On a Saturday afternoon when September had crawled its torrid way two-thirds into October, Mrs. Daquin took her turn entertaining the Fleur-de-Lis Club. Jean closeted himself in his own room, alternately reading and taking short cat naps. He did not want to be forced to hear the rumble of chatter and gossip nor was he unaware of the shortness of his wife’s temper had he blunderingly impeded the smooth running of the carefully constructed plans for the afternoon’s pleasure. Mimi and Hilda brought him his supper, which he ate slowly as he gazed into the dusty, sere garden backing the house next door. The leaves of the corn stalks, the tomato plants, the cabbages were yellowed and dried, mute appeals for saving showers.
He must have fallen asleep, for it was night when Mimi rushed into the room and shook him until he was awake.
“Come quick, papa Jean! Mrs. Daquin is sick!” she urged.
Jean rushed downstairs. All the women had gone save Mrs. Adams, who had loosened Mrs. Daquin’s corsets and clothing.
“I think it’s indigestion,” was Mrs. Adams’ calm reply to Jean’s fearful questions. “Hilda’s telephoning for the doctor. You and Mimi help me get her upstairs.”
Jean was grateful for her cool command of the situation. They got Mrs. Daquin into bed before the doctor came. He came, examined, looked grave, then more cheerful. His orders were terse.
“Keep her quiet—hot applications—give this prescription every two hours—this one every four hours. Afraid all the drug stores round here are closed, so you’ll have to go down town—probably to Jacobs’—they stay open late.”
Mimi remembered the conversation with Jean as he started to leave the house.
“Wait a minute until I get my hat. I’m going with you,” she announced. He protested, told her she should remain at home with Mrs. Daquin.
“Mrs. Adams and Hilda will stay. I’ve just asked them.”
She had returned, hat on, before he could answer. Realizing that further argument would be unavailing, he and Mimi set out for the distant drug store. …
A hot Saturday afternoon, traditionally a half-holiday, had brought into town hundreds of country people. Saloons were doing a rushing business, those labelled “For White” and those bearing signs, “For Coloured Only.” Late in the afternoon an elderly white woman had gone to a window to close the shutters. A Negro was passing on the sidewalk. Her mind inflamed with the news stories she had read, she screamed. Someone telephoned for the police. Newspapers got wind of the story, rushed “extras” on the street bearing letters five inches high, “Another Woman Assaulted.” Before the police could reach her house, the woman telephoned it was all a mistake—she had only been hysterical. In the meantime, too late to be stopped, presses had begun to rumble and roar and belch forth flaming sheets of alarm, the ink smearing in its freshness. Others followed, “Second Assault,” “Third Assault,” “Fourth Assault.”
At first it was a gentle murmur of hatred. Then it began to swell. Papers were snatched eagerly from panting newsboys. Over the shoulders of each purchaser hung a group, standing on tiptoe to grasp the story of the latest outrage. The grumbling grew. Little flames of violent words shot up. They grew in number. They shot higher. They combined in volume until one great peal of implacable Negro-phobia went up like the din of a continuous thunderclap, like a pipe organist treading angrily on his foot-pedals in dissonant roaring. The entire city was as a huge boil, packed tight with putrescence. A pinprick was applied, the festering, purulent tumour burst open and flung high its venom. Spattering, smearing, befouling matter came down and sprang, like the sown dragon’s teeth, into howling, murder-bent mobs. …
Jean and Mimi had noted the little knots of angry men gathered on street corners muttering and cursing. They had hurried past these, hoping that they might safely reach the drug store and return home.
“I don’t like the looks of these men,” said Jean. “They’re in a nasty mood and it wouldn’t take much to start trouble.”
Here and there they noticed a policeman, paunchy, helmeted, swinging night sticks but doing little to disperse the rapidly growing crowds. It was with a deep sigh of relief that Jean reached the drug store. They had to wait nearly an hour while the prescriptions were being filled. Leaving the store, they found the embers had burst into flame. A huge man, shirt-sleeved and collarless, his eyes bloodshot and venomous, was perched high on a box haranguing the crowd, which swayed and eddied and shouted approval of the speaker’s remarks.
Fascinated, Jean and Mimi stood in the doorway and watched the spectacle. “Five Points,” the intersection of five heavily travelled streets, was rapidly becoming filled with a milling, motley throng. Other speakers ascended hastily improvised rostrums, the tail end of a delivery wagon, a fire hydrant, the projecting ledge of a show-window. The movement of the crowd became swifter, the blood lust was roused, the killer was eager for the victim. …
A Negro was seen walking down Marietta Street, one of the five thoroughfares focusing in Five Points, unaware apparently of the scene he was approaching. Mimi saw him and wanted to shout a warning to him. It would have been fruitless—the roar was too great and her voice would have been as the falling of a single drop of water on the shore while nearby boomed the surf. It would have been almost suicidal—the pack might easily have turned on them. Nevertheless she wanted to cry out to this unknown man to flee. It was too late. One man in the crowd spied him just as Mimi saw him, just as she uttered a little scream of terror. Up went the roar, “There’s a nigger now!”
Too late the Negro saw his danger. He turned to flee but before he had
