Chapter IX: Dinner Gaze Sings

Dinner Gaze rose from his seat and, stooping as if he were trying to catch a rat, walked to the front of the congregation. Pausing a moment, his body began to weave to and fro as if in conformity to the words of Scripture: “All my bones shall praise thee.” Then to the surprise of the congregation, after all this orthodox preparation for starting a tune, Dinner Gaze suddenly walked back to his former place and sat down! In the meantime Vinegar Atts was getting acquainted with the other stranger on the opposite side of the house.

“Yes, suh, my name is Tucky Sugg,” the stranger told him. “I ain’t no reg’lar preacher, but I exhausts a little befo’ de people sometimes.”

“I hopes you’ll take up yo’ stayin’-place wid us,” Vinegar said cordially. “Us needs good mens.”

He turned to motion to Dinner Gaze to start the song, and found that Dinner had gone back to his seat.

“Whut ails you, brudder?” he asked.

“I’s skeart I don’t know enough toons to lead de singin’,” Gaze said with a grin. “I retires.”

Vinegar’s eyes fell upon Ginny Babe Chew.

“H’ist a toon, sister!” he commanded. In a hoarse bellow Ginny Babe began:

“Blow--ye--de--trumpet--blow----”

One line was enough.

The words were not inspiring, the tune and tone and manner of the fat leader was a call to penitence, anguish, and tears.

Vinegar sprang to his feet.

“Dat’s won’t do, sister!” he interrupted. “Less sing _dis_ toon!”

He began a song in a bellow which shook the rafters of the house and rattled the windows and threatened to crumble the foundations of the building. The song was a jay-bird affair, waltz-music to the stanza and jig-time to the chorus. The song might as well have been totally unfamiliar to the congregation. It was really one of their favorites--but, in spite of that, they let Vinegar sing it through as a solo.

Verily, the hoodoo was working.

Vinegar was appalled at the unresponsiveness of his congregation, and when the crowd had listened without objection or commendation to a solo prayer and to a reading from the old, worn Bible upon the desk, the preacher was almost in hysterics. He had never seen anything like that before.

Vinegar turned to Ginny Babe Chew a second time and said desperately:

“Now, sister Ginny, less hab anodder song--a lively toon whut eve’ybody knows!”

Ginny Babe Chew rose to her feet, her hand started the gestures of an old-fashioned singing-master, her body “weaved,” her voice arose in a high, drawling falsetto, utterly unlike her natural tone:

“Blow--ye--de--trumpet--blow--”

If the human eye had power to slay, Ginny Babe would now be dead. Vinegar Atts glared at her with such a murderous look that the congregation forgot to sing and watched him. Ginny Babe turned and gazed at the preacher with the air of a hurt child, and quietly took her seat.

There was continued silence in the congregation.

Vinegar raised another tune:

“I muss tell de good Lawd all of my trials,
I cannot bear dese here burdens alone!”

There was continued silence on the part of every one except the preacher. The congregation knew the song and loved it, but they acted like they had never heard either the song or the tune. They were certainly lacking in that Christian coöperation which the song recommended, and Vinegar had to tell his troubles and trials without their assistance.

Then in utter desperation, Vinegar turned again to Dinner Gaze and said pleadingly.

“Fer Gawd’s sake, brudder, come out here an’ sing us a sweet toon--it don’t make difference even ef we don’t know it.”

Long after Dinner Gaze had ended his brief sojourn in Tickfall, the congregation of the Shoofly Church remembered him as he stood before them with his scarred face and sang the song of the shining shore:

“My days are gliding swiftly by,
An’ I, a pilgrim stranger,
Would not detain ’em as dey fly
Dem hours of toil an’ danger;
Fer, Oh! We stand on Jordon’s strand
Our frien’s are passin’ over;
An’ jest befo’, de shinin’ sho’
We may almost discover.”

After this Vinegar arose, announced his text, and began his sermon.

Thereupon Aunt Biddy Chivill, an old negress, deaf as an adder, arose from one of the pews and seated herself in a chair inside the altar railing. Unrolling a trumpet hose she had inherited at the death of a wealthy white woman in Tickfall, she screwed the parts together with great pride and ostentation, and settled herself to listen.

Vinegar spoke about four sentences to which Biddy Chivill listened attentively. Then with an air of final decision, Biddy removed the trumpet from her ear, unscrewed each part with great care and stowed the instrument away in a bag which she carried in her lap, taking great pains to lock the bag. Folding her hands across her lap she fell into peaceful slumber while Vinegar Atts bellowed on.

Sister Ginny Babe Chew, having attempted two abortive toots upon her trumpet, also fell asleep.

But while Aunt Biddy Chivill slept, her little four-year-old granddaughter became immediately active and very much awake. She crept out into the aisle and began to walk around aimlessly, her bare feet making no noise upon the uncarpeted floor.

For a while she amused herself by staring into the faces of the men and peeping under the sun-bonnets of the women. The hands which were stretched out to arrest her were carefully avoided, and she rewarded each person making the attempt with a childish scowl.

Then she sat down upon the floor and crawled under the benches. She lay on the floor and rolled under the benches, bobbing up at unexpected places with an angelic smile.

After this she found a large box in the rear of the church.

In spite of the town stock laws, the hogs ran wild in that portion of Tickfall known as Dirty-Six, where the Shoofly Church was located. Many of these animals had their sleeping place under the church, and the building was infested with fleas.

It was a custom when a church meeting was to be held, to sprinkle the floor with lime and sweep it out, thus ridding the house temporarily of the insects. For that purpose a large box of lime was kept in the rear of the church.

It was this box that the little black baby girl discovered. She stood on tiptoe, stretched herself up, and looked in. It was white, very white, inside. She reached over the edge and touched the whiteness. She brought the hand out and looked at it. It also was white.

Drawn by E. W. Kemble.

The “Revun” Vinegar Atts began his sermon.]

Then the child reached into the box with both hands, filled them with lime, and rubbed them on her face. By the mercy of heaven, she did not get any of the stuff into her mouth and eyes. Then she sat down and rubbed her feet with lime. The effect was gratifying and she smiled.

By this time the sermon was ended. Vinegar had not done much, but he had done the best he could.

“Brudder Tucky Sugg will pray for us!” Vinegar bawled.

The congregation reverently bowed.

Then a little black girl with lime-whitened face and hands and legs, trotted silently up the aisle and stood beside brother Tucky Sugg, listening earnestly to his bawling voice.

She stretched out a tiny, lime-whitened hand and touched Tucky Sugg timidly on the top of his step-ladder head.

“Who you tryin’ to talk to, Revun?” she asked in a bird-like voice.

Tucky Sugg opened his eyes and saw something he had never seen before.

With a loud bellow like a frightened cow, he rolled backward on the floor, and got up with an intense desire to run.

“My Gawd!”

The voice was like an explosion of dynamite, and expressed the consternation of the congregation as they rose to their feet prepared for flight.

Ginny Babe Chew awoke from her slumber. She stared at the little child a moment, then reached out a fat, motherly hand.

“Come here, honey!” she bawled. “Yo’ mammy oughter had washed yo’ face an’ hands befo’ she sont you to de meetin’-house.”

She wiped the lime off the child with the end of her apron, and took the child in her lap.

Then, while the congregation was still standing, Dinner Gaze from his place at one side of the house began to sing, while all stood and listened:

“At de feast of Bill Shasser an’ a thousan’ of his lords,
While dey drunk from golden vessels as de Book of Truth records,
In de night as dey reveled in de royal palace hall,
Dey wus seized wid cornsternation--’twas de Hand upon de wall!
So our deeds is recorded--dar’s a Hand dat’s writin’ now.
Sinner, gib yo’ sins de go-by an’ to de Marster bow!
Fer de day am approachin’--it must come to one an’ all
When de sinner’s corndamnation will git written on de wall!”

On the instant that the song ended, a long, wailing cry, that was at once full of anguish and heart-break, ran through the building!

Old Isaiah Gaitskill, superintendent of the Gaitskill hog-camp, ran down the aisle, clawing at the white wool which fitted his head like a rubber cap. His face was ashy with the dust of the high-way, and tears had streaked it where they had ran downward through the dust.

“My Gawd, cullud folks!” he wailed. “De white folks is done kotched Hitch Diamond--dey are fotchin’ him to jail right now! Here dey come down de big road. Oh, my Gawd!”

The old negro turned and fell with his hands clasping the altar, sobbing like a child.