VOICE: (Whispering loudly) Don't see how that great big ole powerful woman could be sick. Look like she could go bear huntin' with her fist.

ANOTHER VOICE: She look jus' as good as you-all's Baptist pastor's wife. Pshaw, you ain't seen no big woman, nohow, man. I seen one once so big she went to whip her little boy and he run up under her belly and hid six months 'fore she could find him.

ANOTHER VOICE: Well, I knowed a woman so little that she had to get up on a soap box to look over a grain of sand.

(REV. SIMMS comes out of store, each child behind him sucking a stick of candy.)

SIMMS: (To his children) Run on home to your mother and don't get dirty on the way. (The two children start primly off down the street but just out of sight one of them utters a loud cry.)

SIMMS'S CHILD: (Off stage) Papa, papa. Nunkie's trying to lick my candy.

SIMMS: I told you to go on and leave them other children alone.

VOICE ON PORCH: (Kidding) Lum, whyn't you tend to your business.

(TOWN MARSHALL rises and shoos the children off again.)

LUM: You all varmints leave them nice chillun alone.

LIGE: (Continuing the lying on porch) Well, you all done seen so much, but I bet you ain't never seen a snake as big as the one I saw when I was a boy up in middle Georgia. He was so big couldn't hardly move his self. He laid in one spot so long he growed moss on him and everybody thought he was a log, till one day I set down on him and went to sleep, and when I woke up that snake done crawled to Florida. (Loud laughter.)

FRANK: (Seriously) Layin' all jokes aside though now, you all remember that rattlesnake I killed last year was almost as big as that Georgia snake.

VOICE: How big, you say it was, Frank?

FRANK: Maybe not quite as big as that, but jus' about fourteen feet.

VOICE: (Derisively) Gimme that lyin' snake. That snake wasn't but four foot long when you killed him last year and you done growed him ten feet in a year.

ANOTHER VOICE: Well, I don't know about that. Some of the snakes around here is powerful long. I went out in my front yard yesterday right after the rain and killed a great big ol' cottonmouth.

SIMMS: This sho is a snake town. I certainly can't raise no chickens for 'em. They kill my little biddies jus' as fast as they hatch out.

And yes ... if I hadn't cut them weeds out of the street in front of my parsonage, me or some of my folks woulda been snake-bit right at our front door. (To whole crowd) Whyn't you all cut down these weeds and clean up these streets?

HAMBO: Well, the Mayor ain't said nothin' 'bout it.

SIMMS: When the folks misbehaves in this town I think they oughta lock 'em up in a jail and make 'em work their fine out on the streets, then these weeds would be cut down.

VOICE: How we gonna do that when we ain't got no jail?

SIMMS: Well, you sho needs a jail ... you-all needs a whole lot of improvements round this town. I ain't never pastored no town so way-back as this one here.

CLARK: (Who has lately emerged from the store, fanning himself, overhears this last remark and bristles up) What's that you say 'bout this town?

SIMMS: I say we needs some improvements here in this town ... that's what.

CLARK: (In a powerful voice) And what improvements you figgers we needs?

SIMMS: A whole heap. Now, for one thing we really does need a jail, Mayor. We oughta stop runnin' these people out of town that misbehaves, and lock 'em up. Others towns has jails, everytown I ever pastored had a jail. Don't see how come we can't have one.

CLARK: (Towering angrily above the preacher) Now, wait a minute, Simms. Don't you reckon the man who knows how to start a town knows how to run it? I paid two hundred dollars out of this right hand for this land and walked out here and started this town befo' you was born. I ain't like some of you new n.i.g.g.e.rs, come here when grapes'

ripe. I was here to cut new ground, and I been Mayor ever since.

SIMMS: Well, there ain't no sense in no one man stayin' Mayor all the time.

CLARK: Well, it's my town and I can be mayor jus' as long as I want to. It was me that put this town on the map.

SIMMS: What map you put it on, Joe Clark? I ain't seen it on no map.

CLARK: (Indignant) I G.o.d! Listen here, Elder Simms. If you don't like the way I run this town, just' take your flat feets right on out and git yonder crost the woods. You ain't been here long enough to say nothin' nohow.

HAMBO: (From a nail keg) Yeah, you Methodist n.i.g.g.e.rs always telling people how to run things.

TAYLOR: (Practically unheard by the others) We do so know how to run things, don't we? Ain't Brother Mayor a Methodist, and ain't the school-teacher a ...? (His remarks are drowned out by the others.)

SIMMS: No, we don't like the way you're runnin' things. Now looka here, (Pointing at the Marshall) You got that lazy Lum Boger here for marshall and he ain't old enough to be dry behind his ears yet ... and all these able-bodied means in this town! You won't 'low n.o.body else to run a store 'ceptin' you. And looka yonder (happening to notice the street light) only street lamp in town, you got in front of your place. (Indignantly) We pay the taxes and you got the lamp.

VILLAGER: Don't you-all fuss now. How come you two always yam-yamming at each other?

CLARK: How come this fly-by-night Methodist preacher over here ...

ain't been here three months ... tries to stand up on my store porch and tries to tell me how to run my town? (MATTIE CLARK, the Mayor's wife, comes timidly to the door, wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n.) Ain't no man gonna tell me how to run my town. I G.o.d, I 'lected myself in and I'm gonna run it. (Turns and sees wife standing in door.

Commandingly.) I G.o.d, Mattie, git on back in there and wait on that store!

MATTIE: (Timidly) Jody, somebody else wantin' stamps.

CLARK: I G.o.d, woman, what good is you? Gwan, git in. Look like between women and preachers a man can't have no peace. (Exit CLARK.)

SIMMS: (Continuing his argument) Now, when I pastored in Jacksonville you oughta see what kinda jails they got there....

LOUNGER: White folks needs jails. We colored folks don't need no jail.

ANOTHER VILLAGER: Yes, we do, too. Elder Simms is right....

(The argument becomes a hubbub of voices.)

TAYLOR: (Putting down his basket) Now, I tell you a jail....

MRS. TAYLOR: (Emerging from the store door, arms full of groceries, looking at her husband) Yeah, and if you don't shut up and git these rations home I'm gonna be worse on you than a jail and six judges.

Pickup that basket and let's go. (TONY meekly picks up the basket and he and his wife exit as the sound of an approaching guitar is heard off stage.)

(Two carelessly dressed, happy-go-lucky fellows enter together. One is fingering a guitar without playing any particular tune, and the other has his hat c.o.c.ked over his eyes in a burlesque, dude-like manner.

There are casual greetings.)

WALTER: Hey, there, b.u.ms, how's tricks?

LIGE: What yo' sayin', boys?

HAMBO: Good evenin' sons.