Part 6

As boys, a few years after the war, we knew him as a mighty squirrel hunter, and the negroes in the neighborhood knew him as a mighty slippery old scoundrel, whose smoothness had earned him the sobriquet of Okra--at once a tribute and a reproach--for the skill acquired in slaughtering “de buckruh’ cow en’ t’ing’” in the swamps, was sometimes used to lift a shoat from some nearby colored brother or sister when Simon did not care to hunt far afield, and, however commendable one’s prowess in preying upon “de buckruh,” who, for purposes of spoliation, stood in the same relation to the newly freed slaves that the esteemed Egyptians did to the children of Israel, it was regarded in dusky circles as somewhat unethical to steal from one’s own color.

Although always suspected, old Okra was never caught. When he killed a cow or other large game, the hide, and the head with its telltale ear-marks, were carefully buried in the woods, and part of the meat distributed among his cronies, insuring not only their protective silence, but a full crop of elaborate alibis for Simon, should suspicion ripen into accusation. “Nigguh haffuh stan’ by we colluh,” being the motto on all the plantations round about.

The squirrel hunter was as lean and hungry-looking as Cassius, with a shifty eye and a face deeply pock-marked. His footfall was stealthy and noiseless and he could walk the woods from dawn to dusk without tiring.

For several years following the war, many low-country negroes carried condemned army muskets which they bought for a dollar or two--long, heavy muzzle-loaders, straight of stock and hard of trigger. Although rifled, their proud owners rammed down and shot out of their grooved barrels anything and everything but ball. Shot of uniform size was not only held unnecessary, but really undesirable, an assortment of sizes running from No. 8 to No. 2, the latter called “high duckshot,” being regarded as a mixed dose seriously jeoparding the safety of rabbit or “squerril” at a distance of “two tas’”--two tasks (½ an acre).

Most of the new-fledged negro sportsmen were content to hunt the little cat squirrels that were plentiful in the wooded swamps and the oak and hickory knolls, but Simon was ambitious and habitually hunted the beautiful fox squirrels, grays and blacks, wary creatures, rarely met with and found only among tall pines--sometimes in the long leaf _palustris_ of the ridges, but oftener in the great “loblollies” skirting the bays, the height of the trees and the Spanish moss that clustered thick about their towering tops, making them safe retreats, once reached. One of these big squirrels would sometimes be surprised on or near the ground, offering a shot before he got far up the tall trunks which he always ascended rapidly with a great clatter of claws on the bark, cunningly keeping on the off side from the hunter, but never slackening speed till a fork or one of the higher branches was reached, upon which he would flatten out and keep absolutely still. Even a boy then knew it was wasting precious powder and shot to attempt to make him break sanctuary, but not so old Okra. He had implicit faith and infinite pride in the shooting powers of his old “muskick,”--“Ole Betsey, him cya’ shot fuh sowl,” and he would crack away as long as his ammunition lasted, at a gray or black spot at the tip-top of some forest giant; often indeed, at a dead squirrel, for these “foxes” have an exceedingly inconsiderate habit of digging their claws so deeply into the bark that they hang on after death and are hard to dislodge. Often the boy hunter roaming the woods, day-dreaming of the buck or big gobbler that was always about to spring up just ahead of him, to fall gloriously to his little single barrel, would hear at intervals the heavy “_duhbaw!_” of Simon’s ordnance and know that the indefatigable old sinner was, like most of us, reaching up after the unattainable.

Curiosity to learn how he was faring would sometimes overcome caution, for Simon always begged for powder, and his ingratiating “Mass---- so freehan’,” seldom failed to coax from the flask part of the boy’s scanty store, but woe to the scanty store if Simon was permitted to “po’rum.” “Berry well den, suh, you po’rum,” and into the deeply cupped palm of the avaricious hand he held out, the precious powder would trickle. Simon never stinted his gun, and as long as the donor would pour, the recipient had no scruples about drams running into ounces. Whatever you poured into his hand went into the gun, and when she responded in recalcitrance to a double charge, sending her owner staggering back among the gallberry bushes, he would grin proudly and remark, “Him duh tell we tengky fuh wuh we g’em. Betsey him hab uh hebby belly fuh powder.”

One crisp winter’s day, Simon and his half-grown son, “Boyzie,” were encountered on a high pineland plateau dotted with a chain of shallow, sedgy ponds. Suddenly, from the marge of a pond a hundred yards away, the plume-like tail of a big gray fox squirrel was seen waving jerkily over the ground as he ran for the timber. The party gave chase and succeeded in putting him up in a clump of tall long-leaf saplings before he could reach the big trees. Simon’s eyes shone like brown pebbles through the sunlit waters of a shallow brook. His slouch was gone and he was all alertness, apprehension.

“Weh him, Boyzie? Weh him?”

“Yuh him, Pa! Yuh him! Shum! Shum!”

“_Duhbaw!_” boomed Betsey, and Simon reeled from the recoil as the load cut the top from a sapling down which the squirrel raced to the ground and scampered off for a big pine not far away, rushing up the trunk in long spirals. “Watch’um, Boyzie! Don’ tu’n yo’ yeye loose off’um ’tell I git Betsey load’,” and Simon hurriedly rammed down his charge with many furtive glances at the watching sentinel to see that he didn’t “tu’n ’e yeye loose.” Extracting from a greasy rag a huge copper cap of the grandfather’s hat pattern, he fitted the nipple and cocked his musket, as strenuous an operation as pulling the trigger, for at half-cock Betsey’s hammer leaned back like the head of a strutting gobbler, while at the full, the cup yawned toward the heavens like the crater of a miniature Mauna Loa. Circling the pine he tried to locate the squirrel now lying flat in a crotch near the crown of the long-leaf, his long tail hanging down while his body was securely hidden. Boyzie pointed out the drooping tail. “Dey him, pa, dey him, but ’e too fudduh. You cyan’ reach’um.”

“_Who?_ Dat squerril? _Watch’um!_” The piece was raised, two sinewy fingers clutched the trigger with a jerk that would have disconcerted any aim, and the hammer, describing a parabola, fell upon the cap which exploded with a report like a parlor rifle, but Betsey’s muzzle remained glum and silent.

“’S’mattuh, Betsey? You got ’ooman name en’ you ent got ’ooman mout’? You cyan’ talk? De debble!” Another cap was fitted, another hopeful aim taken and another futile “paow!” echoed among the pines. Simon, now having only two caps left, accepted the suggestion that priming might help. He also accepted the powder which he poured with a liberal hand down the capacious nipple and rammed home with a lightwood splinter.

“Now watch’um come down.” Another careful sight at the tantalizing tail up aloft, another “popped” cap with a little blue smoke from the priming, and a sorely puzzled squirrel hunter.

“Witch mus’ be pit bad mout’ ’puntop Betsey. I ’spec’ ’e done cunjuh.”

“Pa, is you pit any powduh een dat gun?”

“Who? Me? Wuh gun? Betsey? C’ose I pit powduh een ’um.”

“Bettuh try’um,” said doubting youth, and he did. When the shot was drawn and the screw of the long iron ramrod clicked against the breech of the musket, old Okra’s face was a study. “Yaas, ef I did’n’ bin haffuh watch Boyzie duh watch de squerril, I wouldn’t bin fuhgit fuh load’um.” Consoling himself with this shifting of responsibility, he loaded deliberately and fired, bringing down, with a lot of pine needles, half the squirrel’s tail, which he stuck in the cord which bound his old hat with the remark, “Well, ennyhow I git all wuh I shoot at. _Ef man kin git all wuh ’e try fuh git, him oughtuh tengkful!_”

THE “CUNJUH” THAT CAME BACK

Lucy Jones, of Pon Pon, square and stout and widowed, had in her youth been as frequently husbanded as the Wife of Bath. One by one, however, through death, incompatibility of temperament, or indifference, she had lost these affiliations, and now, a “settled woman,” Lucy lacked the masterful ways and the loving club of a man about the house, for it is axiomatic among the Gullah ladies of the Carolina coast that love and physical chastisement are inseparable. “Ef man ent lick you, ’e yent lub you.” So, yearning for the touch of a vanished hoe handle or axe helve, Lucy languished. There was no longer satisfaction in “cawnhom’ny” or “tu’n flour.” There was no savor in “poke” greens or lamb’s-quarter. Fat bacon, while greasing her mouth, no longer anointed her soul. Her cabin was snug and comfortable, her bed was wide, and covered with a patchwork quilt that would have made Joseph’s coat look like a drab jacket of butternut jeans. This quilt, slowly fabricated of all the bits of bright cloth--silk, cotton and wool--that she had begged from “de buckruh” during a period of several years, she had stitched together with painstaking fingers and exalted soul, absolutely confident that with its completion would come a husband to share its chromatic glories. “All de time uh binnuh mek dat quilt uh bin agguhnize een me min’ duh study ’pun wuh kinduh husbun’ uh gwine git w’en ’e done finish. Sometime’ uh t’ink uh gwine git uh nyung nigguh, en’ den uh ’membuh suh dese’yuh nyung nigguh ent wut. Dem too lub fuh t’row bone. En’ den, ’nodduh time uh study en’ uh t’ink uh’ll git uh settle’ man, but uh know berry well uh haffuh git some kind’uh man ’cause uh lonesome tummuch, en’ uh keep on sew de quilt ’tell ’e done, en’ uh pit’um on de bed, en’ dat night w’en uh gone’sleep onduhneet’ de quilt, uh hab one dream, en’ one sperrit come to me een de dream en’ tell me suh me fuh marry Isaac Middletun.”

So the notion got into her head. Isaac was tall, as Lucy was short; Isaac was thin, as Lucy was stout, and Isaac was wary, as Lucy was predaceous. Himself an elderly widower, he was living alone when Lucy delicately intimated to him her desire to change the Welsh name of Jones for the aristocratic English patronymic of Middleton. Middleton, acknowledging the compliment, politely declined the offer, preferring to keep his lonely cabin to himself. “Uh tell’um wuh de sperrit say,” she said, “en’ uh tell’um de sperrit say him fuh come fuh marry me dat same night. Uh hab fait’ een de sperrit’ wu’d, en’ uh scour’ out de house en’ uh mek de bed, en’ uh pit de tea by de fiah, en’ still yet Middletun ent come. Uh nebbuh know shishuh eegnunt nigguh. W’en uh fin’ suh ’e yent come, uh gone deepo fuh fin’um, en’ uh tell’um ’gen wuh de sperrit say. Uh tell’um ’bout de quilt en’ de tea en’ t’ing’, en’ uh tell’um nemmine’ ’bout him house, cause myself hab house fuh alltwo uh we fuh lib een, but Middletun ent haa’kee to wuh uh tell’um ’bout de sperrit. ’E say suh de sperrit hab bidness fuh talk ’long nyung ’ooman ef de sperrit fuh send wife fuh him. Uh tell’um uh nyung ’ooman cyan’ specify fuh wife fuh settle’ man lukkuh Middletun, ’cause dem lub fuh dress tummuch, but seem lukkuh uh cyan’ git Middletun’ min’ straight.” So she “took her foot in her hand” and went home, dejected but not hopeless, for she determined to stick to the trail, as the hound to the slot, until she ran the wily quarry to earth, to wit, cabin, for she hankered after him with an intense hankering.

“Lucy Middletun,” “Mis’ Middletun,” how it filled the mouth and the ear, and exalted the spirit with satisfaction! Ever since emancipation the negroes have laid great store by their “titles,” prefaced by “Mistuh” or “Mis’.” Very dear to their hearts was the evolution of “Cuffee,” “Cudjo” and “Sancho” of slavery, into “Mistuh Scott,” “Mistuh Hawlback” and “Mistuh Middletun,” of freedom, and, in the twinkling of an eye, “Dinah” and “Bina” and “Bella,” the grubs, were transformed into “Mis’ Wineglass,” “Mis’ Chizzum” and “Mis’ Manigo,” the butterflies. So, as Lucy mused and spun the spider web of fancy in which she hoped to entrap the wary and unappreciative Isaac, her mind crossed the stormy seas of Endeavor, and, resting in the snug harbor of Achievement, she thought of the deed as done, and imagined herself as going to work on week days, to church on Sundays, and to class meetings in the evenings, carrying, as appurtenant to her person, the longed-for “title” of Isaac, and as she thought upon the occasions when on public road or by-path she should “pass the time of day” in the ceremonial salutations so dear to her kind, she was filled to the jowls with ecstasy and her eardrums vibrated with the melody of “Middleton.”

“Mawnin’, Mis’ Jones, how you do, ma’am?”

“Mawnin’, Mis’ Wineglass, uh tengk Gawd fuh life, but you know uh yent name Mis’ Jones now. Me duh Mis’ Middletun.”

“Dat so? I nebbuh yeddy ’bout Bredduh Jones dead.”

“No, ma’am, ’e yent dead, ma’am, but him hab anodduh lady, en’ me hab Isaac Middletun. You know dat same Mistuh Middletun lib close Adam’ Run deepo? Well, she duh my juntlemun now, en’ me duh Mis’ Middletun.”

“Yaas, ma’am, well, mawnin’, ma’am,” and so on.

And always as Lucy sat in the sunshine before the cabin door and smoked her short clay pipe, or in the loneliness of night lay pondering and ponderable under the quilt that looked like a county map of Texas, constantly she projected thought waves towards Adams Run station, near which abode the recalcitrant Middleton. Along this main-traveled roadway of the Atlantic Coast Line, many trains passed by day and by night. The shrill shriek of the local freight, as it took the siding at the distant station, reminded her that Middleton’s ears were filled with the same sound. The hoarse warning of the Florida Limited at the curve, as it rushed southward filled with Northern tourists, who,--viewing from observation cars the fruit-laden thickets of gallberry bushes covering the damp, flat pinelands--marveled at the prodigality of the Southern climate that ripened huckleberries in midwinter, every whistle that blew along the busy line reminded Lucy of the railroad, and the railroad reminded her of the station, and the station reminded her of Middleton. Theoretically, a member of the gentler sex has only to wish herself upon a man and the man is as good as wived, and the dogma that “a woman has only to make up her mind to marry a man and she gets him,” is probably as old as the Creation, for Adam, like the gentleman he was, accepted philosophically and uncomplainingly--even gallantly--the spouse which kind Heaven had wished upon him. But much thought had brought Lucy to the conclusion that in her chase of a husband she was after all a dachshund, while the elusive Middleton was a fox. His defenses having proved impenetrable by direct attack, she had tried sapping and mining without success, even the “sperrit” bomb projected Middletonwards had fizzled at the fuse, and her cabin and its encircling yard and garden were still, alas! “no man’s land!”

In her desperation Lucy decided to conjure! Like old Lorenzo in “La Mascotte,” she believed in “signs, omens, dreams, predictions,” and also in the potency of the dried frog, the blacksnake skin and the kerosene-soaked red flannel rag, as charms to pull a bashful wooer up to the scratch, to put a “spell,” resulting in sickness or death, upon an enemy, or for any other purpose suggested by the mind of the one preparing the charm, for, a sort of aftermath of voodooism, “cunjuhs” are still believed in by many of these superstitious people.

Lucy bethought her of old Simon, not an authenticated witch-doctor, for he demanded no fixed fees, but a wily old sinner, a sort of amateur in black magic, who gave advice free of charge, although his services were always rewarded with gifts of eggs, or sweet potatoes, or clean rice. As snake skins and dried frogs were component parts of almost all old Simon’s “charms,” the boys of the community frequently brought him those they killed or found dead by the roadside. These, at his convenience, old Simon skinned and salted, or rubbed with ashes and smoked and dried and put away, for use when occasion should require. The low-country negroes seldom pass a dead frog lying on its back, believing that if so exposed for any length of time, rain will inevitably follow, and those so found, if not turned over to prevent the floods from Heaven, were taken to old Simon and added to his store.

So in the dusk of the early night and the dark of the moon, for Lucy did not wish the black sisterhood to know her business, she locked her cabin door, put a shawl over her head and slipped away to Simon.

The weather was cold and Simon’s door was shut. She rapped faintly and furtively, and a fierce bark challenged from within. Simon hobbled to the door and opened it, a black cur growling at his knee. Kicking the dog away, he bade Lucy enter.

“Come een, sistuh, how you do?”

“Tengk Gawd fuh life, Unk’ Simun. Uh come yuh fuh ax you fuh gimme uh cunjuh fuh t’row uh spell ’puntop Isaac Middletun wuh lib Adam’ Run deepo, fuh mek’um haa’kee to de sperrit’ wu’d, wuh tell’um fuh hab me fuh wife, ’cause uh done tell’um _two time_ wuh de sperrit hab fuh say, but him ent study ’bout no sperrit, en’ ’e suck ’e teet’ at me, en’ him say suh him fuh marry nyung ’ooman ’cause him ent hab no appetite fuh marry settle’ ’ooman, en’ uh done tell’um suh nyung ’ooman cyan’ specify fuh settle’ man, but Middletun dat eegnunt en’ haa’d-head’, uh cyan’ git’um fuh do nutt’n’, en’ please suh fuh mek one hebby cunjuh, ’cause Middletun stubbunt sukkuh oxin en’ mule alltwo, en’ w’en you gimme de cunjuh, tell me wuh fuh do ’long’um en’ weh uh mus’ pit’um fuh t’row de spell ’puntop’uh Middletun, en’ uh fetch t’ree aig’ en’ some yalluh yam tettuh fuh you fuh eat.” And she took these gifts out of her apron and presented them to the weaver of spells.

Simon was a man of few words. Going to an old cupboard where he kept his store of raw materials, he fumbled about and at last drew forth the dried skin of a “copper-belly” moccasin, about three feet long. This he wound about a smoke-dried toad, to which had been added two rusty horseshoe nails. Around them all a dirty strip of red flannel, well soaked in kerosene, was tied, and the charm was ready. Wrapping it in a piece of brown paper he gave it to Lucy who, tremulous with happiness and excitement, tied it in a corner of her apron.

“Daughtuh, you f’aid fuh walk duh paat’ duh middlenight?”

“No, suh, uh yent ’f’aid fuh go Middletun’ house.”

“Berry well den, you fuh go Middletun’ house middlenight tenight. You fuh tek dis cunjuh en’ pit’um ’puntop de do’step to Middletun’ house, en’ you fuh walk easy so him ent fuh yeddy you. Onduhstan’?”

“Yaas, suh, tengk Gawd.” And she hurried homeward.

For awhile she dozed before her fire, and then, an hour before midnight, with that uncanny instinct which guides those who live close to nature, she roused herself, and with her precious charm, set out hot-foot for the station. As she hurried through the dark a raccoon padded noiselessly across the path. Farther on, a grey fox trotted fearlessly in front of her for a few yards then sprang into the bushes and disappeared. The terrifying shriek and wild laugh of a barred owl just overhead, as she passed along a dark aisle in the forest, made her heart stand still for an instant, but the thought of Middleton warmed its cockles again and she kept on her way. At last she reached Middleton’s cabin and, thanking her stars that he kept no dog, she cautiously lifted the latch of his yard gate and tiptoed up to the steps where, with a silent prayer for success, she deposited the precious “cunjuh” and quietly slipped away.

Just at the end of the “dog watch” of the mariners, just before the “day clean” of the negroes--the hour known to all night workers, when, with the imminence of the dawn, somewhat of the weight of the world seems lifted from their shoulders--Middleton rose from his cornshuck couch and opening his cabin door looked forth, as is the custom of the early-rising negroes, to scan the sky and appraise the promise of the coming day. A gibbous moon of dusky gold, new-risen, hung low in the East. Diana had been banting for ten days and altho’ her waist was waning, she yet shed sufficient light to open the eyes and engage the throats of all the roosters round about, and from the yards of lonely woodland cabin, and plantation quarters, their voices, shrill and clear, deep and raucous, came to Middleton’s ears as they saluted the fools’ gold of the moonlight in the belief that they were heralding the dawn.

“Fowl’ mus’ be t’ink day’ clean,” commented Middleton, and as he opened the door wider to get a better outlook, his bare toe came into contact with the gelid snakeskin and he sprang back in fear. Striking a match, he lit a lightwood splinter and discovered the “cunjuh” mysteriously placed at his very threshold. He scratched his puzzled head. “Eh, eh! wuh dis t’ing? Me nebbuh do nutt’n’ to nobody. Uh wonduh who duh try fuh t’row spell ’puntop me! Tengk Gawd, uh nebbuh ’tep obuhr’um,” secure in the belief that as he had not stepped over it, no harm could come to him. So, picking it up fearlessly, he put it away in a chink in the clay chimney until he should find use for the dread instrument which Providence had placed in his hands. All day he pondered, for, having no enemies, there was none to whom he wished harm. At last, as evening fell, dark thoughts came with the dusk, and a sinister purpose slid into his soul, which he lost no time in putting into execution. Venus was the evening star but she told him nothing, for there was no love in his heart and his mind held only the definite purpose to rid himself once and for all of the vexing importunities of the husband-hunter.

“Uh gwine tek dis t’ing to da’ ’ooman’ house en’ t’row one spell ’puntop’um fuh mek’um pit ’e min’ ’puntop some dem todduh man en’ lemme ’lone,” and walking briskly to Lucy’s house, where she slept unsuspiciously beneath the unalluring quilt, he carefully placed the charm in the middle of the top step and went his ways under the starlit heavens.

THE RACCOON HUNTER