Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 94: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

8376 considering his subject and the folks he had to talk to.” Everybody knew Ginny Babe in Tickfall. If she had any angel in her, the wings were folded inside so no- body could see them. The preacher was wofully hindered by having to keep within the bounds of truth. Even so, he got clear off the reservation several times. But when Vinegar reached the point where he announced that Ginny Babe had left her home to the Shoofly Church to be used as an orphanage for homeless, father- less, motherless children of the poor, op- - pressed colored race—ah! here was where he put on the most “ highsterical ’rouse- ments.”” Even Ginny Babe would have been satisfied with the effort, for there were no hold-back straps on the orator’s mind or tongue. Then the storm broke. The three con- flicting interests met like three great black clouds and broke in a flood of gossip and suspicion and abuse and vituperation and profanity and fist-fights. It started in the churchyard and rarf down the street like a stream of noisy black water, and flowed all over the town in Hittle rivulets of indig- nation. | . The colored people, ignorant of the law, did not know that the will would have to be probated. It never occurred to them that the court would have anything to do with the affair. They were going to settle it themselves. There was a great black giant named Hitch Diamond who listened to all the stormy discussion with a tremendous gfin upon his battered prize-fighter mug. He belonged to ail three of the organizations to which Ginny Babe had willed her property, and he refused to be drawn into the discus- sion and debate. _ “YT b’longs to all three; an’ any way you- alls decides, I wins,” he grinned. ‘ Any- ways, she ain’t left so much behind her dat we needs to raise a fuss about it.” . “‘ Whut she willed to us is good enough, an’ a plum plenty,” Vinegar Atts howled, and went on with the controversy. . But toward the middle of the afternoon several men met Hitch and asked him seri- ously what was the best way to settle the matter. em _— . t ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “ Git ’em all togedder i in de ole cotton- shed an’ fight it out. 111 ref’ree de fight,” he said, which was about the sort of © suggestion they could expect from a pro- fessional pugilist. That night there was a mass meeting of all the negroes of the village in the ald cotton-shed on the edge of the Gaitskill sand-pit. Skeeter Butts, Pap Curtain, and Vinegar Atts, in an effort io settle the controversy, engaged in the most -acrimo- nious debate ever staged in Tickfall. The record of their discussion would be inter- esting, but nothing they said toward the- end of their controversy could be printed. Vinegar insisted that the matter should be put to a popular vote as to who would get the Ginny Babe boarding-house, for Vinegar knew that the members. of his congregation outnumbered all other organi- zations. But Pap howled a hysterical pro- test at this suggestion because the Nights of Darkness Lodge was exclusive and had not many members, and Skeeter seconded . the protest, for his Uplift League was a highbrow outfit with the fewest members of all. There were about fifty sacks filled with foodstuff for cattle sitting on end along the side of the building, and most of the members of the Nights of Darkness Lodge were sitting on these sacks, one member to each sack, cawing like a crow, which he did most admirably resembbe. Pap Curtain had a trick when he was agitated of holding his pocketknife in the middle, between his thumb and finger, and spinning it by strik- ing the end with his other hand. When very uneasy, he’ would open the knife and snap the blade with his thumb. He had been doing both stunts for quite a while that evening, altering the performance according to how his feelings were excited or allayed. The crowd was getting ugly and vocifer- ous. The three last wills and testaments could make as much trouble as Ginny Babe herself. Vinegar, listening and watching, finally decided that he had the thing by the tail and could pull it down ‘the hill. Certainly the members of the Shoofly Church out- numbered the others, and he must therefore secure a popular vote and insist that all, Tide ole) ooo ACOA ebooks : 50