Page:The New Negro.pdf/124

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THE NEW NEGRO

No more than the interminable stalks. ... Someone stumbled over her. A cry went up. From the road, one would have thought that they were cornering a rabbit or a skunk. ... It is difficult carrying dead weight through cane. They placed her on the sofa. A curious, nosey somebody looked for the wound. This fussing with her clothes aroused her. Her eyes were weak and pitiable for so strong a woman. Slowly, then like a flash. Bane came to know that the shot she fired, with averted head, was aimed to whistle like a dying hornet through the cane. Twice deceived,—and one deception proved the other. His head went off. Slashed one of the men who'd helped, the man who'd stumbled over her. Now he's in the gang. Who was her husband. Should she not take others, this Carma, strong as a man, whose tale as I have told it is the crudest melodrama?

Wind is in the cane. Come along.
Cane leaves swaying, rusty with talk.
Scratching choruses above the guinea's squawk.
Wind is in the cane. Come along.