The Forged Note Part 26

I was sitting at the head holding the lamp, and getting the cuts. At least fifteen dollars was in the betting, when, on hearing a slight noise to my back like some one creeping, I looked around--and, man! The room was full of bulls with dark lanterns, which they at that moment flashed upon us!

"I didn't know what to do for a moment. 'Up with yu' hands, n.i.g.g.e.rs!'

they cried. All the s.h.i.+nes looked then into the barrels of a bunch a-guns. 'Don't try no monkey business there, you big n.i.g.g.e.r,' the sargent cried, as he observed me s.h.i.+fting about. All the time, though, I was edging toward a place I knew none ov'm didn't see. Suddenly, I drops the lamp, and there is some tall cussin'. A little pup--I think he was a sup'--put a star on the back of my head"--he turned and Wyeth saw it.

"I staggered about now like I was knocked out. They were all over us now, a-hand cuffin' the n.i.g.g.a's like a lot of cattle with halters. By this time I see's my way clear t' make this break. One sucker spots me and cries: 'Look out! That big n.i.g.g.a!' But they were too late. I had my hand on the k.n.o.b of a door that none ov'm have seen; and, swinging it open quickly, I ducked out. As I did so, one of the bulls takes a shot at me, but missed. He was determined to have me, though, if possible, so he comes after me in a hurry. That's where I am wise and he wasn't.

There is a fence a few feet from the door, that he didn't see. Out he came after me in a blind fury, and, 'bing!' He ran full into the fence, and knocked the wind out of himself. I saw my chance. I was mad and scared now, too; so I rushed upon him while he was staggering about and 'bingo!' I landed on him, and knocked him cold. Then I 'beat' it. I had his gun and club and 'peeper,' and I flew. Out the back way I went like a race horse. In the rear, two or three bulls were a-workin' over this bull that I done knocked stiff. I entered the alley, and ran until I reached Bell street. An onry bunch of dogs kept barking away at me as I hurried along, and kept me scared, because I's afraid I'd be located by other bulls. I ran down one, a little pug-nosed bull. He was game and tried to bite. I reached down and got'm by the head, whirled him over my shoulder three or four times, and when I turned him loose, he landed beside a second story window, and fell to the ground a dead dog, I didn't try to see. I then began to jump fences. I bet I jumped a dozen fences, and then got hung on the last one, which held my s.h.i.+rt. I fell off at last, and liked to have bust open. My face was bleeding, and my head, while my s.h.i.+rt was soaked. I looked like the devil. I at last tore off the s.h.i.+rt, and tried to tie up my head, then went to my brother-in-law's."

"Gee!" exclaimed Sidney, "but you certainly had some experience!"

"Aw, man, I done some runnin', believe me!" he declared, and looked grim.

"They had plenty a-liquah--the bootlegs, too--, so's soon's I's cleaned up with my head bathed and a clean s.h.i.+rt, I took a few drinks, and went to bed, feeling all right.

"I laid around town hid away, until he could slip me my clothes and a few dollars. So I happened to know this porter, and arranged to come over tonight, and here I am," and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"How did those they arrested come out, and how come the cops to be next to your little game?" Wyeth inquired, casually.

"Oh, yes," cried Legs. "I forget to tell you that part of it. You see, there was a guy in the crowd--or had been, rather, whose wife didn't want him to gamble. Now he came down there and lost what little he had, and went home drunk. His wife, of course, learned that he had lost his money, and got sore. He was a d.a.m.ned tramp, and told her the whole story, with tears, perhaps, and you know a n.i.g.g.a with tears, so she went and put the cops next.

"Now 'bout them other s.h.i.+nes--the ones who got arrested--they came before Judge Loyal's the next morning, and got ten seventy-five each."

"I thought it was fifteen seventy-five for gaming."

"They were let off lighter, owing to the fact that I was not brought. If they'd a caught me, it would have been fifteen seventy-five for them, and about a hundred for me."

Wyeth laughed amusedly.

"You don't gamble or drink liquah, either, do you?" he asked, and then answered his own question. "No, I know you don't. You're lucky for using such common sense. It doesn't pay, even if four n.i.g.g.a's out-a five do.

Yeh," he went on wearily, "only the straight and narrow path leads to happiness in the long run," and with that he turned on his side, and went to sleep.

"Say," he cried suddenly, raising up, "what did you pay?" Then looked around quickly to see if he had been overheard.

"Two and a half," the other replied. "How much did you?"

Legs held up two fingers. "I told'm 't'was all I had, and I didn't have but a precious little more."

"Are you acquainted with any one in Chicago?" Wyeth inquired.

"Aw, yeh, a plenty; but I am not going on through now. I'm going to stop in Effingham for a while, it depends."

"h.e.l.lo, Red," cried young Hatfield, coming up now, rubbing his half closed eyes. "I see you got out all right."

"Say, man!" cried Legs. "Didn't I get out of that thing in luck?"

"Bet your life on that you did," commented Hatfield. "If they'd have gotten you, the devil would have been to pay." He laughed a low, hard laugh, and then added: "Those church people have had their eyes on your place for some time, and the chances are if you had been caught, they'd have appeared against you."

"They certainly put old Jack Bell out of business proper," Legs commented, thoughtfully. "That old n.i.g.g.a conducted such a rotten dump and tiger, though; and all those dirty little girls around on top of it, I don't wonder."

"Wonder whether he had any money left when they got through with him?"

Hatfield inquired.

"Hard to tell," said Legs. "They fined him out of hundreds, that I _do_ know."

By this time, the train was entering the city. From the car could be seen an incomplete ma.s.s of varied buildings, little shacks that faced alleys, and at the front of which played dozens of little unbleached pickaninnies. Wyeth viewed the city as the train crept slowly along, and his impression did not agree with what he had gathered from reading of it. It was not, he felt positive, the city Attalia was, although claiming almost an equal number of people.

"You see those two brick cupola's extending into the air?" he heard Hatfield saying. "That's a Negro Baptist church." He was mistaken, however, for the same proved to be the large, new station, the pride of the city.

Soon the train rolled into this, and a few minutes later, they stood in the waiting room.

"It's going to cost like the d.i.c.kens to get all these grips of your hauled," said Hatfield, with a frown.

"Only had to pay thirty-five cents to get them to the depot in Attalia."

He walked to the lower end of the platform, and began a series of inquiries relative to the hauling of the same. He soon came upon an express man, who agreed to unload them for fifty cents, at where-ever they found a room.

The three walked down a level street, paved with brick. On either side a lot of houses appeared behind a row of trees, dense with foliage. It was a calm, soft morning, and the sun, red and glorious, was just peeping out of the east. The street they followed led from the depot into the business section. Perhaps eight blocks ahead of them, several buildings of extraordinary height, stood outlined far above those about them.

Wyeth counted the windows of two, and found them to total sixteen.

"There are two or three buildings here higher than any in Attalia," said Hatfield, following his gaze. "I think the ones you have been noticing, are twenty-five stories high."

The other whistled. "That's going some!"

Soon they were well into the business section. "Let's go by and look at that hotel they have just completed and opened," suggested Legs; for, just then, a little to the right, the outline of that beautiful structure arose. It was a grand affair, to say the least, and stood as a monument to the enterprise of the populace. It was claimed, by them, to be the swellest in the south.

"I think I can get on there after a bit," said Legs. "I'm a head waiter by trade, but I haven't done any hotel work for some little time now."

"I hear they brought all the waiters from the north," said Hatfield.

"Well," said Legs, "I'll _be_ from the north when the time comes, so I can make a fit if there is an opening."

"You'll pa.s.s, Red," laughed Hatfield, as they walked onward now in a different direction.

As Wyeth saw Effingham, he observed that it lay very differently from Attalia. It had been built up recently, so to speak, and had, therefore, broad, s.p.a.cious streets, unusually so, he thought, as he now found himself in the heart of the business district. Perhaps they may have seemed wider, because he had become accustomed to the narrow highways of Attalia. In addition to the wide streets, the sidewalks stretched back from the buildings they fronted, from twelve to twenty feet, giving pedestrians plenty of room to walk unconcernedly along. As they continued on their way, he further observed that the business section covered an unusually large area, and it was hard to tell which might be called the main street. As the street cars clanged by him, he noticed another feature, also. The position occupied by the Negro pa.s.sengers.

They entered and left the car from the front instead of from the rear, as was the custom in Attalia.

"Negroes do lots of business in this town," said Hatfield, as they came abreast of a large, new building, that reached five stories into the air. "This, now," said he, pausing and surveying the structure, "is the Dime Savings Bank building." Wyeth, having read much about the bank, observed the building carefully. To one side, through the street door, there was no entry, or, rather, the small entry was to one side of the building, and not in the middle, and one elevator was in operation.

Straight back from where they stood, the open doors of the bank (which the janitor was now sweeping) revealed the inside of the inst.i.tution.

A few hours later, their wanderings brought them back again before the bank, which they entered. It proved to be a busy place, and at that hour, was filled with black people, depositing and withdrawing money, and attending to other business in connection therewith. He observed, in the first glance, that the furnis.h.i.+ng was elegant. Behind the first desk, enclosed by an oak office fence, sat a black man, the cas.h.i.+er he thought, since the insignia was plated conspicuously before him. And still to the left of him, behind a grating with the insignia of _Collections_ before it, was another man, and he was blacker still. And then, in the next cage, over which was labeled boldly, _Receiving Teller_, worked still another black man. He was younger, and he worked rapidly, counting the money that was continually being thrust to him.

There was another cage to the right of him, and this was marked _Paying_. Behind this worked another black man, young and intelligent, and seeming perfectly efficient, as had the others. In the rear, working over books, he saw the first mulatto. Another, brown-skinned this time, worked near him, and these made up the active members of the bank. No blue veins held sway here. It was truly a black man's bank. It was, as he had long since learned, the largest in the country conducted by black people, and the footing exceeded a half million by almost a hundred thousand dollars.

Young Hatfield, who was a student in one of the colleges of Attalia, had been to the city before, was well acquainted, and pointed out the many places of interest, and, in particular, those conducted by black people.

"The president of this bank, Dr. Jerauld," he explained, "is in failing health, and is subst.i.tuted by the vice, Dr. Dearford."

"I see," acknowledged the other. "So the president, then, is a physician."

"No," corrected the other, "a minister."

Wyeth recalled now, that "Reverend" or "Elder" was almost a thing of the past among Negro preachers. They were all called, and called themselves "doctors." But he did not then realize to what extent this t.i.tle was usurped. Beyond the instant of medicine and dentistry, he had noted that "doctor" was an honorary term, conferred upon men who had done something notable in the evolution of mankind; but he was soon to learn that the t.i.tle had become a fetish with his people, sought after and preempted by any and everyone without even the remotest right to claim it.