Danny's Own Story Part 23

It wasn't much of a town--something betwixt a village and a settlement--although they was going to run a branch of the railroad over to it before very long. It had had a chancet to get a railroad once, years before that. But it had said then it didn't want no railroad. So until lately every branch built through that part of the country grinned very sarcastic and give it the go-by.

They was considerable woods standing along the crick, and around a turn in the road we come onto Sam, all of a sudden, talking with another n.i.g.g.e.r. Sam was jest a-laying it off to that n.i.g.g.e.r, but he kind of hushed as we come nearer. Down the road quite a little piece was a good-sized wooden building that never had been painted and looked like it was a big barn. Without knowing it the doctor and me had been pinting ourselves right toward Big Bethel.

The n.i.g.g.e.r with Sam he yells out, when he sees us:

"Glory be! HYAH dey comes! Hyah dey comes NOW!"

And he throwed up his arms, and started on a lope up the road toward the church, singing out every ten or fifteen yards. A little knot of n.i.g.g.e.rs come out in front of the church when they hearn him coming.

Sam, he stood his ground, and waited fur us to come up to him, kind of apologetic and sneaking--looking about something or other.

"What kind of lies have you been telling these n.i.g.g.e.rs, Sam?" says the doctor, very sharp and short and mad-like.

Sam, he digs a stone out'n the road with the toe of his shoe, and kind of grins to himself, still looking sheepish. But he says he opinionates he been telling them nothing at all.

"I dunno how-come dey get all dem n.i.g.g.e.r notions in dey fool haid," Sam says, "but dey all waitin' dar inside de chu'ch do'--some of de mos'

faiful an' de mos' pra'rful ones o' de Big Bethel cong'gation been dar fo' de las' houah a-waitin' an' a-watchin', spite o' de fac' dat reg'lah meetin' ain't gwine ter be called twell arter supper. De bishop, he dar too. Dey got some dese hyah coal-ile lamps dar des inside de chu'ch do'

an' dey been keepin' on 'em lighted, daytimes an' night times, fo' two days now, kaze dey say dey ain't gwine fo' ter be cotched napping when de bridegroom COMeth. Ya.s.s, SAH!--dey's ten o' dese hyah vergims dar, five of 'em sleepin' an' five of 'em watchin', an' a-takin' tuhns at hit, an' mebby dat how-come free or fouah dey bes' young colo'hed mens been projickin' aroun' dar all arternoon, a-helpin' dem dat's a-waitin'

twell de bridegroom COM eth!"

We seen a little knot of them, down the road there in front of the church, gathering around the n.i.g.g.e.r that had been with Sam. They all starts toward us. But one man steps out in front of them all, and turns toward them and holds his hands up, and waves them back. They all stops in their tracks.

Then he turns his face toward us, and comes slow and sollum down the road in our direction, walking with a cane, and moving very dignified.

He was a couple of hundred yards away.

But as he come closeter we gradually seen him plainer and plainer. He was a big man, and stout, and dressed very neat in the same kind of rig as white bishops wear, with one of these white collars that b.u.t.tons in the back. I suppose he was coming on to meet us alone, because no one was fitten fur to give us the first welcome but himself.

Well, it was all dern foolishness, and it was hard to believe it could all happen, and they ain't so many places in this here country it COULD happen. But fur all of it being foolishness, when he come down the road toward us so dignified and sollum and slow I ketched myself fur a minute feeling like we really had been elected to something and was going to take office soon. And Sam, as the bishop come closeter and closeter, got to jerking and twitching with the excitement that he had been keeping in--and yet all the time Sam knowed it was dope and works and not faith that had made him spotted that-a-way.

He stops, the bishop does, about ten yards from us and looks us over.

"Ah yo' de gennleman known ter dis hyah sinful genehation by de style an' de ent.i.tlemint o' Docto' Hahtley Kirby?" he asts the doctor very ceremonious and grand.

The doctor give him a look that wasn't very encouraging, but he nodded to him.

"Will yo' dismiss yo' sehvant in ordeh dat we kin hol' convehse an'

communion in de midst er privacy?"

The doctor, he nods to Sam, and Sam moseys along toward the church.

"Now, then," says the doctor, sudden and sharp, "take off your hat and tell me what you want."

The bishop's hand goes up to his head with a jerk before he thought.

Then it stops there, while him and the doctor looks at each other. The bishop's mouth opens like he was wondering, but he slowly pulls his hat off and stands there bare-headed in the road. But he wasn't really humble, that bishop.

"Now," says the doctor, "tell me in as straight talk as you've got what all this d.a.m.ned foolishness among you n.i.g.g.e.rs means."

A queer kind of look pa.s.sed over the bishop's face. He hadn't expected to be met jest that way, mebby. Whether he himself had really believed in the coming of that there new Messiah he had been perdicting, I never could settle in my mind. Mebby he had been getting ready to pa.s.s HIMSELF off fur one before we come along and the n.i.g.g.e.rs all got the fool idea Doctor Kirby was it. Before the bishop spoke agin you could see his craziness and his cunningness both working in his face. But when he did speak he didn't quit being ceremonious nor dignified.

"De wohd has gone fo'th among de faiful an' de puah in heaht," he says, "dat er man has come accredited wi' signs an' wi' mahvels an' de poweh o' de sperrit fo' to lay his han' on de sons o' Ham an' ter make 'em des de same in colluh as de yuther sons of ea'th."

"Then that word is a lie," says the doctor. "I DID come here to try out some stuff to change the colour of negro skins. That's all. And I find your idiotic followers are all stirred up and waiting for some kind of a miracle monger. What you have been preaching to them, you know best. Is that all you want to know?"

The bishop hems and haws and fiddles with his stick, and then he says:

"Suh, will dish yeah prepa'shun SHO'LY do de wohk?" Doctor Kirby tells him it will do the work all right.

And then the bishop, after beating around the bush some more, comes out with his idea. Whether he expected there would be any Messiah come or not, of course he knowed the doctor wasn't him. But he is willing to boost the doctor's game as long as it boosts HIS game. He wants to be in on the deal. He wants part of the graft. He wants to get together with the doctor on a plan before the doctor sees the n.i.g.g.e.rs. And if the doctor don't want to keep on with the miracle end of it, the bishop shows him how he could do him good with no miracle attachment. Fur he has an awful holt on them n.i.g.g.e.rs, and his say-so will sell thousands and thousands of bottles. What he is looking fur jest now is his little take-out.

That was his craftiness and his cunningness working in him. But all of a sudden one of his crazy streaks come bulging to the surface. It come with a wild, eager look in his eyes.

"Suh," he cries out, all of a sudden, "ef yo' kin make me white, fo'

Gawd sakes, do hit! Do hit! Ef yo' does, I gwine ter bless yo' all yo'

days!

"Yo' don' know--no one kin guess or comperhen'--what des bein' white would mean ter me! Lawd! Lawd!" he says, his voice soft-spoken, but more eager than ever as he went on, and pleading something pitiful to hear, "des think of all de Caucasian blood in me! Gawd knows de nights er my youth I'se laid awake twell de dawn come red in de Eas' a-cryin' out ter Him only fo' ter be white! DES TER BE WHITE! Don' min' dem black, black n.i.g.g.e.rs dar--don' think er DEM--dey ain't wuth nothin' nor fitten fo'

no fate but what dey got-- But me! What's done kep' me from gwine ter de top but dat one thing: _I_ WASN'T WHITE! Hit air too late now--too late fo' dem ambitions I done trifle with an' shove behin' me--hit's too late fo' dat! But ef I was des ter git one li'l year o' hit--ONE LI'L YEAR O'

BEIN' WHITE!--befo' I died--"

And he went on like that, shaking and stuttering there in the road, like a fit had struck him, crazy as a loon. But he got hold of himself enough to quit talking, in a minute, and his cunning come back to him before he was through trembling. Then the doctor says slow and even, but not severe:

"You go back to your people now, bishop, and tell them they've made a mistake about me. And if you can, undo the harm you've done with this Messiah business. As far as this stuff of mine is concerned, there's none of it for you nor for any other negro. You tell them that. There's none of it been sold yet--and there never will be."

Then we turned away and left him standing there in the road, still with his hat off and his face working.

Walking back toward the little tavern the doctor says:

"Danny, this is the end of this game. These people down here and that half-cracked, half-crooked old bishop have made me see a few things about the Afro-American brother. It wasn't a good scheme in the first place.

And this wasn't the place to start it going, anyhow--I should have tried the n.i.g.g.e.rs in the big towns. But I'm out of it now, and I'm glad of it. What we want to do is to get away from here to-morrow--go back to Atlanta and fix up a scheme to rob some widows and orphans, or something half-way respectable like that."

Well, I drew a long breath. I was with Doctor Kirby in everything he done, fur he was my friend, and I didn't intend to quit him. But I was glad we was out of this, and hadn't sold none of that dope. We both felt better because we hadn't. All them millions we was going to make--shucks! We didn't neither one of us give a dern about them getting away from us. All we wanted was jest to get away from there and not get mixed up with no n.i.g.g.e.r problems any more. We eat supper, and we set around a while, and we went to bed purty middling early, so as to get a good start in the morning.

We got up early, but early as it was the devil had been up earlier in that neighbourhood. About four o'clock that morning a white woman about a half a mile from the village had been attacked by a n.i.g.g.e.r. They was doubt as to whether she would live, but if she lived they wasn't no doubts she would always be more or less crazy. Fur besides everything else, he had beat her insensible. And he had choked her nearly to death.

The country-side was up, with guns and pistols looking fur that n.i.g.g.e.r.

It wasn't no trouble guessing what would happen to him when they ketched him, neither.

"And," says Doctor Kirby, when we hearn of it, "I hope to high heaven they DO catch him!"

They wasn't much doubt they would, either. They was already beating up the woods and bushes and gangs was riding up and down the roads, and every n.i.g.g.e.r's house fur miles around was being searched and watched.

We soon seen we would have trouble getting hosses and a rig in the village to take us to the railroad. Many of the hosses was being ridden in the man-hunt. And most of the men who might have done the driving was busy at that too. The hotel-keeper himself had left his place standing wide open and went out. We didn't get any breakfast neither.

"Danny," says the doctor, "we'll just put enough money to pay the bill in an envelope on the register here, and strike out on shank's ponies.

It's only nine or ten miles to the railroad--we'll walk."

"But how about our stuff?" I asts him. We had two big cases full of sample bottles of that dope, besides our suit cases.

"Hang the dope!" says the doctor, "I don't ever want to see it or hear of it again! We'll leave it here. Put the things out of your suit case into mine, and leave that here too. Sam can carry mine. I want to be on the move."