Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

by Zora Neale Hurston

  During the sugar-cane season, he found he couldn’t resist Clarke’s soft green cane, but Clarke did not go to sleep this time. So after he had cut six or eight stalks by the moonlight, Clarke rose up out of the cane strippings with his shotgun and made Coon sit right down and chew up the last one of them on the spot. And the next day he made Coon leave his town for three months.

  VII

  VILLAGE FICTION

  Joe Lindsay is said by Lum Boger to be the largest manufacturer of prevarications in Eatonville; Brazzle (late owner of the world’s leanest and meanest mule) contends that his business is the largest in the state and his wife holds that he is the biggest liar in the world.

  Exhibit A—He claims that while he was in Orlando one day he saw a doctor cut open a woman, remove everything—liver, lights and heart included—clean each of them separately; the doctor then washed out the empty woman, dried her out neatly with a towel and replaced the organs so expertly that she was up and about her work in a couple of weeks.

  VIII

  Sewell is a man who lives all to himself. He moves a great deal. So often, that ’Lige Moseley says his chickens are so used to moving that every time he comes out into his backyard the chickens lie down and cross their legs, ready to be tied up again.

  He is baldheaded; but he says he doesn’t mind that, because he wants as little as possible between him and God.

  IX

  Mrs. Clarke is Joe Clarke’s wife. She is a soft-looking, middle-aged woman, whose bust and stomach are always holding a get-together.

  She waits on the store sometimes and cries every time he yells at her which he does every time she makes a mistake, which is quite often. She calls her husband “Jody.” They say he used to beat her in the store when he was a young man, but he is not so impatient now. He can wait until he goes home.

  She shouts in Church every Sunday and shakes the hand of fellowship with everybody in the Church with her eyes closed, but somehow always misses her husband.

  X

  Mrs. McDuffy goes to Church every Sunday and always shouts and tells her “determination.” Her husband always sits in the back row and beats her as soon as they get home. He says there’s no sense in her shouting, as big a devil as she is. She just does it to slur him. Elijah Moseley asked her why she didn’t stop shouting, seeing she always got a beating out about it. She says she can’t “squinch the sperrit.” Then Elijah asked Mr. McDuffy to stop beating her, seeing that she was going to shout anyway. He answered that she just did it for spite and that his fist was just as hard as her head. He could last just as long as she. So the village let the matter rest.

  XI

  DOUBLE-SHUFFLE

  Back in the good old days before the World War, things were very simple in Eatonville. People didn’t fox-trot. When the town wanted to put on its Sunday clothes and wash behind the ears, it put on a “breakdown.” The daring younger set would two-step and waltz, but the good church members and the elders stuck to the grand march. By rural canons dancing is wicked, but one is not held to have danced until the feet have been crossed. Feet don’t get crossed when one grand marches.

  At elaborate affairs the organ from the Methodist church was moved up to the hall and Lizzimore, the blind man, presided. When informal gatherings were held, he merely played his guitar assisted by any volunteer with mouth organs or accordions.

  Among white people the march is as mild as if it had been passed on by Volstead. But it still has a kick in Eatonville. Everybody happy, shining eyes, gleaming teeth. Feet dragged ’shhlap, shhlap! to beat out the time. No orchestra needed. Round and round! Back again, parse-me-la! shlap! shlap! Strut! Strut! Seaboard! Shlap! Shlap! Tiddy bumm! Mr. Clarke in the lead with Mrs. Mosely.

  It’s too much for some of the young folks. Double shuffling commences. Buck and wing. Lizzimore about to break his guitar. Accordion doing contortions. People fall back against the walls, and let the soloist have it, shouting as they clap the old, old double shuffle songs.

  “Me an’ mah honey got two mo’ days

  Two mo’ days tuh do de buck”

  Sweating bodies, laughing mouths, grotesque faces, feet drumming fiercely. Deacons clapping as hard as the rest.

  “Great big nigger, black as tar

  Trying tuh git tuh hebben on uh ’lectric car.”

  “Some love cabbage, some love kale

  But I love a gal wid a short skirt tail.”

  “Long tall angel—steppin’ down.

  Long white robe an’ starry crown.”

  “’Ah would not marry uh black gal (bumm bumm!)

  Tell yuh de reason why

  Every time she comb her hair

  She make de goo-goo eye.

  Would you not marry a yaller gal (bumm bumm!)

  Tell yuh de reason why

  Her neck so long an’ stringy

  Ahm ’fraid she’d never die.

  Would you not marry uh preacher

  Tell yuh de reason why

  Every time he comes tuh town

  He makes de chicken fly.”

  When the buck dance was over, the boys would give the floor to the girls and they would parse-me-la with a sly eye out of the corner to see if anybody was looking who might “have them up in church” on conference night. Then there would be more dancing. Then Mr. Clarke would call for everybody’s best attention and announce that ’freshments was served! Every gent’man would please take his lady by the arm and scorch her right up to de table fur a treat!

  Then the men would stick their arms out with a flourish and ask their ladies: “You lak chicken? Well, then, take a wing.” And the ladies would take the proffered “wings” and parade up to the long table and be served. Of course most of them had brought baskets in which were heaps of jointed and fried chicken, two or three kinds of pies, cakes, potato pone and chicken purlo. The hall would separate into happy groups about the baskets until time for more dancing.

  But the boys and girls got scattered about during the war, and now they dance the fox-trot by a brand new piano. They do waltz and two-step still, but no one now considers it good form to lock his chin over his partner’s shoulder and stick out behind. One night just for fun and to humor the old folks, they danced, that is, they grand marched, but everyone picked up their feet. Bah!!

  XII

  THE HEAD OF THE NAIL

  Daisy Taylor was the town vamp. Not that she was pretty. But sirens were all but non-existent in the town. Perhaps she was forced to it by circumstances. She was quite dark, with little brushy patches of hair squatting over her head. These were held down by shingle-nails often. No one knows whether she did this for artistic effect or for lack of hair-pins, but there they were shining in the little patches of hair when she got all dressed for the afternoon and came up to Clarke’s store to see if there was any mail for her.

  It was seldom that anyone wrote to Daisy, but she knew that the men of the town would be assembled there by five o’clock, and some one could usually be induced to buy her some soda-water or peanuts.

  Daisy flirted with married men. There were only two single men in town. Lum Boger, who was engaged to the assistant school-teacher, and Hiram Lester, who had been off to school at Tuskegee and wouldn’t look at a person like Daisy. In addition to other drawbacks, she was pigeon-toed and her petticoat was always showing so perhaps he was justified. There was nothing else to do except flirt with married men.

  This went on for a long time. First one wife then another complained of her, or drove her from the preserves by threat.

  But the affair with Crooms was the most prolonged and serious. He was even known to have bought her a pair of shoes.

  Mrs. Laura Crooms was a meek little woman who took all of her troubles crying, and talked a great deal of leaving things in the hands of God.

  The affair came to a head one night in orange picking time. Crooms was over at Oneido picking oranges. Many fruit pickers move from one town to the other during the season.

  The town was collected
at the store-postoffice as is customary on Saturday nights. The town has had its bath and with its week’s pay in pocket fares forth to be merry. The men tell stories and treat the ladies to soda-water, peanuts and peppermint candy.

  Daisy was trying to get treats, but the porch was cold to her that night.

  “Ah don’t keer if you don’t treat me. What’s a dirty lil nickel?” She flung this at Walter Thomas. “The ever-loving Mister Crooms will gimme anything atall Ah wants.”

  “You better shet up yo’ mouf talking ’bout Albert Crooms. Heah his wife comes right now.”

  Daisy went akimbo. “Who? Me! Ah don’t keer whut Laura Crooms think. If she ain’t a heavy hip-ted Mama enough to keep him, she don’t need to come crying to me.”

  She stood making goo-goo eyes as Mrs. Crooms walked upon the porch. Daisy laughed loud, made several references to Albert Crooms, and when she saw the mail-bag come in from Maitland she said, “Ah better go in an’ see if Ah ain’t got a letter from Oneido.”

  The more Daisy played the game of getting Mrs. Crooms’ goat, the better she liked it. She ran in and out of the store laughing until she could scarcely stand. Some of the people present began to talk to Mrs. Crooms—to egg her on to halt Daisy’s boasting, but she was for leaving it all in the hands of God. Walter Thomas kept on after Mrs. Crooms until she stiffened and resolved to fight. Daisy was inside when she came to this resolve and never dreamed anything of the kind could happen. She had gotten hold of an envelope and came laughing and shouting, “Oh, Ah can’t stand to see Oneido lose!”

  There was a box of ax-handles on display on the porch, propped up against the door jamb. As Daisy stepped upon the porch, Mrs. Crooms leaned the heavy end of one of those handles heavily upon her head. She staggered from the porch to the ground and the timid Laura, fearful of a counter-attack, struck her again and Daisy toppled into the town ditch. There was not enough water in there to do more than muss her up. Every time she tried to rise, down would come that ax-handle again. Laura was fighting a sacred fight. With Daisy thoroughly licked, she retired to the store porch and left her fallen enemy in the ditch. None of the men helped Daisy—even to get out of the ditch. But Elijah Moseley, who was some distance down the street when the trouble began, arrived as the victor was withdrawing. He rushed up and picked Daisy out of the mud and began feeling her head.

  “Is she hurt much?” Joe Clarke asked from the doorway.

  “I don’t know,” Elijah answered. “I was just looking to see if Laura had been lucky enough to hit one of those nails on the head and drive it in.”

  Before a week was up, Daisy moved to Orlando. There in a wider sphere, perhaps, her talents as a vamp were appreciated.

  XIII

  PANTS AND CAL’LINE

  Sister Cal’line Potts was a silent woman. Did all of her laughing down inside, but did the thing that kept the town in an uproar of laughter. It was the general opinion of the village that Cal’line would do anything she had a mind to. And she had a mind to do several things.

  Mitchell Potts, her husband, had a weakness for women. No one ever believed that she was jealous. She did things to the women, surely. But most any townsman would have said that she did them because she liked the novel situation and the queer things she could bring out of it.

  Once he took up with Delphine—called Mis’ Pheeny by the town. She lived on the outskirts on the edge of the piney woods. The town winked and talked. People don’t make secrets of such things in the village. Cal’line went about her business with her thin black lips pursed tight as ever, and her shiny black eyes unchanged.

  “Dat devil of a Cal’line’s got somethin’ up her sleeve!” The town smiled in anticipation.

  “Delphine is too big a cigar for her to smoke. She ain’t crazy,” said some as the weeks went on and nothing happened. Even Pheeny herself would give an extra flirt to her over-starched petticoats as she rustled into church past her of Sundays.

  Mitch Potts said furthermore, that he was tired of Cal’line’s foolishness. She had to stay where he put her. His African soup-bone (arm) was too strong to let a woman run over him. ’Nough was ’nough. And he did some fancy cussing, and he was the fanciest cusser in the county.

  So the town waited and the longer it waited, the odds changed slowly from the wife to the husband.

  One Saturday, Mitch knocked off work at two o’clock and went over to Maitland. He came back with a rectangular box under his arm and kept straight on out to the barn and put it away. He ducked around the corner of the house quickly, but even so, his wife glimpsed the package. Very much like a shoe-box. So!

  He put on the kettle and took a bath. She stood in her bare feet at the ironing board and kept on ironing. He dressed. It was about five o’clock but still very light. He fiddled around outside. She kept on with her ironing. As soon as the sun got red, he sauntered out to the barn, got the parcel and walked away down the road, past the store and into the piney woods. As soon as he left the house, Cal’line slipped on her shoes without taking time to don stockings, put on one of her husband’s old Stetsons, worn and floppy, slung the axe over her shoulder and followed in his wake. He was hailed cheerily as he passed the sitters on the store porch and answered smiling sheepishly and passed on. Two minutes later passed his wife, silently, unsmilingly, and set the porch to giggling and betting.

  An hour passed perhaps. It was dark. Clarke had long ago lighted the swinging kerosene lamp inside.

  [XIV]

  Once ’way back yonder before the stars fell all the animals used to talk just like people. In them days dogs and rabbits was the best of friends—even tho both of them was stuck on the same gal—which was Miss Nancy Coon. She had the sweetest smile and the prettiest striped and bushy tail to be found anywhere.

  They both run their legs nigh off trying to win her for themselves—fetching nice ripe persimmons and such. But she never give one or the other no satisfaction.

  Finally one night Mr. Dog popped the question right out. “Miss Coon,” he says, “Ma’am, also Ma’am, which would you ruther be—a lark flyin’ or a dove a settin’?”

  Course Miss Nancy blushed and laughed a little and hid her face behind her bushy tail for a spell. Then she said sorter shy like, “I does love yo’ sweet voice, brother dawg—but—but I ain’t jes’ exactly set in my mind yit.”

  Her and Mr. Dog set on a spell, when up comes hopping Mr. Rabbit wid his tail fresh washed and his whiskers shining. He got right down to business and asked Miss Coon to marry him, too.

  “Oh, Miss Nancy,” he says, “Ma’am, also Ma’am, if you’d see me settin’ straddle of a mud-cut leadin’ a minnow, what would you think? Ma’am also Ma’am?” which is a out and out proposal as everybody knows.

  “Youse awful nice, Brother Rabbit and a beautiful dancer, but you cannot sing like Brother Dog. Both you uns come back next week to gimme time for to decide.”

  They both left arm-in-arm. Finally Mr. Rabbit says to Mr. Dog, “Taint no use in me going back—she ain’t gwinter have me. So I mought as well give up. She loves singing, and I ain’t got nothing but a squeak.”

  “Oh, don’t talk that a’ way,” says Mr. Dog, tho’ he is glad Mr. Rabbit can’t sing none.

  “Thass all right, Brer Dog. But if I had a sweet voice like you got, I’d have it worked on and make it sweeter.”

  “How! How! How!” Mr. Dog cried, jumping up and down.

  “Lemme fix it for you, like I do for Sister Lark and Sister Mocking-bird.”

  “When? Where?” asked Mr. Dog, all excited. He was figuring that if he could sing just a little better Miss Coon would be bound to have him.

  “Just you meet me t’morrer in de huckleberry patch,” says the rabbit and off they both goes to bed.

  The dog is there on time next day and after a while the rabbit comes loping up.

  “Mawnin’, Brer Dawg,” he says kinder chippy like. “Ready to git yo’ voice sweetened?”

  “Sholy, sholy, Brer Rabbit. Let’s we all hurry about it
. I wants tuh serenade Miss Nancy from de piney woods tuh night.”

  “Well, den, open yo’ mouf and poke out yo’ tongue,” says the rabbit.

  No sooner did Mr. Dog poke out his tongue than Mr. Rabbit split it with a knife and ran for all he was worth to a hollow stump and hid hisself.

  The dog has been mad at the rabbit ever since.

  Anybody who don’t believe it happened, just look at the dog’s tongue and he can see for himself where the rabbit slit it right up the middle.

  STEPPED ON A TIN, MAH STORY ENDS.

  Book of Harlem

  1. A pestilence visiteth the land of Hokum, and the people cry out. 4. Toothsome, a son of Georgia, returns from Babylon, and stirreth up the Hamites. 10. Mandolin heareth him and resolveth to see Babylon. 11. He convinceth his father and departs for Babylon. 21. A red-cap toteth his bag, and utterth blasphemy against Mandolin. 26. He lodgeth with Toothsome, and trieth to make the females of Harlem, but is scorned by them. 28. One frail biddeth him sit upon a tack. 29. He taketh council with Toothsome and is comforted. 33. He goeth to an hall of dancing, and meeting a damsel there, shaketh vehemently with her. 42. He discloseth himself to her and she telleth him what to read. 46. He becometh Panic, and quoteth poetry. 51. Toothsome cometh to him with a question, and is satisfied.

  And in those days when King Volstead sat upon the throne in Hokum, then came a mighty drought upon his land, and many cried out in agony thereof.