I

SKY PILOT

The man traveling through the Louisiana swamps is often appalled by the deathlike stillness of the woods.

Slimy creatures crawl in the muck under his feet without a croak or hiss. Gaudy birds fly from living trees to dead, gaunt stumps without a note of music. The fox and wolf which sometimes make the woods vocal with their barking, slink away at the approach of man in silence. The whole place seems to be engaged in the deepest conspiracy to accomplish something which the slightest sound would disturb or frustrate.

Generally, a negro walking through the woods alone will bawl a song at the top of his voice. For some reason he feels that there is safety in sound, just as the Chinaman beats a tin pan to chase the devil away. But no negro ever has the courage to shatter one of these conspiracies of silence when he finds it in the swamp. If everything else begins to make a racket, he will, too. But he won’t start anything.

Which accounts for the fact that two negroes, not two hundred yards apart, were walking through the Little Moccasin Swamp, and were unaware of each other’s presence.

One negro was troubled. He stopped, removed his high silk hat, and mopped the sweat from the top of his bald head. He lowered his head and listened, then he raised his head and listened. For a moment he thought he heard something, then he found the silence more intense than ever.

“Dar’s somepin gittin’ ready to happen aroun’ dis woods,” he whispered to himself. “I been listenin’ in dese here swamps all my life, but I ain’t never heard no sound like dat ontil now.”

He squatted behind a stump and peered anxiously about him. Great trees of the primeval forest reared themselves above him, skirted and frocked like a Druid priest with the funereal moss. Under the wide-spreading branches of these trees long corridors ran in every direction like the floral avenues through some giant hot-house conservatory. Nothing moved, no sound could be heard under those majestic arches of the forest.

The negro stooped and placed his ear to the ground. He had heard an express train at a long distance, and the sound he was hearing at intervals was something like that. But he knew it was twenty miles to the nearest railroad which carried a train which could travel fast enough to make a similar sound. He had also heard a wolf-pack coming through the forest on one occasion, and that pad-pad-pad of their flying feet was not dissimilar in sound to what he was hearing. He was also familiar with the herds of wild hogs which infested the Little Moccasin, and when they were moving rapidly at a long distance the sound would be like the persistent thrumming he could dimly hear.

“Whutever dat is, ’tain’t hittin’ de groun’ wid its foots,” he announced to himself, as he glanced up about him with fear-shot eyes. “Dis here nigger is gittin’ ready to vacate hisself from dis swamp.”

He glanced up at the sky. It was as clear as a soap bubble. The haze of the evening was settling upon the tree-tops like a vail of purple and gold under the setting sun. He was looking for the signs of the sudden storms which blow in from the Gulf, and he sniffed the air for the odor of smoke from a forest fire.

“’Tain’t no fire, an’ it ain’t no cycaloon storm,” he muttered.

He turned and walked rapidly down the little foot-path, still listening, but now more interested in getting out of the darkening woods than in locating the source of the sound. Suddenly he heard the noise so loud and distinct that his next guess was nearer than he dreamed.

“Dat’s a automobile engyne!” he chattered, the goose-flesh rising all over his body. Then he shook his head in mute denial of his assertion. The nearest public highroad was ten miles away.

“Not even a skeart nigger preacher kin hear ten miles,” he muttered. “An’ nobody but de debbil could run a automobile in dese here woods whar dar ain’t no road!”

The thought brought him to a quick halt. Suppose the devil were loose in these woods, riding around in a flivver or straddle of a motor-cycle, seeking whom he might devour?

“I don’t crave to meet de debbil,” the colored clergyman murmured, as he reached up for his stove-pipe hat and grasped it firmly in his fingers.

“I done slanderized the debbil too frequent in my sermonts!”

He turned his face until his eyes looked straight into the face of the setting sun, and he began to leave the scenery of the swamp behind him. He did not run. No man can run as fast as the Rev. Vinegar Atts was traveling.

And Vinegar knew where he was going. In the very heart of that Little Moccasin Swamp was the Moccasin prairie. It was an open space containing nearly a square mile of ground without a tree or stump. It was completely surrounded by water, and two years before a raging forest fire had left it a charred ground strewn with ash and soot. Now it was covered with grass and was as smooth as a baseball diamond. Vinegar was including that open space in his route toward Tickfall because he could travel across it with ease and speed.

Suddenly every winged creature of the swamp broke the silence and became vocal with screams of fright. Hundreds of wild pigeons rose in the air and began to describe mad circles over the head of the running negro. From all the watercourses rose the wild fowls that love the low, damp marshes, and they sailed upward with hoarse shrieks of fear. The angry, fighting, bark-like call of the hawks, mingled with the scream of eagles, and these fearless birds sailed straight into the glowing red eye of the sun to meet the peril that was coming.

Vinegar Atts could not see because he was blinded by the sun. But soon a roar sounded above him like the exhaust of an automobile, and Vinegar looked up.

An airplane was climbing the pathless air in long, spiral flight directly over his head—the first flying-machine that the Rev. Vinegar Atts had ever seen. Its long wings were tipped as with fire by the rays of the setting sun. Beneath it the screaming birds sailed wildly, madly, performing all sorts of aerial stunts.

Vinegar dropped on his knees, with his arms stretched up toward the graceful creation of man’s brain and hands. A few phrases from his old, worn Bible came to his mind, and he bellowed them at the top of his voice, as he listened to the exhaust of that great motor.

“Like de noise of chariots on de top of mountains, like de noise of a flame of fire dat devoureth de stubble—all faces shall gather blackness—dey shall run like mighty men——”

The birds scattered far and wide over the swamp. There was a great silence. Vinegar opened his eyes, and lo, the airplane was sailing slowly downward.

“My Gawd!” Vinegar howled. “De chariot of fire!”

Thereupon he fulfilled the prophecy of the Book of Joel, and rose from the ground and “ran like a mighty man.”

The airplane settled upon the edge of the Moccasin prairie. A young man dismounted from the machine, glanced at it critically, then took a survey of the sky with a rather furtive eye, and turned with an air of decision and disappeared in the swamp.

Then a strange negro stepped to the edge of the clearing, waited until he was sure that the airman was not going to return, and walked over to the machine.

“Dat white man is done got enough flyin’ an’ he’s drapped dis car down here fer good,” he decided. “Dis am four miles from Tickfall, an’ ef dat white man had wanted to land anywise nigh he could hab done it.”

He stood scratching his head and pondering.

“Naw, suh,” he concluded. “Dat white man is done lost dis here flyin’-machine. He lost it a puppus. He ain’t never comin’ back fer it.”

Sniffing at the taint of hot oil which spoiled the rich odors of the woods, the strange negro wandered on toward Tickfall, his nose in the air.

Incidentally he had some plans in the air.

II

THREE MEN

Three men left the landing place of the airplane and started for Tickfall, four miles away.

The Rev. Vinegar Atts arrived first because he was in a hurry, and ran every step. He staggered into the Hen-Scratch saloon in the last stages of physical exhaustion, and dropped down in a chair beside a table.

Three negroes sprang to their feet, terrified by the colored clergyman’s appearance and manner.

“Whut ails you, Vinegar?” Skeeter Butts exclaimed. “You look like you done been run by a ha’nt!”

“Wusser ’n dat, nigger,” Vinegar panted, as he wiped the copious perspiration from his bald head, and reached out a trembling hand for the reviving drink which Figger Bush had thoughtfully brought him. “I done seen a chariot of fire come straight down from de glory of de Lawd!”

Hitch Diamond glanced at the empty glass, and then nodded significantly to Skeeter Butts.

“Don’t gib him any more, Skeeter,” he suggested. “De revun is done had too many drams already.”

“’Tain’t so,” Vinegar grunted. “I ain’t drunk. I’m seein’—things!”

“I ketch on,” Hitch chuckled. “I done seen things in my day, too. I seen a purple elerphunt wunst. I wus settin’ on de side of a puffeckly straight wall ticklin’ one of dese here ukuleles. Whar you been at? Whut else did you see?”

“Been out in de swamp. Seen a chariot of fire come down outen de sky. I heard it zoonin’ fer a long time—sounded like a automobile. All de birds in de woods flew up to see it, an’ squalled like dey wus skeart to death. It lit out in de Little Moccasin prairie.”

“Whut happened when she lit?” Figger Bush inquired.

“I didn’t stay to see,” Vinegar sighed. “Fer a fack, I wus makin’ myse’f absent befo’ she lit.”

Suddenly Skeeter Butts began to laugh. He slapped his brown hand upon his thigh and cackled like a hen. The more he laughed the funnier something got to him.

“I knows whut ails Vinegar, brudders,” he snickered. “He’s done see a——”

Skeeter’s assertion paused in midair, because the door of the Hen-Scratch saloon was pushed open, and the second man had arrived from Moccasin prairie.

This man was a stranger, and was built on circular lines, round head, round eyes, round face, round body. His character and modes of thought and action also followed curved lines. There was nothing straight about him.

“Good evenin’, brudders,” he greeted them. “My name am Red Cutt. Kin you-alls tell me whut town dis is?”

“How come you don’t know whar you is at?” Skeeter asked suspiciously.

“I jes’ landed,” Red Cutt remarked simply.

“Didn’t de train corndoctor tell you whar you wus gittin’ off?” Hitch Diamond rumbled. “Or mebbe you rid de brake rods?”

“Naw, suh,” Red Cutt replied smilingly. “I rode through de air.”

“Gimme somepin to hold on to, niggers,” Figger Bush snickered, as he sat down with pretended weakness in a chair and grasped the legs of the table. “Here’s one nigger whut says he seen a chariot of fire, and here comes a secont nigger whut says he took a ride in it.”

“’Twarn’t no chariot of fire,” Cutt said easily. “It was a airship. Didn’t none of you niggers ever see no airplane?”

“Suttinly,” Skeeter Butts answered. “I done seen a millyum of ’em in N’Awleens. But you is de fust cullud aviator I’s seen.”

“Dar ain’t many in de worl’,” Cutt said quietly. “I reckin I’m about de fust nigger flier in de worl’.”

“Listen to dat,” Vinegar Atts exploded. “Ef I hadn’t been so skeart I’d ’a’ had good comp’ny back to town.”

“Wus you de brudder dat wus bellerin’ so loud?” Cutt inquired. “I heard somebody, but I couldn’t locate ’em. I couldn’t find no good landin’ place close to town. I wus skeart I’d tear up a lot of fences an’ telegram poles ef I landed in Tickfall. I wus skeart I’d hab to pay fer ’em. So I landed out in de swamp.”

“Dat wus right,” Figger Bush laughed. “No Tickfall niggers, excusin’ Skeeter Butts, is got to see a airship, an’ I b’lieves dat Skeeter is lyin’. Ef you’d landed in town, all us Tickfalls would hab fell in a well or run ourselfs to death.”

At this moment the green-baize doors of the saloon were pushed open and a white man entered. The third man had arrived in Tickfall.

At first glance he appeared to be a mechanic. His hands were large, black with the grime of machinery, and hard. His face and clothes were streaked with grease. The skin of his face had been whipped by the air until it was tanned like leather.

“Good evenin’ boss,” Skeeter exclaimed, standing up and taking the stranger in at a glance. “Er—dis here is a cullud bar, an’ us cain’t serve de white——”

“I don’t want a drink,” the young man answered. “I want some information. Do any of you know where Mr. Arsene Chieniere lives?”

There was silence for a moment, then Vinegar interpreted:

“He means Mr. Arson Shinny!”

“O—suttinly, suh,” Skeeter exclaimed. “He lives right straight out dis road whut goes in front of dis saloon. I seen Miss Jew-ann Shinny pass here to-day—gwine todes home.”

“Miss Juan?” the young man asked, giving the beautiful Latin pronunciation, and speaking the word like a caress.

“Dat’s de lady,” Skeeter answered. “Dey lives ten miles out on dis here road.”

“Where can I hire a flivver to take me out there?”

“I’s de only taxi-man in town,” Skeeter said, as he reached for his cap. “I’ll take you out dar in twenty minutes fer two dollars.”

“Get busy,” the young man answered, as he sat down to wait.

The other three negroes sat whispering to each other for a few minutes, then Vinegar inquired:

“Beg pardon, boss; ain’t you a railroad man?”

“Yes,” the stranger answered, with a barely perceptible hesitation.

“I knowed it,” Vinegar chuckled. “I bet Miss Jew-ann Shinny is gwine be glad to see you!”

“I’ll go to see now,” the young man smiled, as he heard Skeeter’s machine at the door.

III

“MISS JEW-ANN”

It was not possible for Skeeter Butts to keep his mouth shut for twenty minutes, and the young man beside him, as he watched the long sandy road roll under the machine like a brown ribbon, was equally willing to talk.

“Is you-alls kin to de Shinnys?” Skeeter asked.

“No.”

“Gwine dar on bizzness?”

“No—yes.”

“Dar ain’t nobody at dat house to do bizzness wid excusin’ Mr. Shinny an’ Miss Jew-ann.” No answer. “Which one am you doin’ bizzness wid, boss?”

“Which one do you think?”

“Of co’se, I’m jes’ guessin’—but ef I wus a white man I’d shore crave to talk bizzness wid de lady.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” the stranger laughed.

“I done got you located now, boss,” Skeeter chuckled delightedly. “You is courtin’.”

They turned suddenly to the left and ran into a dark road which lead through a section of the Little Moccasin Swamp. The wheels began to slip in the mire and Skeeter gave his entire attention to his automobile to prevent stalling in the mud. At last they reached firmer ground, and Skeeter returned to the conversation.

“Of co’se, I ain’t axin’ you fer no job, boss, but I’s been powerful assistance to a whole passel of young white mens dat’s come courtin’ in dis country.”

“What special help can you render?” the stranger asked.

“Expe’unce an’ conversation,” Skeeter replied promptly. “I done courted ’bout a millyum womens my own self, an’ I knows all de funny curves dey tries on. I gives exputt advice to all de niggers dat marries in Tickfall. I ain’t no marrifyin’ man myse’f, but I favors it an’ he’ps it along.”

“How can you render assistance through your conversation?” the young man smiled.

“Gosh, white man! You ain’t never done no courtin’ in de South, is you? Eve’y white man whut goes courtin’ hires a nigger to go wid him.”

“What for?”

“I see you don’t know nothin’,” Skeeter chuckled. “I esplains dis fack; eve’y white lady dat is wuth courtin’ is got some nigger gal wuckin’ fer her in de kitchen. Eve’y white man whut onderstan’s courtin’ hires a nigger boy to go wid him an’ wait on him while he courts de lady. Now, dat nigger boy goes into de kitchen an’ tells dat nigger gal whut a allfired good ketch fer de white lady his boss am—an’ de nigger gal tells dat nigger boy whut a histidious, highfalutin lady her mistiss is, an’ dat arrangement he’ps courtin’ long an’ does a large amount of great good.”

The young man laughed, and Skeeter bent over his wheel, watching the road for stumps as his machine plowed through some high marsh-grass.

“Now, I always gives my white man a good recommend at de fust off-startin’,” Skeeter continued. “I tells de nigger gal my white folks don’t drink none, don’t gamble none, is got plenty money, owns a big plantation, and hires plenty niggers. When us mens goes home, dat nigger gal tells her mistiss whut I said about her gen’leman friend. Don’t you think dat’s a good arrangement?”

“I don’t know,” the young man said dubiously, as they ran into a clearing and stopped in front of a wide-spreading farmhouse. “I’ll wait and see. I like to talk for myself, but I might need you yet.”

“I hope so, boss,” Skeeter smiled as he pocketed the two dollars which the young man extended. “You want me to wait fer you?”

“No.”

“Want me to come back fer you?”

“No.”

“A’right. Ef you needs me, jes’ ax fer Skeeter Butts. I’s got a good name ’mongst de white and de blacks.”

Miss Juan Chieniere sat upon the wide, white portico and watched, as the white man dismounted from the machine. She watched until Skeeter had turned and started back the way he had come. She watched the young man turn and enter the gate. All of this with indifference, which suddenly turned to an interest, which left her gasping with delight.

“Oh—Jim!”

The Frenchwoman makes the most fascinating sweetheart and the most attractive wife in the world, to all except a blind man. To all the other things which the Frenchwoman possesses in common with her sisters, she adds the charm of manner. In other words, when she loves a man, she shows it! The glance of the eye, the quiver of the lips, the gesture of her hands, these things speak for her and plead for her and pray for her!

“Oh—Jim!” she repeated.

“I told you I was coming,” was all that Jim said.

“But—how did you get here, Jim?”

“I flew through the air like a bird, just like I told you I would.”

Her hand motioned him to a seat by her side, and every posture of her body, as she moved aside to give him space, bespoke a welcome without words.

“Where did you get the airplane, Jim?” she questioned.

“I stole it,” Jim answered frankly. “I stole it from the government of the United States. It’s an army airplane, designed to strafe the Huns. I just hopped in, shot the juice to her, and flew seventy miles to see you!”

“Holy Mother!” the girl exclaimed tragically. “What will they do to you for that crime?”

“I should worry—they haven’t caught me yet. Besides, I’ve got a whale of a lie fixed up to tell them.”

“Let me hear your lie, Jimmy,” the girl fluttered. “I’ll be scared to death while you are here, unless the lie is a real good one, and will save you if you get caught.”

Jim hesitated a moment while he reached for his cigarette-case. The girl took the match from his fingers, struck it into flame, and held it to his cigarette, thus lighting his face and her own in the gathering dusk.

“Whew,” he whistled, as his hungry eyes devoured the beauty of her face. “It would have been worth it if I had stolen a whole squadron of war-ships to come to see you in.”

“Tell me the beautiful alibi lie, Jimmy,” the girl insisted.

“You can’t appreciate the value of a lie until you know the truth,” Jimmy began, inhaling his cigarette smoke. “The truth is this: I have been in the aviation camp for eighteen months without a chance of getting leave of absence to come to see you. The only chance I have ever had to talk has been on your visits to your brother at the camp, and those opportunities have been too few. Now, I am an expert airplane mechanic, and in repairing machines I am permitted to try them out before brave aviators like your brother are permitted to risk their valuable lives in them. So this afternoon I repaired a machine and took a trial flight which has extended for seventy miles, and which ended just about four miles from Tickfall, and ten miles by automobile from you. I came here to see you because I love you, and before I go back I expect your promise to marry me!”

“Oh, how perfectly glorious!” the girl exclaimed. “That’s the truth! Now, tell me the beautiful lie!”

“When I go back to the camp I shall tell them that I started out on a trial flight, and had engine trouble; had to land in the heart of these great Louisiana swamps, and lost my bearings. I shall tell them I spent two days wandering in the wilderness like the children of Israel before I found a human habitation. There I got help, made my repairs, and hurried back!”

“That’s fine, Jimmy!” Juan exclaimed. “But will they believe it?”

“I don’t know. If you think it is too risky, suppose you promise to marry me right now, and let me hurry back?”

“You’re joking, now, Jimmy,” the girl answered promptly. “You must save your lies and jokes till you get back to camp. Maybe they’ll believe them.”

The door opened, and a handsome gentleman stepped out upon the porch.

“Father,” the girl said, as they both rose to their feet, “this is Mr. James Gannaway, from the aviation camp where brother is.”

“I welcome you, young man,” Mr. Chieniere exclaimed cordially. “I wish you were my son come in from the camp.”

“I wish so, too,” Jim said simply, and his words held a meaning which the father did not get.

IV

THE FLYING CLUB

When Skeeter Butts returned to the Hen-Scratch saloon, he found his three friends at the table, listening with the most intense interest to the speech of the stranger recently arrived among them, Red Cutt.

They were so intent upon his words that Skeeter regretted his absence from the saloon. He felt that he had missed something of the utmost importance, for he had never seen his three friends more excited than they were at that particular moment. Skeeter paused at the door and listened. Red Cutt was speaking.

“De fust time I ever saw anybody go up in de air wus at a county fair. Dar wus a balloon tied on de end of a rope, an’ a white man wus in charge, and he let eve’ybody whut had a dollar go up in de air as fur as de rope went.”

“How many foots could you go up?” Vinegar inquired.

“One thousand foots,” Red Cutt informed him. “Dat is as fur as de rope stretched. Of co’se if de rope broke, I imagines a nigger might hab went a heap farther, but dey wouldn’t charged him nothin’ fer dat extry trip.”

“An’ did you go up in it?” Hitch Diamond asked.

“Naw, I didn’t hab no dollar; but I made up my mind right dar dat some day I wus gwine up.”

Skeeter Butts joined the company at this point, sat down and lighted a cigarette, leaned back and asked with great nonchalance:

“How long has you been tryin’ to fly, Brudder Red Cutt?”

“I been at it for the last ’leven or twelve months. Is you had any expe’unce flyin’?”

“Naw, suh, I ain’t had much to speak about,” Skeeter Butts replied. “Of co’se, I took a few little flies when I wus in de army, but I didn’t run de machine myself, an’ I don’t know very much about it.”

“I’m glad to hear you say dat, Skeeter,” Red Cutt responded. “You see, my bizzness jes’ now is travelin’ through de country teachin’ cullud folks how to fly dese machines. De gover’ment of the Nunited States is makin’ about a million of dese airships eve’y week. As soon as de war is over dey won’t have no need for dem airships in de Europe war, an’ dey will have about forty millions dat dey will want to sell cheap.”

“Dat sounds good to me,” Skeeter Butts said in pleased anticipation. “I always has wanted one of dem things.”

“Well, you kin git you one,” Red Cutt said. “A good hand-me-down airship—dis here gover’ment will be mighty nigh givin’ ’em away, because dey won’t have no whar to keep ’em atter de war is over.”

“I’ll shore git me one,” Hitch Diamond said in a loud voice.

Red Cutt looked at him and nodded his head approvingly.

“I’ll git me one,” Vinegar Atts proclaimed.

“Put me down for one, de best one you got,” Skeeter Butts announced.

“I ain’t sellin’ ’em, nigger,” Red Cutt laughed. “I learns fellers how to fly in ’em. The gover’ment ain’t gwine deliver ’em to you. Dey will all be landed at de same place on de Gulf of Mexico, an’ eve’y nigger has got to go git his own an’ pick out of the bunch de one dat he wants.”

“You means dat we got to fly our own machine home?” Skeeter Butts inquired.

“Suttingly,” Red Cutt answered.

“Gosh! I reckon we does need lessons in flyin’,” Vinegar Atts proclaimed.

“One dollar, per lesson, each nigger,” Red Cutt announced in a businesslike tone.

“How many niggers is allowed to learn at one time?” Skeeter inquired.

“One hundred niggers. We organizes de High Exalted Nigger Flyin’ Club, and we all takes lessons at the same time.”

“When is we gwine organize dis club?” Skeeter Butts inquired.

“It will suit me best if we organizes to-night,” Red Cutt replied. “Because, you see, I ain’t got so awful long to stay at any one place.”

“I kin fix dat,” Hitch Diamond growled. “De Nights of Darkness lodge meets to-night. We has got a little mo’ dan one hundred members, but dar never wus a lodge full of niggers whar all of ’em had one dollar per each at one time. So I imagines dat when we sends out word dat eve’y nigger dat comes to de lodge to-night must have a dollar fer a special puppus dar won’t be mo’ dan one hunderd dat will see deir way clear to come.”

“We might take our fust lesson at de lodge to-night, atter we completes de organization,” Red Cutt suggested.

“Dat will suit me perzackly,” Hitch rumbled. “I’s de presidunt of de Nights of Darkness lodge, and I’ll give de word, an’ whut I says goes.”

Red Cutt reached to his hip-pocket and brought forth a red-covered book and laid it on the table before them. Vinegar Atts leaned over and gazed at the title of the book—“How to Fly.” He opened to the title-page of the volume and beheld a picture of a man dressed in the aviator costume, with his goggles pushed back on his forehead, his mouth wide-spread in a happy grin.

“Somepin shore tickles dis flyin’-man,” he chuckled. “I wonder is he so awful pleased wid himself because he is gwine up or because he has jes’ come down?”

“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:

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:

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:

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.

Skeeter arrived, looked at the machine, and listened to Red Cutt explaining its uses and manipulations to the crowd. He saw Hitch crawling around underneath, wiping the wheels with cotton, and pretending to be very busy, while actually afraid to touch anything he saw under there.

Skeeter decided that his place on the program was to be seated in the machine. The negroes very eagerly lifted him up, and as he took his place on the seat, he felt that he had reached the highest point of prominence in his entire career.

Vinegar Atts, who had lingered too long at his Sunday dinner, was the last to arrive, and when he rode up in his little automobile and saw Skeeter Butts seated in the airplane like a king upon the throne, he was glad, indeed, that he had been elected to the high office of observer.

He pushed his way through the crowd and bawled at Skeeter:

“Hey, Skeeter! I wants to set up dar wid you.”

“Dar ain’t no room to set wid me,” Skeeter announced. “Dar ain’t but one seat, an’ I am in it.”

“But I got to set up dar! I’m de observer!” Vinegar howled.

Thereupon he clambered up into the machine, lifted Skeeter out of his place, sat down on the seat himself, and let Skeeter sit on his knee!

At this point Hitch Diamond climbed out from under the airplane, stuck a handful of dirty cotton waste into the bag that contained the rest of the cotton, and tossed the bag into the lap of Skeeter.

“You two niggers put dis sack of cotton in the tool-box under de seat!” Hitch Diamond bellowed.

“I cain’t find de tool-box,” Vinegar said.

“Well, put it under yo’ foots den,” Hitch told him. “Fer you got to take dat sack of wipin’ cotton wharever you go.”

VII

THE SIGN OF AVIATORS

As the negroes had gone out toward the Little Moccasin Swamp, all of them had passed a buggy that was moving at the slowest gait of the horse. The driving lines were wrapped around the whip, the horse moved sedately and slowly down the middle of the road. On the seat of the buggy was a young man who seemed to be able to see nothing but the girl who sat beside him; and if any other man had been blind to the presence of that girl, it could have been said of him that he had no appreciation of feminine beauty and loveliness. As the buggy passed the long, straggling procession of negroes, there was one fact so striking that the man asked:

“What are all these people wearing chicken feathers in their hats for?”

“I don’t know,” the girl answered. “Nobody can tell what a negro is going to do.”

The negroes turned off into a little bridle path, leaving the road free for the horse and buggy, and the young folks promptly forgot them. But when they drove at the same leisurely gait into Tickfall, they passed the Hen-Scratch saloon. There they beheld a diminutive darky, dressed in ragged clothes, seated in a disconsolate attitude on the curbstone in front of that popular barroom. His name was Little Bit, and both noticed that he wore a chicken feather in his hat.

For some reason the horse stopped in front of the barroom. Possibly the animal had been there before. The young man and woman did not object, for they had no destination in mind, and it really did not matter where they went or where they were.

“Look here, colored boy!” Jim spoke. “What are you and all the other negroes wearing that feather in your hat for?”

“Dat sign is fer aviators, boss,” Little Bit answered.

Miss Juan Chieniere turned and shot a significant glance at the young man sitting beside her.

That young man’s face turned as white as milk. The lines of gentleness and good nature around his mouth changed until the whole face was drawn in lineaments of desperate recklessness. The one thought in his mind, of course, was that a scouting party had been sent out to look for the lost airplane, and the aviators had come to Tickfall. He had no idea what punishment would await him at the aviation camp if he was captured in Tickfall and taken back.

Something of his great danger was conceived by the girl, and she asked in a nervous voice:

“What aviators, Little Bit?”

“I dunno, Miss Jew-ann,” Little Bit answered. “But all de niggers has gone out to the Little Moccasin prairie to see the airships. Dey wouldn’t let me go. Dey made me stay at home and take keer of de saloon.”

This remark confirmed Jim Gannaway’s fears that the scouting party had really arrived in Tickfall. He had scanned the horizon many times since his arrival in that neighborhood on the evening before, and he wondered how that scouting party had arrived without his seeing them. His soul was tormented with anxiety, and he turned and looked at the girl as if he was seeing her for the last time. Dismounting from the buggy, he stood close beside her and said:

“Juan, I took a desperate risk in coming from the aviation camp to see you. I could not borrow a machine for the purpose, and could not have got leave of absence, so I had to swipe a machine. I told you I had come to get your promise to marry me, but I cannot ask you now because I have no idea what they will do to me when they take me back to camp.”

“What about that beautiful lie, Jim?” she asked with trembling lips.

“It would have been all right if I had made my way back to the camp without being caught; but now they have come after me, and there is nothing for me to tell but the beautiful truth.”

“What is the beautiful truth, Jim?” she asked.

“It is that I loved you so much that I was willing to take the most desperate chances to see you. Whatever may happen to me for what I have done will be but a small payment exacted from me in return for the pleasure I have had.”

With the adorable impudence of the Frenchwoman, Miss Juan straightened back in the buggy and looked at him with eyes that sparkled.

“I have a beautiful truth to say, also,” she asserted. “It is, that I love you, and if you ever get out of your troubles alive I will marry you; and if you get killed for what you have done, I will mourn for you forever and forever.”

She reached out and drew his head to her and kissed him.

“Go!” she said, as she pointed toward the Little Moccasin Swamp, “and remember that my love goes with you.”

He did not hesitate a moment, but turned and left her, pausing only to wave back at her as he passed out of sight around the nearest corner. The girl turned her buggy and started slowly back toward her home, her heart heavy and her lovely face picturing her wretchedness.

To all of this, Little Bit had been an interested witness. It was a free show, no charge for admission; the first time in his life he had seen a love scene between two white folks.

It was evidently funny to him, for he sat there laughing aloud, and his laugh bore a strong resemblance to the cackling of a hen.

VIII

GOING UP!

On the Little Moccasin prairie the excitement and enjoyment of the negroes were at their greatest height.

The feeling of awe toward the airplane had passed away. One by one they had climbed up into the seat. After a while they seated Skeeter Butts and Vinegar Atts in the machine, and every man that had paid his dollar and wore his feather in his cap took his turn at helping to push the airplane over the ground. It was followed by all the other negroes who shouted and whooped as it bumped along over the prairie like some awkward, stiff-legged, ridiculous bird which spurned the earth and felt like it was a disgrace to be upon the ground.

In the midst of this excitement, with its noise of laughter and the shouting, James Gannaway appeared at the edge of the swamp and looked out over the field with a real fear that he had never felt, even in the most dangerous situations in the air.

What he saw filled his heart with joy. No more fear that scouting planes had found the lost machine. All that the feathers in the hats of the negroes meant was that the blacks of Tickfall had found the hidden airplane. He waited until they had pushed the machine near to where he stood concealed in the dense foliage of the swamp. At that moment Vinegar Atts and Skeeter stood up from their seats in the machine and began to sing. It was one of the best-loved songs among the negroes, and that great crowd sent it echoing through the majestic forest with their mighty organ tones until James Gannaway wondered that the human voice could express such music.

At the conclusion of the song, for some reason, both Vinegar and Skeeter climbed out of the machine. Then Gannaway stepped forth, waved a dispersing hand, and exclaimed:

“You niggers, get to hell away from here!”

Nothing could have surprised the negroes more than the appearance of this white man. Up to that very moment they had never questioned that the machine belonged to the negro, Red Cutt. When they heard that voice of command and turned their startled eyes to Gannaway, they pushed backward in their fright and scattered across the prairie like so many chickens.

Gannaway sprang lightly into the machine and started the engine. Three times in rapid succession the engine back-fired, and the sound was so similar to the explosion of a big army pistol that the negroes believed the white man was shooting at them. Then came the steady exhaust of the engine, cracking like a rapid-fire machine-gun, and every negro fell flat on his face to dodge the bullets he thought were flying all around him.

The machine went hopping awkwardly across the long level stretch of ground, and the negroes raised their heads like so many black lizards, watching to see if the white man was shooting toward them.

A moment later five hundred negroes gave utterance to an astounded “Ah!”

Of that great crowd, Vinegar Atts and Red Cutt had seen the airplane land; if Skeeter Butts was not lying, he was the third of the crowd who had seen an airplane in the air. Not one of the others had ever witnessed such a flight, and this universal exclamation emerged from their throats when they saw the machine rise from the ground like a wild goose and go sailing over the tops of the trees.

Five hundred negroes lying flat upon the ground, with their noses almost touching the dirt, put their hands on the feathers in their hats, to be sure that their insignia of office had not departed with the machine, and repeated their exclamation: “Ah!”

Suddenly the entire forest seemed to become vocal and scream in fright. Thousands of birds rose from the trees and circled round and round in the air as if they were intoxicated. The smaller birds flew from tree to tree, moving in a straight line, all going in the same direction, as they do when fleeing before a cyclone. The pigeons and hawks shot straight up in the air and then tumbled over and over as they came down, as if both wings were broken. The great eagles rose like the fighting creatures they are and threshed madly about high up in the heavens, sending their ugly snarl-like cries down to the earth, while from countless pools in the swamp every sort of water fowl rose with hoarse croaking voices and added to the aerial tumult.

To the negroes it seemed that the very skies were dropping down upon them every feathered creature God had ever made. They saw fowls of the air that they did not know existed under the heavens, and they heard bird-voices expressing fright which possibly had never been heard by human beings before.

Somewhere outside of their range of vision the airplane was still moving, for they could hear the exhaust like a steady purr in the distance. Everywhere that the machine went it caused the same excitement among the birds, so that a great multitude of these winged creatures were in terrified flight.

The terror laid hold upon the animals in the swamp, for there suddenly rose in a mighty chorus the scream of the panther and the wailing bark of the wolf and the angry, frightened roar of the bear. All the animals in the vicinity of the Little Moccasin prairie very naturally ran toward that open space; if rapid flight was necessary, any land animal could travel faster where there were no vines or stumps or trees or marshy places to hinder flight.

A drove of wild hogs, numbering several hundred, traveling with the speed and noise of an express train, and, like the exhaust of an automobile, uttering at every jump their frightened exclamation: “Whoof, whoof, whoof!” swept across that prairie, and every negro flattened himself upon the ground where he was lying and bawled aloud his supplication to the Almighty: “Dat He wouldn’t let no wild hawg step on him!” The drove of hogs passed without damage.

Then three young deer came galloping across the field, leaping over those prostrated bodies and dancing among the men, women, and children like so many pet rabbits. Behind them two panthers slung across the open space, spitting venomously at something they thought they had left in the woods.

After that something arrived upon the scene which brought every negro to his feet. Four black bears came out of the woods and lumbered over and joined the terrified negroes. The black bear of Louisiana is small and harmless. But to a negro he always looks extremely large and very ferocious. The other wild animals that had crossed the prairie seemed to have a destination, and they went on across.

When the black bears came they seemed to have arrived at the place they were going and appeared to be delighted at finding five or six hundred black folks at the same place to receive them and protect them. But the negroes sprang upon their feet with five or six hundred assorted yells of terror, and were getting ready to scatter out into the woods when a sound above their heads caused them to look up, and lo! the airplane had returned and was now three thousand feet above them.

It was the gloriously beautiful hour of sunset. The sky was clear and the air was still. In a little while the moon, which was even then visible in the sky, would shine in full effulgence, and would make an ideal night for the return of the airplane to the aviation field.

James Gannaway was feeling fine, and he showed it by giving the negroes an exhibition of stunt-flying. If he had known that the negroes did not appreciate this exhibition for what it was worth, he doubtless would have done the kindly thing and gone on his way. But when the negroes looked up in the air and saw the machine not much larger in their sight than a toy, they forgot all about the frolicking bears and were petrified by terror at the vision above them.

The machine turned upside down, then righted itself, then began to ascend in long, spiral glides; then turned upside down, and the aviator flew in that position for some moments. Again the machine righted itself and began to mount upward until it was hardly more than a tiny speck in the sky. Hovering directly above them it dived and seemed to drop with the rapidity of a falling star.

Every negro nerved himself to see the machine crash down upon the ground, when suddenly it turned and once more began its beautiful flight, up above the birds that screamed and circled and tumbled in the air like circus performers.

Vinegar Atts dropped upon his knees and lifted up two black hands in the direction of the ascending machine which now looked not much larger than a wasp and bawled aloud:

“O Lawd, ef you got any pity on dis pore nigger, jes’ keep dat machine a gwine up!”

“Keep her gwine up, Lawd!” five hundred voices wailed in a mighty chorus of endorsement.

“O Lawd, Thou hast told us dat de early bird ketches de worm. Us is pore worms of de dust! Perteck us from dat cherubim of de sky wid de hands of a man under its wings!” Vinegar whooped.

“Perteck us, Lawd; hab mussy on us wormes!” answered the frightened negroes in a mighty chorus.

“Keep dese here ole hawgs an’ bears an’ deerses offen us, too, good Lawd!” Vinegar wailed. “We don’t wanter ax too much of you-alls, but dese here is perilous times fer pore he’pless niggers!”

“Us pore niggers!” the chorus howled. “O Gawd, de birds of de air an’ de beasts of de field is sot ag’in’ us, an’ ef you don’t he’p us, we is blowed up blacks!”

“Dar won’t be nothin’ left of us but remainders!” Vinegar amended. “Some of us ain’t never axed you fer nothin’ befo’, an’ we ain’t never aimin’ to pester you agin. But we needs you now, Lawd—dis here is a groun’-hawg case!”

“A groun’-hawg—case!” the negroes wailed.

“O Lawd, she’s a gittin’ littler an’ littler!” Vinegar whooped. “She’s gwine up—gwine up—gwine up! Don’t go back on us now an’ let her drap down no more! Keep her gwine up!”

“Keep her gwine up!” the mob pleaded.

The animal noises in the swamp had ceased. The wild flight of the birds had taken them somewhere else. The airplane was a tiny speck in the sunset sky. But the mighty emotional crisis through which the negroes had passed left them raving in a delirium and acting like maniacs.

Vinegar Atts was temporarily insane. The other negroes were as crazy as bats. So, as they knelt upon the grass of the prairie, they began a mighty antiphony of Biblical quotations, Vinegar leading the vociferation with a voice which shall never be excelled in volume until the angel of time shall stand with one foot on the land and the other on the sea and swear that time shall be no longer.

“I seed a mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed wid a cloud, an’ a rainbow wus upon his head—” Vinegar roared.

“An his face wus as de sun an’ his foots wus pillars of fire!” the crowd answered.

“An’ he helt in his hand a little book—” Vinegar screamed.

“An he sot his right foot in de sea an’ his left foot on de yearth!” the mob responded.

“An’ cried wid a loud voice as when a lion roars!” Vinegar vociferated.

“An’ when he had cried seben thunders uttered deir voices!” the people whooped.

They seemed to think that all of this was efficacious in expediting the ascent of the airplane, for as long as they kept it up the machine kept climbing.

In a moment it disappeared from their sight.

“She’s gone!” they howled in a mighty chorus of relief. “Bless Gawd, she’s done went up outen our sight ferever!”

IX

A BAG OF COTTON

The negroes drew the first easy breath they had taken for several minutes.

“Praise de Lawd!” Vinegar laughed. “I’s glad I kept my good senses and didn’t git skeart!”

“Skeart!” Hitch Diamond mocked derisively. “You wus so skeart you wus squealin’ like a burnt pig!”

“I warn’t really a coward,” Vinegar said defensively. “But I wus sort of discreet. An’ I wusn’t by myself in dat—dis whole mob of niggers wus movin’ from side to side in dis here prairie like butter-beans b’ilin’ in a kittle.”

“Shore dey wus,” Hitch Diamond answered. “Dey wus skeart an’ I wus skeart an’ eve’ybody wus skeart—escusin’ you.”

“Dat ole airship is jes’ like a ole dog widout no teeth—it makes a lot of noise, but ’tain’t no harm,” Vinegar said complacently.

Suddenly, from the direction of the setting sun, a long, slanting shadow crossed the prairie like a black knife cutting through their composure and leaving them wide open to the terror which approached.

The airplane was advancing upon them, apparently just skirting the tops of the trees, and the noise of the exhaust of the engine was deafening, terrifying, nerve-racking, a sound which reminded these country negroes of nothing so much as a great forest fire in a cane-brake where the popping of the cane is like the musketry of battle. They did not know whether to run or lie down or stand still, but finally their action was universal and automatic—they tumbled over on the ground like a lot of dead geraniums in a broken pot. All of this was an experience so entirely new to them that there was no precedent; they had never been along that path before. That great motor sounded to them like disease and death, and it made enough noise to make a snail jump through a barrel-hoop.

But there is one thing every negro can do. His fright is like kerosene poured on hot coals: it goes up in vapor and goes off with a bang. When those explosive sounds began to prod the negroes like hat-pins running into their ears, they began to howl and pray, and from five or six hundred throats there arose an assorted series of yells—they sang a long scale of variegated vociferations of fright—and they uttered implorations and prayers, and made promises to the God of heaven in return for his protection, promises which they could not have remembered in sober moments, much less performed.

As the machine came nearer to them and looked like it was coming down to the ground to mow them down with its wide-spreading wings, five hundred men, women, and children flattened themselves upon the ground, uttered a farewell gasp like a fish dying in the bottom of a boat and prayed that God would remove all rotundity and make them as flat as a withered leaf to meet this emergency that was upon them.

When about one hundred feet above the ground the aviator tossed out of the machine Hitch Diamond’s bag of cotton waste. Had he known the contents of that bag he would have tossed it out a long time before. During all his stunts in the air he had held this sack of worthless cotton waste, and out of the kindness of a heart that was full of love for a woman he had returned it to the rightful owners.

The bag landed on the shoulders of Vinegar Atts. Vinegar merely spread out like a busted bag of oats and sang an up-and-down tune of assorted prayers like the howling of a hound dog. After a long time, when the exhaust of the engine sounded far away, he slowly rose up like a mouse in a trap, scared and begging on its hind legs.

“My Gawd!” he whooped. “I had a powerful good chance fer heaven dat time. I’m got more lives dan a litter of kittens!”

Then, seeing the bag of cotton waste on the ground, for some reason he got the notion that Hitch Diamond had hit him on the back with that bag. He picked it up and struck Hitch over the head with it.

Hitch cautiously raised his head and elevated his face toward the sky, his nose wrinkled up like the front of a washboard. The airplane was far away. He slowly turned his head and saw Vinegar standing beside him with a bag of cotton waste in his hand. His eyes stuck out like the buttons on an overcoat, and he rose from the ground and started for Vinegar with a bellow of rage which had made him famous in the pugilistic ring in the South.

As if in answer to a signal every negro rose from the ground and started a free-for-all fight, a rough-and-tumble affair which is the delight of the darky and generally does no great harm. Men and women pushed and pounded at each other, and grunted, and slapped faces, and wrestled, bouncing chunks of wood off of each other’s heads and going after each other’s skin like they were working by the job and wanted to get it all off right away.

Then a few not participating in the scrap glanced up and pointed, exclaiming: “Look! Look dar!”

Far up in the sunset sky, getting smaller and smaller as it climbed, the beautiful airplane passed into the purple and gold shadows of the closing day and disappeared from their sight.

There was an awed silence which was broken after a moment by the snarling voice of Pap: “Whar is dat Red Cutt gone at?”

“He’s done gone!” dozens of voices answered.

“Did he hab our money on him?”

“Yep, he tuck it all!” Vinegar howled.

“I said I’d make dat nigger fly!” Pap exclaimed. “An’ now he has done flew!”

“De way he flew is de only way he could fly,” Skeeter Butts laughed. “I’m satisfied in my mind dat nigger didn’t know any more about a airship dan a dog knows about a white shirt. And now he’s done run off wid my dollar.”

“I don’t keer,” Vinegar said. “I done got my dollar’s wuth of fun outen dat machine, an’ I expeck I’d better be gittin’ back to town. I’m got to preach at de Shoofly church to-night.”

In the fight which had occurred the bag of cotton which the aviator had dropped from his machine had been torn to pieces and the cotton scattered all over the prairie. A number of negro boys amused themselves by throwing the wads of cotton at each other and at their elders. One negro boy picked up a wad and hurled it at the fat stomach of the Rev. Vinegar Atts.

Vinegar doubled up with a yell of pain, and then stooped and picked up something.

It was a buckskin bag, which Vinegar had last seen in the possession of Red Cutt.

“My Gawd!” Hitch Diamond bellowed. “Ain’t dat our bag of money?”

With trembling fingers Vinegar untied the buckskin bag and drew out a large number of soiled bills. There was a shout of delight which James Gannaway could have heard fifteen thousand feet in the air.

“When dat nigger, Red Cutt, climbed up into dat machine, he hid dat money in my sack of cotton,” Hitch howled, “an’ now we done get it all back. Bless Gawd!”

So it was a happy band which moved slowly back to Tickfall. Vinegar Atts forgetting all about his automobile walked back to town with the others. He improvised a song on the way which he taught his fellow pilgrims. The chorus, repeated many times, was this:

When they had sung the chorus for about the first time there was great excitement in Tickfall, four miles away.

The first army airplane ever seen in that neighborhood flew over the town, and every man, woman, and child was looking at it. The aviator gave an exhibition of stunt flying. First, a series of loops, then tail slides, then what he would have called a “stall,” a maneuver in which the machine was brought to a dead stop after reaching the apex of an upward curve. Then he did side slides and nose dives. It was wonderful to the people of Tickfall to see the number of evolutions that pilot put his machine through.

There were all kinds of funny stunts, and that machine cut all sorts of queer figures like a playful kitten of the clouds.

The people of Tickfall thought that he was doing all of that for them—but they were greatly mistaken.

Everything James Gannaway did was a message telling a certain girl that all was well with him, that he would return to the aviation camp with his own beautiful lie and her beautiful truth, and that he anticipated no trouble before him. Most of all, it was a message of passionate love to that same girl, who now sat alone in her buggy on a sandy road and looked up at the airplane with eyes that filled with tears and glowed with love like stars.