Part 17

“As fer as I am concerned,” Skeeter cackled, “I think I could pull a bigger grin atter I done come down dan I could ef I wus jes’ gwine up.”

“Atter you has studied dis book a while, an’ tuck a few lessons in runnin’ de machine, you will laugh de most at de chance of gwine up,” Red told him.

He handed the book to Vinegar opened at the preface, and said:

“Read whut it says at the fust openin’ of de book.”

The colored clergyman leaned back and gazed at the page, reading aloud, giving to the words his peculiar African pronunciation.

“‘Wid a desire to train an aviator into proper capability so dat he may, when embarkin’ on his career, have skillful an’ complete knowledge of his perfession——’”

“Dat’s de word!” Red proclaimed. “Skillful an’ complete knowledge of his perfession!”

“‘An’ fly widout dose disasterous an’ unnervin’ consequences—’” Vinegar resumed but was instantly interrupted.

“Dat’s de sentence whut suits me best,” Skeeter announced. “I don’t want no disasterous an’ unnervin’ consequences when I gits up in de air.”

“Dis here am de very book dat shows you how not to have ’em,” Red Cutt said. “An’ dis is de rule dat we go by.”

He rapidly turned over the pages of the preface, indicating a place on the page, and allowed Vinegar to resume his reading.

“‘Do not rush students through deir trainin’. Haste makes waste. Dis fack should be inscribed on de door of every hangar.’”

“Hanger!” Figger Bush exclaimed. “How come dat book speaks about hangin’? I thought we wus talkin’ about flyin’, an’ now you done got off de subjeck.”

The other three negroes looked at Red Cutt rebukingly, as if they also thought that he had brought into the matter of flying a theme which no negro in the South cares to discuss. He is willing to walk, to run, to swim or fly, but he has an insuperable aversion to hanging.

“Dat shows dat you niggers have got a heap to learn,” Red Cutt laughed. “A hangar is jes’ like a stable. You keeps a buggy in de stable, an’ a automobile in de garage, an’ a airplane in a hangar.”

“Mebbe so,” Skeeter said in a dissatisfied tone. “But I don’t like dat word, jes’ de same.”

“Dar ain’t no noose to dis hangar I speaks of,” Red Cutt assured him.

“No noose is good noose,” Skeeter proclaimed. “But I don’t like dat word.”

“Don’t let a word pester you,” Red Cutt laughed as he rose to his feet and picked up his hat. “Meet me at de Nights of Darkness lodge to-night an’ I’ll tell you some things dat will git on your squeamishness heap wuss dan a word.”

“We will all be dar!” the quartet chorused.

“All you got to do is to be dar wid yo’ dollar,” Red Cutt answered as he stepped through the green-baize door of the saloon.

V

A NEW THING

The ancient Greek of apostolic days was not alone in his eagerness “to see and to hear some new thing.” When the word went abroad in the negro settlements of Tickfall that there was to be a new thing at the lodge that night, cost of admission being one dollar, three hundred and twenty-five negroes, by methods distinctly Ethiopian, secured the necessary dollar, which for that night only was the password to the lodge.

When Red Cutt appeared upon the scene, he by himself was worth the price of admission. He had dressed himself in a faint imitation of the costume of an aviator. That costume was a mixture of all the varied uniforms that he had seen, and portions of which he could acquire.

Beginning at the feet, for some reason known only to himself, he wore a pair of spurs; around his legs were leather puttees—to that extent he resembled a cavalry officer. His pantaloons were hunting-breeches. His coat was a hunting-coat, somewhat appropriate because it was rain-proof, and might shed oil easily. His head-covering was a cap with a rubber visor, and his eyes were covered with enormous automobile goggles. He wore gauntlets on his hands, and somewhere he had acquired four brass buttons, from each of which was suspended a gaudy ribbon. He had evidently acquired these decorative ribbons at some association of drummers or the convention of some political party. One ribbon bore the words “Reception Committee.” A second ribbon was inscribed “Delegate,” and a third ribbon bore the magic word “Information.”

He was escorted to a seat on the rostrum by the president of the lodge, and looking through his automobile goggles at the crowd of negroes assembled, he was surprised, and felt some uneasiness.

He had expected not more than one hundred negroes. That would have been a crowd that he could manage; but when he found exactly three times that number, the assemblage looked to him too much like a mob—or at least it looked like it might be easily converted into one.

Hitch Diamond rose to his feet.

“Brudders, dar is a cullud pusson here to-night who is come on a important job. He is de only nigger in dis country whut ever went up in a airship. He has had plenty expe’unce as a flyin’ man, an’ he has come to learn us all how to fly up!”

“Whar we gwine fly to?” a voice spoke up.

“Wharever you wants to go,” Hitch Diamond answered.

At this point Pap Curtain rose to his feet. “Is dis here nigger a member of our lodge, Mr. Pres’dunt?” he snarled.

“Naw, suh.”

“Is dis here some new degree we takes in dis lodge?” Pap persisted.

“Naw, suh.”

“Well, whut is dis about?”

“Ef you’ll set down, Pap,” Hitch growled, “an’ let our visitin’ brudder tell his bizzness in his own way, mebbe you’ll git some information.”

“I’s one of de bo’d of directors of dis here lodge,” Pap snarled. “Ef dar is any bizzness dat I ain’t seen about befo’hand, I’m ag’in’ it.”

The lodge members showed impatience at this interruption. Pap had been a conscientious objector to nearly everything the lodge had ever undertaken. He was quick to notice their impatience, and sat down grumbling to himself.

Red Cutt arose and fingered the three badges on his breast. Touching one particular badge by the corner, and holding it out so that the lodge could see, he announced:

“Dis badge is marked ‘Information,’ an’ means dat I’m de man who answers questions an’ kin tell Pap Curtain whut he wants to know. Most of you knows my visit to dis town is to organize a school of flyin’ niggers. Some of you knows how to run automobiles, an’ so you kin ride over de country. I wants to learn you how to fly through de sky jes’ as easy as you walk on de ground. Atter you have got de lesson in yo’ mind, I will he’p you to buy a cheap airship from de gover’ment, an’ den you will be fixed jes’ like Gawd intended fer a nigger to be.”

Pap Curtain sprang to his feet, waved his hat in the air, and exclaimed in a loud voice:

“I’ve heard tell of dese flyin’ fellers, but I ain’t never seen one fly. Ef dis visitin’ brudder has come to give an exhibition I favors it!”

“Dat’s whut he has come to do,” Hitch assured him.

“Whar is yo’ flyin’-machine at?” Pap howled.

“Out in de Little Moccasin prairie,” Red told him.

“Less go out an’ take a look at it!” Pap exclaimed.

“I favor it,” three hundred negroes shouted in a chorus.

“I nominates myself to lead de peerade!” Vinegar Atts vociferated.

The movement was so unanimous that Red Cutt was frightened. He had no desire to go out to that airplane in the dark. He remembered a negro who had come to a little town where he had lived once and had pretended to be able to walk on the water. He posed as a divine healer, and a frequently made statement was: “I kin walk on de water, but I don’t want to.” Thereupon some skeptical negroes had carried him down to the banks of the Mississippi and tossed him headlong into the yellow stream, insisting that he give them a demonstration of his ability to do what he said he could do. They had fished this divine healer out of the river with a hook and rolled him on a barrel for an hour before he showed the least sign of returning consciousness. Red Cutt was appalled by the thought of what might happen to him if that mob of negroes insisted upon his giving a trial flight.

“Come on, niggers!” Vinegar Atts bellowed. “Less go out an’ see de flyin’-machine!”

Three hundred negroes moved their feet as one man. Hitch Diamond laid his hand upon the arm of Red Cutt about as a policeman would put a man under arrest. Vinegar stepped forward and got on the other side of the aviator, and they conducted him down the rickety stairs of the lodge room and led the procession that formed in a straggling line in the middle of the sandy street.

It was a night in which the moon shone in all its glory—such a moon as glows over the Louisiana swamps when the humidity of the atmosphere seems to focus the rays in startling brightness on every object. The negro is like a cat, sleepy and dull during the day; but he wakes up at night, and is a prowler in the streets and woods and fields. It was four miles to the Little Moccasin prairie, but that tramping crowd of men thought nothing of that, and as they marched they sang, keeping step to music that carried echoes of the African jungle, and those minor tones which are characteristic of all people who have been enslaved since the ancient days when subjugated Israel in the land of Egypt “hung their harps on the willows.”

“Look here, niggers,” Red said to Vinegar and Hitch. “Dis is not de proper night to take a ride in a airplane. De moon is shining too dang bright. Ef I git up fawty thousand foots in de air, an’ look down at the yearth in dis moonlight, eve’ything below me would look like a smooth sheet of white paper. I never would know whar I come from, an’ I wouldn’t know whar to land, an’ I might drif’ off, whar nobody never could find me, an’ whar I cain’t never git back here.”

“We don’t want nothin’ like dat,” Hitch Diamond growled. “We cain’t affode to lose you.”

“Ef dese niggers insist on me takin’ a ride, how is we gwine prevent it?” Red Cutt inquired.

“I’ll tell you,” Vinegar replied. “When we gits out whar de airship is at, I’ll make ’em a speech.”

In an hour they reached that point in the Little Moccasin prairie where the airplane rested on the smooth short grass. When they approached that wonder-mechanism of man’s hand and brain, the negroes became reverently silent, and yet that silence was vocal with the weird, nerve-racking funereal sounds of the swamp. Great bullfrogs bellowed like multitudinous lost cattle; a wildcat screamed like the tones of a woman in great pain and fright; and the swamp wolves galloped to the edge of the clearing and barked at them with all the annoying impertinence of fice dogs.

Vinegar Atts did not like the looks of the airship. It was the first he had ever seen, and it bore too much resemblance to a wasp, and looked very much as if it might carry a dangerous stinger in its tail. With the true orator’s instinct for dramatic effect, he looked around to find the most impressive place for him to stand. Not at the tail, because that might be dangerous; not at the sides, for wasp might flap its wings; so he moved up in front and stood looking with great interest at a wheel of paddles right in front of the machine. That did not look good to him, either, so he backed off well out of range, and announced:

“Brudders of the Nights of Darkness lodge, as fer as I knows, dar ain’t only two niggers in dis crowd dat ever seen one of dese things befo’, but dis here chariot of fire ain’t no new thing. De Prophet Elijah went up in one of ’em to heaven.”

“Bless Gawd!” a negro’s voice exclaimed reverently.

Then in his rich barytone voice, Vinegar Atts began to sing, and one by one the voices of the negroes joined in:

“I rode on de sky, Went up mighty high, Nor did envy Elijah his seat; My soul mounted higher In a chariot of fire, And the moon, it wus under my feet.”

In the melody of this song all the weird, jungle voices of the swamp were silenced. It seemed as if every bird and beast stood still to listen, and the Gulf breeze, playing over the fluted tree-tops, made a beautiful, Eolian accompaniment to the rich African voices.

Startled eyes glanced up at that moon which rode majestically through the still oceans of the sky, and the soul of every man was filled with awe at the thought of having that globe of glowing yellow under his brogan-shod feet. It was a thought to stir the Ethiopian soul to its depths, laying hold upon the rich Oriental imagination, appealing to the jungle heritage of superstition, and causing them to thrill with mingled feelings of rapture and fear.

Vinegar Atts knew the value of the oratorical pause; he waited until the sighing of the trees and the radiance of the moonbeams had touched even the most stupid mind among them. And then in a deep, solemn voice he continued:

“Way back in de Ole Testarment day whar people lived forty thousan’ years ago, de Prophet Ezekiel tell us about dis here machine. I wus readin’ it to-night, and dis is whut de Good Book says:

“‘I looked an’ behold in de firmament dat wus above my head, dar wus de appearance of de likeness of a throne——’”

“My Gawd!” an awed voice exclaimed, as all the negroes turned and looked at the seat in the airplane. Vinegar Atts resumed:

“‘Dar appeared in de cherubim de form of a man’s hand under de wings, an’ when I looked, behold, four wheels as ef a wheel had been in de midst of a wheel. An’ when de cherubim went, de wheels went wid him——’”

“My—good—gosh!” Pap Curtain interrupted with his snarling voice, his tone surcharged with terror.

Vinegar Atts paid no heed to the interruption, but went on in a voice that was like a great bellow:

“‘De cherubim lifted up deir wings to mount from de yearth, an’ de same wheels turned not from beside dem; when dey stood, dese stood, an’ when dey wus lifted up, dese lifted up demselves also, fer de spirit of de livin’ creature wus in dem, an’ de cherubim lifted up deir wings an’ mounted from de yearth in my sight.’”

With the utterance of the last word, Vinegar waved his hand in a dramatic gesture toward the sky. There was one dark cloud in all the clearness of the atmosphere, a mass of fog and mist which had risen from the Gulf of Mexico and was scudding with amazing speed before the stiff, salty breeze from the south. The negroes glanced up at that cloud and watched it as it became smaller, sped to the edge of the horizon made by the forest, and disappeared from their sight. It seemed to them that some winged creature of the sky had sailed above them, and Vinegar, in his great superb barytone voice, began to sing:

“Let de chariot of fire roll by, De sooner earth’s trials and sorrers shall cease, De sooner us’ll enter de mansions of peace— Let de chariot of fire roll by!”

The famous Tickfall quartet was there. Instantly Hitch Diamond, Skeeter Butts, and Figger Bush chimed in, and the song swept out across the silence of the swamp, echoing in that vast greenhouse of vegetation which grew in such rank profusion. From the throats of three hundred negroes issued a low, moaning wail in perfect harmony with the music.

Vinegar Atts and Hitch Diamond turned and walked away. Skeeter Butts and Figger Bush followed, still singing, and the other negroes forgot the purpose for which they had walked four miles into the woods, and meekly, without protestation, trailed their leaders back to the town.

After all, they had seen enough to pay them for their trip. They had seen an airplane for the first time. They had something to think about; something to talk about, and, as for the flight of Red Cutt, they had something to anticipate.

One man alone was dissatisfied, but he was always dissatisfied. The sneer on Pap Curtain’s lips was more pronounced, and the snarl in his voice was accentuated as he said to those who plodded along in the rear of the procession:

“Dat Red Cutt wus pretty sharp when he side-tracked his ride in dat airplane fer a speech by Elder Vinegar Atts. But dat nigger can’t excape away, an’ I’ll make him fly yit or know the reason why.”

The other negroes did not answer. They were too busy harmonizing with the Tickfall quartet:

“Swing low, sweet chariot, Coming to carry me home.”

VI

A FEATHER IN HIS HAT

Early the next morning there were four men who paid a visit to all the negro settlements in Tickfall. They explained that they were a canvassing committee who were soliciting members for the High Exalted Negro Flying Club.

Red Cutt had told them that it was impossible to teach three hundred negroes at one time the art of aviation. The classes could not consist of more than one hundred, but he was willing to teach as many as wanted to learn. He said that he would have to divide them into three classes, and instruct just one class at a time.

It was the Tickfall Big Four who did the canvassing, and after a while there was a disagreement among them. The religious adherents of Vinegar’s church fell out like the early disciples over the question of “Who should be greatest?”

They went back to Red Cutt and presented the matter to him.

“Who’s gwine be president of dis here club?” Skeeter Butts demanded.

“I thinks you ought to be presidunt,” Red told him, “because you done had some expe’unce as a flyin’ man.”

“Ain’t dar no mo’ jobs connected wid dis club?” Vinegar Atts inquired.

“Suttinly,” Red told him. “I app’ints you observer right now.”

“What do a observer do?” Vinegar Atts inquired.

“He sets up in de airplane an’ looks at de scenery an’ lets de worl’ go by.”

“Dat suits me,” Vinegar bellowed. “Settin’ down an’ lookin’ at things is a easy, high, hon’able job.”

“I needs a job, too,” Hitch Diamond grumbled.

“I app’ints you mechanic,” Red Cutt announced promptly. “Git yo’ tools an’ all yo’ wipin’ rags an’ git ready fer de job of keepin’ dat machine in order.”

“Whut do I git to do?” Figger Bush wanted to know.

“I nomernates you stabilizer.”

“Does dat mean dat I keeps de stable whar de machine stays at?” Figger Bush inquired.

“Yep, you is de high boss keeper of the hangar, an’ yo’ job is to steady the machine when folks climbs in an’ climbs out.”

That each negro was satisfied with his job was apparent from the fact that he took out a cigarette and lighted it, and sat for a while in silent meditation. At last Vinegar spoke.

“We done collected up over a hundred dollars already.”

The eyes of Red Cutt glowed like the little green eyes of a pig. He wet his lips with his tongue as if he could already taste that money. His fingers twitched and he clasped them together covetously, saying, in a voice that was hungry with desire:

“Gimme dat money, quick, niggers. I always demands my pay in eggsvance.”

The four negroes promptly emptied their pockets of the money they had collected, and Red Cutt drew a large buckskin bag from his coat pocket and eagerly stuffed the soiled currency into its depths.

“I thinks eve’y nigger dat pays his dollar out ought to be allowed to wear some kind of badge what shows dat be belongs,” Vinegar Atts remarked.

“I forgot to tell you about dat, nigger,” Red Cutt replied promptly. “So I wants you to pass de word down de line to eve’y nigger dat paid his dollar dat he must get a chicken feather and wear it stuck up in his hat.”

By two o’clock that afternoon, one hundred negroes in Tickfall suddenly sprouted feathers, and refused to tell in answer to any inquiry just what those feathers meant, for if a negro organizes a club or lodge, it is always a secret organization.

It was Sunday afternoon.

That morning, Vinegar, at the Shoofly church, made many eloquent references to the chariot of fire, to the men from the sky, to the machine that had a wheel in the midst of a wheel, and a form of a man’s hand under the wings. It was just the sort of mysterious, high-sounding, and meaningless sermon that would catch the fancy of his emotional and imaginative parishioners and the services at the Shoofly church on that particular morning were memorable.

At the most dramatic point of Vinegar’s harangue, the colored clergyman took a letter out of his pocket and read it to his congregation with many theatrical flourishes.

There are big corporations in this country who do a large mail-order business. Of necessity, they must have a large mailing-list, and in order to acquire it they pay two cents for every name and address that is furnished them. Very much of that money is wasted in the South, and a great deal of their literature is squandered, for the reason that those who sell these addresses do not care whether it is the name of a man white or black.

Many negroes who cannot read get regular letters from great mail-order houses, and other large corporations who have something to sell will frequently address a letter to a colored man who cannot read it, and cannot understand it when it is read to him.

By this method Vinegar Atts had acquired the letter, which he was now parading before his congregation, and which he read in a loud, clear voice:

“REV. VINEGAR ATTS,

“Tickfall, Louisiana.

“DEAR SIR: Draw up your chair just a little closer; listen carefully and we will suggest to you how to make some money by investing a small amount. “We are going to tell you about that opportunity you have been waiting for all your life. We are going to let you in on one of the best propositions offered since manufacturers tried to interest people financially in the automobile years ago.

“The war is over—peace is here—the airplane helped win that victory, and now the airplane will rapidly take the place of the automobile and the truck in commercial life.

“The man who makes money is the man who has the courage to back up his convictions. While money can be earned by labor, it can be multiplied only by investment. We offer you an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this money-making proposition and reap the tremendous profits which we believe are bound to follow.

“Please read the enclosed folder carefully, and then if you decide you want to invest a modest sum and see it grow, let us hear from you at once.”

Laying this letter aside, Vinegar spread open a folder to the gaze of his congregation. It contained impressive pictures of airplanes, and hydroplanes, of factories, and of work upon the big machines in their various stages of development.

“One dollar is a mighty modest sum, brudder,” Vinegar bellowed. “Eve’y man whut is got a dollar ought to git in on de ground floor of dis money-makin’ proposition an’ reap de tremendous profits which is bound to follow behind. Dar is a flyin’-school teacher in dis town now, and I considers it a religious thing to endorse his bizzness an’ to git up a lot of learners in his flyin’-school.”

It was whispered among the folks at the church that the first lesson in the art of flying would be given in the Little Moccasin prairie where the airplane was. So very early in the afternoon a long procession of negroes moved in that direction, and a very curious crowd had assembled about the machine. When the aviator, Red Cutt, made his appearance, he stood by the machine and delivered a harangue, explaining various parts of the machine, and calling them by certain names which would have been very interesting if heard in the aviation schools of this country.

Being familiar with the automobile, he could make a pretty shrewd guess at some things; but he also had that inestimable advantage which comes to the man who pretends to know when all others profess their ignorance.

A few minutes later, Hitch arrived. He carried an immense sack full of all sorts of tools. There was even an instrument for digging in the ground in that assortment, for Hitch was evidently ready, as the chief mechanic, to meet all emergencies. He carried also a large bag of cotton, with which he intended to wipe off the machinery and keep everything shining and bright just like new.