“Fer Gawd’s sake, Marse John!” Skeeter wailed. “Why don’t you tell Hitch who his maw am? Who is she?”
Flournoy considered this question while he took the time to light a fresh cigar. Then he asked:
“If I tell you who Hitch’s mother is, will you promise never to reveal it?”
“His mother is Ginny Babe Chew!” the sheriff told him.
Skeeter reeled back from the shock, and an exclamation shot from his throat like a bullet.
He turned round and round like a man who was dazed, uttering a series of highly profane expletives like the crackling of thorns under a pot.
“You asked me why I didn’t tell Hitch who his mother was,” the sheriff continued, as he started away. “I think you know the answer!”
Like a panorama the events of the Sunday before passed before his dazed and horrified vision--Ginny Babe Chew, shrieking, cursing, whooping, thrusting the people aside and pressing up behind the sheriff’s horse, howling after her son the charge of “Murder! Murder! Murder!” Again he saw her struck down by the massive fist of Vinegar Atts, the blood streaming from her lips, the mob splitting into halves as they walked past her, while she groaned and cursed, groveling in the dust. Again he saw her staggering down the street, the blood reddening the front of her dress and making a red froth upon her lips, as she stood in front of the jail tossing dust into the air, gyrating, shrieking, cursing, and wailing, “Good-by, Hitch! Good-by, Hitch!”
Skeeter staggered across the courthouse yard, wiping the clammy sweat from his temples.
“Marse John made me promise not to tell nobody who Hitch’s maw is. Ef I wus to tell dat fack, de white folks would hang Hitch Diamond befo’ night. Dat’s de awfullest fack agin him yit!”
In front of the post-office he met Vinegar Atts.
“Revun Atts,” Skeeter said earnestly, “ef you know any good religium advices to gib to a nigger whut is about to die, fer de Lawd sake go preach ’em to Hitch Diamond. De white folks is got him--got him good!”
The sunshine lay hot upon the sand in the negro settlement called Dirty-Six when Dainty Blackum arose from her bed, dressed, and walked out into the yard. In the rear of Ginny Babe Chew’s house was a large number of fig and pecan-trees, and under the shade of one of these trees, patiently waiting and smoking a cigarette, was Skeeter Butts.