Dora had accepted the position of organist for a prominent colored church in the city. There was a small salary attached to the place, which she was glad to receive. Sappho usually went with her to choir rehearsals, and sitting in the shadows, well hidden from view, would think over the romantic history of the fine old edifice. The building, so the story ran, was the place of worship of a rich, white Baptist congregation in the years preceding the emancipation. Negroes were allowed in the galleries only. Believing this color-bar to be a stigma on the house of God, a few of the members protested, but finding their warnings unheeded, withdrew from the church, and finally found a Sabbath home in an old building long used as a theatre. These people prospered, and grew rich and powerful; colored people were always welcome in the congregation. The society in the old church, left to itself, had at last been glad to sell the building to its present occupants. Thus the despised people, who were not allowed a seat outside of the galleries, now owned and occupied the scene of their former humiliation. It was a solemn and wonderful dispensation of Providence, and filled the girl’s heart with strong emotion.
During these evenings, when she waited for the close of the rehearsals, she became acquainted with many odd specimens of the race: men of brain and thought, but of unique expression and filled with quaint humor. One of these characters was known as Dr. Abraham Peters. Doctor Peters was a well-read man, greatly interested in scientific research, but who had lacked the opportunity to obtain information in his youth. He had been a slave when a boy, a few years before the Civil War. Now he was the church janitor, and to eke out his scanty income kept a little bootblack stand just around the corner from the church, and knowing something of medicine and nursing the sick, had advertised himself as a magnetic physician. He displayed much skill in practice, and had acquired something of a local reputation. Doctor Peters and Sappho were good friends, and he brought out all his store of knowledge, proudly displaying it for her approval.
“You see, Miss Sappho, I’ve knocked ’bout the worl’ some consid’ble,” he said one night, in his soft Southern tones and quaint Northernized dialect, as they sat in the cosy vestry waiting for the close of the rehearsal. “Ben po’rer than eny chuch mouse. But I’ve saved somethin’, an’ I know the worl’. Perhaps you’s intrest’d ’nuff in an ole man to want to hear how I come to ’vertis myself as a magnifyin’ doctor, an’ where I picked it up, eh?”
“Yes,” replied Sappho, “I certainly am interested in your story.”
“Well, while they’re caterwaulin’ on that Easter anthem in ten flats, I reckon I’ll have time to tell you all ’bout it. Fust I knowed ’bout magnetics was brought to my ’tention down home. Some people said I had the evil eye, an’ some said it was only a strong eye, but be that homsomever, it was a bad eye, an’ a terror ter watermilyun thieves when it was my watch on the chickun houses. Magnifyin’ an’ hoodooin’ is ’bout the same thing down thar, tho’ sense the ’srender mos’ all ol’-time doin’s is done ’way. ’Bout the time I realized that I had this power I had ’sperinced ruligeon, an’ had been jestified an’ concentrated, so that I got the blessin’. Them days, too, I was a-sottin’ out to court my Susie (that’s my wife), an’ all the young fellers ’roun’ the county was a-sprucin’ up to her jes’ like crows ’roun’ carr’on. Sunday was the day I had mos’ on my mind, ’cause they’d ride up an’ hitch thar mules in a line all along the ole man’s fence (you see he had right smart prop’ty, an’ I spec’ that had a mighty drawin’ infloonce on some of them shif’less fellers who hadn’t nuff skonsh to start thar own mule team up a hill), an’ thar they’d sot like so many buzzards, waitin’ fer a chance to sly Susie off to chuch under my nose. I had ter wurk lively, I tell you; Susie was kin’ o’ skittish an’ res’less, an’ it was fus’ come, fus’ sarved, with her, bein’ she had her choice. Well, jes’ at the time I got the blessin’ I got the insurance that Susie was gwine ter have me, All the fellers was satisfied but Possum Tooit. Possum an’ me was boys together, an’ we’d both run each other purty hard strivin’ to come through fust at the mourner’s bench as well as to git the gal. Possum was beat when he found I had a full hand and had swept the pot.”
“Oomhoo!” laughed Brother Jones, who was an interested listener to Doctor Peters’ story, “Oomhoo, Brother Peters; done guv yerself ’way. What you know ’bout ‘full hands an’ pots?’ ”
“Who give himself ’way, Brother Jones? Ever hear me say Ise better’n enybody else in this chuch? I’m er man, sah, I’m er man! Ise done truspassed on the fleshpots of Egypt as much as eny other man. Don’t yer ‘oomhoo’ me, Brother Jones, no sah!”
“Tech a sore place, Brother Peters, tech a sore place,” laughed the brother as he walked away, his shoulders shaking like great mounds of jelly. It was some minutes before Doctor Peters could recover his equilibrium and go on with his tale.
“Possum Tooit was so mad an’ disapinted that he finally challenged me to fight a jewel. I wasn’t in no state of mind to be killed by any of his hoodoo tricks, Possum bein’ an export at puttin’ spells an’ sech like on enybody fer from twenty-five cents up to five dollars; neither did I want Susie to think I was ’fraid of Possum Tooit. So thar I was ’tween a hawk an’ a buzzard. Well, I accepted the challenge, an’ bein’ the
