Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/121

 to Daddy Cudjoe. He gave it a good frailing with a stout hickory stick and the pot had been the quickest one on her hearth to boil ever since. Once, when Budda Ben's ax refused to cut straight, Daddy Cudjoe taught it to behave itself right. Everything gets out of order and gives trouble sometimes; men and women and pots and pans and axes; everything needs to be ruled. The river flowed quietly and kindly now, but sometimes it got mean too, and overflowed and drowned out the crops and swallowed up men and their boats. Instead of giving rain to water the earth, the clouds held every drop so tight, not one can leak out. Sometimes they get cross and send down hail that breaks everything, and lightning to strike trees and houses and kill men and beasts.

In the old days, all the people trusted to magic to rule the river and clouds and seasons as well as their tools and each other, but times have changed. Only Daddy Cudjoe, of all the old people left, knew any of the old secret ways. But he knew them well. He could fix July too.

Mary admitted she had thought of going to Daddy Cud joe, but she wondered if he could help her now since Cinder had him conjured. Maum Hannah declared that every ailment on earth has its cure and sometimes the simplest things,