“Bad luck, Skeeter!” Little Bit panted. “I ain’t know whut kind of nigger bizziness dis is, but you-alls is got yo’selfs in a jam.”
“I answered de telerphome,” Little Bit gasped.
“Whut did it say?” Skeeter asked desperately.
“It say—it say—de gal at de telerphome orfice say she listened in when Dazzle phomed to you, an’ dat she has called all de white folks in Tickfall up an’ tole ’em dat Marse Tom’s house wus being robbed!”
Thereupon Hopey Prophet walked to the electric-light switch and turned out every light. There are those who love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.
“Listen!” Pap exclaimed tragically. “I kin hear dem white folks comin’ now!”
Indeed, it was not difficult to hear the sound of running feet. A moment later could be heard the galloping feet of horses. Then automobile lights began to whip the darkness as they turned the corners at high speed and roared like speeding beasts as they came up the long hill. Then, in the darkness, a great light fell on Skeeter.
“Us niggers oughtn’t to be here when de white folks come,” he wailed. “Ef dey ketch us in here, dey’ll put us in jail. Ef dey see us leavin’, dey’ll shoot us!”
“Easy, eve’ybody!” Pap Curtain hissed as he opened the front door. “Git still!”
Then a low sigh of disappointment escaped from every throat. The front lawn was all aquiver with the dark shadows of moving men!
“Good-by, fair world!” Figger Bush whimpered. “Us is caught like a bug in a jug.”
“Shut up!” Pap Curtain snarled. “Whar kin we hide?”
“Git up on de roof!” Skeeter Butts suggested. “Dar’s a ladder in de attic, an’ we kin climb through a trap-door to de roof.”
Eight negroes went shuffling up the steps toward the top of the house just as the clatter of feet sounded upon the porch, and the front door was pushed open.
Four perspiring negroes boosted Hopey up the ladder, and pushed her capacious form through the narrow square opening to the roof. Then they cautiously lowered the door and gratefully seated themselves upon it.
Alas! He did not know that the door he was sitting on had a catch-lock on the inside, and that he and his friends were on that roof to stay until rescued!
From their observatory upon the roof, our friends beheld a mob of men surround the house and cautiously inspect all the lawn, the outhouses, and the land surrounding. Half a dozen men under the direction of Sheriff Flournoy searched the house, lighting up every room, looking in every closet, examining every corner, and peering under every bed.