Free Every Tongue Got to Confess by Zora Neale Hurston

buried years and years of money. You go to my old barn when I’m gone and you’ll find a bunch of tools tied up with chains. Everything I took (used) to bury dis money is in dat chain. You’ll find a steel box with keys and you take it and get dis money for yourself. My home is yo’ home as long as you all live.” Dat time de wind riz and de lil girl holdin to de saplin top hit straightened in a flash of wind and de old lady looked for her and she said: “Now, dat’s hell agin. But this is my home.” They ain’t never seen de girl no more.
    —A.D. F RAZIER .
The Orphan Boy and Girl
and the Witches †
    An orphan boy and girl lived in the house with their grandmother, and one day she had to go a journey and left them there alone. The little girl was sick and the boy went to search for food for them both.
    After he was gone, the girl felt stronger so she got out of bed. She was walking in the house when he came back.
    “Why do you get out of bed?” he asked her.
    She said that she got out of bed because she smelt the witches about. He laughed at her and persuaded her to eat some yams. While they were eating, sure enough in came three witches.
    The witches wanted to eat them at once, but they begged to be spared until their grandmother returned at sundown. The witches didn’t want to wait, so they said that they would not eat them if they would go and get some water from the spring. The children gladly said that they would go.
    The witches gave them a sieve to fill with water, and told them that if they did not return at once with it, they would be eaten immediately.
    The boy and girl went to the spring for the water and dipped and dipped to try to fill the sieve, but the water always ran out faster than they could fill it. At last they saw the witches coming. Their teeth were far longer than their lips.
    The boy and girl were terribly frightened. He seized her hand said, “Let us run. Let us go across the deep river.”
    The children ran as fast they could. They saw the witches behind them coming so fast that they made a great cloud of dust that darkened the sun. The little girl stumbled and the witches gained so fast that they saw they could not reach the river before the witches, and so climbed a great tree.
    The witches came to the foot of the tree and smelt their blood. They came with a broad-ax and began to chop down the tree. The little girl said: “Block eye, chip, block eye chip!” and the pieces that the witches chopped off would fly back into the witches’ eyes and blind them.
    The boy called his dogs. (Chant) “Hail Counter! Hail Jack! Hail Counter! Hail Jack!”
    The witches at the foot of the tree chopping away said, (chant): O-ooo! Whyncher, whyncher! O-ooo! Whyncher, whyncher!” (Here it is understood that each actor in the drama is speaking, or chanting his lines without further indications.)
    “Hail Counter, Hail Jack!”
    “O-ooo! Whyncher, whyncher!”
    “Block eye chip, block eye chip!”
    The tree was toppling and the children was so scared, but the boy kept on calling: “Hail Counter, hail Jack!”
    “Block eye chip, block eye chip!”
    “O-ooo! Whyncher, whyncher!”
    The little girl asked her brother: “Do you see the dogs coming yet?”
    He said, “Not yet. Hail Counter! Hail Jack!” He didn’t see the dogs coming and he began to sing: “I’m a little fellow here by myself for an hour.”
    “Block eye chip, block eye chip.”
    The dogs was tied at home. They heard his voice and wanted to come, but they were tied. The grandmother was asleep. She was very tired from her journey. She wondered where her grandchildren were. She did not hear the dogs whining to go to the aid of the boy. But a black fast-running snake heard the boy and ran to the house and struck the grandmother across the face with his tail and woke her, and she loosed the dogs.
    “I’m a little fellow here by myself for an hour.”
    “Block eye, chip! Block eye, chip!”
    “Hail Counter, hail