The Devil's Dream by Lee Smith Page B

some of that . Her nerves had not been too good lately. She looked at the crowd and did not see a soul from the Chicken Rise congregation, thank goodness, for she feared she’d be churched for coming.
    But it was beginning now—Dr. Harry Sharp’s Celebrated Medicine Show, starring a real medicine man, Indian Jack himself, who was privy to the secrets of the ages whispered in his ear by the famous Apache medicine man Flying Black Bear on his deathbed in mountainous Colorado. A blackface-nigger dancer came out wearing a tattered coat, tails, and a top hat. He promptly fell flat, causing a huge puff of dust to blossom from the seat of his pants and a great roar of merriment to burst from the crowd. Then he started dancing to the strains of the string band which promptly joined him, and then here came two exotic gypsy women with gold scarves and tambourines, and then finally the medicine man himself, Indian Jack, a big imposing fellow wearing an Indian headdress and war paint.
    As soon as the opening number was done, Indian Jack addressed the dancer. “How do you feel tonight, Sambo?” he asked.
    â€œI feels just like a dishrag,” said the blackface nigger, rolling his eyes.
    â€œWhat do you mean, you feel just like a dishrag?” asked Indian Jack.
    â€œI needs to be squeezed!” said Sambo, and everybody laughed.
    Then one of the gypsy girls flounced across the stage and Sambo followed her, only to be hauled back by Indian Jack. “Don’t you be follering no women offa here, Sambo,” Indian Jack ordered. “Don’t you forget you are supposed to be working for me.”
    â€œYessuh! Yessuh!” Sambo grinned, nodding his head energetically. “But this redheaded nigger done come around here last night and sprinkled dis here peedee root and love powders all over me, dat’s what is inducing me to commit love.” The gypsy girl walked by again, and this time Sambo ran off after her, chased by Indian Jack. After the string band played two numbers, Sambo came back and stretched out full length on the stage and fell asleep, snoring loudly.
    Indian Jack, annoyed at the interruption, went over and kicked him. “Sambo! I say, Sambo!” Indian Jack yelled. “Can’t you be useful as well as ornamental?” This sally was met by appreciative chuckles from the crowd as Sambo droned on, the loudest snoring imaginable. Lizzie, holding tight to Nonnie’s hand, was crying from laughing so hard.
    â€œI tell you,” Indian Jack said to the crowd, “that nigger ain’t scared of work—he’ll lay down beside the biggest kind of job and go to sleep.”
    After several more jokes, Sambo jumped up and ran offstage as Indian Jack stepped forward and launched into a talk about Chief Thunder Cloud’s Old-fashioned Indian Vegetable Compound. “Have you ever noticed, ladies and gentlemen, that there are no bald Indians? Now just think about it. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, that the Indians of long ago, guided always by the Great Spirit, found curative herbs that can be of immense value to the white man’s civilization. When applied directly to the scalp, this powerful compound will stimulate the nerves which produce the growth of new hair roots and invigorate those yet present, instilling not only a luxurious growth of healthy, lustrous hair but also a clarity of thought reflective of those High Plains Indians who gather these precious little herbs. I myself, ladies and gentlemen, was once plagued by a receding hairline and a consequent loss of self-esteem. But after only one year of repeated applications of Chief Thunder Cloud’s Old-fashioned Indian Vegetable Compound, only one year, mind you, I have the perfectly healthy hair of a much younger man.” Here Indian Jack took off his huge feathered headdress and bowed low to the audience, allowing them a closer look at his full head of shiny black hair.
    â€œThat feller