“Whut you coons doin’ here?” Vinegar Atts demanded of a bunch of them.
“Us come in whar de dorctors kin git to us easy,” one of them answered nervously. “Word wus sont dat all de niggers is about to die!”
“Dat’s right!” Vinegar bellowed. “But whut sort of sight will you coons be when you is dead--mud all over yo’ britches an’ no socks on? Git busy and clean up! Go down to de bayou an’ take a wash--buy you a clean shu’t an’ some socks--git ready to die!”
Skeeter Butts sat alone in the Hen-Scratch saloon. He was the only idler in Tickfall, a compulsory idler, for the reform had put him out of business. The sound of the fiddle and the banjo was heard no more. Laughter and shouting had ceased. Not a negro entered his barroom, and most of his regular customers passed on the other side of the street. Skeeter sat in front of his saloon all day in mournful and fearful loneliness.
Then, just at dark, he had the surprise of his life.
Three men came up the street and stopped, talked for a moment in low tones, then entered the saloon on tiptoe and came to where Skeeter was sitting behind the bar.
“Us is a cormittee to wait on you, Skeeter,” Vinegar Atts said in funereal tones.
“Whut is I done?” Skeeter asked in a frightened voice.
“’Tain’t whut you done; it’s whut you ain’t done,” Vinegar informed him. “You done showed yo’se’f de one sinner in Tickfall.”
Vinegar Atts produced the paper on which he had written the “Rules of Reform” in that very room the day before. He handed the paper to Skeeter.
“Whut do de fust rule say, Skeeter?” he demanded.
Vinegar Atts placed a heavy hand upon the shoulder of the barkeeper and bawled:
“What is you done fer a livin’ to-day, nigger?”
“Nothin’,” Skeeter stammered. “I--it ’pears like you-all is done put me outside of a job. I ain’t had no customers to-day.”
“You been loafin’,” Hitch Diamond proclaimed in a pugnacious voice. “How does you especk to git to heaven when you die? Don’t you know de ancestors will get you befo’ mawnin’?”
“Less don’t gib de ancestors no show at him,” Figger Bush squealed. Figger was covered with whitewash, had done his first day’s work for years, and was feeling righteous. “Less hang him to a tree an’ larn him a lesson!”
“Hol’ on, fellers!” Skeeter begged earnestly. “I didn’t ketch on ’bout dis rule. I figgered dat a nigger whut had a job oughter stay on it. De Tickfall niggers all j’ined de refawm, but I thought I oughter stay on my job so I could sell booze to de coons from de swamp an’ de plantations. But none of ’em didn’t buy!”