Part 67 (1/2)

He ran his fingers lightly over the strings and the men threw down their dirty packs of cards and crowded around John's tent. Julius only sang one line at a time and picked his banjo between them to a low wailing sound of his own invention:

”O! far' you well, my Mary Ann; Far' you well, my dear!

I've no one left to love me now And little do I care----”

He paused between the stanzas and picked his banjo to a few prose interpolations of his own.

”Dat's what I'm a tellin' ye now, folks--little do I care!”

He knew his master had been crossed in love and he rolled his eyes and nodded his woolly head in triumphant approval. John smiled wanly as he drifted slowly into his next stanza.

”An' ef I had a scoldin' wife I'd whip her sho's yer born, I'd take her down to New Orleans An' trade her off fer corn----”

Julius stopped with a sudden snap and whispered to John:

”Lordy, sah, I clean fergit 'bout dat meetin' at de cullud folks'

church, sah, dat dey start up. I promise de preacher ter fetch you, sah--An' ef we gwine ter march ter-morrow, dis here's de las' night sho----”

The concert was adjourned to the log house which an old colored preacher had converted into a church. It was filled to its capacity and John stood in the doorway and heard the most remarkable sermon to which he had ever listened.

The grey-haired old negro was tremendously in earnest. He could neither read nor write but he opened the Bible to comply with the formalities of the occasion and pretended to read his text. He had taken it from his master who was a clergyman. Ephraim invariably chose the same texts but gave his people his own interpretation. It never failed in some element of originality.

The text his master had evidently chosen last were the words:

”And he healeth them of divers diseases.”

Old Ephraim's version was a free one. From the open Bible he solemnly read:

”An' he healed 'em of all sorts o' diseases an' even er dat wust o'

complaints called de Divers!”

He plunged straight into a fervent exhortation to sinners to flee from the Divers.

”I'm gwine ter tell ye now, chillun,” he exclaimed with uplifted arms, ”ye don't know nuttin' 'bout no terrible diseases till dat wust er all called de Divers git ye! An' hit's a comin' I tell ye. Hit's gwine ter git ye, too. Ye can flee ter the mountain top, an' hit'll dive right up froo de air an' git ye dar. Ye kin go down inter de bowels er de yearth an' hit'll dive right down dar atter ye. Ye kin take de wings er de mornin' an' fly ter de ends er de yearth--an' de Divers is dar. Dey kin dive anywhar!

”An' what ye gwine ter do when dey git ye? I axe ye dat now? What ye gwine ter do when hit's forever an' eternally too late? Dese doctors roun' here kin cure ye o' de whoopin'-cough--mebbe--I hain't nebber seed 'em eben do dat--but I say, mebbe. Dey kin cure ye o' de measles, mebbe.

Er de plumbago or de typhoid er de yaller fever sometimes. But I warns ye now ter flee de wrath dat's ter come when dem Divers git ye! Dey ain't no doctor no good fer dat nowhar--exceptin' ye come ter de Lord.

For He heal 'em er all sorts er diseases an' de wust er all de complaints called de Divers!

”Come, humble sinners, in whose breast er thousand thoughts revolve!”

John Vaughan turned away with a smile and a tear.

”In G.o.d's name,” he murmured thoughtfully, ”what's to become of these four million black children of the tropic jungles if we win now and set them free! Their fathers and mothers were but yesterday eating human flesh in naked savagery.”

He walked slowly back to his tent through the solemn starlit night. The new moon, a silver thread, hung over the tree tops. He thought of that dusky grey-haired child of four thousand years of ignorance and helplessness and the tragic role he had played in the history of our people. And for the first time faced the question of the still more tragic role he might play in the future.

”I'm fighting to free him and the millions like him,” he mused. ”What am I going to do with him?”

The longer he thought the blacker and more insoluble became this question, and yet he was going into battle to-morrow to fight his own brother to the death on this issue. True the problem of national existence was at stake, but this black problem of the possible degradation of our racial stock and our national character still lay back of it unsolved and possibly insoluble.