“She’s sot up shiny and purty jes’ like a autermobile, ain’t she?” Figger Bush remarked in admiring tones.
“Huh,” Hitch Diamond grinned, “eve’y woman is sot up jes’ like a autermobile. A autermobile costs money to git it, an’ it costs money to keep it, an’ when it takes a notion to stop nothin’ cain’t make it go, an’ when somepin gits de matter wid it, not even Gawd knows whut de trouble am. Ain’t dat jes’ like a woman?”
This edifying dissertation was terminated by the stentorian voice of Vinegar Atts:
“Eve’ybody listen to me: dis here white gen’leman is named Mr. Rouke. He specify dat he gits up shows an’ takes koodaks fer a livin’. He wants us niggers to he’p him. Eve’ybody gits a free picture. Eve’ybody is ’lowed to speak a piece on de platform. Eve’ybody gits a few loose change fer deir time an’ wuck. I now resigns in Mr. Rouke’s favor!”
Vinegar sat down on the church steps and fanned himself with his hat.
“I want to teach you folks to play a drama entitled _The Jewel of the Jungle_,” Rouke announced in crisp tones.
“Whut is a draymer?” Figger Bush wanted to know.
“It’s a tragedy,” Rouke informed him. “Not a funny play, but a show full of love and fighting, and brave men and women.”
“Don’t us be allowed to bust no jokes in dis here draymer?” Vinegar Atts wanted to know.
“No!” Rouke told him. “You won’t have to say a word. You don’t talk. You act!”
“Huh!” Skeeter Butts proclaimed. “You cain’t git up no lock-jaw play wid niggers. Ef a nigger cain’t whistle and sing and pat his foots, he’d druther be dead!”
“You don’t understand,” Rouke said sharply. “This is a motion picture play. Didn’t any of you folks ever see a movie show?”
“All right!” Rouke answered. “Follow me and I’ll take you down to the theater and show you one!”
The negroes fell in line, and Rouke led them through the mazes of Dirty-Six, up the main streets of Tickfall and into the little theater.
Peter Pellet was perched aloft, having made all arrangements with the owner of the house for this exhibition.
The negroes seated themselves close to the front, a circle of light flashed upon the screen, a slight whirring sound came from the projection room and a title fluttered before them:
Then for twenty minutes the negroes were transported to a tropic island in the South Pacific Ocean.