair, and placed them in full view of the camera.
“What the devil—” Rouke began to splutter like the fuse of a cannon-cracker about to explode.
“Dis here table is fer de witnesses to sign de license, boss,” Sudds explained, as he drew a paper out of his pocket, spread it out, and then from the same capacious pocket brought forth a pen and a bottle of ink. “Sheriff John Flournoy gimme dis paper an’ I come mighty nigh fergettin’ it! He didn’t charge me nothin’ fer dis license, neither.”