Chapter VIII: The Hoodoo Girl

It was Sunday morning in Tickfall. A crowd of men were standing in front of the Shoofly Church, idly waiting and chewing tobacco. A row of men sat like buzzards upon the top of the rickety fence, also chewing tobacco. Half a dozen saddle-horses stood hitched to the trees and two-score dilapidated buggies stood in a row with their horses hitched to the fence.

Now and then some young negro girl wandered aimlessly toward one of these buggies, then hastened her footsteps as if she had just remembered leaving something under the seat.

Some young negro man quickly ceased his low-toned conversation and watched her out of the corner of his eye. Presently the girl climbed into the buggy and sat down. Promptly the young man left his companions and went and sat beside her. That was the end of their interest in the services to be conducted in the church that morning.

The young man had found the saint of his deepest devotion.

The Rev. Vinegar Atts came stalking across the churchyard like a turkey walking through mud and dressed in all his Sunday finery. None of the men seemed to be aware of his presence. Vinegar reflected on the strangeness of this, and began to ponder uneasily on his chance of retaining his job as the preacher at the Shoofly Church.

He bowed and spoke to all the men, and hardly one of them gave him a nod of recognition in return.

Vinegar determined to find out the cause of this indifference, and he chose for his informant a man named Pap Curtain--a tall, slim negro with a yellow monkey face and an habitual sneer upon his lips.

“Whut ails you niggers to-day?” Vinegar demanded in a trembling voice. “How come dis here awful silence aroun’ dis church?”

“Hoodoo gal!” Pap Curtain answered laconically, pointing across the churchyard.

“Huh!” Vinegar grunted with popping eyes.

On the other side of the yard old Ginny Babe Chew, a woman of immense size, was walking beside a slim young negress dressed in white and very handsome.

“Huh,” Vinegar grunted again, unable to comprehend.

“How much will you gib me fer a piece of real news, Revun?” Pap inquired.

“Ef you got any tales to tell, bawl out!” Vinegar snapped, for the men’s actions were getting on his nerves.

“You remember hearin’ ’bout dat Dude Blackum whut got into trouble wid de white folks at Sawtown las’ Monday night?” Pap asked. “Well, suh, dat little gal wid Ginny Babe Chew is Dainty Blackum, Dude’s cote-house wife!”

“My Lawd!” Vinegar growled as he sat down upon the ground under a tree like a man suddenly overcome by weakness. He pulled out his corn-cob pipe and gave himself up to troubled meditation as he filled and lighted it. After a few moments he said:

“Pap, de niggers never will git over deir skeer ’bout dat little entertainment wid Dude Blackum. I don’t b’lieve he done whut de white folks said he done.”

“Hush!” Pap cautioned. Then he asked: “Whut diffunce do dat make now? He’s done dead!”

There was a long silence while the two men watched the handsome, graceful girl walking beside the elephantine form of Ginny Babe Chew. Finally Pap Curtain said aloud as if to himself:

“She’s tall an’ wavy like a stalk of sugar-cane, an’ sweet plum down to de groun’.”

“She ain’t mournin’ so powerful deep fer dat Dude Blackum,” Vinegar remarked. “She’s dolled up in a white dress!”

“Dat Dude Blackum shore did lose somepin beside his life when he parted wid dat female woman,” Pap said. “Ef I could hab a gal like dat keepin’ house fer me, I’d shore cut out all meanness ferever.”

Vinegar Atts shuddered and rose to his feet.

“I ain’t waste no time talkin’ ’bout dead niggers,” he said uneasily. “I done seed de ghost of dat Dude Blackum ’bout fo’teen times.”

“You ain’t by yo’se’f in dat, Revun,” Pap sighed. “Eve’y time I thinks of dat nigger I gits de jiggety-jams.”

“I knowed Dude Blackum a little bit--I seed him on de train once,” Vinegar said. “But ’pears like his ha’nt ain’t gwine let me alone a-tall!”

Dainty and Ginny Babe walked up the steps and entered the Shoofly Church, followed by the curious eyes of all the men in the yard.

“Dar now!” Vinegar mourned. “’Tain’t no use to try to hab preachin’ dis mawnin’--dat hoodoo gal is done got dis meetin’-house in a mess. I feels like somebody is done criss-crossed my head wid a rabbit-foot.”

He knocked the tobacco from his pipe and thrust it into his pocket, his eyes set upon the door through which the girl had passed.

“When did Dainty Blackum come to Tickfall?” Vinegar asked.

“Yistiddy. Ginny Babe Chew met her at de deppo. Some yuther niggers come up from Sawtown, too. You know how niggers is--dar’s a scatteration when somepin like dat happens.”

“Yes, suh. De guilty niggers scatterates as fur as dey kin git an’ as quick as dey kin go,” Vinegar agreed. “De not guilty niggers hikes out of de place to de near-by towns an’ waits till de clouds rolls by.”

“I’s jes’ whisperin’ to you ’bout dat Dainty Blackum, Vinegar,” Pap said suddenly. “I ain’t gwine ’round braggin’ no brags ’bout knowin’ dis Blackum gal. White folks gits awful rambunctious when a nigger kills a white man like Dude done.”

“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’,” Vinegar murmured. “I done j’ined de lodge of silunce.”

The two men separated, Vinegar enterin’ the large, cool, dilapidated church. The band of men standing in the yard followed, as a drove of mules follow a gray mare upon the dusty highroad. The buzzard-like men climbed from their perches on the fence, dusted the seats of their trousers by quick, sliding motions of each hand, and entered the building. In the intense silence their heavily shod feet made ugly noises upon the uncarpeted floor.

Vinegar sensed tragedy everywhere. He looked around him uneasily, spotting certain unfamiliar faces in the congregation.

Ginny Babe Chew sat on the front seat with Dainty Blackum, the two occupying the middle row of pews. On Vinegar’s right, on the front seat, sat a man who had a knife-scar in his neck, a bullet-scar on his cheek, and the top of his left ear was missing. On Vinegar’s left was a tall, ladder-headed negro, dressed like a preacher, sitting on a front bench.

There was no organ or other musical instrument in the church. Vinegar Atts, who had a voice like a pipe-organ, always raised his own tunes and depended upon Skeeter Butts, Figger Bush, and Hitch Diamond to carry the music in the congregation.

Vinegar looked in vain for his three friends to-day. Hitch Diamond had been gone for three Sundays; Skeeter Butts was organizing a baseball nine, and Figger Bush had gone away with a fishing-party of white people.

Suddenly the voice of Dinner Gaze, sitting on Vinegar’s right, rose loud and clear in the silence:

“On de yuther side of Jordon,
In de sweet fields of Eden,
Whar de Tree of Life is bloomin’,
Dar is rest fer you!”

No one in the congregation knew the song, and the solo-voice floated out like the song of a bird. The people sat with bowed heads and listened. When the song ended Vinegar walked out of the pulpit and extended his hand cordially to Dinner Gaze.

“Glad to meet yo’ ’quaintance, my brudder!” he rumbled. “Will you h’ist de toons fer us?”