tragedy. He kept nodding a mechanical agreement until the undertaker had arranged all the details. Then the little man moved softly out of the cabin and went stepping away through the dust of Niggertown with professional briskness. A little later two black grave-diggers set out with picks and shovels for the negro graveyard.
Numberless preparations for the funeral were going on all over Niggertown. The Knights of Tabor were putting on their regalia. Negro women were sending out hurry notices to white mistresses that they would be unable to cook the noonday meal. Dozens of negro girls flocked to the hair-dressing establishment of Miss Mallylou Speers. All were bent on having their wool straightened for the obsequies, and as only a few of them could be accommodated, the little room was packed. A smell of burning hair pervaded it. The girls sat around waiting their turn. Most of them already had their hair down,—or, rather loose, for it stood out in thick mats. The hair-dresser had a small oil stove on which lay heating half a dozen iron combs. With a hot comb she teased each strand of wool into perfect straightness and then plastered it down with a greasy pomade. The result was a stiff effect, something like the hair of the Japanese. It required about three hours to straighten the hair of one negress. The price was a dollar and a half.
By half-past nine o'clock a crowd of negro men, in lodge aprons and with spears, and negro women,
