DANNY'S OWN STORY BY DON MARQUIS TO MY ... - Pink Monkey

a crackle in the underbrush, jest to the left of us.
We turned our heads that-a-way, jest as a nigger
man give a leap to the top of a rail fence that
separated the road from the woods. He was going
so fast that instead of climbing that fence and balancing
on the top and jumping off he jest simply
seemed to hit the top rail and bounce on over, like
he had been throwed out of the heart of the woods,
and he fell sprawling over and over in the road,
right before our feet.
He was onto his feet in a second, and fur a minute
he stood up straight and looked at us--an ashescoloured
nigger, ragged and bleeding from the underbrush,
red-eyed, and with slavers trickling from his
red lips, and sobbing and gasping and panting fur
breath. Under his brown skin, where his shirt
was torn open acrost his chest, you could see that
nigger's heart a-beating.
But as he looked at us they come a sudden change
acrost his face--he must of seen the doctor before,
and with a sob he throwed himself on his knees in
the road and clasped his hands and held 'em out
toward Doctor Kirby.
"ELISHyah! ELISHyah!" he sings out, rocking
of his body in a kind of tune, "reveal yo'se'f, reveal
yo'se'f an' he'p me NOW! Lawd Gawd ELISHyah,
beckon fo' a CHA'iot, yo' cha'iot of FIAH! Lif' me,
lif' me--lif' me away f'um hyah in er cha'iot o' FIAH!"
The doctor, he turned his head away, and I
knowed the thought working in him was the thought
of that white woman that would always be an
idiot for life, if she lived. But his lips was dumb,
and his one hand stretched itself out toward that
nigger in the road and made a wiping motion, like
he was trying fur to wipe the picture of him, and
the thought of him, off'n a slate forevermore.
Jest then, nearer and louder and sharper, and
with an eager sound, like they knowed they almost
had him now, them hounds' voices come ringing
through the woods, and with them come the mixed-