Alas, The Poor Whiffletit!

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Title:     Alas, The Poor Whiffletit!
Author: Irvin S. Cobb [More Titles by Cobb]

Over Jefferson Poindexter's usually buoyant spirits a fabric of gloom, black, thick, and heavy, was spread like a burying-pall. His thoughts were the color of twelve o'clock at night at the bottom of a coal-mine and it the dark of the moon. Moroseness crowned his brow; sorrow berode his soul, and on his under lip the bull-bat, that eccentric bird which has to sit lengthwise of the limb, might have perched with room to spare. You couldn't see the ointment for the flies, and Gilead had gone out of the balm business. There was a reason. The reason was Ophelia Stubblefield.

On an upturned watering-piggin alongside Mittie May's stall in the stable back of the house, Jeff sat and just naturally gloomed. To this retreat he had been harried against his will. Out of her domain, which was the kitchen, Aunt Dilsey had driven him with words barbed and bitter.

"Tek yo'se'f on 'way f'um yere, black boy!" Such had been her command. "Me, I's plum distracted an' wore out jes' f'um lookin' at you settin' 'round sullin' lak a' ole possum. Ef Satan fine some labor still fur idle hands to do, same ez de Holy Word say he do, he suttinly must be stedyin' 'bout openin' up a branch employmint agency fur cullid only, 'specially on yore account. You ain't de Grand President of de Order of de Folded Laigs, tho' you shorely does ack lak it. You's s'posed to be doin' somethin' fur yore keep an' wages. H'ist yo'se'f an' move."

"I ain't doin' nothin'!" Jeff protested spiritlessly.

"Dat you ain't!" agreed Aunt Dilsey. "An' whut you better do is better do somethin'--tha's my edvices to you. S'posin' ole boss-man came back yere to dis kitchen an' ketch you 'cumberin' de earth de way you is. You knows, well ez I does, w'ite folks suttinly does hate to see a strappin' nigger settin' 'round doin' nothin'."

"Boss-man ain't yere," said Jeff. "He's up at the cote-house. Mos' doubtless jes' about right now he's sendin' some flippy cullid woman to the big jail fur six months fur talkin' too much 'bout whut don't concern her."

"Is tha' so?" she countered. "Well, ef he should come back home he'll find one of de most fragrant cases of vagromcy he ever run acrost right yere 'pon his own household premises. Boy, is you goin' move, lak I patiently is warned you, or ain't you? Git on out yander to de stable an' confide yo' sorrows to de Jedge's old mare. Mebbe she mout be able to endure you, but you p'intedly gives me de fidgits. Git--befo' I starts findin' out ef dat flat haid of yourn fits up smooth ag'inst de back side of a skillit."

Nervously she fingered the handle of her largest frying-pan. Jeff knew the danger-signals. Too deeply sunken in melancholy to venture any further retorts, he withdrew himself, seeking sanctuary in the lee of Mittie May. He squatted upon the capsized keeler, automatically balancing himself as it wabbled under him on its one projecting handle, and, with his eyes fixed on nothing, gave himself over unreservedly to a consuming canker. For all that unhappiness calked his ears as with pledgets of cotton wool, there presently percolated to his aloof understanding the consciousness that somebody was speaking on the other side of the high board fence which marked the dividing line between Judge Priest's place and the Enders' place next door. Listlessly he identified the voice as the property of the young gentleman from up North who was staying with his kinsfolk, the Enders family. This was a gentleman already deeply admired by Jeff at long distance for the sprightliness of his wardrobe and for his gay and gallus ways. Against his will--for he craved to be quite alone with his griefs and no distracting influences creeping in--Jeff listened. Listening, he heard language of such splendor as literally to force him to rise up and approach the fence and apply his eye to a convenient cranny between two whitewashed boards.

Under an Injun-cigar tree which grew in the Enders' back yard the fascinating visitor out of Northern parts was stretched in a hammock, between draws on a cigarette discoursing grandiloquently to a half-incredulous but wholly delighted audience of three. His three small nephews were hunkered on the earth beside him, their grinning faces upturned to his the while he dealt first with this and then with that variety of curious fauna which, he alleged, were to be encountered in the wilds of a strange place called the State of Rhode Island, where, it seemed, he had spent the greater part of an adventurous and crowded youth.

"Well," he was saying now, beginning, as it were, a new chapter, "if you think the sulfur-crested parabola is a funny bird you should hear about the great flannel-throated golosh, or arctic bird of the polar seas, which is a creature so rare that nobody ever saw one, although Dr. Cook, the imminent ex-explorer, made an exhaustive study of its habits and peculiarities and told the King of Denmark about them, afterward amplifying his remarks on the subject in the lecture which he delivered in this, his native land, under the auspices of the International School of Poor Fish. By the way, I'm sure the Doctor must have visited this town on his tour. Only yesterday, I think it was, I saw an illuminated sign down on Franklin Street which surely was used originally to advertise his lecture. It was a sign which said, 'Cook With Gas!' But speaking of fish, I am reminded of the fur-bearing whiffletit; only some authorities say the whiffletit is not a fish at all, but a subspecies of the wampus family. Now, the wampus--"

"Say, tell us about the whiffletit next," begged one wriggling youngster, plainly allured by the sound of the name.

"With pleasure," said the speaker. "The whiffletit is found only in streams running in a south-northerly direction. This is because the whiffletit, being a sensitive creature with poor vision, insists on having the light falling over its left shoulder at all times. A creek, river, inlet, or estuary which has a wide mouth and a narrow head, such as a professional after-dinner speaker has, is a favorite haunt for the whiffletit. To the naturalist it is a constant source of joy. It always swims backward upstream, to keep the water out of its eyes, and it has only one fin, which grows just under its chin, so that the whiffletit can fan itself in warm weather, thus keeping cool, calm, and collected. Most marvelous thing of all about this marvelous creature is its diet. For the whiffletit, my dear young friends, lives exclusively on imported Brie cheese.

"Did I say exclusively? Ah, there I fell into error. It has been known to nibble at a chiropodist's finger, but it prefers imported Brie cheese, aged in the wood. The mode employed in catching it is very interesting, and I shall now describe it to you. Selecting a body of water wherein the whiffletit resides, you enter a round-bottomed boat and row out to the middle of it. Then you take a square timber, and, driving it into the water, withdraw it very swiftly so as to leave a square hole in the water. Care should be taken to use a perfectly square timber because the whiffletit being, as I forgot to tell you, shaped like a brick, cannot move up and down a round hole without barking its shins, much to the discomfort of the pretty creature.

"Pray follow me closely now, for at this juncture we come to the most important phase of the undertaking. You bait the edges of the hole with the cheese cut in small cubes and quietly await results. Nor do you have long to wait. Far down below in his watery retreat the whiffletit catches the alluring aroma of the cheese. He swims to the surface and devours it to the last crumb. But alas for the greedy whiffletit! Instantly the cheese swells him up so that he cannot change gears nor retreat back down the hole, and as he circles about, flapping helplessly, you lean over the side of the boat and laugh him to death! And such, my young friends, such is the fate of the whiffletit."

"'Scuse me, suh."

The amateur aspirant for the robe of Munchausen paused from lighting a fresh cigarette and lifted his eyes, and was aware of an anthracite-colored face risen, like some new kind of crayoned full moon, above the white skyline of the side fence.

"'Scuse me, suh, fur interruptin'," repeated the voice belonging to the apparition, "but I couldn't he'p frum overhearin' whut you wuz tellin' the boys yere. An' I got sort of interested myse'f."

"It's Judge Priest's Jeff, Uncle Dwight," explained the oldest nephew. "Jeff makes us fluttermills out of corn-stalks, and he learned us--taught us, I mean--to call a brickbat an alley-apple, and he can make his ears wiggle just like a rabbit and everything. Don't you, Jeff?--I mean, can't you, Jeff?"

"Ah, I see," said the fabulist with a wink aside for Jeff's benefit. "I am indeed delighted to make the acquaintance of one thus gifted, even under the present informal circumstances. In what way, if any, may I be of service to you, Judge Priest's Jeff?"

"That air thing you named the whiffletit--near ez I made out you said, boss, that fust you tolled him up to whar you wanted him wid cheese an' 'en you jest natchelly laffed him to death?"

"Such are the correct facts accurately repeated, Judge Priest's Jeff," gravely assented this affable faunalist.

"Yas, suh," said Jeff. "D'ye s'pose now, boss, it would he'p any ef they wuz a whole passel of folks to do the laffin' 'stid of jes' one?"

"Beyond the peradventure of a doubt. Concerted action on the part of many, guffawing merrily in chorus, assuredly would hasten the death of the ill-starred victim, if you get what I mean, Judge Priest's most estimable Jeff?"

"Yas, suh," said Jeff. "Thanky, suh." He did not exactly smile his thanks, but the mask of his melancholy crinkled round the edges and raised slightly. One who knew Jeff, and more particularly one who had been cognizant of his depressed state during the past fortnight, would have said that a heartening thought suddenly had come to him, lightening and lifting in ever so small a degree the funereal mantlings. He made as though to withdraw from sight. A gesture from the visiting naturalist detained him.

"One moment," said Uncle Dwight. "Might I, a comparative stranger, be pardoned for inquiring into the motives underlying the interest you have evinced in my perhaps poorly expressed but veracious narration?"

The wraith of Jeff's grin took on flesh visibly. It was a pleasure--even to one beset by grievous perplexities--it was a pleasure to hear such noble big words fall thus trippingly from human lips. His answer, tho, was in a measure evasive, not to say cryptic.

"I wuz jes' stedyin', tha's all, suh," he fenced. He ducked from view, then bobbed his head up again.

"'Scuse me, suh, but they is one mo' thing I craves to ast you."

"Proceed, I pray you. Our aim is to please and instruct."

"Well, suh, I jes' wanted to ast you ef you ever run acrost one of these yere whiffletits w'ich played on the jazzin'-valve?"

"Prithee?"

"Naw, suh, not the prith--prith--whut you jes' said. I mentioned the jazzin'-valve--whut some folks calls the saxophone. D'ye reckin they mout' 'a' been a whiffletit onct 'at played on one?"

"Oh, the saxophone! Well, as to that I could not with certainty speak. But, mark you, the whiffletit is a creature of infinite resources--versatile, abounding in quaint conceits and whimsies, and, having withal a wide repertoire. Sometimes its repertoire is twice as wide as it is, thus producing a peculiar effect when the whiffletit is viewed from behind. On second thought, I have no doubt that in the privacy of its subterranean fireside the whiffletit wiles away the tedium of the long winter evenings by playing on the saxophone."

"Come on over, Jeff, and Uncle Dwight will tell us some more," urged the hospitable oldest nephew.

But Jeff had vanished. He wished to be alone for the working out of a project as yet vague and formless, but having a most definite object to be attained. Stimulated by hope new-born, he was now a sort of twelfth carbon-copy of the regular Jeff--faint, perhaps, and blurry, but recognizable. Through the clouds which encompassed him the faint promise of a rift was apparent.

By rights one would have said that Jeff had no excuse for hiding in a shadowed hinterland at all. The world might have been excused for its failure to plumb the underlying causes which roiled the waters of his soul. Seemingly the currents of life ran for him in agreeable channels. He had an indulgent employer whose clothes fitted Jeff. Indeed, anybody's clothes fitted Jeff. He had one of those figures which seem to give and take. He was well nourished, gifted conversationally, of a nimble wit, resourceful, apt. Moreover, home-grown watermelons were ripe. The Eighth of August, celebrated in these parts by the race as Emancipation Day, impended. The big revival--the biggest and most tremendously successful revival in his people's local history--was in full swing at the Twelfth Ward tabernacle, affording thrill and entertainment every week-night and thrice on Sundays.

There never had been such a revival; probably there never would be another such. Justifiably, the pastor of Emmanuel Chapel took credit to himself that he had planted the seed which at this present time so gloriously yielded harvest. Theretofore his chief claim to public attention had rested upon the sound of the name he wore. He had been born a Shine and christened a Rufus. But to him the name of Rufus Shine had seemed lacking in impressiveness and euphony for use by one about entering the ministry. Thanks to the ingenuity of a white friend who was addicted to puns and plays upon words, the defect had been cured. As the Rev. A. Risen Shine he bore a name which fitted its bearer and its bearer's calling--at once it was a slogan and a testimony, a trade-mark and a watch-cry.

Proudly now he walked the earth, broadcasting the favor of his smile on every side. For it had been he who divined that the times were ripe for the importation of that greatest of all exhorting evangelists of his denomination, the famous Sin Killer Wickliffe, of Nashville, Tenn. His had been the zeal which inspired the congregation to form committees on ways and means, on place and time, on finance; his, mainly, the energy behind the campaign for subscriptions which filled the war-chest. As resident pastor, chief promotor, and general manager of the project, he had headed the delegation which personally waited upon the great man at his home and extended the invitation. Almost immediately, upon learning that the amount of his customary guaranty already had been raised and deposited in bank, the Rev. Wickliffe felt that he had a call to come and labor, and he obeyed it. He brought with him his entire organization--his private secretary, his treasurer, his musical director. For, mind you, the Sin Killer had borrowed a page from the book of certain distinguished revivalists of a paler skin-pigmentation than his. As the saying goes among the sinful, he saw his Caucasian brethren and went them one better. His musical director was not only an instrumentalist but a composer as well. He adapted, he wrote, he originated, he improvised, he interpolated, he orchestrated, he played. As one inspired, this genius played the saxophone.

Now, in the world at large the saxophone has its friends and its foes. Its detractors agree that the late Emperor Nero was a maligned man; cruel, perhaps, in some of his aspects, but not so cruel as has been made out in the case against him. It was a fiddle he played while Rome burned--it might have been a saxophone. But to the melody-loving heart of the black race in our land the mooing tones of this long-waisted, dark-complected horn carry messages as of great joy. It had remained, though, for the resourceful Rev. Wickliffe to prove that it might be made to fill a nobler and a higher destiny than setting the feet of the young men to dancing and the daughters to treading the syncopated pathways of the ungodly. Discerning this by a sort of higher intuition, he had thrown himself into the undertaking of luring the most expert saxophone performer of his acquaintance away from the flaunting tents of the transgressor and herding him into the fold of the safely regenerate. He succeeded. He saved Cephus Fringe, plucking him up as a brand from the burning, to remold him into a living torch fitted to light the way for others.

Of Cephus it might be said, paraphrasing the lines about little dog Rover, that when he was saved he was saved all over. Being redeemed, he straightway disbanded his orchestra. He tore up his calling-card reading,

 +-----------------------------------------+
 | PROFESSOR CEPHUS FRINGE ESQUIRE |
 | THE ANGLO-SAXOPHONE KING |
 | Address: Care Champey's Barber-Shop |
 |SOLE PROPRIETOR FRINGE'S ALL-STAR TROUPE |
 +-----------------------------------------+

He enlisted under the militant banners and on the personal staff of the Sin Killer. Amply then was the prior design of his new commander justified. For if it was the eloquence, the magnetism, the compelling force of the revivalist which brought the penitents shouting down the tan-bark trail to the mourner's bench, it was the harmonious croonings of Prof. Fringe as he conducted the introductory program--now rendering as a solo his celebrated original composition, "The Satan Blues," now leading the special choir--which psychologically paved the way for the greater scene to follow after. There was distress in the devil's glebe-lands when this pair struck their proper stride--first the Fringian outpourings harmoniously exalting the spirits of the assemblage and then the exhorters tying his hands to the Gospel plow and driving down into the populous valleys of sin, there to furrow and harrow, to sow and tend, to garner and glean.

The team had struck its stride early at the protracted meeting so competently fostered by the resident pastor of Emmanuel Chapel, the Rev. A. Risen Shine. To himself, as already stated, the latter took prideful credit for results achieved and results promised. Well he might. Already hundreds of converts had come halleluiahing through; hundreds more teetered and swayed, back and forth, between doubt and conviction, ready at a touch to fall like the ripe and sickled grain in the lap of the husbandman. Wavering brethren had been fortified and were made stalwart again. Confirmed backsliders rubbed their wayward feet in the resin of faith and were boosted up the treacherous skids of their temptation and over the citadel walls to bask among the chosen in a Jericho City of repentance. Proselytes from other and hostile creeds trooped over with hosannas and loud outcries of rejoicing. Even the place where, each evening, the triumph of the preceding evening was repeated and amplified seemed appropriate for such scenes. For the Twelfth Ward tabernacle had not always been a tabernacle; it had been a tobacco-warehouse--but it was converted. And its present chief ornament, next only to the Sin Killer himself--indeed, its chiefest ornament of all in the estimation of impressionable younger unmarried female members--was Prof. Cephus Fringe.

At thought of him and of this, Jeff Poindexter, reperched on his wabbly piggin, wove his furrowed brow into a closer and more intricate pattern of cordial dislike. For if the main reason of his unhappiness was Ophelia Stubblefield, the secondary reason and principal contributory cause was this same Cephus Fringe. Ophelia's favorite letter may not have been F, but it should have been. She was fair, fickle, fawn-toned, flirty, flighty, and frequently false. Jeff cast back in his mind. He certainly had had his troubles since he became permanently engaged to Ophelia. For instance, there had been her affair with that ferocious razor-wielder Smooth Crumbaugh. In this matter the fortuitous return from the dead of Red Hoss Shackleford, as skilfully engineered by Jeff, had broken up Red Hoss's own memorial services, had also operated to scare Smooth Crumbaugh clean out of Colored Odd Fellows' Hall and leave the fainting Ophelia in the rescuing arms of Jeff. But there had been half a dozen other affairs, each of such intensity as temporarily to undermine Jeff's peace of mind. Between spells of infatuations for attractive strangers, she accepted Jeff's devotions. The trouble was, though, that life, with Ophelia, seemed to be just one infatuation after another. And now, to cap all, she had suffered herself, nay, offered herself, to fall thrall to the dashing personality and the varied accomplishments of this Fringe person. It was this entanglement which for two weeks past had made Jeff, her official 'tween-times fiance, a prey to carking cares and dark forebodings.

Hourly and daily the situation, from Jeff's point of view, had grown more desperate as Ophelia's passion for the fascinating sojourner grew. He had even lost his relish for victuals which, with Jeff, was indeed a serious sign. In long periods of self-imposed solitude he had devised and discarded as hopeless various schemes for bringing discomfiture upon his latest and most dangerous rival. For a while he had thought somehow, somewhere, to rake up proofs of the interloper's former wild and reckless life. But of what avail to do that?

By his own frank avowal the Professor had had a spangled past; had been an adventurer and a wanton, a wandering minstrel bard; had even been in jail. This background of admitted transgressions, now that he was so completely reformed and reclaimed, merely made him an all-the-more attractive figure in the eyes of those to whom he offered confession. Again, Jeff had trifled with a vague design of taunting Fringe into a quarrel and beating him up something scandalous. To this end he tentatively had approached our leading exponent of the art of self-defense and our most dependable sporting authority, one Mr. Jerry Ditto.

Mr. Ditto had grown out of a clerkship at Gus Neihiem's cigar-store into the realm of fistiana. As a shadow-boxer he excelled; as a bag-puncher also. But in an incautious hour for himself and his backer, Flash Purdy, owner of Purdy's Dixieland Bar, he had permitted himself to be entered for a match before an athletic club at Louisville against one Max Schorrer, a welter-weight appearing professionally under the _nom de puge_ of Slugging Fogarty. It was to have been a match of twelve rounds, but early in the second round Mr. Ditto suddenly lost all conscious interest in the proceedings.

He retired from the ring after this with a permanent lump on the point of his jaw and a profound conviction that the Lord had made a mistake and drowned the wrong crowd that time at the Red Sea. He fitted up a gymnasium in the old plow factory and gave instructions in sparring to the youth of the town. Naturally, his patronage was all-white, but he offered to take Jeff on for a few strictly private lessons at night provided Jeff would promise not to tell anybody about it. But at last the prospective client drew back. His ways were the ways of peace and diplomacy. Why depart from them? And, anyhow, this Cephus Fringe was so dog-goned sinewy-looking. Playing a saxophone ought to give a man wind and endurance. If not knocked cold in the first onslaught he might become seriously antagonized toward Jeff.

But now, in the sportive fablings of the young white gentleman from up North who was visiting the Enders family, he had found a clue to what he sought. The difficult point, though, was to evolve the plan for the plot nebulously floating about in his brain; for while he envisaged the delectable outcome, the scheme of procedure was as yet entirely without form and substance. It was as though he looked through a tunnel under a hill. At the far end he beheld the sunlight, but all this side of it was utter darkness. Seeking to pluck inspiration out of the air, his roving eye fell upon the dappled rump of Mittie May as she stood in her stall placidly munching provender, and with that, _bang_! inspiration hit him spang between the eyes.

To look on her, ruminative, ewe-like, fringed of fetlock and deliberate in her customary amblings, you would never have reckoned Mittie May to be a mare with a past. But such was the case. Her youth had been spent in travel over the continent with a tented caravan; in short, a circus. Her broad flat top-side, her dependable gait, her amiable disposition, her color--white with darkish half-moons on shoulder and flank--all these admirably had fitted her for the ring. When, long years before, Hooper's wagon-shows came to grief in our town Mittie May had been seized by Farrell Brothers to satisfy an unpaid hay-bill.

Through her sobering maturer years she had passed from one set of hands to another, until finally, in her declining days, she found asylum in the affectionate ownership of Judge Priest, with Jeff to curry her fat sides and no more arduous labor to perform than occasionally to draw the Judge about from place to place in his ancient shovel-topped buggy. About her now there was naught to suggest the prancing rozin-back she once had been; the very look of her eye conjured up images of simple pastoral scenes--green meadows and purling brooks.

But let a certain signal be sounded and on top of that let a certain air be played and Mittie May, instantly losing that air she had of a venerable and dignified sheep, became a Mittie May transformed; a Mittie May reverted to another and more feverish time; a Mittie May stirred by olden memories to nightmarish performances. By chance once Jeff had happened upon her secret, and now, all in one illuminating flash, recalling the conditions governing this discovery, he gave vent to a low anticipatory chuckle. It was the first chuckle he had uttered in a fortnight, and this one was edged with a sinister portent. He had his idea now. He had at hand the agency for bringing the scheme to fruition. But yet there remained much of preliminary detail to be worked out. His plan still was like a fine-toothed comb which has seen hard usage in a wiry thatch--there were wide gaps between its prongs.

Jeff gave himself over to sustained thought. He made calculations calendar-wise. This was the first day of August; the eighth, therefore, was but seven short days removed. This plot of his seemed to resemble a number of things. It was like a piece of pottery, too. First the plastic clay must be assembled, then the vessel itself turned from it; finally the completed product must be given time to harden before it would be ready for use. He must move fast but warily.

To begin with, now, he must create a setting of plausibility for the role he meant, in certain quarters, to essay; must dress the character, as it were, in its correct housings and provide just the right touches of local color. Ready at hand was Aunt Dilsey; he would make her, unwittingly so far as she kenned, a supporting member of the cast. She would never know it, but she would play an accessory part, small but important, in his prologue.

Five minutes later she lifted her eyebrows in surprise. As he reinserted himself halfway across the portals of the realm where she queened it his recent moroseness was quite gone from him. About him now was the suggestion, subtly conveyed, that here stood one who, after profound cogitation, had found out what ailed him and, by the finding out, was filled with a gentle, chastened satisfaction. He seated himself on the kitchen door-step, facing outward so that comparative safety might be attained with a single flying leap did her uncertain temper, flaring up suddenly, lead her to acts of hostility before he succeeded in winning her over. He uttered a long-drawn sigh, then sat a minute in silence. In silence, too--a suspicious, menacing silence--she glared at him.

"Aunt Dilsey," he ventured, speaking over his shoulder, with his face averted from her, "mebbe you been noticin' yere lately I seemed kind of downcasted an' shiftless, lak ez ef I had a mood on me?"

"Has I noticed it?" she repeated--"huh!" The punctuating grunt was non-committal. It might mean nothing; it might mean anything.

He cleared his throat and went on,

"An', mebbe--I ain't sayin' you actually is; I's sayin' it with a mebbe--mebbe you been marvelin' in yore mind whut it wuz w'ich pestered me an' made me ack so kind of no-'count?"

"I ain't needin' to marvel," she stated coldly. "I knows. Laziness! Jes' pyure summer-time nigger laziness, wid a rich streak of meanness th'owed in."

"Nome, you is wrong," he corrected her gently. "You is wrong there. 'Ca'se likewise an' furthermo' I also is been off my feed--ain't that a sign to you?"

"Sign of a tapeworm, I 'spects."

"Don't say that, please, Ma'am," he humbly pleaded. "You speakin' in sich a way meks me 'most discouraged to confide in you whut I aims to confide in you. I'm tellin' it to you the fust one, too. 'Tain't nary 'nother soul heared it. Aunt Dilsey, I's grateful to you in my heart, honest I is, fur runnin' me 'way frum yore presence yere jes' a little w'ile ago. You never knowed it at the time--I didn't s'picion it also neither--but you done me a favor. 'Ca'se settin' out yonder in the stable all alone and ponderin' deep, all of a sudden somethin' jes' come right over me an' I knowed whut's been the matter wid me lately. Aunt Dilsey, I's felt the quickenin' tech."

"Better fur you ef somebody made you feel de quickenin' buggy-whup."

He disregarded the brutal suggestion.

"Yessum, I's felt the quickenin' tech. Ez you doubtless full well knows, I ain't been 'tendin' much 'pon the big revival. But even so--even an' evermo' so--the influence frum it done stretch fo'th its hand an' reach me. I ain't sayin' I's plum won over yit, but 'way down deep insides of me I's stirred--yessum, tha's the word--stirred. I ain't sayin' the spirit of grace is actually th'owed me, but I feel prone to say I thinks it's fixin' to rassle wid me. I ain't sayin' I stands convicted, but I aims to be a searcher fur the truth; I aims to stop, look, an' lissen. I ain't sayin'--" He broke off, the floods of his imagery dammed by the skeptical eye which swept him; then made a lame conclusion, "Tha's whut I sez, Ma'am, to you in strict confidences."

"Den lemme say somethin' to you. You figgers it's salvation you needs, huh? I figgers it's vermifuge. Oh, I knows you, boy--I knows you f'um de grass-roots up. Still an' wid all dat, ef you should crave to mend yo' ways--an' de Heavens above knows dey kin stand a heap of mendin'!--I ain't gwine be de one to hender you."

Against her better judgment her tone was softening. For she gave her allegiance unrestrainedly to the doctrine preached at Emmanuel Chapel. She was one of its stanch pillows. Indeed, it might be said of her that she was one of its plumpest bolsters; and Jeff, although admittedly of no religious persuasion, had grown up in the shadow of a differing creed. The winning over of the black ram of another fold would be a greater victory than the reclamation of any wandering sheep who had been reared as a true believer.

"Well, boy," she went on, in this new mood, "let us hope an' pray dat in yore case dey's yit hope. De ways of de Almighty is pas' findin' out. Fur do not de Scriptures say dey's room fur both man an' beast?--de maid servant an' de man servant, de ox an' de ass, dey all may enter in? So dey mout be a skimsy, bare chanct fur sech even ez you is. One thing shore--ef dey's ary grain of contritefulness in yore soul, trust de Sin Killer to fetch it fo'th to de light of day. He's de ole fambly doctor w'en it come to dat kind of sickness. You go to dat tabernickle to-night an' you keep on goin' an' le's see whut come to pass.... Jeffy, dey's a little mossil of cold peach cobbler lef over f'um dinner yistiddy settin' up yonder amongst de shelfs of my cu'board!"

"Nome, thank you," said Jeff. "The emotions w'ich is in me seems lak they ain't left me no room fur nothin' else. Seems lak I can't git my mind on vittles yit. But I shore aims to be at the tabernickle to-night, Aunt Dilsey--I means, Sist' Dilsey. You jes' watch me. Tha's all I asts of you now--jes' watch me!"

Head down and shoulders hunched, in the manner of one harkening to inner voices, Jeff betook himself around the corner of the back porch. Once out of her sight, though, he flung from him his mien of absorption. The overture had been rendered; there remained much to be done before the curtain rose. The languorous shade invited one to tarry and rest, but Jeff breasted the sunshine, going hither and yon upon his errands. Back of a cabin on Plunket's Hill he had private conference with one Gumbo Rollins, by profession a carnival concessionaire and purveyor of amusements in a small way. No cash actually changed hands, but on Jeff's part there was a promise of moneys to be paid in the event of certain as-yet-problematical contingencies.

Next he sought for and, at the Bleeding Heart restaurant, found a limber individual named Tecumseh Sherman Glass, called Cump for short. This Tecumseh Sherman Glass was a person of two trades and one outstanding trait. By day a short-order cook, by night he played in 'Gustus Hillman's Colored String Band. It is to be marked down in the reader's memory that the instrument he played was the saxophone; also that he was heavily impregnated with that form of professional jealousy which lurks in the souls of so many _artistes_; likewise that he was a member in fair standing of the Rev. A. Risen Shine's congregation, and, finally, that he was a born meddler in other folks' affairs. These facts all should be borne in mind; they have their value.

With Tecumseh Sherman Glass, Jeff spent some time in a confidential exchange of words. Here, again, the matter of a subsequent financial reward, to be paid by the party of the first part, meaning Jeff, to the party of the second part, meaning Cump, following the satisfactory outcome of sundry developments, was arranged. Would there were space to tell how cunningly, how craftily Jeff, in the subtleties marking this interview, played upon three chords in the other's being--the chord of vengeful envy, the chord of malice, the chord of avarice. There is not space.

Four o'clock found the plotter entering the parlor of what once had been the establishment of T. Marshall, undertaker, now the Elite Colored Funeral Home, Marshall & Kivil, proprietors. These transformations had dated from the time Percy C. Kivil (Tuskegee '18) entered the firm. Here was no plain undertaker. Here was an expert and a graduate mortician, with diploma to prove it; also one gifted of the pen. Two inscriptions done in flowing type hung on the wall. One of these inscriptions read:

Oh, Death, where is thy sting
When we officiates?
Embalming done attentively
At standard pre-war rates.

And the other:

Blest be the tie that binds!
Tho death thy form may shake.
Call in a brother of thy race
And let him undertake!

At a desk between these two decorative objects and half shadowed by the bright-green fronds of a large artificial palm, sat AEsop Loving, son-in-law of the senior partner. From his parent-by-marriage AEsop had borrowed desk-room for the carrying on of the multitudinous business relating to the general management of one of the celebrations projected in honor, and on account of, the Eighth of August. He might appear to be absorbed in important details, as he now did. But inside of him he was not happy and Jeff knew the reasons; the reasons were common rumor. This year there was to be more than one celebration; there were to be two; and the opposition, organizing secretly and stealing a march on that usually wide-awake person, AEsop, had rented Belt Line Park, thus forcing AEsop's crowd to make a poor second choice of the old show-grounds, a treeless common away out near the end of Tennessee Street. On top of this and in an unexpected quarter, even more formidable competition was foreshadowed. A scant eighth of a mile distant from the show-lot and on the same thoroughfare stood the Twelfth Ward tabernacle, and here services would be held both afternoon and evening of the Eighth. The Rev. Wickliffe had so announced, and the Rev. Shine had backed him in the decision.

It was inevitable, with this surpassing magnet of popular interest so near at hand, that for every truant convert who might halt to taste of the pleasures provided by AEsop Loving and his associate promoters, half a dozen possible patrons would pass on by and beyond, drawn away by the compelling power of the Sin Killer's eloquence. Representations had been made to the revivalist that, with propriety, he might suspend his ministry for the great day. His answer was the declaration that on the Eighth he would preach not merely once, but twice.

By him and his there would be no temporizing with the powers of evil, however insidiously cloaked. Would not dancing be included in the entertainments planned by these self-seeking laymen who now approached him? Would not there be idle sports and vain pastimes calculated to entice the hearts of the populace away from consideration of the welfare of their own souls? Admittedly there would be drinking of soft drinks. And into the advertised softness some hardness assuredly would slip. You could not fool the Sin Killer. Having taken a firm stand, his rectitude presently moved him to further steps. On his behalf it was stated that he, personally, would lead the elect in triumphant procession out Tennessee Street to the tabernacle between the afternoon preaching and the evening. As an army with banners, the saved, the sober, and the seeking would march past, thus attesting their fealty to the cause which moved them. He defied all earthly forces to lure a single one from the ranks.

And, after the preaching, under his auspices, there would be a mighty cutting of watermelons for those deemed to be qualified to participate therein. By the strict tenets of the Rev. Wickliffe's theology it seemed that watermelons were almost the only luscious things of this carnal world not held to be potentially or openly sinful. Small wonder then that Jeff, jauntily entering the Elite Funeral Home, read traces of an ill-concealed distress writ plain upon the face of AEsop Loving.

"Well, Brother Lovin', you shore does look lak you'd hung yore harp 'pon the willer-tree an' wuz fixin' to tek in sorrow fur a livin'," he said in greeting. "Cheer yo'se'f up; 'tain't nothin' so worse but whut it mout be worser."

"Easy fur you to say so, Brother Poindexter; harder fur me to do so," stated AEsop. "Gallivantin' 'round the way you is, you ain't got no idea of the aggervations w'ich keeps comin' up in connection wid an occasion sech ez this one, an' mo' 'specially the aggervations w'ich pussonally afflicts the director-general of the same, w'ich I is him."

"I been hearin' somethings myse'f," said Jeff. "Word is come to me, fur one thing, that this yere smart-ellicky gang out at the Belt Line Park is aimin' to try to cut some of the groun' frum under yore feet. I regrets to hear it."

"'Tain't them so much," said AEsop. "We couldn't 'spect to go 'long havin' a nomopoly furever. Sooner or late they wuz bound to be opposition arisin' up. 'Tain't them so much, although I will say it wuz a low-flung trick to tek an' rent that park right out frum under our noses 'thout givin' us no warnin' so's we mout go an' rent it fu'st. No, hit's the action of that Emmanuel Chapel bunch w'ich gives me the mos' deepest concern. Seems lak ev'ry time that Rev'n' Sin Killer open his mouth I kin feel cold cash crawlin' right out of my pocket. Mind you, Brother Poindexter, I ain't got a word to say ag'in religion. I's strong fur it on Sundays, ez you well knows, but dog-gone religion w'en it come interferin' wid a pusson's chanct to pick up a little spare change fur hisse'f on a week-day!"

"Spoke lak a true business man, Brother Lovin'," said Jeff. "Still, I reckin you's mebbe countin' the spoilt eggs 'fore they's all laid. The way I sees it, you'll do fairly well, nevertheless an' to the contrary notwithstandin'. Le's see. Ain't you goin' to have the dancin'-pavilion goin' all day?"

"Yas, but--"

"Ain't you goin' to have money rollin' in frum all the snack-stands an' frum the fried-fish privilege an' frum the cane rackits an' frum the knock-the-babies-down an' all?"

"Tubby shore, but--"

"Ain't you due to pick up a right smart frum the kitty of the private crap game an' the chuck-a-luck layout?"

"Natchelly. But--"

"Hole on; I ain't th'ough yit. Seems lak to me you ain't properly counted up yore blessin's a-tall. Ain't the near-beer--" he sank his voice discreetly, although there was no one to overhear "ain't the near-beer an' the _still nearer_ beer goin' fetch you in a right peart lil' income? I'll say they is. An' ain't you goin' do mighty well on yore own account out of yore share of the commission frum Gumbo Rollinses' Flyin' Jinny?"

"Hole on, hole on! How come Gumbo Rollins?"

"W'y tha's all fixed," stated Jeff. "Gumbo he'll be out there 'fore sunup on the 'p'inted day wid his ole Flyin' Jinny an' his ole grind-organ an'--"

"Tain't nothin' fixed," demurred the astonished and indignant AEsop. "'Tain't nothin' fixed 'thout I fixes it. Ain't I had pestermints 'nuff las' yeah settlin' up, or tryin' to, wid that Rollins? Ain't I told him then that never ag'in would I--"

"Oh, tha's settled," announced Jeff soothingly.

"Who settled it?"

"Me."

"You?"

"Yas, me--out of pyure frien'ship fur you. Lissen, Brother Lovin', an' give due heed. I comes to you d'rect frum Gumbo Rollins. He's done seen the error of the way he acked tow'ds you that time. He's cravin' that all the grudges of the bygone past shall be disremembered. Here's whut he's goin' to do: He's goin' give yore organization the reg'lar cut, an' 'pon top of that he's goin' hand you, pussonally an' private, a special extra five pur cent, on all he teks in; that comes ez a free-will offerin' to you. He's goin' 'bandon his plan to run ez a independint attraction on the Eighth down back of the market-house. He's goin' be wid you heart an' soul an' Flyin' Jinny. All he asts, through me, is that he kin have the right to set her up on the purtic'lar spot w'ich he's got in mind out there on them show-ground lots. An' finally an' furthermo' he's done commission me to hand you ten dollars, unbeknownst to anybody, jes' to prove to you that his heart's in the right place an' that he's wishful fur to do the square thing." He felt in his pockets, producing a crumpled bill. "An' here 'tis!"

AEsop pouched the currency on the flank where he carried his personal funds before his commercial instinct inspired him to seek out the motives actuating the volunteer peacemaker. Experience had taught him to beware of Greeks bearing gifts--not of the gifts particularly, but of the Greeks.

"Well," he said, "ef Gumbo Rollins aims to be honest an' open an' abovebode wid us, w'y that puts a diff'unt face on it. But so fur ez I heared tell, you an' Gumbo Rollins ain't been so thick ez all this up till now. I's wonderin' whut does you 'spect to git out of the little transaction fur yo'se'f? 'Ca'se I gives you warnin' right yere an' now that ef you's hopin' to git a split out of me you mout jes' ez well stop dreamin' ary sech a delusion an' become undelirious ag'in."

"Stop, Brother Lovin'," broke in Jeff in the tone of one aggrieved at being unjustly accused. "Has I asted you fur anything? Then wait till I does so."

"All right," agreed AEsop. "I'll wait till you does so an' w'en you does so I'll say no, same ez I's already sayin' it to you in advance. Say, boy, you must have yore reasons fur the int'rust you is displayin' in dis matter."

"Whutever 'tis 'taint got nothin' to do wid lurin' no money out of yore possession," said Jeff. His voice changed to one of deep gravity. "Brother Lovin', look yere at me."

He glanced about him, making doubly sure they were alone. He advanced one step and came to a halt; he made his figure rigid and gave first the grand hailing-sign of the Afro-American Society of Supreme Kings of the Universe, then the private signal of distress which invokes succor and support, and he wound up by uttering the cabalistic words which bind a fellow Supreme King in the vows of eternal secrecy on pain of having his heart cut out of his bosom and burned and the ashes scattered to the four winds. For his part, AEsop Loving arose and, obeying the ritual, made the proper responses. In a solemn silence they exchanged the symbolic grip which is reserved only for occasions of emergency and stress and which unites brother to brother in bonds stronger than steel. A moment later AEsop Loving was alone.

It was not Jeff, the intriguer, who had colleagued with Gumbo Rollins and conspired with Cump Glass, who came in the evening to the Twelfth Ward tabernacle and sought a seat on a bench well up toward the front where he could be fairly conspicuous and yet not too conspicuous; neither was it the persuasive person who had dangled the bait of private profit before the beguiled eyes of AEsop Loving. Rather was it the serious, self-searching, introspective Jeff, who earlier that day had besought counsel and comfort of Aunt Dilsey Turner. He came alone, walking with head bowed as walks one who is wrapped in his own thoughts. He arrived betimes; he remained silent and apart, inwardly communing, one would have said, while the audience rustled in.

So engrossed was he that he seemed to have no eyes even for Ophelia, who perched high aloft, the brightest flower in the hanging garden of color that banked the tiers of the choir division terracing up behind the platform. She, in turn, had no eyes for any there save Prof. Cephus Fringe, who, it should be added, had one eye for Ophelia and the other for his own person. Even by those prejudiced in his favor it was not to be denied that the Professor was, as one might say, passionately addicted to himself. When, with Cephus Fringe accompanying and directing, the opening hymn was offered, Ophelia, lifting high her soprano voice, sang directly at, to, and for him. From the front this plainly was to be observed; in fact was the subject of whispered comment among some of Jeff's neighbors.

As though he heard them not nor saw the byplay, he gave no sign which might be interpreted as denoting annoyance or chagrin. There was only a friendly and whole-souled approval in his look when, following the song, Prof. Fringe rendered--I believe this is the customary phrase--rendered as a solo on his saxophone one of the compositions bearing his name as author. There was rapt attention and naught else in his pose and on his face the while the Rev. Wickliffe, swinging his scythe of righteousness, mowed for a solid hour in Satan's weedy back yard, so that the penitents fell in a broad swath.

From her place hard by, Aunt Dilsey vigilantly watched Jeff and was, in spite of herself, convinced of his sincerity. She marked how, at the close of the meeting, he passed slowly, almost reluctantly out, stopping more than once and looking rearward as though half inclined to turn back and join the ranks of those who clustered still at the foot of the pulpit, completely and utterly won over. She was moved to direct the notice of certain of the sistren and brethren to his behavior as conspicuous proof of the compelling fervor of the Sin Killer. Swiftly the word spread that Jeff Poindexter magically had ceased to be a horrible example and was betraying evidences that he might yet become what insurance agents call a prospect.

As though to justify this hope Jeff attended Tuesday night; his presence attesting him a well-wisher, his deportment an added testimony that he deeply had been stirred by the outpoured words of the revivalist. Before the service got under way he seized upon an opportunity to be introduced to the Rev. Wickliffe. Many were spectators to the meeting between them, and speculation ran higher upon the possibility that before the week ended he would be enrolled among the avowedly convicted. Again on Wednesday night he was on hand, an attentive and earnest listener.

Prior to the preliminary exercise of song on this night, the Rev. Wickliffe outlined the amplified plans for the great moral jubilation on the evening of the Eighth and invited suggestions from the assemblage to the end that naught be overlooked which might add to its splendors. At this invitation, almost as though he had been awaiting some such favorable opening, there stood up promptly Tecumseh Sherman Glass, and Tecumseh made a certain motion which on being put to the vote of the house carried unanimously amid sounds of a general approval. Some applauded, no doubt, because of the popularity of the idea embodied in the motion and some perhaps because the brother, in offering it, was deemed to have displayed a most generous, a most becoming, and a totally unexpected spirit of magnanimity toward a fellow professional occupying a place which Cump Glass or any other saxophonist might well envy him.

If at this Jeff's heart gave a joyous jump inside of him, his face remained a mask to hide his real feelings. If, privily, by day he labored to gather up all the loose ends of his shaping design, publicly by night he patronized the tabernacle. He was present on Thursday night and on Friday and on Saturday, and three times on Sunday he was present, maintaining still his outward bearing of interest and sympathy. He was like a tree which bends before the compelling blast yet refuses for a little while longer to topple headlong. This brings us up to Monday, the Glorious Eighth.

With the morning of that day or with its nooning or with its afternooning we need have no concern, replete though they were in variety of entertainment and abounding in pleasurable incident. For us the interest chiefly centers in the early evening and especially in that part of the evening falling between seven o'clock and forty minutes past seven. At seven, prompt on the clock's stroke and as guaranteed in the announcements, the parade fathered by the Rev. Wickliffe, started from the corner of Tennessee and Front Streets, down by the river, and wended, as the saying goes, its way due westward into the sunset's painted afterglow.

This was a parade! A great man had sired it; a tried organizer had fostered it; proved executives had worked out the problems of its divisions and its groupings. At its head, suitably mounted upon a white steed, rode a grand marshal who was more than a grand marshal. For in his one person this dignitary combined two parts: not only was he the grand marshal with a broad sash draped diagonally across his torso to prove it, but likewise he was the official trumpeter. At intervals he raised his horn to his lips and sounded forth inspiring notes. That his horn was neither a trumpet nor yet a bugle but a long, goose-necked thing might be regarded as merely a detail. Only one who was overly technical would have noted the circumstance at all. Behind him, sixteen abreast, appeared the special tabernacle choristers with large fluttering badges of royal purple. They came on magnificently, filling the street from curb-line to curb-line, and the sound of their singing was as a great wind gathering. The second one on the left, counting from the end, in the front row, was Ophelia Stubblefield, tawny and splendid as a lithesome tiger-lily. She wore white with long white kid gloves and a beflowered hat which represented the hoarded total of six weeks' wages. You would have said it was worth the money. Anybody would.

In the second section rode the Rev. Wickliffe and the Rev. Shine; they were in a touring-car with its top flattened back. You might say they composed the second section. Carriages and automobiles rolling along immediately behind them bore the members of the official board of Emmanuel Chapel in sets of fours, and the chief financial contributors to the revival which this night would reach its climax. Flanking the carriages and following after them marched the living garnerings of the campaign--the converts to date, a veritable Gideon's Band of them, in number amounting to a host, and all afoot as befitting the palmer and the pilgrim. Established members of the congregation, in hired hacks, in jitneys, in rented and privately owned equipages, and also afoot came next.

Voluntarily aligned representatives of the colored population at large formed the tail of the column. Of these last there surely were hundreds. Hundreds more, in holiday dress now somewhat rumpled after a day of pleasure-seeking and pleasure-finding, lined the sidewalks to see this spectacle. Nowhere along the straightaway of the line of march did the pavements lack for onlookers, but nearing the end of the route, and especially where the wide vacant spaces of the Tennessee Street common had been preempted by the festal enterprises of Director General AEsop Loving and his confreres, the press became thicker and ever thicker. Here the crowds overflowed upon the gravel roadway, narrowing the thoroughfare to a lane through which the paraders barely might pass. They did pass, though at a lessened pace, until their front ranks had reached the approximate middle breadth of the old show-grounds, with the tabernacle looming against the sunset's dying fires an eighth of a mile on beyond.

It is necessary here and now that, taking our eyes from this scene, we hark back to the Wednesday evening preceding. It will be recalled that on this evening a certain motion was made and by acclamation adopted. The maker of the motion, as we know, was Tecumseh Sherman Glass; its beneficiary, as the reader shrewdly may have divined, was Cephus Fringe. Beforehand perhaps the Professor had had vague misgivings as to the part he was to play in the pageantry on the Eighth; perhaps in his mind he had forecast the probability that he might suffer eclipse--a temporary eclipse--but to an _artiste_ none the less distasteful--in the shadow of the Sin Killer, for since the Sin Killer had originally promulgated the idea of the procession it was only natural and only human that the Sin Killer should devise to himself the outstanding place of honor in it.

Be these conjectures as they may be, it is not to be gainsaid that the suggestion embodied in Cump Glass's motion was to Prof. Fringe highly agreeable, insuring, as it did, a fair measure of prominence for him without infringing upon his chief's distinctions. He showed his approbation. I believe I already have intimated that Prof. Fringe was not exactly prejudiced against himself. Any lingering aversions he may have entertained in this quarter had long since been overcome. Nevertheless a fresh doubt, arising from fresh causes, assailed him as the first flush of satisfaction abated within him.

This new-born uneasiness betrayed itself in his voice and his manner when, at the conclusion of the night's services, he encountered Cump Glass in the middle aisle. The meeting was not entirely by chance; if the truth is to be known, Cump had maneuvered to bring it about. The act was his; a greater mind than his, though, had sponsored the act. And Cump Glass, rightly interpreting the look upon Prof. Fringe's large, plump face, guilefully set himself to play upon the emotional nature of the other. With a gracious wave of his hand he checked the Professor's expression of thanks.

"Don't mention it," he said generously, "don't mention it. It teks a purformer to understand another purformer's feelin's. So I therefo' teken it 'pon myse'f to nomernate you fur the gran' marshal and also ez the proper one to sound the buglin' blasts endurin' of the turnout. Seems lak somebody else would 'a' had the sense to do so, but w'en they wuzn't nobody w'ich did so, I steps in. But right soon afterwards I gits to stedyin' 'bout the hoss you'll be ridin', an' it's been worryin' me quite some little--the question of the hoss."

"I been thinkin' concernin' of 'at very same thing," confessed Cephus Fringe.

"Is that possible?" exclaimed Cump Glass with well-simulated surprise. "Well, suh, smart minds shorely runs in the same grooves, ez the sayin' goes. Yas, suh, settin' yonder after I made that motion, I sez to myse'f, I sez, 'Glass, you done started this thing an' you must see it th'ough. 'Twon't never do in this world fur the gran' marshal to be stuck up 'pon the top side of a skittish, skeery liver'-stable hoss that'll mebbe start cuttin' up right in the smack middle of things and distrac' the gran' marshal's mind frum his business.' I seen that happen mo' times 'en onct, wid painful results. I s'pose, tho, you kin ride mighty nigh ary hoss they is, can't you, Purfessor?"

"Well, I could do so onct," stated Cephus in the manner of one who formerly had followed rough-riding for a calling, "but leadin' a public life fur so long, lak I has, I ain't had much time fur private pleasures. 'Sides w'ich, ef I'm goin' sound the notes I'll be needin' both hands free fur my instermint."

"Puzzactly the same thought w'ich came to me, jes' lak I'm tellin' it to you," agreed Cump. "It teks a musician to think of things w'ich an ordinary pusson wouldn't never dream of. So, fur the las' hour or so I been castin' about in my mind an' jes' a minute ago the idee come to me. I feels shore I kin arrange wid a frien' of mine to he'p us out. I s'pose you is acquainted with this yere Jeffy Poindexter?"

"I has met him," said Cephus with chill creeping into his tones. "An' I has observed him present yere the last two-three nights. But I ain't aimin' to ax no favors frum him."

"You ain't needin' to," said Cump. "I'll 'tend to that myse'f. Besides, Purfessor, you is sizin' up Jeffy Poindexter wrong. He's went an' 'sperienced a change of heart in his feelin's tow'ds whut's goin' on yere. Furthermo'"--and here he favored his flattered listener with a confidential and a meaning wink--"he got sense 'nuff, Jeffy has, to know w'en he's crowded plum out of the runnin' by somebody w'ich is mo' swiftly gaited 'en whut he is, an' natchelly he crave to stand in well wid a winner. Naw, suh, that Jeffy, he'd be most highly overjoyed to haul off an' lend a helpin' hand, ef by so doin' he mout put you onder a favor to him."

Cephus sniffed, half disarmed but wavering.

"Wharin' could he he'p out? He ain't ownin' no private string of ridin'-hosses so fur ez I've took note of."

"The w'ite man he wuks fur is got one an' Jeffy gits the borrowin' use of her--it's a mare--w'enever he want to, ez I knows frum whut he tells me an' frum whut I seen. Purfessor, that mare is jes' natchelly ordained an' cut out fur peradin'--broad ez a feather-tick, gentle ez the onborn lamb, an' mouty nigh pyure white--perzactly the right color fur a gran' marshal's hoss. Crowds ain't goin' pester that lady-mare none. Music ain't goin' disturb her none whutsoever, neither."

"Whut's her reg'lar gait?"

"Her reg'lar gait is standin' still. But w'en she's travelin' at her bestest speed she uses the cemetery walk. See that mare goin' pas' you w'en she's in a hurry an' you say to yo'se'f, you say, 'Yere you is, bound fur de buryin'-groun', but how come you got separated frum the hearse?' Purfessor, that mare's entitled Christian name is Mittie May. Did you ever hear of ary thing on fo' laigs, ur two, w'ich answered to the name of Mittie May that wuz tricky?"

"Better be mouty sure," said the cautious Cephus, concerned for the safety and dignity of the creature which he held most dear of all on this earth. "'Member, I'll be needin' both hands free--'twon't be no time fur me to go jerkin' on the reins w'en my saxophone is requirin' to be played."

"You's right there," agreed Cump. "Twouldn't never do, neither, fur you to slip off an' mebbe git yo'se'f crippled up. Whar would this yere pertracted meetin' be then? Lemme think. Ah, hah! I got it--the notion jes' come to me. Purfessor, listen yere." He placed his lips close to the other's ear and spoke perhaps fifty words in a confidential whisper. In token of approval and acquiescence the Professor warmly clasped the right hand of this forethoughted Glass.

After such a manner was Cephus Fringe, all unwittingly, thrust into the pit which had been digged for him.

At the point where the narrative was broken into for the interpolation of the episode now set forth, the head of the parade, as will be remembered, was just coming abreast of the old show-grounds. Now, the head of the parade was Cephus Fringe, and none other. One glance at him, upon a white steed, all glorious in high hat and frock coat and with that wide crimson sash dividing his torso in two parts, would have proved that to the most ignorant. As for his palfrey, she ambled along as though Eighth of August celebrations and a saxophone blaring between her drooping ears, and jubilating crowds and all that singing behind her, and all these carnival barkers shouting alongside her, had been her daily portion since first she was foaled into the world. The compound word lady-like would be the word fittest to describe her.

Not twenty feet from her, close up to where the abutting common met the straggling brick pavement, stood the battered Flyin' Jinny of Gumbo Rollins. It was nearermost to the street-line of all the attractions provided by AEsop Loving and his associates. Here, on the site which he had chosen, was Gumbo Rollins himself, competently in charge. At the precise moment when Mittie May and her proud rider had reached a point just opposite him, Gumbo Rollins elected to set his device in motion and with it the steam-organ which was part and parcel of the thing's organism. Really he might have waited a bit.

Lured by the prospect of beholding something for nothing, most of his consistent patrons temporarily had deserted him to flock out into the roadway and witness the passing by of the Sin Killer's cohorts. Two infatuated lovers, country darkies, sat with arms entwined in a rickety wooden chariot. Here and there a piccaninny clung to the back of a spotted wooden pony or a striped wooden zebra. These, for the moment, were his only customers; nevertheless Gumbo Jones Rollins swung a lever and started the machinery. The merry-go-round moved with a shriek of steam; the wheezy organ began spouting forth the introductory bars of a rollicking _galop_, a tune so old that its very name had been forgotten, although the air of it lived anonymously.

As though she had been bee-stung, Mittie May flung up her head. She arched her neck and pranced with all four of her feet. She spun about, scattering those of the pedestrian classes who hemmed her so closely in. Unmindful of a sudden anxious command from her rider, she swung her foreparts this way and that. She was looking for it. It must be directly hereabouts somewhere. In those ancient days of her youthful vagabondage it had always been close at hand when that tune--her own tune--was played.

Then above the heads of the crowd she saw it--a scuffed circlet of earth measuring exactly fifty-two feet across and marking the location where the middle ring had been builded when Runyon & Bulger's Mighty United Railroad Shows pitched their tents on the occasion of their annual Spring engagement. That had been in early May and this was summer's third month; the attrition of the weather had worn down the sharp edges of that low turfen parapet; by rights, too, there should have been much sawdust and much smell of the same and a center pole rising like one lone blasted tree from the exact middle of a circular island of this sawdust; there should have been a ringmaster and at least two clowns and an orderly clutter of paraphernalia. Nevertheless there before her was the middle ring. And the music had started. And Mittie May answered the cue which had lived in her brain for fifteen long years and more, just as always she answered it, or sought to, when that tune smote her eardrums.

The startled spectators gave backward and to either side in scrambling retreat as she lunged forward, cleaving a passage for herself to the proper spot of entrance. She whisked in. Around the ring she sped, her hoofs drumming against the flanks of the ring-back, her barrel slanting far over in obedience to the laws of centripetal force, her tail rippling out behind her like a homebound pennon in a fair breeze--around and around and yet again and then some more.

To be sure there were irregularities in the procedure. Upon her back, springily erect, there should have been a jaunty equestrian swinging a gay pink leg in air and anon uttering the traditional _Hoop-la_. Instead there was a heavy bulk which embraced her neck with two strong arms, which wallowed about on her spinal column, which continually cried out entreaties, threats, commands, even profanities. Yet with Mittie May, as with most of us, habit was stronger than all else. She knew her duty as of old. She did it. Accommodating her gait to the quickening measures of the music, she stretched her legs, passing out of a rolling gallop into a hard run. Yet one more thing, or rather the lack of it, perplexed her. Attendants should be bringing forth knockdown fence-panels for her to leap over and hoops of paper for her rider to leap through. Never mind; out of her imagination she would supply these missing details when the proper moment came. She'd hurdle the hurdles which weren't there. Meanwhile she knew what to do--around and around and around, right willingly, right blithely went Mittie May.

And, with her, around and around went also Prof. Cephus Fringe, but not willingly and by no means blithely. He shed his high hat and with it all lingering essences of his dignity. One of Mittie May's feet squashed down on the high hat and it folded up like a condensed time-card. He lost the last vestige of his vanishing authority when he lost his saxophone. The Professor did not understate the case when he had intimated that he was somewhat out of practice at equestrian exercises. Stark terror convulsed his frame; instinct of self-preservation made him careless of the language he used. Indeed, a good deal of the language he used was bounced right out of him.

Haply perhaps for him--and surely nothing else that happened was for him haply circumstanced--most of the naughty words reached no ears save those of Mittie May. There were sounds which drowned them--sounds which began with a fluttered outcry of alarm, which progressed to a great gasp of astonishment, which swelled and rippled into a titter, which grew into a vast rocking roar of unrestrained joyousness. Children shrieked, old women cackled, old men wheezed, adults guffawed, strong men rolled upon the earth in uncontrollable outbursts of thunderous mirth. As though stricken in all his members, Gumbo Rollins fell alongside his whirling Flyin' Jinny, but failed not, even in that excess of his mounting hysteria, to see to it that the steam-driven organ continued to grind out the one tune of its repertoire. The members of the choir forgot that their mission was to sing. They were too busy laughing to sing. And high and clear above the chorus of their glad outcry rose the soprano gurglings of Ophelia Stubblefield as she leaned for support up against somebody.

You ask, Why did not Prof. Cephus Fringe fall off of Mittie May? He tried to. At first he sought only to stay on; then after a bit he sought to get off; he couldn't. The cause for his staying on was revealed when Mittie May took the first of those mental hazards of hers. As she rose grandly into space to clear the imagined top-rail of the imagined panel and with hind heels drawn well in under her, descended and continued on her circling way, a keen-eyed spectator, all bent double though he was, alongside the ring, and beating himself in the short ribs, caught a flashing glimpse of a strong but narrow strap which bound the rider's ankles to the saddle-girth and which, through the ordered march of the parade, had been safely hidden from view behind the ornament housings of the broad Spanish stirrups. Cump Glass had done his fiendish work well; those straps strained, but they held.

"Name of Glory!" shouted out the observer. "He done tie hisse'f on! He done tie hisse'f--" Overcome he choked.

With a great sweeping, swooping heave Mittie May made the last leap. And then at the precise second when the music stopped, the leathern thongs parted, and as the burden on her tumbled off and lay struggling in the dust, Mittie May swerved from the ring and, magically and instantaneously becoming once more Judge Priest's staidly respectable old buggy-mare, stood waiting for Jeff Poindexter to come and lead her out of all this shrieking, whooping jam of folks back to her stable. And Jeff came. He had been there all the time. It was against his supporting frame that Ophelia had slanted limply the while she laughed.

Here the curtain is lowered for two seconds to denote the passage of two days. At its rise Jeff Poindexter and Gumbo Rollins are discovered sitting side by side on the back step of a cabin in the Plunket's Hill neighborhood.

"An' so they ain't nobody seen him sence?" It is Jeff who is speaking.

"So they tells me," answers Gumbo. "Ain't nary soul seen hair nur hide of him frum the moment he riz out 'en that ring an' tuk his foot in his hand an' marviled further. Yas, suh, the pertracted meetin' will have to worry 'long the best way it kin 'thout its champion purty man. Well, sometimes it seems lak these things turns out fur the bes'. It suttin'ly would damage his lacinated feelin's still mo' ef he wus yere an' heared folks all over town callin' him the Jazzed-up Circus Rider."

"I got a better name fur him 'en that," says Jeff, "Whiffletit."

"W'ich?" asks Gumbo.

Seemingly Jeff has not heard his friend's question. In an undertone, and as though seeking to recall the words of a given formula, he communes with himself, "Fust you baits him wid the cheese. An' 'en w'en he nibble the cheese, he git all swelled up an' 'en whilst he's flappin' helpless you leans over the side of the boat an jes' natchelly laffs him to death."

"Whut-all is you mumblin'?" demands Gumbo Rollins, puzzled by these seemingly unrelated and irrelevant mouthings. "Is you crazy?"

"Yas," concurs Jeff, "crazy lak the king of the weazels."

[The end]
Irvin S. Cobb's short story: Alas, The Poor Whiffletit!

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